"Well Cha,"—the Chinamen called me Cha-tsze and the boy had abbreviated it to Cha,—"Akong says that he has a boat going up to the tea country to-morrow or next day, and wants me to go with him; may I?"
Charley knew that I could refuse him nothing, but the trip of several hundred miles into a district rarely, if ever, visited by foreigners, involved more of a risk than I cared to assume. Charley seeing that I looked unusually solemn, turned to Akong for support.
"What for you no go too, Cha-tsze? Just now my thinkee no got new chop come inside two week; get back plenty time."
Akong's pigeon-English perhaps requires explanation: You must know, then, that the Chinese with whom all foreigners transact business, instead of learning correct English have a lingo, or patois, of their own, ascribed, but I think erroneously, to the carelessness of their first English visitors, who addressed them in this manner, thinking to make themselves more easily understood. The fact is, that pigeon-English, besides having many Portuguese words mixed up with it,—the Portuguese, you know, were established in China as early as the seventeenth century,—is in many instances a literal translation of Chinese into perverted English. In the present instance, Akong suggested that as there would be no more tea down for a fortnight, it would be well for me, too, to go. The proposition was quite agreeable to me, and Charley scampered off to tell Ahim, the cook, and Aho, my boy, to make the necessary preparations.
The next morning, at an early hour, Akong's great mandarin, or house-boat, was moored at the jetty, and the boys were packing away the provisions and the charcoal for cooking, and long strings of copper "cash" to be used in the purchase of eggs and chickens, and the mats of rice that would form the principal article of "chow-chow" for the crew. Everybody in China has a boy, and Charley had his; a regular young imp of a fellow of about his own age. Aling was his name; Charley used to call him Ting-a-ling, and would jabber horrible Chinese to him by the hour. Aling jumped down the steps, two at a time, with Charley's traveling bag; but Aho, more sedate and dignified, marched after him; Charley and I joined Akong in the front of the boat, and with a chorus of "chin-chins" from the coolies and house-servants left behind, and the explosion of a pack of fire-crackers to propitiate the river dragon, the boat was shoved from the jetty, the sail hoisted, and we were soon slowly stemming the broad current of the Yang Tsze. On our right was Hankow, with its million or more inhabitants, the hum of the great city following us for miles; and the mouth of the Han, its surface so covered with junks that their masts resembled a forest, and only a narrow lane of water was left for the passage of boats. Just beyond the Han was Han Yang, once a fine city, but now in ruins, one of the results of the Tae-ping rebellion. Across the Yang Tsze, here a mile wide, was Wuchang, the residence of the viceroy of the Hupeh province. This place was supposed to be closed to foreigners, but Charley and I had made many a secret visit, and had some rare sport among the curiosity shops, with occasionally an adventure of a less pleasing description, about which I should like to tell you if I had time.
Rapidly we passed the suburbs of these cities, and drawing over to the south bank, as the wind was light, the crew were ordered ashore, and stretching themselves along a tow-rope extending from the mast-head, the boat was soon moving quite rapidly. And that reminds me that I have not yet described our boat. These boats, used by the gentry in transporting themselves about the country, are almost like Noah's ark on a small scale—a boat with a house running almost the entire length of the deck, with little latticed windows on the outside, and the interior divided into rooms for eating and sleeping. The crew all lived aft on the great overhanging stern, where the cooking was done, and where the handle of the great "yuloe," or sculling oar, protruded. In front of the cabin was a little piece of deck-room where Charley and I had our camp-stools, and which gave us an excellent place from which to observe everything going on ahead.
The boat coolies were straining on the tow-rope a hundred yards ahead. Frequently we passed some fisherman sitting in his little mat hut, with his feet on the windlass that raised his great square net; but never did we see them catch a fish, although on our return the same men were working as assiduously as ever. The country presented the same compact system of farming, the hills in many places being terraced to their very summits, and planted with waving crops of wheat and millet, beans, and vegetables of every description. Toward noon we passed the "Ta" and "Lao Kin Shan" (great and little golden mountain), and by the time Aling had announced "tiffin" (luncheon), we were abreast of Kin Kow, a picturesque village in the neighborhood of which I generally found some excellent shooting. After tiffin we again resumed our camp-stools. I lighted a cigar, and Akong smoked his hubble-bubble, a small copy of the nargileh of the Turks. The river was alive with junks, some going in the same direction as ourselves, and others loaded with tea, charcoal, vegetable tallow, oil of various kinds, and gypsum, brought, most of them, from the far western province of Sze Chuen.
There was but little variety in the journey until the following day, when we approached the great bend in the Yang Tsze, and Akong told us that, if so inclined, we could land from the boat, and by walking six or eight miles across the country join the boat again, the bend rendering it necessary for her to go around some thirty or forty miles. This we gladly assented to, and taking my gun, in hopes of meeting with some snipe in the paddy-fields, and with Aling and a coolie for interpreters, we landed.
Charley and I both experienced a rather queer sensation as we watched the boat sail off, and found ourselves with no other white man within a hundred or more miles. The country ahead was one immense rice-field, divided by dykes or banks paved with stones and forming paths for walking. At some distance we saw a large clump of bamboos with tall elms beyond, indicating a village, called, as a coolie at work in a ditch informed us, Fi-Loong. Soon we saw a broad creek with a handsome stone bridge over it, and on the other side an unusually large house of two stories, which turned out to belong to the Te-poy, or local magistrate of the place. The old gentleman himself was sitting outside of the house having his head shaved by the village barber. He politely invited us to wait, and after the shaving was over regaled us with a cup of tea,—rather weak, but refreshing,—and after chin-chin-ing we resumed our journey.
