January 6th.—In the afternoon we entered the calm harbour of Hong-Kong, and moored at New Harbour, where the boats come in to take coal. When we stepped on shore, chocolate-coloured natives, speaking all at once, fought for our luggage and snatched our bags out of our hands. We hailed a carriage which brought us to Windsor Hotel, where we took a suite of several rooms.
After dinner we were carried in palanquins about Victoria Town. Our porters panted like short-breathed horses whilst ascending the steep streets, which wasn’t pleasant at all.
January 7th.—It is Christmas in Russia to-day. Hard luck to spend Christmas in these far away parts, when one wants to have one’s dear people about one! It makes me feel horribly home-sick. It is a dull day, chill and cloudy; long gusts of wind come down the street. We have a fire burning in the grate; fine tropics indeed! The Chinese inhabitants walk about muffled up in big coats lined with sheep-skins. In the extreme Orient it is the yellow race who predominates. I have had quite enough of the Chinese, who resemble each other as two ears of corn.
January 9th.—We will make a flying visit to Canton to-day, going up the Si-Kiang, or Pearl River, in a large English steamer bearing the Chinese name of Fat-Chan. The Si-Kiang is so broad that one can’t see across from bank to bank. The crossing takes only eight hours, and is comfortably made in large floating palaces, plying between Hong-Kong and the towns of the inner country. Except ourselves there are only two first-class passengers. I caught sight in the saloon of stacks of rifles, swords and revolvers, with printed instructions to the passengers to use them if necessary, the river-steamers having been known to be attacked by pirates, who rove in junks about the river and assail passing ships. Last year a band of pirates boarded the Fat-Chan as passengers. As soon as Hong-Kong was out of view, the brigands, after having bound with cords the captain and his crew, cut the throats of all the passengers and threw their bodies overboard. Soldiers now accompany every steamer, and the third-class passengers are locked up for the night in the hold behind an iron rail, at the entrance to which stand sentinels. We have three hundred Chinamen as third-class passengers, and it did not make me feel safe at all. The captain took us down into the hold after tiffin to show us the human ant’s nest. We saw the Chinese passengers heaped up pell-mell, men, women and children. The men were smoking opium or playing dice, and looked quite peaceful.
CHAPTER CIX
CANTON
From afar appeared the numerous pagodas of Canton, with their domes adorned with little gold bells. Our boat nosed her way into the crowded river, traversed by a perpetual scurry of launches, and we were at once surrounded by a flotilla of numerous sampans ornamented with golden devices. We were deafened by the screams and the dreadful noise. Canton is a veritable town of amphibians. There is not room enough on land for the two million inhabitants, who spend all their lives on the water in floating huts. There are families who have never stepped on shore. Their floating houses have platforms on each end, on which their babes pass a part of their lives until the age of three, tied with a long cord to a post. Canoes propelled by strong Chinese women, clad in broad trousers, come alongside our ship; some of them carry a baby tied on their backs. The women pile up the luggage and transport passengers on shore, together with long cases of opium, which compose the principal cargo of the Fat-Chan.
On landing we crossed the French Bridge leading to the Isle of Shamin, and entered the cantonment and the European sections. The Isle of Shamin is a community which consists of a gathering of buildings and gardens forming a kind of European village. Concessions of ground-plots are granted by the Chinese government to England, France, America and Germany. On these diverse pieces of ground the Consulates of the different countries are established; over each Consulate the national flag is hoisted. The Chinese bear no good-will towards Europeans, whom they have surnamed “Devils of the Western countries.” One of these days they threw stones at a party of travellers who were crossing the bridge. Chinese sentinels are placed on both ends of the bridge to keep order, but these warriors of the Celestial Empire inspire but little confidence and I felt safe only when we stepped into Shamin. It is only the Chinese inhabitants of Shamin who are allowed to cross the French and English bridges leading to the small island; for the natives living in Canton it is terra prohibita.
We put up at the Victoria Hotel. Our room is large and desolate-looking; it has but little furniture: two uncomfortable little iron bedsteads, shrouded with mosquito-nets, a table and three chairs. The floor is stone; on the white-washed walls hangs the portrait of Queen Victoria sitting side by side with our Empress-Dowager, holding on her knee her first-born, Nicolas II. From our window I perceive a corner of the quay of Canton, from where resounded an appalling noise of tom-toms and cymbals.
The French Consul came to pay his respects to my husband in the afternoon, accompanied by Mr. Emelianoff, a young compatriot of ours who teaches Russian in one of the schools in Canton. We kept them for dinner. The cooking is abominable. Among other unappetising dishes we had an underdone beefsteak surrounded with slices of oranges. But the milk products are good; a Dutch settler has brought out of Australia a score of beautiful cows, and has established an excellent dairy-farm at Shamin.