One advantage of sleeping upon boards is, that it promotes early rising; but ere I got up next morning, the children of the hamlet were in the temple, reading in their singsong way the Chinese trimetrical classic which they are taught to commit to memory long before they understand almost a word of its meaning. The contrast which Celestial children present to those of the West is striking. They are quiet, calm, perpetrate no tricks, and rarely or never play about. In fact, their demeanour is not unlike that of aged Europeans; while the old men, on the other hand, display something of the liveliness of childhood, especially when engaged in their favourite amusement of flying kites. Though teaching was thus carried on in the temple, yet that building was specially dedicated to the worship of the ancestors of the villagers. “The real religion of China,” it has been truly said, “is not the worship of heaven and earth, nor of idols, but of Confucius and of one’s own ancestors.” The more educated classes, including the mandarins, have special reverence for Confucius; but the mass of the people worship the spirits of their ancestors with profound awe. They believe that each family has a close peculiar interest in all its members, whether before or after death, not one being able to suffer without all being afflicted. Each house has its lararium, in the shape of a small temple, a room, or even a niche in the wall, where the family is poor. This hall at Kan-how had many ancestral tablets hung up in it, and also some for the propitiation of kwei, or friendless hungry spirits, for whom the Chinese have a singular dread. Every district in the country has a temple with the tablets of all persons whose families are extinct. To the imagination of the yellow-skinned children of Han there is something very awful in the idea of a forlorn shivering ghost, wandering through the air without any progeny on earth to care for it, to give it meat-offerings, or the warm regard of human hearts; and they believe that such friendless spirits are always likely to become malignant powers, and to work them evil. Some districts have a ceremony, every ten years or so, called the “Universal Rescue,” for the special benefit of such spirits.
The morning wore away pleasantly as I was sitting on a little terrace, shaded by a large tree, in front of the ancestral hall. A number of small villages dotted the ricefields of the flat valley; and after their morning meal the people came out to their work, some carrying a light plough behind the ox which had to drag it, others with hoes to weed the sweet-potato fields, bands of laughing women going up the mountains to cut grass, and one gentleman taking a morning walk with a long spear over his shoulder. On returning from a visit to a curious rock, called the “Mother and Child,” from its resemblance to a woman with an infant upon her back, I found the school had “scaled,” to use a Scotch phrase; and the teachers, with the elders, were engaged in purchasing articles for a general dinner, and cutting them up. In the discussion which went on upon this subject a few of the pot-bellied children who remained took great interest, throwing in their opinions with much calmness and gravity.
That afternoon I crossed over a second range of mountains into another valley, the path leading down near the side of a huge black precipice, which looked sublime in the moonlight. Not a soul was met on the latter part of the way, for when night descends on China, the country people confine themselves to their own homes, and only bands of robbers are to be met with, or men out for some bloody purpose, such as destroying a village with which they are at war. I had sometimes stopped, at the first village I came to, in the house of an old woman; and one evening, when taking an English friend there, a rather startling incident occurred. As we came round a corner upon the village, just as I was expatiating upon the friendliness of the people and the perfect safety we would enjoy, a gingall was fired, and the bullets came whistling round our heads. My companion looked as if he thought this fact considerably outweighed my theory; but it turned out that the gingall, which takes some little time to go off, had actually been fired before we came in sight round the corner. On this present occasion I went on to another village called Chin-wan, and slept in the house of a young teacher, who remained up, or rather lolling on his couch, till about one in the morning, smoking opium with a friend. It is a remarkable fact that, with only one exception, all the Chinese dominies I came across were in the habit of smoking opium. Probably this was caused by the sedentary, harassing, and dreary nature of their occupation, which makes the soothing drug specially desirable. At one place I was told I could not see the teacher, though it was the middle of the day, because he was asleep from opium. Fancy being told, and as nothing out of the way, that a parochial schoolmaster was invisible, because he was dead drunk! The Chinese, however, usually take opium in moderation, after their meals, just as we do beer and wine, and no discredit attaches to such a use of it. The practice is more fascinating than the use of intoxicating drinks, and more easily glides into excess. Of teachers in China, unfortunately for them, there is an immense supply owing to the number of disappointed candidates at the competitive examinations for the Government service. In this Chin-wan schoolhouse I met a fat man who had been in Hong-Kong, and spoke a little English. If there was any self-approval in my air in telling him that I had walked over the hills, it met with a speedy and severe check, for he immediately said—“Eiya! Hab walkee! allo same one coolie.” This was complimentary, but I had my revenge; for the fat man told me that he was a gentleman living at his ease, whereas I discovered him, early next morning, in a butcher’s shop, with his sleeves tucked up dissecting a fat pig, into whose entrails he staggered on my finding him, and exclaiming, “Hulloa! Allo same one butcher.” It is due to the Chinese, however, to state, that very few of them are ashamed of, or attempt to conceal, their occupations.
Hitherto I had been trifling with the excursion, but next day Aheung knew by our starting early that we were in for work; and deep gloom came over his countenance when he saw the direction I was taking up the Chin-wan or Talshan Valley, towards an old and totally unfrequented path which leads over a shoulder of the Tai-mon shan, or “Great Hat Mountain.” No part of the Scotch Highlands presents a more picturesque appearance than the upper part of this valley, so plentifully are the small pines scattered about, so deep the pools, so wild the stream, so huge and fantastic the shattered rocks. The Great Hat Mountain, over a lower portion of which we go, is about 4000 feet high, and terraced up to the very top, showing it was cultivated at some former period; but now it is entirely without habitations, and covered with long rank grass of the coarsest kind, which forms a serious obstacle to the ascent. I got up to the top once, with great difficulty, and was rewarded by a magnificent panorama of sea and islands, mountains and plains. Even Canton could be seen in the distance; the villages looked as if they could be counted by hundreds, and every island was fringed round with numerous junks and fishing-boats. Considering that the country round is one of the most sparsely populated parts of China, the innumerable indications of human life were somewhat surprising. In conjunction with what I have seen in more thickly habitated parts of China, such as the valleys of the great rivers, I incline to think that the numbers given by the last census which I know of as available were certainly not above the truth. It was taken about 1840, and the members of the Russian Legation at Peking, who had access to it, gave the entire population of the Chinese empire at 412 millions. An old legend regarding the Tai-mon is, that a proprietor and feudal chief in its neighbourhood gave protection and support to the sister of a dethroned Chinese emperor, and, on the emperor regaining power, he rewarded the chief by giving him all the circle of country which he could see from that mountain. It would almost require some such reward to induce one a second time to encounter the fatigue and irritation of ascending it in its present condition. The Chinese have a great idea of the influence of mountains, speaking of them as more or less “powerful,” but this one has no particular reputation that way. The old path we are now taking is in great part overgrown with grass, and leads through a complete mountain solitude, where the silence is broken only by the wind rustling in the rank herbage, and no signs of life meet the eye. Aheung motions me to carry my revolver in my hand; he is in an agony of terror, and I can distinguish him uttering the words lu tsaak, or road-robber, and lo foo, or tiger—two beings with which the Chinese imagination peoples the whole country. To hear them talk of tigers, one would think these animals were as thick as blackberries. Nothing was more common than for villagers to say to me, “There is a tiger about here; would you be good enough to go out and shoot it?” as if I had only to step to the door in order to find one; whereas the fact is, that I never saw the slightest trace of any, though a few certainly do exist. At first I used to be startled by the information constantly tendered that there was a party of road-robbers watching the path a little way on; but as they never appeared, I began to get quite sceptical on the subject, until at last I did unexpectedly meet with five of them, armed with short swords, who were holding the top of a mountain pass. I was travelling in a chair at the time, and on seeing this obstacle my coolies at once put down the chair, and refused to proceed farther. I tried to represent to them that though the robbers were five, we were five also; they replied that they were paid to carry me, not to fight. Deeming it safer to go forward than to go back, I walked up to the men, revolver in hand; and whenever they saw I was so armed, they made off, greatly to my relief, as only three chambers were loaded. Chinese pirates and highwaymen do not live to rob, but rob to live; and so they like to be pretty safe in what they do. As they are lawless only to prolong their lives, it seems to them the height of absurdity to put themselves in any decided peril for the sake of plunder. Theirs is a highly rational system, in consonance with the practical tendencies of the Celestial mind.
Notwithstanding Aheung’s terrors, we got quite undisturbed over the Tai Mon, and reached before dusk a solitary Buddhist monastery, situated in a wood at the head of and overlooking the Pak-heung, or “Eight Village” Valley. As we came down on this place, I heard the firing of a clan-fight at one of the villages below; and often as I have been in the Pak-heung, never have I been there without finding a fight going on, either between two or more of its own villages, or between one or all of its villages and those of the Shap-heung, or “Ten Village” Valley, immediately contiguous. They seemed to have as much stomach for fighting as Aheung had for worship, and the blame was laid chiefly on a large village called Kum-tin, or “Fertile Land,” which suffered from a plethora of wealth, and had disputed claims to land in various directions. Of all places I knew in that neighbourhood, this monastery was my favourite haunt, from the view it commanded, its cleanliness, its secluded position, and its internal quiet. The two or three monks occupying it were always glad to see me, as I gave them presents, and afforded relief to the tedium of their life. On this occasion they gave me, as usual, a hearty welcome; but I was rather startled, on being awakened about midnight by loud shouts, knocking at the outer door, and the flashing of torches beneath my window. This turned out to be some men from one of the fighting villages, who had taken it into their heads to come up to the monastery at that unseasonable hour for mingled purposes of thanksgiving and jollification, and who remained there till morning. They were, however, perfectly civil, and showed no disposition to interfere with me in any way, except in questioning Aheung as to where he came from, and what clan he belonged to. Had he been one of that with which they were fighting, the probability is they would have made him a prisoner.
It was delightful in the morning to sit in the cool air on the terrace in front of this cold or Icy-Cloud Monastery, as it is called, and watch the light mist rolling off the Pak-heung Valley, and brightening over the waters of Deep Bay. Soon from every village the smoke of household fires rose into the calm clear air, while, every ten minutes or so, the boom of a gingall came from the combatants beneath, and reverberated on the grand cliff behind us. The young green rice of the fields below was like a vast lake lying round the villages and wooded knolls, except where in the upper slopes it flowed down from field to field like a river, bearing good promise for the stomachs of industrious hungry men. The little wooded islets rose from the rice sea with their temples and ancestral halls as out of the world’s everyday work and life. On either side of the wide Pak-heung were great, bare, sublime blocks of mountains, with white fleecy clouds occasionally floating across God’s bright blue sky, while fish were leaping in the pond below, and doves were cooing in the trees around.
But one must have breakfast. The resources of the country are confined to rice, salted vegetables, and bean-paste, which are not particularly tempting; but we brought some fish with us, and Aheung has procured some eggs and pork in the nearest village. Strictly speaking, this being a Buddhist place of worship, no food that has had life in it should be allowed to enter; but there are only two monks here at present—an old man and a neophyte—and my sacrilege is winked at. Nay, it is more than winked at, for, as we breakfast together, the chopsticks of the monk gradually deviate towards the palatable fried salt-water fish. Curiously and inquiringly he turns one over, and then, as if satisfied with the result of his careful examination, the old sophist exclaims, “Hai tsai!”—“Vegetables of the sea!” and immediately swallows a piece. Under this cunning and specious phrase he continues to dispose of a very fair quantity of fish; but the pork was a little too much for his conscience, and he affected not to see it at all. He also pretended, my hair being cropped close, to believe that I was a Buddhist. On learning that we were going to a place called Li-long, he briefly informed me that the men of Li-long were robbers, and immediately thereafter shovelled in a vast quantity of rice into his mouth, as if he were afraid to say anything more on that painful subject. This monk, who was quite hale and strong, said he was seventy years old, and looked as if he might live as many more. His occupations, which he took very easily, were praying, chanting, bowing, and reading. The Chinese Buddhists have the idea that, by retiring to solitary places, avoiding bodily activity and all sensual indulgence, living with extreme temperance, and spending their days in meditation and prayer, the vital power is preserved in the system, and gradually collects towards the crown of the head, until at last the devotee gains the possession of supernatural powers. I did not observe that this old gentleman was distinguished in that particular; and the neophyte, it is to be feared, was in a bad way, for I once detected him, the monk being absent, sitting down with a youthful visitor to a dinner where figured the unholy articles of fowl, pork, and Chinese wine, of the two former of which he partook. On a previous visit to this place, a wicked friend of mine, who had full command of the language, disturbed the mind of the neophyte by ardent praise of the gentler sex; and on reading the inscription, “May the children and grandchildren of the contributors [to the monastery] gloriously increase,” he asked him how he could expect his children to increase! This youth was also fond of reading Christian tracts in Chinese. Altogether, what with forbidden literature, forbidden diet, and discourses on the forbidden sex, I fear the neophyte will never attain to miraculous powers.
These Buddhist temples and monasteries are thickly scattered over China. They are often buildings of great size, and afford the best resting-place for travellers, but usually the staff of priests is very small indeed, and these bear no very good name among the people. This one of the Icy Cloud had not so much as a dozen rooms of various sizes, but it was compact and well built. The walls had a few frescoes of non-perspective landscapes, with grotesque devils in the foreground; there were also statues of Buddha, of Kiu-tsaang-keun, or the “Heavenly General,” and of Koon Yum, the Hearer of Cries, or Goddess of Grace, to whom it was specially dedicated. Worshippers were very rarely to be seen in it. Many inscriptions, of which the following are examples, were hung upon the walls:—
“It is easy to leave the world; but if the heart is gross, and you cannot cease thinking of the mud and trouble of life, your living in a deep hill is vain.”
“To be a Buddhist is easy, but to keep the regulations is difficult.”