After dinner we sat on deck, seeking in vain for a breath of fresh air. It was fire that we inhaled. We are now in the straits of Formosa and have reached the tropics.
After tea we had music in the salon. I sat down at the piano and played four hands with Mr. Shaniavski. Our fellow passengers, crowding round, applauded, and begged us to play on. Kontski turned over the leaves and approved of our performance. In recompense he improvised, on the spot, a song which he dedicated to me, and entitled “Mes Adieux.”
CHAPTER LXXIX
HONG-KONG
October 3rd.—At dawn the island of Hong-Kong appeared to view. We slipped into the horse-shoe harbour of Victoria Town, the most beautiful and picturesque place I have ever seen. The shores of the splendid bay are crowned with long rows of tropical villas. Victoria Town is a handsome, well-built city. One can see we are in a British colony; English flags float everywhere. We got into a small boat to go ashore, and walked to the Hotel Hong-Kong, having to pass over a long bridge. The Hotel Hong-Kong is a large seven-storied building, surrounded on all sides by a gallery with about a dozen shops. I shut myself up in my room with all the blinds closed; the semi-darkness gave me a sense of coolness, but when I opened the window such a stifling breath of air flew into the room that I had to shut it hurriedly. After the hour of siesta had passed, we went up the steep funicular railway to Victoria Peak, a perpendicular mountain 1,850 feet high. The funicular creeps straight up the side of the hill; while one car creeps up the mountain, the other crawls down. In about three minutes time we found ourselves on the Esplanade, where we had palanquins to take us to the cool summit where a big hotel is built. Many travellers come here to look down from the height of the Peak upon the great harbour of Hong-Kong. A flag floated at the top of the Peak, announcing the mail-boat from Japan. The big steamer seemed from there but a black spot. Picnic parties often come to the Peak, and the hotel is always full, thanks to the temperature, which is several degrees lower than in town. We had dinner at the hotel where the food is considered very good for the English palates, but far too spiced for ours. It was long before I recovered from my first mouthful of chicken plentifully seasoned with coarse red-pepper.
We took a bright green palanquin with three men at the foot of the hill, and went at a swinging pace through the outskirts of Victoria-Town. I had all the blinds pulled up whilst we were carried through the “Happy-alley” to the cathedral. There was a long file of pretty, dark-haired señoritas marching soberly to church, holding their prayer-books devoutly in their hands, attended by black-gowned, sharp-eyed duennas. The congregation consists of diverse nationalities, and the priest is obliged to preach in four languages—in English, Portuguese, Malay and Malabar. Macaites (aborigines of Macas) abound in Hong-Kong: they are a mixture of Portuguese and Chinese. Though wearing the European costume, these half-castes remain inwardly Chinese. It is a race of degenerates, whereas cross-breeding between English and French Creoles with the Chinese, form a splendid race.
The dinner at table-d’hôte was announced for seven o’clock. We entered the large dining-room full of grand gentlemen and smart ladies in evening dress. Dinner was served at small separate tables; it consisted of oyster soup, followed by a dish of frogs, strongly spiced cari, served with hot rice, and tropical fruit for dessert, unknown in Europe: the jack-fruit, of the size and appearance of a water-melon, and a sort of great orange four times its natural size, named grape-fruit; you have it on your plate cut in two halves with ice on each, and you scoop the inside out of a lot of tiny pockets with a tea-spoon. I was glad of the coolness of the big hall; a punkah-boy on the verandah pulled drowsily at the cords that moved the great fan. The usual language spoken here between Europeans and natives is called “pigeon-English”—a mixture of English, French, and German. It was difficult to make ourselves understood by the boys. We had to explain ourselves mostly by signs.
Directly after dinner we went out in palanquins. The fare is only one dollar for the whole day. We were carried swiftly up broad streets bordered by palm trees and bamboos covered with mould because of the damp, tepid air. Queen’s Road, the principal street, is a large avenue bordered with beautiful English shops, and reminds one of London, only instead of commonplace constables, it is Punjabs—Hindoos—in big red turbans who keep order in the streets. On our way to the Botanic Gardens we saw English soldiers exercising in a large square. We admired—in the beautiful Gardens, amongst the innumerable wonders of tropical vegetation—a large basin with lotuses in full bloom. We returned to the hotel through the native quarter of the town, lined with straw huts between hedges of banana and cocoa-nut trees.
After dinner we stayed out on the veranda till nearly midnight, with Kontski and his wife, who are also stopping at Hotel Hong-Kong. An intoxicating perfume of flowers came from the garden below; only the tinkle of a fountain and the ceaseless chanting of myriads of insects tempered the stillness of the beautiful tropical night. The old mæstro is a most interesting and brilliant talker, with an unending store of anecdote and reminiscence; you could listen to him for hours. He recalled the days of his youth, and told us that at the age of four he played the piano. When he was twelve years old it was decided that he was to enter the musical profession. His father brought him to Vienna to be introduced so Beethoven, who was already half-deaf at that time. He listened to his performance with ear-trumpets to his ears, and accepted Kontski as a pupil. One day, during the lesson, a card bearing the name of Beethoven’s brother, with whom he was not on the best of terms, was brought to him. Beethoven, Rittergut-Besitzer (possessor of a feudal estate) was printed on it. The great composer greeted it with a growl. He took his note-book from his pocket, tore out a leaf and hastily scribbled on it: Beethoven, Gehirn-Besitzer (possessor of brains), and, handing it to his servant, he said: “There, give him that and tell him that I am occupied and cannot receive him.” After having studied four years with Beethoven, Kontski returned to Warsaw, where his father taught French in a college in which he ended his education, together with Chopin. The friendship between them lasted unclouded until Chopin’s death broke it.
We talked a lot of music with Kontski, who had known many celebrated artists, and had been on the best of terms with Rachel. During his stay in Paris in 1836, Kontski had been invited to a dinner-party given by Rothschild, at which many celebrities were present, famous people in the world of music: Chopin, Rossini, Liszt, Thalberg, and a host of others. After dinner the great musicians were asked to play. Thalberg complied readily, but Chopin refused point blank, saying that he had grown too heavy after the copious repast. Liszt followed his example and would not play. Then Rothschild, addressing himself to Rossini, who owed the nick-name of “Papa Rossini,” thanks to his fat and round figure, asked him to persuade Liszt to play something to them. But there was little sympathy between these two geniuses, and Rossini exclaimed perfidiously: “Liszt, mon ami, play us one of your admirable compositions which you give out ordinarily as an improvisation.” Liszt, furious to be turned into ridicule, sat down ragingly at the piano, bending his face over the keys, and began to play one of his most brilliant rhapsodies, with high technique and rare poetic insight. His performance enchanted everyone in the room except Rossini, who had not succeeded in ridiculing Liszt.