THE LIBRARY OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES
PANORAMA OF THE WEST LAKE, HANGCnOW ; THE RIVER TSINTANG IN THE DISTANCE
HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
RECOLLECTIONS AND OBSERVATIONS
BY THE VKNERABLE
ARTHUR EVANS MOULE, B.D.
RECTOR OF BCRWARTON ; SOMETIME ARCHDEACON IN MID-CHINA ;
MISSIONARY OF THK CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY FROM 1861 ;
AUTHOR OF ' NEW CHINA AND OLD,' F.TC.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAP
HODDER AND STOUGHTON LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO
DS
TO
E. A. M.
MY COJIPANION AND NEVEK-FAILING HELPER THROUGH FIFl'Y YEARS
PREFACE
My readers must not expect to find in the following pages a hand-book on China, with elaborated details of her history and antiquities, her literature and language, her productions and scenery. These are ready to hand in the many standard books on the subject, and in some quite recent treatises.
It was suggested that a narrative of my personal recollections and observations during just half a century, lived in China or for China, would be of some interest, in illustrating these features of the country and people as they impressed me during my years of personal contact.
Statistics, therefore, and formal particulars, even about the changes going on in China at the present time, will be met with in these pages only incident- ally, and not in ordered sequence and definite con- nection.
One avowed object which I have in this narrative is to plead both with patriotic Chinese themselves, and with friends and sympathisers from the west, not to allow changing China to change so hurriedly and radically as to obliterate or ignore or minimise what has been noble and useful in her past. I offer these suggestions not as a mere sentimental wish,
a 2
vi HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
but with a practical desire to help in some small measure China's true reform and progress.
The same practical object of subserving a great design and an indispensable work must be my apology for touching once and again on the subject of the union and unity of Christendom, a con- summation vitally important and whoUy desirable if it can be honestly obtained, and exhibited especially in the presence of the non-Christian nations.
My words must not be interpreted as even sug- gesting the idea that this great union and unity can be obtained through the forcible application of an act of uniformity, or by the abandonment or abjuring of cherished beliefs and persuasions on the part of those who are invited to conform. It is a precisely opposite process which I suggest, by draw- ing attention to the existence of a Church scriptural, primitive, and in Archbishop Benson's words, ' apostolic, catholic, reformed, protestant,' to which (if remaining faithful to these high titles) aU nonconformists can consistently conform ; those, namely, who in the truth of God hold the one faith, and may find there unity of spirit, the bond of peace, and righteousness of life, in holy union and communion. This wiU mean conformity, asked for and conceded not through enforced submission, but by comprehension and by the welcome of recognition in the glad surprise of a familiar home.
I do not bring forward this proposal, therefore,
PREFACE vii
in a dictatorial manner, but I offer it as a friendly and practical suggestion. Some may call it a dream, if they please, yet if there be any substance at all in my dream it would be wrong to withhold it ; a dream made all the more desirable and fascinating to fancy and hope by my many long years of work for the ancient east as an emissary of what must seem to it divided Christendom.
I should add that my recollections and observa- tions, though from time to time touching China as a whole, principally concern Mid-China.
I am indebted to the proprietors of the North China Herald and Daily News for the permission to avail myself of articles on Ningpo and the T'aip'ing rebellion which I contributed some few years ago to the East of Asia, an illustrated quarterly magazine published at the office of these papers.
A. E. M.
BURWARTON, March 1911.
PAOE
V
CONTENTS Preface
CHAPTEK I Introductory: Conservatism and Change
CHAPTER II The T'aip'ing Rebellion : 1861-1864 .... 21
CHAPTER III
The T'aip'ing Rebellion : its Close and Consequences 47
CHAPTER IV NiNGPO, Ancient and Modern 81
CHAPTER V Rumours and Legends 97
CHAPTER VI Inland Cities: Hanuchow and Chuki . . 125
X HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
CHAPTER VII
PAOK
Journeys by Land and by Water . . . .153
CHAPTER VIII Shanghai, Past and Present 205 p
CHAPTER IX The Missionary in China, and the Presentation
OF HIS Message 237
CHAPTER X Education and Literature 267
CHAPTER XI Conclusion : Retrospect and Prospect . . . 303
Index 341
ILLUSTRATIONS
Panorama of the West Lake, IIancciiow . . Froiitlnju'ece
The West Lake, Hangciiow .... To f'lce pat/e 9
The Beatitudes Engraved on a Great Stone by
the Leader of the T'aip'ings . . . ,, „ 30
Cormorant Boats ,,35
The Pagoda in the City of Ningpo . . . ,, „ 87
A Temple Entrance „ .. 99
Pavilion on the West Lakk, Hangchow 127
The Tidal Wave on thi; Rivhi; Tsintanc. . . ,, ,,131
WaterGate of a City ,, ,, 136
Canal Rcene near Soochow . . . . ,, ., 154
Approach to the City ov T'aiohow . 17G
Fishing on the River Huangi-'u . . . ,, ,, 208
xii HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
'riiK lUiNi), SnAN"(;irAi ..... To facf puije '1\0
The French Bund, Shanghai . . . . „ „ 218
Shop at the Entrance to a Temple . . . ,, „ 248
The Northern Shore of the West Lake, IIangchow „ „ 287
Pagoda on the Southern Shore of thI'; West
Lake, Hangchow „ „ 314
Map to Illustrate Half a Century in China . . At end
I owe most of the Illustrations in tins book to the kindness of the following uentlenien : Mr. H. T. Wade, Mr. A. Waller, the Rev. E. Thompson, and Mr. W. K. Kahler.
INTRODUCTORY: CONSERVATISM AND CHANGE
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY : CONSERVATISM AND CHANGE
I BEGIN this narrative at half-past five in the morn- ing on board a small Chinese coasting-steamer at anchor in the harbour of Tinghai. Tinghai is the capital city of the archipelago of Chusan, which forms the utmost eastern point of the Himalayan range. Chusan was occupied by the English under Sir Hugh Gough, 1841-1844. On my way down the coast I visited the British cemetery, now guarded and respected by the Chinese authorities, in which rest those who lost their lives during that occupa- tion, chiefly from the ravages of disease in the swampy rice-plains of the otherwise healthy island. What if that occupation had been permanent, and England's authority had been paramount over the beautiful archipelago ? England would have had her left hand on the central pulse of China's great artery, the Yangtse, and her right hand, within short striking distance, menacing and con- trolling Japan, then scarcely known but as a fierce and unfriendly power, now holding England's right hand for peace and for the maintenance of peace.
The craft in which I sail is a small vessel of five hundred tons burden, warranted to carry three or four hundred passengers at most. She left Haimeii,
4 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
two hundred miles south, yesterday, with a thousand passengers on board. She is commanded and officered and disciphned, if discipHne is to be found in any corner of the ship, solely by Chinese. The Chinese have been bold seamen in the past. In a.d. 399 Fa Hien, a Buddhist priest, started on a journey of exploration to India, and crossing the Pacific is asserted to have discovered Fusang, which is iden- tified by many with Western America and Mexico. In A.D. 528 two other Buddhist devotees made the same voyage with a similar purpose. Chinese seamen certainly know their own coast, with its long fringe of rocky islands, its shoals and reefs and dangerous currents, well and intelligently. They can handle steamers, certainly this diminutive vessel in which I sail, as well as they handled their picturesque junks in olden days. Are they getting overladen now with the ambition to assimilate all foreign inventions and apparatus for peace and war ? Will the necessarily hybrid production serve them well ? Yet the captain and crew of my ship, with words of command issued and answered in an uncouth Anglo-Chinese dialect, have brought the Everlasting Quiet safe into port. And will awakened China, with her own ancient intellect and wisdom, aided by western civilisation and learning, bring the vessel of state after three thousand years of storm and calm, under a paternal despotism, safe into the harbour of constitutional government, and find after all no sure rest and quiet even there ?
An Imperial edict of historic interest was pro- mulgated in 1906 by the late Empress Dowager,
CONSERVATISM AND CHANGE 5
and nominally by the late Emperor, after the return to China of the Commission of Inquiry into the poUtical systems of foreign nations. The Empress, the edict declared, had discovered that a constitution, and advice from the people, given in a parliament, was the foundation on which western nations had built up their wealth and tranquillity. The hope of China, too, was in a constitution.
The narrative in the following pages, covering half a century, and touching one vast portion of the Far East, has much to do with old China, with her rude awakening in 1850-1864, with her subsequent fitful slumber and stirring in sleep, and now with her broad awakening in the dawn of the hope that patriotism may become a reality, and that with patriotic zeal all things may be made new. I shall not pretend to deal philosophically with this period of the nation's histor}^ almost unique as it is in its tragedy and pathos, its despair and hope. My narrative as it proceeds will suggest to the reader's mind many problems, and perhaps the solution of some of them.
Before my eyes as I write spreads a picture of the hold which half China retains on her ancient history and customs, on her beliefs and supersti- tions. This dangerous mass of patient passengers, stowed away almost in piles all over the ship, con- sists very largely of pilgrims coming from the south to visit the sacred island of P'ut'u ; or of pilgrims returning from a long and difficult journey to worship in the celebrated temples of the southern T'ient'ai range. The Goddess of Mercy, Kwanyin,
6 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
so legend relates, by her life in this island as a recluse and devotee flying from the wrath of her father, who had insisted on her marriage, has consecrated this beautiful island as the chief centre of northern Buddhist worship. The story of her subsequent filial devotion to her angry father, and the saving of his life by a piece of flesh cut from her own arm, seems exactly suited to reconcile Chinese principles of filial piety with the innovations of Buddhist doctrine and practice. This worship and this centre of worship seem to the Chinese of the present day remotely ancient, though, in the long vista of China's past. Buddhism is a new thing, only some sixteen hundred years old, a mere chapter in China's annals. Yet to this they cling, and the P'ut'u pilgrims crowd and worship as of old. They come, however, now not in their old junks, passing helplessly through swarms of pirates, who had to be bought off by bribes, but in vessels which can outsteam the fastest piratical craft, by machinery and skill all learned from the innovating foreigner. On the mainland, meanwhile, the idols are a second time being abolished, not as in the narrative which follows by the hordes of the iconoclastic T'aip'ings, but by the exigencies of government education. The countless new schools, with western methods, secular through and through, want house-room, and the spacious halls of Buddhist and Taoist monasteries and temples are requisitioned for this purpose. The idols are turned out of doors ; nunneries are sup- pressed, and the multitudes of priests find their employment slipping from their hands, as the thoughtful and educated Chinese now despise and
CONSERVATISM AND CHANGE 7
ridicule all but the ancient philosophy and ethics of this foreign creed. The prospect seemed so serious to Buddhist priests in the neighbourhood from which I write, that they approached the magistrates in almost a threatening attitude, remonstrating against the injustice of tolerating the foreigner with his creeds and churches, while persecuting and spoiling the old friends of China, the Buddhists. ' Let us alone,' they said, ' and we promise to open in every temple of ours a school with western learning.' The grave danger for China lies here, and a similar peril threatens Japan, and is already attacking with a moral cancer western lands and India. Religion is necessary to the true life of man. A false religion, not binding the heart and love to the one true God, is injurious indeed. But if such be discarded as behind the times by educated and reforming China, and the true religion be not embraced, the last state of such a country cannot but be worse than the first. Mere secularism in education, the neglect of the moral sanctions of the old faiths and the want of recognition of the yet stronger ethics of the new, bring in rapidly neglect of parental authority, the assertion of individual independence, and insub- ordination in schools. This will lead to insubordina- tion in the army and civil service, and um-est, revolu- tion and disruption will follow, just when the dawn seems broadening to a sunrise of national revival and prosperity.
But I must retrace my steps. One comet has evaded our observation, and Halley's comet is at hand. The Chinese are anxious with the fear that these celestial appearances are the premonitions of
8 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
national calamity. The Chinese term for a comet is ' broom-star,' possibly suggesting the idea that, as the temple-sweeper of the courts above hurries his besom through the corridors of the stars and empties the refuse into the sun's furnace, so is pre- figured some avenging action of heaven, purging the pathways of Chinese public and private life by famine or pestilence or war. Just fifty years ago we were rounding the Cape of Good Hope on a four-months' voyage to China. We ran two or three hundred miles south to catch the trade-winds, and met with bitterly cold weather and storms. One morning at four the first officer caUed me on deck. ' There is a sight worth rising early to see,' he said. The storm was abating, and the dark clouds were breaking, and through a rift there sailed majestically into view the bright comet of that year (1861). Two months later we reached China, and there in the night-sky, and faintly seen by day, appeared the great ' broom-star,' and all China lay trembling under its spell of warning or of present calamity. That calamity, the fourteen years of the T'aip'ing rebellion, I relate below.
The scene now changes again for me. I am travelling from Shanghai, the commercial capital of the farthest east, to Hangchow, for two hundred years and more the Imperial capital and now the civil centre of the province of Chekiang, as Ningpo is the commercial centre and chief port of the pro- vince. The journey, which we hope to accomplish in five and a half hours, has often in the past occu- pied five and a half days. As the train approaches
CONSERVATISM AND CHANGE 9
the terminus of this branch line, I notice to my amazement that the ancient wall of Hangchow has been ruthlessly pierced by the engineers of the rail- way, and that the trains are soon to run through the wall into the city itself. The city-walls every- where will, it is said, soon be levelled, as useless for protection, and as interfering with the liberties of the people. Antiquity and scenery and the silence and pathos of the past have no effect on China in a hurry ; but we are not surprised to hear that thoughtful China is bemg annoyed and alarmed at the vulgarity of western civilisation, and at the danger of materialism in education and morality, the spiritual and the real and the true being brushed aside, and the noisy and the strong and the lucra- tive alone surviving and ruling. But China in a hurry to be reformed and enlightened, and made mighty amongst the nations of the earth, is liable by some false step to slip back and lose her vantage ground. She is doing so as I write. One short week of blind excitement, disgraced by the destruc- tive riots of Changsha, has sufificed to take away, for the present at least, that which was slowly grow- ing in sympathetic western minds, namely, con- fidence in China's ability to restrain her unruly people, and to guide wisely her patriotic sons in their desire for independence and liberty and re- form. The proudest and most exclusive city in the most warlike province of China, which held the distinction of being almost the only virgin city amidst the desolating conquests of the T'aip'ings, had during the past ten years opened her gates to western nations and to the Japanese. There, in
10 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
Hunan, where no foreigner's foot was ever to tread, a hundred missionaries are working, western im- provements have been welcomed, good roads and poHcing of the streets have been introduced, schools and manufactures are in full operation, and even the railway is drawing near. ' A new Hunan has been born,' said the Chinese themselves. But stirred by a mere local trouble, the high price of rice, and want of forethought on the part of those in authority, the old hostile and exclusive spirit, smouldering all the time, bursts out, and all is in ruins. The great clock of China's progress and prestige stops. Will the shadow on the dial go back ten degrees ?
The sound is in my ears, so familiar at this spring season and through fifty years past, of the blaring of horns and roll of drums and explosion of fire- works, accompanying the idolatrous processions, with the due transit of which through the country the luck of the rice-harvest is supposed to be con- nected. In a fortnight's time the w^hole surface of these vast rice-plains will be under cultivation. First the levelling and breaking up of the clods in the fields already deeply ploughed, then their inun- dation, then the vivid green of the rice seed-beds, then the careful planting out of the thick clumps of plants six inches high in double rows, here early, there late rice, over hundreds of thousands of square miles. Four years ago, in the first outburst of reform, the country magistrates, who, with local benches under the authority of the mandarins, control the morality and order of the countryside, informed the leaders of these wei or processions
CONSERVATISM AND CHANGE 11
that they could not much longer be permitted. They wasted large sums of money which would be better spent on the schools. They were not helpful to good manners and morality ; and besides, every one knew now that these clay idols were of no use. The people might, however, perform the ceremonies for three years more, cutting off a third of the expense and display each year till they were extinct. The three years passed, and a mandarin whom I know well, the very soul of kindness and justice, and one ^^'hom the whole district trusts and respects, at the request of the gentry counselled the people to forgo the processions this year, and to contribute some of the money thus saved from vain and ignoble uses to the new government schools. ' Not so, your Excellency ! ' replied the country people ; — or rather, to quote the fuller and better known title of this chehien, ' Not so, father and mother ! If we cannot have our old customs and ceremonies, and must subsidise your schools, then both shall go, and we will pull down the school- buildings.' This threat was actually carried out a few days later.
Shortly after the date of the preceding para- graph, I saw with my own eyes proofs of the fickle- ness and yet obstinacy of the Chinese when a wave of change passes over them, and the change is resented and the old life appeals more strongly. I was standing in the main street of a large market- town, when the bystanders pointed out to me the ruins of a large school established on western lines, and built by the gentry. The mob accompanying a great idolatrous procession, whose object was to
12 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
drive beyond their boundaries the evil spirits of scarcity and sickness, suddenly turned aside to destroy this school. I asked the reason for this wanton outrage, but no one seemed disposed to condemn it too severely, or on the other hand to champion such mob-violence. But their very silence seemed to say, ' Oppressive taxation and famine prices, and murrain among the cattle, are they not in some way caused by these foreign fancies and reckless changes ? They tell us to stop these practices as behind the times of awakened China, as foolish and wasteful, and they want the money saved, they say, not to go into their own pockets — into which it probably does go — but for these foreign schools. Down with them ! ' Mean- while, on the other side of the hills amongst which this market-town nestles, men were exhibiting violence and lawlessness of the old type, springing from those clan-disputes which from time to time paralyse local government. I passed in the dusk a sluice connecting two systems of canals, and my boat was hauled across the embankment by a hand- worked windlass. The foreman of the haulers smiled cheerfully at me, and exchanged a Avord of welcome. But at that very spot, only a week earlier, a tragedy had been enacted, leaving pro- bably a blood-feud for long years to come. Some travellers in a boat wrangled with the men at the sluice over a coin worth a farthing. The travellers struck the men on the shore. These, with gongs and shouts, raised the villages near, where their kinsmen dwelt. The strangers, finding themselves in danger, jumped into the canal to get across to
CONSERVATISM AND CHANGE 13
the further shore, and two out of the number were drowned. Word was carried to a town of eighteen thousand people, not far off, to which the dead men belonged. The townsmen came in numbers to avenge their kinsmen. The sluice-men's friends rallied and repulsed them. A second time with larger forces the attacking party came on, and, overpowering all resistance, burnt and reduced to ruins numbers of houses, and would not cease till a fine of fifty pounds had been extracted from a tradesman in the village, Avho was wholly uncon- nected with the affair. This fine was as ruinous as one of five hundred pounds would be to a small English farmer.
Yet to-day comes the news that through the greater part of the province of Szchuan, with sixty- nine million people, where in former years during April and May travellers saw hardly anything but the poppy growing, now they search in vain for a single plant. This democratic race, who can rise in a moment and defy the powers that be, and make their will prevail, are anon submissive to autocratic rule without a murmur, and without uprising. Yet once more, as if to ridicule all attempt at generalisation in Chinese matters, the news reaches us that one large county in Szchuan, seventy miles square, ignoring or defying all Imperial and provincial edicts of prohibition, and with con- fidence and success ousting again maize, beans, peas, wheat, and other cereals, and even rice, Giina's staff of life, is replanting the more profitable but baneful poppy.
I have narrated and discussed elsewhere the
14 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
story of the Indo-Chinese opium trade, and of the disastrous use of opium in China. There exists a large hterature on the subject, famihar, no doubt, to many of my readers.
One consideration of special importance I men- tion here, namely the condemnation of the use of opium by the conscience and moral feeling of the Chinese nation, and this in refutation of those who have laboured to prove the contrary. This point is proved incontestably by the attitude of China in the face of government edicts implying and enforc- ing ruthless and universal restriction, repression, and final abolition of the purchase, production, sale, and use of the drug. Nothing but a deep moral persuasion that the government is right in suppress- ing that which has been a moral wrong to the nation and to the individual could keep China as quiet as she is. This being so, and the English House of Commons having avowed that the opium trade hitherto has been morally indefensible, and should be abandoned as soon as possible, many eager moralists and philanthropists both in Eng- land and China urge the instantaneous righting of a wrong now that that wrong is detected and acknowledged.
It is further urged that if England, India, and China have agreed to proceed pari passu in the work of restriction and final abolition, and if one of the contracting parties (for instance, China) finds herself able to quicken the pace, the other two should then be if not morally bound to quicken their pace yet morally stimulated to do so, and should devise means, perhaps by an appeal to the con-
CONSERVATISM AND CHANGE 15
science and liberality of England, to stop the supply at once and for ever.
The reply is, we fear, one which cannot lightly be set aside. Moral wrong is accompanied by a dread nemesis. It becomes so deeply rooted in the life of a people, and so entwined with their habits, as to refuse to yield to drastic and sudden uproot- ing and removal without the infliction of another wrong. That wrong in its turn demands forcible redress, and brings, perhaps, a fresh wrong. It has seemed, therefore, to the negotiators on either side that a gradual but continuous and steady reduction is the surest and fairest method to be adopted.
The problem which meets us at the present moment may briefly be stated as follows. For the eradication of the habit of opium-smoking, which is now enjoined on the whole Chinese nation, with a few exceptions as to age, a limit of months only is required. For the extirpation of the poppy, grown for this trade and this use, and for the bring- ing to an end of the trade in opium, wholesale and retail, a term of years ma}^ be required, involving continued readjustment of the industries of the people, rearrangement of revenue and taxes, and replanting of the land (in India possibly with sub- sidies for a time, and no monopoly of the crops). Further, it would be necessary to dispose of the vast reserves of Indian and Chinese opium, possibly by confiscation and destruction with or without compensation, or by special licensed consumption spread over a long period. The ideal before us is the complete abolition both of demand and supply.
16 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
While the supply lingers on, there is grave danger lest the demand reassert itself. On the other hand, if the demand continues through inefficient pro- hibition of the habit, the supply will come from some quarter.
We venture to hope, however, that a sure result will follow from the present agitation and restric- tive policy. ' Young China will not take opium. The rising generation is afraid or ashamed to acquire the habit, while the passing generation nervously and resolutely strives to get rid of it.' These pro- phetic words were repeated to me by an intelligent Chinese observer the other day.
Meanwhile, are we premature in expecting signs of economic reform in Chinese trade and general life, consequent on the release of large sums of money saved through the abandonment of opium ? And what has become of the friction and ill-will between China and England so justified and fostered by the old opium-trade, but the re- moval of which was promised as a sure result of the change of policy ? China's action in Tibet, secret for a while and now patent, is hardly the act of a power grateful and friendly to India, and to India's suzerain. Yet we trust that these suspicions will be falsified, and that with complete abolition will come permanent good to China, to India, and to England, with mutual friendship, and co-operation in every legitimate enterprise.
To our minds, perhaps, it seems doubtful whether any new system of education, any great inrush of knowledge, any new facilities for travel, least of
CONSERVATISM AND CHANGE 17
all any schemes of reform which involve the possi- bility of dynastic revolution and the unspeakable terrors of bloodshed and confusion which have generally accompanied and followed such changes in China, will suffice to cure the failure of the administration of justice in this great land. The failures, I say, not the deficiencies in this ideal of government, for it is more than probable that the old ideal of rule by a patriarchal and paternal system of a limited autocracy, limited by the best counsel in the land, and limited by the people's own power of appeal, and the official censors' power of criticism or even of denunciation, is after all better suited to a realm so vast in extent and so heterogeneous in its component parts. The adequate payment of mandarins is the most pressing reform needed, and one involving wide-stretching conse- quences. Give, for instance, to the chief execu- tive mandarin in a district of two million souls, not the pittance of seventy pounds per annum, as at present, but seven hundred pounds at least, and the effect would be great in lifting the rulers of the people above what is now almost the necessity of taking bribes and exacting more than their legal dues. A sense of the presence of high-souled and incorruptible justice would create a feeling of security and trust and good- will among all classes.
The narrative which is expanded in the follow- ing chapters will exhibit again and again these changing moods of the Chinese. I do not pretend to philosophise about the phenomenon, but some of its secret springs may be disclosed as I proceed,
18 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
and the sole ground for the highest hope of a new China will be emphasised — new, without forgetting or wholly losing the dignity and the pathos, the refinement and the strange light, which, amidst so much gloom and tragedy and failure, adorned and beautified the old.
THE T'AIP'ING REBELLION, 1861-1864
CHAPTER II
THE T'AIP'ING REBELLION, 1861-1864
My life in China began in troublous times, and my recollections of the land and people, stretching back now through just fifty years, are so vividly con- nected with that period of upheaval and disorder, that my narrative will be wholly incomplete without some sketch of those events. China was still in the throes of the T'aip'ing rebellion. The unrest which prevailed throughout the empire arose from the raging billows of the last years of that great hurricane, and the sullen and heaving swell of dis- tress as the storm was going down.
Now the story of that rebellion is so dark a passage in the annals of the land which I have learnt to love, that I am tempted to pass it over in silence. It awes me by the fascination and pathos of its earlier days, by its high though exaggerated and distorted ideals, by the dash and brilliancy of its campaigns, one of Avhich I witnessed in person, by its grasp almost laid on the Dragon Throne, by the horrors of its devastating and long-continued destruc- tion without reconstruction, and overthrow of the ruling powers with no power itself to rule, and by its final collapse in blood and fire and the shouting of the foreign-aided conquerors, with the land all torn and scarred around them.
22 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
I cannot explain the total failure of this great movement — since it did wholly miss one of its objects, beginning in Christian reform both as to faith and practice, and ending in un-Christian cruelty and reckless bloodshed — except by recalling the great Christian principle, that he that taketh the sword shall perish by the sword. Though force may, through stress of oppression, seem necessary and righteous to put down t5n:'anny and misrule, such force is outside the ideal of a Christian citizen's life. Least of all can it ever be true that the pro- pagation of the Faith, which was one of the T'aip'ing leaders' earliest ambitions, is promoted by the sword. The love of Him who died for man can never become a constraining power when the threat of loss or torture or death is presented to those who do not conform. ' Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts.'
But this fact, which lifts to some extent the cloud of mystery, cannot wholly extinguish pity and regret at the thought of the bright days of the Great Peace (T'aip'ing) Dynasty's birth and hopes. Their glamour cannot fade, and I write my story with a heavy heart.
In justice to those whom my readers will perhaps too hastily condemn, let it be here remarked that at the time of the outbreak of the T'aip'ing rebellion, that is sixty years ago, and long anterior to that period, the state of China was, in the words of a modern Chinese philosopher and reformer, that of a body fatally diseased with a national cancer. This state of things had been brought about morally in high quarters, and socially among the working
THE T'AIP'ING REBELLION, 1861-1864 23
classes, by effeminacy affecting what once was the truest nobility and chivalry, and by despair and insecurity following on unremunerative labour and oppressive taxes. The strong sense of indignation against these social A\Tongs had stirred to the depths the stolid Chinese nature of the T'aip*ings, and it had made them mad — mad with an almost noble madness of fanaticism, against which the heroism of the haughty Manchu aristocracy was worse than useless. The Chinese authority whom I quote here asserts further that the rebellion shattered the influence of the IManchu aristocracy, and transferred their power to the Chinese literati, the middle class of China, who, according to the testimony of the great Marquis Tseng Kwoh-fan, were definitely trained, mainly under his directions, to lead the peasantry and to put doAvn the rebelHon. It is asserted further that one object of the present reform movement, at least in its more sober moods, is to conserve if possible the great Manchu aristo- cracy with its heroism and nobility of character — not to abolish but to reform this second chamber for the nation. At the same time it is hoped to control in the wisest way, and to moderate the ambitions of the Chinese gentry, ' our PhiHstine middle class,' as this philosopher calls them, who appear of late years to have lost their morale, and to be much affected by vanity and conceit. As the result of such a movement a real reform is hoped for in the empire, bringing in a new China, not for the Chinese alone, with angry and violent and probably futile attempts at shutting their gates against aU foreign friends and foes alike, but a new
24 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
China for civilisation and humanity. This dream of reform reminds us of the T'aip'ings, to whom I now return.
I referred in my introductory chapter to what must be one of the first demands in any scheme of practical reform for China, namely, the adequate pay- ment of her mandarins. When this is effected, there will result such a feeling of security and hopefulness among the people that further necessary items in the scheme may be hopefully inaugurated, some of which are already, in fact, set on foot, such as steam navigation in the inland waters, railroads intersecting the whole land, and a new system of education and of literary examinations. Now the T'aip'ing leader, the 'Shield King,' Hung Siu-ts'iian's wisest and noblest adviser and ablest general, in a proclamation dated from Nanking in 1860, not only anticipated these measures, but -svent further, and recommended the Bible as a text-book in the public service examinations — possibly bringing with it, as Thomas Taylor Meadows considered, the study of the sacred books in their original lan- guages. Foreigners were no longer to be called by opprobrious names ; missionaries were to be allowed to travel and live and preach any^vhere ; the daily press was to be encouraged, and fire- and life- insurance companies introduced ; while the improve- ment of the status of women was not only an idea in a programme, but the subject of actual experi- ment for a short time in Nanking.
The account which I am about to give of my personal contact with the T*aip*ings at and near Ningpo is, I believe, the only existing history of
THE T^AIP'ING REBELLION, 1861-1864 25
those events, except for such details as are embodied in official and naval despatches of the time. There smi-vive not more than half a dozen EngHsh eye- witnesses of the T'aip'ing sieges of Ningpo ; and my story, which I have endeavoured to render accurate, is in a sense unique.
This chapter in a long and lurid narrative is, further, of special interest, because the events at Ningpo proved ahnost as significant a turning-point in the conquering career of the T'aip'ings as Gordon's achievements at Sungkiang and Nanking.
Before, however, we meet the T'aip'ings at Ningpo, we must glance back for a moment at their birth and origin. Here the narrative pos- sesses the advantage of having been drawn chiefly from the lips of Hung Jin, a cousin of the T'aip'ing leader, who had personal interviews with a Basel missionary in 1853, and provided him with full details.
Hung Siu-ts'uan could trace back his pedigree to the beginning of the twelfth century a.d., when the emperors Kien Chung and Tsing K'ang were carried captive by the Kin Tartars on their first inroad. Hung Hau, the first known ancestor of the Hungs, was then minister of state, and showed his loyalty to the throne by endeavouring to follow his Imperial master into the Kin Mongolian wilds. Six hundred years later, after the Mongols had "wrested the Imperial power from the Sung dynasty, and the ^longols in turn had been succeeded by the Chinese Ming djniasty, that dynasty after two hundred and sixty years was overwhelmed by the conquering Manchus. who still reign over China. One
26 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
of Hung Siu-ts'iian's ancestors was generalissimo at the time, and led this last campaign of the Ming dynasty. It is to restore this line that the under- ground forces of revolutionary thought and the secret societies which honeycomb the land now aspire. The Triad Society, which offered its fight- ing aid to the T'aip'ings in 1852, put this object definitely forward. Hung Siu-ts'iian, thinking that after the lapse of two hundred years the Ming line had finally disappeared from history, and possibly coveting the throne for his own name, declined the aid of the Triad Society, unless it would conform in all things to his rule and dictation. Hung Siu-ts'iian himself was born in 1813, in a village thirty miles north-east of Canton. His father w^as a KhihJcia, a settler from a neighbouring province, and though headman of his village was only a poor husband- man. His son, having shown marked ability, was carefully educated, and distinguished himself in the preliminary examinations. He failed, however, repeatedly at the final trial for his first degree. This is no necessary mark of incompetence in a candi- date, since for the degree of siu-ts^ai, with thirty vacancies, if I may use the word, there used on an average to be a thousand competitors ; while for the second degree, which qualifies for office, with eighty or ninety vacancies, there would be at least ten or fifteen thousand competitors. I speak here of course of the regime before the annus mirahilis, a.d. 1905, which saw the beginning of what may be a stupen- dous revolutionary movement in China, namely, the abolition of the old system of public competitive examinations for civil and military degrees. I refer
THE T'AIFING REBELLION, 1861-1864 27
again in my story to this system which has obtained from the second or third century of the Christian era. Had Hung 8iu-ts'iian Hved a hundred years later, his bitter disappointment and failure, caused, he felt sure, by bribery and favouritism, might have been lost in the excitement of the new learning. Some accounts state that he did succeed in both the first and second degrees, but that when qualified for office, a continual bar and ban seemed to be against him, preventing his appointment. In 1836 he met two men in the streets of Canton, one a strange-looking being, as Hung described him to be, a foreigner, the other in all probabiHty Lcang Ah-fah, a convert of Dr. Milne's, and Dr. Morrison's faithful but illiterate helper. Leang presented Hung with nine small volumes of Christian tracts and books composed by himself. These Hung laid aside in a drawer, without reading them for some years. Sub- sequently, after failing again in his ambition for office, he fell ill for forty days, and saw visions, which were ever after quoted by him as the cause and explanation of the great rebellion. A being appeared to him, so he asserted, with the imperative command to destroy the Yao, the imps (that is, the Manchus), and the idols, but to spare the people. The war of 1842 between England and China opened the eyes of Hung to the power of the strange foreigners, one of whom he had seen in Canton. He bethought him of his long-neglected books, and studying them without a friend or instructor, he seemed to find in their pages a confirmation of his visions. Most certainly in these nine volumes, the titles and contents of whicli lie before me, he found
28 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
nothing about the hatred of enemies, but rather the duty of love. The folly and sin of idolatry he would find exposed and denounced, but as an evil to be removed from the hearts of the ignorant and unen- lightened, not by armies, not by fire and sword, but by spiritual warfare. So the Kingdom of Great Peace was to come. For a time Hung Siu- ts'iian turned to noble pursuits. His friend and one of his first converts, Fung Yun-san, an earnest simple-minded man, helped him to found in Kwangsi a Society of Worshippers of God, renouncing idolatry, and abjuring the glory and pleasures of this present evil world. Surely it is a pathetic picture which rises up before our fancy, stretching back through nearly seventy years. This little band of seekers after God by night on the ' Thistle Mount,' their chief rendezvous^ without image or incense or temple or outward display, are bending low in worship and prayer before the true Shang Ti, the lord and maker of the higher heavens, those heavens full of stars soaring over their heads. An answer most certainly came for all who prayed there in sincerity and truth, for that eternal Power has promised, ' I said not, Seek ye me in vain.'
In 1847 Hung Siu-ts'iian applied for baptism to Mr. Roberts, an American Baptist missionary at Canton, who was still living when I reached China, and who joined his pupil in Nanking later in his career, striving in vain to stem the progress of his downward course. Baptism was defeiTed then, since the hope of mission employ appeared to be his chief motive, and this may finally have alienated Hung from the restraint of Christian teachers. Mean-
THE T'AIP'ING REBELLION, 1861-1864 29
while iconoclastic zeal on the part of these worshippers of God attracted the notice of the mandarins. The province of Kwangsi was at this time in a low state socially and morally. Two centres of worship, the idol Kanwang and the ' Temple of Six Caverns,' where vice was celebrated, deified, and almost wor- shipped, were by this Gideon destroyed. ' Let Baal plead,' seemed the answer when the people were roused by the insult to their gods ; and the white ants appeared to complete the ruin of the temple buildings, the evil idols of which 8iu-ts'iian had destroyed. In 1850, the year of the death of the great emperor Tao Kwang, the little band had to stand on their defence against imperialist soldiers sent to attack them. The cause of the attack was not the knowledge of insurrectionary designs on the part of the society itself, but the fact that the refugees defeated in a clan-fight between the Punti, or aborigines, and the KhihJcia, or settlers, had fled to Hung for protection, and the God-worshippers were thus involved in an almost inevitable conflict. They were successful in their first encounter with the imperialist troops, and the news spread like wildfire through south China. Hung Siu-ts'iian, after offering the supreme power to each of his four prominent captains in turn, was compelled him- self to take the lead, and raised the standard of the dynasty of Great Peace. He took the title of King of Great Peace, or King of the Heaveifly Kingdom, or, as some from a confusion of dialectic pronunciation erroneously gave it, King of Heavenly Virtue. Great crowds now flocked to his banner ; defence turned into attack. He became a mili-
30 HAT.F A CENTURY IN CHINA
tary leader of conspicuous ability, and a great conqueror, but the scourge and devastator of his native land.
It has often been urged that had Mohammed en- countered Christianity and Christian professors worthy of the name, instead of the contending sects and growing superstition of the degenerate Christi- anity which he did know, his career might have been wholly changed. The two men and their circum- stances were totally different, but of Hung Siu-ts'iian in like manner it may be urged, that had he had more careful teaching and wiser counsellors, and (it must be added) had he possessed a fuller appre- ciation and application to his conscience of what he did know, the T*aip'ing rebellion might still have become a fact of history, but he would not have led it. He started at length on his terrible career, to end fourteen years later in defeat, despair, and suicide.
In the first three years after the encounter with the imperialist forces mentioned above, the T'aip'ing armies fought and burnt their way through the provinces of Kwangsi and Hunan (' Hunan has been trodden in dust and ashes,' says a contemporary imperialist decree), through Hupeh also, and Anhui, Kiangsi and Kiangsu, up to Nanking, which vast city, the ancient southern capital of the empire, they stormed on 19th March 1853, and occupied for ten years. Twenty thousand Manchus were kiUed in the sacking of this city. At that time the total T'aip'ing strength was estimated at from sixty to eighty thousand trusted adherents, divided into five armies, besides a hundred thousand at least
THE BHATITl'DKS i;N , I; Will) (».\ A (iUHAT SToNH. BY TIIIO LHADKi; OK TIIH T-AIl'iNG^
Tlie lar;j:(> clianictei- iiiPiiiis liaiipiiicss or lilfssi-dncss, nml is used ns a form of salutation outside, many Clilni'si' Imus s. The sinalli-r cliaracti-is are the
fight licatitudes. Tliis is tl iily iusUuicm in wliich the Christian Hi'ati-
tudes aro known to liavc Ijcen puhlicdy a 'ijied in Clima. Tin- lower white siiuareon the left hand side is the seal of I lie l.eailer of thoT'aip'inx Uehellion. The stone was sot up at tin? entrance nl the T'aip'inc Palace in Nanking. The Iniiierial Troops <lestroye.i it when liev captured the city. It measured eleven fei'l by nine.
This ruliliing was presented to the HiliU- S ciety l>y Mr. Alexander Wylie, the Society's Apent at tlio time in I'hina. It is here reproduced liy'tho kindness of the Rev. James Thomas.
THE T'AIP'ING REBELLION, 1861-1864 31
of non-combatants, doing duty as porters, trench- diggers, and artificers. This force was subsequently swollen by very many recruits from the White Lotus and other secret political societies ; and it is worth observing that the accession of these motley crowds, most of whom Avere without any religion at all, or devoted adherents of the God of War, must have exerted a powerful influence in neutralising and eventually obhterating the spiritual elements in the earliest bands which I noticed above. Com- paratively httle is known from personal observation of the religious character of the movement during the years which elapsed between their first taking up arms and their contact with foreigners at Nan- king, Soochow, and Ningpo. When I reached China I found that some experienced missionaries were disposed to regard the movement with some hope, notwithstanding the excesses of the T'aip'ings. But the opinion of one of the most sober of these observers, at first favourably inclined, was that the rebels at Ningpo, whom I describe below — and the same was true, it is to be feared, of the T'aip'ings everywhere, at that period — had no real refigion, were worse than the heathen, and lacked almost entirely those two bright features in the Chinese character, education and poHteness.
The great conquering horde advanced from its point of vantage in Nanking. In 1854, with two streams of war, one issuing from Nganking and one from Nanking, the rebels moved northwards, and reached a town only seventy miles from Peking, where they encamped and went into winter quarters. Here, with final victory almost in sight, the Tartar
32 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
horsemen under the leadership of San-ko-lin-sin checked the further advance of the rebels. Return- ing slowly, and capturing city after city in Chihli, Shantung, Shansi, and Honan, the T'aip'ings were at length beleaguered in Nanking by imperialist forces. Though hard pressed and on short rations, and crippled by the terrific fights among the followers of the different subordinate kings in Nanking, when thirty thousand were slain by violence and stratagem, yet in March 1860 they suddenly broke through the cordon ; and then followed the most brilliant achieve- ment of their long campaigns. They rapidly ad- vanced, a comparatively small body and in light marching order, on Hangchow, and stormed and sacked that city. Then, after three days of pillage and bloodshed, and the spectacle of the governor hanging himself in despair over one of the city gates — scenes described to me by an eye-witness, who himself narrowly escaped death — the T'aip'ings evacuated the city, wheeled round, and passed at a long distance the imperialist host lumbering heavily in pursuit ; and when the imperialists arrived at Hangchow to find the city desolate, the victorious rebels had reached Nanking. By a sudden assault they swept away the half-defended imperialist forts and encampments, and annihilated for the time being the government's power in that region, seventy thousand soldiers laying down their arms and joining the rebel host. Soochow then, with a large part of the province of Kiangsu, fell under their sway.
In 1861 two auxihary armies, one apparently from Soochow and the other from the south-west,
THE T^AIP'ING REBELLION, 1861-1864 33
moving down the Tsintang River, invaded the fair province of Chekiang. They were determined to supply the pressing want of a seaport, and eager to establish friendly intercourse with western powers, a hope which seemed impossible of realisa- tion at Shanghai, through the hostile attitude assumed by foreigners there. After their repulse from Ningpo and expulsion from Chekiang, which T am about to relate, they swept through Kiangsi into Fukien ; and thus from first to last thirteen out of the eighteen provinces of China proper felt their power, and the blighting influence of their presence. It has been estimated that an area of twenty-six thousand square miles, representing twelve hundred miles of latitude and six hundred miles of longitude, was traversed by the T'aip'ing rebels, and that twenty million lives were sacrificed in the struggle.
When I reached Ningpo in August 1861, the city had recently been inspected by Captain Goodenough, R.N., and some formidable pieces of English ord- nance were placed by him on the walls. Even then great anxiety was felt in the city and country as to the approaching storm. Shortly after my arrival I went for a ten days' trip into the country with my brother George, afterwards Bishop in Mid-China, one of the very few surviving witnesses of the events which I relate, to visit some of our country stations, and especially the city of Yiiyao, thirty miles inland, where it was proposed that I should reside and work. The beauty of the country in those calm October days I can never forget, set as that beauty was in vivid and pathetic loveliness against the
c
34 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
black cloud of apprehension and panic rising and mounting China's sky. The second rice-crop — the first had already been garnered in early August — lay in deep yellow-brown masses covering the plain and running into the lower hill- valleys, and along the upland terraces. The hills, with infinite variety of formation, were bright with autumn flowers — wild pinks, gentians, bluebells, and the blossoms of the tea-plant — and the trees in the persimmon- groves were hung with red and yellow fruit ; while over all stretched the clear blue arch of the sky. But nothing could be more pathetic than the expres- sion of gnawing anxiety and tyrannous suspense which we noticed on all sides. Every village we visited greeted us with the eager questions : ' Are they really coming ? ' 'Is there any fear ? ' * Need we fly ? ' ' Whither shall we go to escape the " long-haired " ? ' What could we reply so far as human hopes and help were concerned ? Yet these poor people had time to listen to our message, and to show true Chinese courtesy and friendliness. xA.s we passed through a small village we noticed an old man who had climbed a persimmon tree with the help of a ladder and was busy picking the fruit. ' Will you sell us a few ? ' we called to him. ' Sell ? ' he replied ; ' take some, and welcome ' ; and he deftly threw some down for us to catch. We thanked him, but as we parted with a few^ words of farewell we little thought that in a few months' time that harmless, peaceful village would be burnt, and, as they told us near, all the inhabitants put to the sword by the ruthless invaders.
It is difficult to imagine the probable fate of the
THE T'AIP'ING REBELLION, 1861-1864 35
fishing industry in Ningpo and the neighbourhood during the T'aip'ing occupation. Ningpo is reckoned as third in the great fish-markets of the world, London and Nagasaki alone preceding it in import- ance. A fleet of ten thousand sail plies up and down the coast, and many of the boats are employed in deep-sea fishing. It is a wonderful sight when some two thousand of them in company start under sail for their fishing-grounds. Was there desolation here when the markets were ruined by the T'aip'ings on shore, and all business in great waters paralysed by the pirates, freed from all control ?
When we retiu"ned to Ningpo we found a panic in the strong city itself. T'aip'ing spies had been discovered and arrested, and some with great shout- ing were executed on the parade-ground in front of our house. It was known that the rebel hosts were on the move, that Shaohing was threatened, and that the avowed intention of the leaders was to attack Ningpo. The city walls looked brave and warlike, with fluttering flags all round the six miles' circuit ; but no display of bunting, no amount of cannon or musket-practice, not the sight of the familiar river and broad moats washing and pro- tecting the walls, not the further line of defence, the hundred miles of the embracing hills, could check the panic and arrest the sad and headlong exodus which now commenced, and ceased not till the city fell in December, when, out of the original four hundred thousand inhabitants, there remained scarcely twenty thousand within the walls. Numbers fled by junks and lorchas to Shanghai, and a large proportion of these fell a prey to the pirate fleets
36 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
hovering round the Chusan islands. Others fled to the hills and country villages, where many of them met a worse fate than those who stayed in the city. November, generally clear and bright, was wet and cold and gloomy, and it was an in- expressibly melancholy sight to watch the crowds of fugitives hurrying through the dripping streets with despair on their faces. The crowding was so great that on the 2nd of November a woman was crushed to death crossing the old bridge of boats. We began to lay in stores as for a siege ; rice, and all provisions which always follow the lead of rice, rose in price, and one week the Mexican dollar exchange in copper cash reached eighteen hundred instead of the average eleven hundred cash to a dollar. 1 On the 3rd of November news arrived of the fall of Shaohing ; on the 5th, the gates of Ningpo were shut early, and so every succeeding day until they were opened by the T'aip'ings them- selves. On the 6th, Lieutenant Huxham, R.N., and his officers rode round the wall at the request of the Chinese Protection Guild, and the rumour spread at once that a thousand redcoats were coming to protect the city. But on the 9th Sir Frederick Bruce having sent positive orders not to interfere with the T'aip'ings, and the French consul having refused help in consequence of a quarrel with the Chinese admiral, the panic and the mad exodus resumed their disastrous course. The unfortunate
^ It may be interesting here to notice the great depreciation of silver during the last fifty years. The Mexican dollar, which changes now for less than two shillings, was worth in 1861 from four and sixpence to four and tenpence.
THE T'AIP'ING REBELLION, 1861-1864 37
authorities did their best to put the city in a state of defence, especially by strengthening the inner- most bulwark, the solid walls. On the 9th of November, when walking on the broad top of the walls, we observed bamboo cranes, fitted with ropes and pulleys, ready to let down heavy beams of wood, bristling with iron or wooden spikes, on the heads of the assailants. On the 22nd it was reported that Funghwa, a district city to the south-west, less than thirty miles distant, had been taken by a great contingent of rebels under Fan, second-in-command, and a man of great energy and courage. The main body under Wang was advancing on Yiiyao and Ts'zch'i to the north-west. On the 24th a terrible and ominous calamity occurred. The apron-strings of a man working in a gunpowder factory acci- dentally caught fire, and the whole place blew up. Thirtj^ or forty men were fearfully burnt, and scarcely any recovered, though tenderly nursed and doctored by my brother and two missionar}^ friends. Nineteen members of one family were amongst the sufferers, and a grandfather, son, and grandson lay close to one another. The owner of the magazine, driven mad by his calamities, threw himself into the canal, but was rescued just in time. A hundred days before this event a similar explosion had destroyed another of his sheds. He went into the country with his family, and the house where they were staying was burnt down. He had returned to the city that very day to look after his business when the second explosion took place. But such sorrows and calamities were soon swallowed up in the great flood of misery coming
38 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
in as by an earthquake wave. On the 25th of November Yiiyao fell, and a great fire in the south- west alarmed us at night. Next day we heard that three thousand houses had been destroyed by that fire, and that the rebels might be on us by noon. Two Englishmen arrived on this day from the country. They had seen the rebel chiefs, and brought papers with them stating that if foreigners left the rebels alone they would be unmolested. On the 29th I left the city and crossed to the north bank of the river, in accordance with the consul's direction that all who could not speak Chinese fluently should quit their intramural residences. We crossed the river daily, however, and entered the city for Chinese study until two days before the city fell. On this same day, the 29th of November, the gunboat Kestrel, with the consuls on board, steamed up the main branch of the river to Yiiyao to hold a parley with the rebel chiefs. Suddenly we saw vast columns of smoke rise to the north- west, evidently from the proud and rich city of Ts'zch'i, only twelve miles off. At nightfall we heard that the Ts'ing-tau-kwun, a Taoist temple, which was the glory and the pride and the luck of all that region, had been burnt to the ground. Now, by the Ningpo Taotai's order, houses in the north and east gate suburbs were fired, lest they should afford shelter to the enemy. The crash as they fell one after another sounded ominous on the evening air. That fire blazed unchecked for nearly a fort- night, and the whole of the rich suburb from the east gate to the old bridge of boats was swept away. The Kestrel on her return brought ample
THE T'AIP'ING REBELLION, 1861-1864 39
promises from the T'aip'ing leaders that the foreign settlement should not be touched, nor foreigners molested, nor the people wantonly put to the sword ; promises which, considering the untamed rabble composing the conquering army, were for a time fairly well observed.
On the 1st of December a Chinese well known to us appeared, in a sedan-chair carried by four bearers, at Mr. (afterwards Bishop) Russell's house. He had come with almost foolhardy bravery as a messenger from Luh Sin-Ian, a merchant at Tsz'ch'i, purveyor to the British forces which occupied Ningpo under Sir Hugh Gough in 1844, a sworn friend of foreigners, and now compelled by the T'aip'ings to govern his native city for them. This city, though it had opened its gates to the invaders and had welcomed them by a submissive deputation, was half destroyed by wanton incendiarism. Luh Sin-Ian had sent our Chinese friend at the imminent risk of his head, with rebel uniform actually worn under his outer robe, to buy silk for his master and deliver letters to Mr. Russell, requesting the loan of his pony on which to ride in triumph to the city, and announcing the near approach of a hundred thousand ' brothers.' Mr. Russell, with a mixture of ready wit and truest courage, seated himself in the chair, made the messenger fall in behind as a servant, and, riding thus, saw him safe beyond the imperialist lines. Luh Sin-Ian subsequently became Taotai of Ningpo, and did what he could to keep faith with foreigners, sending them warning of the final act of hostility and treachery. Eventually, to our profound shame and distress, he met with
40 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
a sad and tragic end after the expulsion of the T*aip'ings whom he had unwiUingly served. When Ningpo was retaken in 1862 the old man took refuge on board Captain Roderick Dew's ship. His safety was guaranteed by the British, but he pre- sumed too far on the good faith of the new imperialist magistrates in the city, and, though often warned, he walked freely about the streets. He called on his English friends, leaving presents of the delicious arbutus fruit, ripe in July, till one day he was decoyed into the chief ya7nen of the city. His message of earnest entreaty for some foreigners to come and help him was delivered too late, and when help did arrive Lull Sin-Ian was already dead by the treacherous stroke of the men whom his foreign friends had rescued from the merciless T'aip*ings.
On the 7th of December we crossed the ferry as usual and went into the city, and made pretence to study the language ; but application to study was not easy with the Chinese teacher himself trembling and shaking in his chair, and the air full of rumour and alarm. The peril was near indeed. A knock was heard at my brother's door, and a missionary ran in to say that the T'aip'ings in force had been sighted outside the west gate, called ' the gate look- ing towards the capital,' and that as the city gates were being shut we must run for it, if we were to reach the settlement in time. We started at once. There was a great tumult at the Salt Gate, ' the gate of peace and righteousness.' Soldiers were trying to keep back the panic-stricken crowd, and to shut to the great leaves of the city gate. As we
THE T'ATPING REBELLION, 1861-1864 41
hurried up the heavy cross-bar of the gate sHpped out of a soldier's hand, and fell close to my wife's head, a merciful escape from certain death. Our missionary friend, who had warned us of our danger, followed half an hour later, and was let down over the wall in a basket. He had been the first to descry through his binoculars from the west gate the pennons of the advancing host. He handed the field-glass to the imperialist commandant at his side. The old soldier gazed, and then with the cry 'AhyahV and, louder and yet louder, 'Ahyah, ahyah !' he returned the glass and prepared for the worst. On the 8th of December, a still, fine day, Avith haze covering the distant hills, we heard heavy firing from the southern side of the city. The rebel hosts were preparing for assault ; and, as they showed themselves from time to time, the imperialist gunners brought their guns to bear, and tired. A loud report duly followed, and the boom on the still air sounded formidable, but the fire was for the most part absolutely harmless. The balls, too small, or rammed carelessly home, rolled out as the gun was depressed, and dropped tamely on to the ground before the roar of the explosion. We attended service in the north bank church that morning, Sunday, the 8th of December. The preacher was late, and some one else began the service. Presently he appeared, not a little hurried and excited, and no wonder, for the rebel chief commanding outside the north gate, ' the gate of everlasting prosperity,' had called at his house, and as they walked together along the river bank they were descried by the garrison-soldiers, who instantly
42 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
fired, this time without the necessity of depressing the gun, as it was at a distance, and a ball came whizzing over their heads. On the 9th of December we rose early, and watched first the awful fire at the east gate, which was still blazing. Suddenly we saw flags waved on the wall near the Salt Gate, which was just opposite to our house. The rumour reached us that the T'aip'ings had stormed success- fully in the early morning, and had secured a foot- ing on the south wall. Then a friend ran in with great excitement to say that he had seen them storm the north gate also. Two Cantonese war- junks which had been lying near that gate hastily weighed anchor, and with a harmless parting shot of cowardly defiance hurried down the river on the ebb-tide, and did not return for five months, and then only under the stern of British war-ships. We watched from our verandah, and saw horsemen with gay colours shouting and careering along the river bank from the direction of the north gate. Suddenly they reined up and walked their horses slowly and cautiously. The British gunboat Hardy had her 72-pound pivot gun run out in a threaten- ing manner. She was silent ; they passed out of range, and then with a shout they galloped on to the Salt Gate, to find it open for them. The north gate was so strongly stockaded that, though the city had fallen and the defenders had fled, they could not at once enter by that gate. Just beyond, on the face of the wall connecting the north and west gates, a short but brilliant fight had given the city to the T'aip'ings. The storming-party had noticed the great beams of wood prepared for their
THE T'AIP*ING REBELLION, 1861-1864 43
destruction, and, ransacking the houses near, they secured tables with thick mattresses and coverlets spread over them. They then swam the moat, a hundred yards across, floating these tables with their scaling ladders by their side, rushed under the walls, and received unharmed the beams on the wadded tables, using them Hke the Roman testudo, wherever the garrison had the heart to lower them. In an instant the ladders were fixed, and the T'aip'ings like wild cats had mounted the Avail. The garrison with a yell broke up and fled, and throwing off their outer jackets, their only imperialist uniform, rushed in among the terrified crowds in the streets, hoping thus to escape the sword. Soon we heard one of the church bells rung violently in the city, a pre- concerted signal in case of imminent danger. Two of the missionaries crossed at once, and returned after some time with strange and stirring tidings. The slaughter in the city Avas not very great, though many dead bodies were seen ; but the rebel bands, consisting largely of lads trained to bloodshed from childhood, foreboded grave danger. iNlost of the mission-houses had been entered, and the churches broken into ; and our own mission-house, where my brother was on guard alone, was overrun by these wild and eager visitors. Our mission school-boys were tied queue to queue, and were being led off not for slaughter but for training in slaughter. Several valuable articles were stolen, and but for the arrival of one of the rebel leaders, known as ' Little Looking-Glass,' and who knew foreigners well, violence would have followed. Some of the Chinese converts were carried off from the streets or
44 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
from the chapels where they had taken refuge ; and only the bold attitude of the missionaries Russell and Burdon, who guarded the house where Mrs. Russell was still remaining with her girl-pupils inside the city, prevented violence there also.
THE T'AIP'ING REBELLION: ITS CLOSE AND CONSEQUENCES
CHAPTER III
THE T*AIP'ING REBELLION : ITS CLOSE AND CONSEQUENCES
On the 10th of December I went into the city and spent three days and nights with my brother. We were undisturbed as we passed through the streets from the Salt Gate to the Little Parade-Ground mission-house, our home. But the men whom we met with shaggy heads (the T'aip'ings abandoned the queue to let their hair grow long : hence their common name the chang-mao or 'long-haired'), and with drawn swords and variegated uniforms, looked ready for any outrage at the shortest notice on a bold leader's signal. I found a soldier sitting in our hall, and subsequently squatting by our dining- room fire to warm himself. He had been stationed there by the ' kings ' to warn off intruders.
In the afternoon Mr. (afterwards Sir Harry) Parkes called, and Captain Corbett of the Scout. Sir Harry had come to interview the T'aip'ing leaders, and he gave the chiefs Wang and Fan so vigorous and idiomatic an address as to excite their mingled rage, astonishment and admiration. It is probable that this exhortation led the T'aip'ing leaders to facilitate the removal to the settlement of all the foreign residents within the city, and also to connive at the flight, under the protection of the
48 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
missionaries, of a large number of refugees, both Christian and heathen.
This process of uprooting and removal occupied the next ten days. They were days of great anxiety and no little danger. I spent most of the time in the city with my brother and our colleagues in planning and carrying out this exodus. I was told off to convey to the veteran missionary, Mr. Hudson, the consul's and the admiral's orders for the evacua- tion of the city. On reaching the mission-house near the east gate I found it shut fast and barri- caded. After long delay the old gentleman came down from his fortress, and let me in. He demurred strongly to carrying out the order I had brought him, and proposed to obey it at his leisure. ' See,' he said, ' my house is full of refugees ; I cannot abandon these poor people, and how can I ever get them all safely out of the clutches of these ruffians ? ' He then related to me a recent experience of his. On the morning of the capture of the city he was conducting prayers with these refugees, thirty or forty in number. He sat with his back to the door ; and hearing the door open, he was surprised at the look of horror which passed suddenly over the faces of his audience. He turned and saw T'aip*ing soldiers with drawn swords at the door. He then rose, bowed low to his visitors, informed them that he was engaged in divine worship, and begged them to enter. ' But stay,' he said, ' these poor people are timid, and the sight of your weapons renders them nervous and uncomfortable ; kindly allow me to take charge of them for you.' So with the utmost courtesy he disarmed them, locked up the
THE T'AIP'ING REBELLION: ITS CLOSE 49
swords in an inner room, and made the soldiers sit down. He then gave the whole audience a long expository discourse, and finally, returning the swords to the soldiers, he begged them to act gently and justly towards the people, and not to come back and frighten his flock. They left without any violence or insult, and with many expressions of approbation. Mr. Hudson eventually left the city, walking very deliberately, and his whole company were safely landed on the further bank of the river. During the second night which I spent in the cit}^ my brother and I were alarmed at eleven o'clock by a disturbance at the back of the house. Presently a gentle knock was heard. We opened the door very cautiously, fearing some armed intruder, but Ave were met only by a young Chinese and his wife, standing there trembling. They had scaled our garden wall, got down into the well by the stone-stepped sides, and there had stayed listening in terror and without food for two days and two nights. They then climbed out and asked for our protection. Three days later I started with one of the passes granted by the T'aip'ing chiefs for our people to be transferred to the settlement. We interpreted the phrase ' our people ' very freely, so that this young couple and two men and a boy besides, all non-Christians, formed ni}^ party. All went well till we reached the Salt Gate, when a burly T'aip'ing ran after us, seized me by the shoulder, broke a stick over the backs of the men, and ordered them and the woman back, declaring that we should not go out. My little band were terrified and wanted to return ; but with indignant and, I fear, not very
50 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
idiomatic Chinese, I told the man who I was, and that they were my people, and that I had permis- sion from his chiefs, and that I would go. The man was obstinate and shouted loudly, and I was not a little alarmed, but we moved forward and the great T'aip'ing let us go. Having seen my poor trembling friends safely into the ferry-boat, I returned into the city alone, and looked with some apprehension for my gigantic assailant to appear, but he did not trouble me.
After this event it was arranged that foreigners should never venture out alone in charge of refugees. We were able first and last to rescue hundreds of people from misery, oppression, and danger in the city. Special refuges were provided in the settle- ment. I was appointed treasurer, and received hearty co-operation and liberal help from the merchants. On one occasion an American friend and I took out a party of fifty-five men, women and children, who had been up to that date housed in one of the American mission-chapels. There was a great downpour of rain, and the streets were flooded ; much to our discomfort, as it appeared at the time, but really much to our advantage, for the rain kept the soldiers indoors. I led the van, and my friend had the post of honour in the rear. To excite pity, and also to ensure his OA\ai safet}^ a Chinese dwarf marched just behind me at the head of the column. He was nearly drowned in the deep pools, but eventually we all got safely out of the city. To show the absolute security in which the T'aip'ings lived at this time, and their contempt for the risk of imperialist attack, I relate the follow-
THE T'AIP'ING REBELLION; ITS CLOSE 51
ing incident. A friend and I were late one evening in entering the city, and found the gates shut. FaiHng to make any one hear we procured a ladder, scaled the wall, and descended into the city, and met no one all along the streets, except a harmless lad.
On the 20th of December we finally evacuated the city. Mrs. Russell was escorted over the river by Captain Corbett and the English consular authori- ties ; and from that day till the 26th of May 1862 we were shut out from our houses, and our work was at a standstill.
An old beggar-woman, well known in the streets of Ningpo, met with a melancholy fate about this time. She had saved after long years of begging some seventy or eighty dollars. These beloved pieces of silver she feared to take away, and could not abandon — where her treasure lay, there her heart was also. So she hid them in a coffin which she had managed to buy in her deep poverty and had (according to a common Chinese custom) deposited in her hovel. She closed the lid care- fully, and then resumed an air of abject poverty and misery. But a mischievous neighbour, through a chink in the wooden partition-wail, had seen all this. He went off, and undertook to lead some T'aip'ings to a treasure if they would allow him to share in the spoil. They consented ; and the party went straight to the coffin, rifled it, and then left the poor old woman to hobble out of the city, and die in misery under the wall.
Strangely fell our Christmas Eve in 1861. The city and neighbourhood seemed fairly quiet ; so at
52 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
the consular interpreter's invitation I went with a friend to search for holly. We were late in starting, and had not allowed sufficient daylight for our adventure. We crossed the city, and when near the south gate we met Fan, the second in command, on horseback. He was well mounted, and looked full of energy, and a thorough soldier. He reined up, and wanted to know what we were doing. We replied that we were going for a walk, and so with a friendly salutation he passed on. This brave and able leader (though some say he was a braggart) was shot dead at the recapture of the city on the 10th of May. We were soon benighted, and had despaired of finding the holly, when my companion, who was in front, discovered it by running his head into a holly-bush. We cut off boughs in the dark- ness, and were delighted on reaching home to find quantities of berries on them. But the desolation of the country was terrible, and we saw great numbers of dead bodies. We had found our holly, but we had lost our way. We saw a solitary light in a village which was almost deserted. When we knocked at the door an old man came out. ' Could he lend us a lantern ? ' ' Yes, but he had no candle.' He then kindly offered to guide us, and further on in an old temple, which had for some reason been unharmed in the general destruction of all idol-temples (though the Confucian temples were spared), we secured a candle. The state of Chekiang and most of the thirteen ravaged provinces of China could best be described in the words of Isaiah : ' Here cometh a troop of men ; the city is fallen, and all the graven images of gods are broken
THE T'AIP'ING REBELLION: ITS CLOSE 53
to the ground.' Our walk home was one of real peril. As we passed under the walls we heard the watch being set and the guard changed twenty feet above us. Had they seen or heard us walking by, they would in all probability have stoned us, or fired on us as spies. We reached home at last at 8 P.M. ; and both our own rooms and the gunboat on which I took service next day were adorned with our hard-won holly.
The rebel chiefs at first were anxious to maintain order, and many soldiers were beheaded when caught in the act of plundering. A soldier, arrested by foreigners in committing an outrage on some poor neighbours, was executed instan- taneously on the parapet of a bridge by order of a rebel chief. I can see him now as he passed by through the parade-ground, led off by the foreigners for trial ; neither they nor I anticipated the speedy vengeance which fell upon him. The next day another man was caught under similar circum- stances, and the captor, shrinking from the responsi- bility of leading him to certain death, produced a stout stick, and summoning an inferior officer of the T'aip'ings bade him belabour the private, if he did not wish him to be beheaded. The officer did his part so thoroughly that the private howled for mercy.
Early in 1862 symptoms of dissatisfaction and unfriendliness showed themselves amongst the forces in the city. The chiefs hoped to be able to control the Customs since they had seized the port ; but foreigners demurred to paying any customs at all under such a nondescript regime, and of
54 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
native traders there were none. None, that is to say, in the ordinary lines of the great junk and lorcha trade between Ningpo and Shanghai, and along the coast-line southwards ; but a mischievous and at the time illegal trade in fire-arms flourished. Before the rebel inroad Ningpo had been a great receiving and forwarding place for tea and silk for the foreign and coast markets, and the harbour was full of clippers, loading with Ningpo cotton for Liverpool, the American supply being cut off by the Civil War, so that a serious cotton famine was prevailing in the north of England.
The chiefs had promised to restrain their men from visiting the settlement, so as to avoid com- plications ; but small bands persisted in crossing the river, and they were treated with unnecessary roughness and even violence in the settlement, and the friction and irritation increased. On the 13th of January Admiral Sir James Hope arrived, and a salute was fired when the consul called on board the admiral's ship. The T'aip'ings were greatly excited at this, one result of which was violent stone- throwing from the walls, from which I narrowly escaped injury. Earlier than this, as we heard subsequently from a man who had spent four months in the city, the rebels were greatly alarmed by the minute-guns which were fired when the news of the Prince Consort's death arrived.
Dark days indeed they were for us all ; for just at this time war between England and the United States (already convulsed by the Federal and Con- federate internecine conflict) hung in the balance of ominous uncertainty. This was the winter also of
THE T'AIP'ING REBELLION : ITS CLOSE 55
a great snowstorm, a phenomenon which the people of Ningpo connect with the advent of big ships of war, a similar snowfall having occurred when the English seized and occupied Ningpo in the winter of 1843. The weather was intensely cold, the thermometer standing at only thirteen degrees above zero in my room, with a fire burning all night. The severit}^ of the weather kept the T*aip'ings quiet for a time, but they observed the 20th of January, Hung Siu-ts'iian's birthday, with great noise and display. The weather could not numb English energy, for we played hockey on the ice which covered the broad moat near the north gate. In February rumours abounded. San-ko-lin-sin, the great cavalry leader of the north, was reported as near at hand with a quarter of a million men, but he never appeared.
The people themselves, however, began to \\rithe and struggle under the incubus of their oppressive rulers. On the fine plateau of Ta-lan-san, the ' Great Mist Mountain,' three or four thousand feet high, native patriotic levies, the White Caps, were gathering and drilling. (The name Ta-lan-san corre- sponds to that of the African Ruwcnzori, the great mist-hidden line of mountains, six times higher than the Chekiang hills.) The rebels generally suc- ceeded in breaking up and destroying these com- binations, and the acts of vengeance and bloodshed among the beautiful western hills no one can fuUy describe, for very few survived. I heard, however, from one who escaped, what her experience was, an experience which was but one instance out of a countless multitude. With her children clasped
56 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
to her bosom this woman rolled herself down a hillside so precipitous that the pursuers dared not follow ; and thus, shaken and bruised and half- dead, she escaped from their ruthless hands. These children in early days repeated Scripture to me many a time ; and recently, as grown women, came to bid me farewell on my last return to England on furlough.
But once at least, and that some time before the roar of English guns was heard, the White Caps triumphed savagely over their hated foes. There is a pass over which I have often walked in spring- time, the stillness broken only by the notes of the cuckoo, or the tinkle of the mountain streams, or the stroke of the woodman's axe on the hillside, or the creak of the water-wheels in the rice-flats lower down. This pass and the great curve of lofty hills which sweep round and prevent the possibility of turning it, rang once with shouts and groans, and the stone path was red with blood. ' Little Looking- Glass ' was advancing with the intention of pene- trating into the rich valleys to the east of this pass. The White Caps assembled in force, and as the T'aip'ings wound round the zigzag path which climbs the pass, they rolled down great rocks, and pelted the soldiers with stones from the summit. The rebel musketry fire was of little avail, as the White Caps had shelter behind crags and walls. The battle raged for some time ; but at last, three hundred of their number having been maimed or killed outright, the rest broke and fled, ' Little Looking-Glass ' himself narrowly escaping with his life. He soon returned, however, with a strong
THE T'AIP'ING REBELLION : ITS CLOSE 57
body from Ningpo, and his vengeance was savagely complete. A town of ten thousand people, where we have since carried on mission- work, was burnt down, and the whole of the long, lovely valley, twelve miles in extent, bowery with mulberry groves, was blasted by lire, and the precious trees were cut down. The manner of warfare described above is suited to the region, where the steep hillsides and lofty summits tower above the pass ; one summit near is called ' The plot close to heaven.' The tragedy in the Great Valley recalls Southey's lines in Roderick : —
* Forthwith On either side, along the whole defile, The Asturians, shouting in the name of God, Set the whole ruin loose ! Huge trunks and stones And loosened crags, down, down they rolled, with rush And bound and thundering force. From end to end of that long strait the crash Was heard continuous, and commixt with sounds More dreadful — shrieks of horror, and despair And death — the wild and agonising cry Of that whole host in one destruction whelmed.
Echo prolonged The long uproar ; a silence then ensued, Through which the sound of Deva's voice was heard, A lonely voice of waters wild and sweet.'
A similar catastrophe occurred, though in this case, so says Herodotus, through supernatural agency, when the Persians, during Xerxes' invasion of Greece, made an unsuccessful attack on Delphi.
But the time of deliverance was drawing on. The T'aip'ings daily committed acts of impudence or violence at Ningpo. They stoned the vice-
58 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
consur.s house under the city wall ; they fired a shot into the mission-house in which we had earlier been lodged, and other bullets entered the girls' school- room. They threatened a missionary with a spear, and were only deterred from violence by his defend- ing himself with his stout walking-stick. On the 26th of March I was deputed to accompany Mr. Burdon (afterwards Bishop of Victoria) with a large cargo of rice sent by friends in Hongkong for the relief of our Christians in the country. We had a rough time, our boat being stoned twice by the rebels at the inland custom barriers, but we accomplished our object without serious mishap. We found the populous and beautiful Sanpeh plain groaning under the yoke of the oppressor. While I was sketching on a hill-top, some of the people came up to watch and to talk. ' The T'aip'ings,' they said, ' are taxing us in an exorbitant manner ; seven cash a day for a youth, ten cash for an adult ; and off with your head and down with your house in flames if you refuse to pay ! The T'aip'ings ! they can never pacify the empire or found a d3rnasty ; only you English can do that.' We spent a Sunday at our mission-station. It was a strange experience. The earliest convert, who had himself, before he became a Christian, led a riot against the Christians in his native town, was now, as a man of substance and influence, urged and almost commanded hj the rebels to take office under them. What should he do ? Mr. Burdon was ill and had lost his voice ; and I, with scarcely five months' acquaintance with Chinese, had to take the service and exhort and guide the people as best I could. Outside the door
THE T'AIP'ING REBELLION: ITS CLOSE 59
the T'aip'iiig soldiers were passing armed, and when we left it was with sad apprehension as to the fate of Sanpeh. This glorious plain was fearfully ravaged later when the rebels were exasperated by their defeats at the hands of foreigners and by the native rising. I have myself seen ponds and pools which had been filled not long before with the bodies of women and girls who had drowned themselves to escape from T'aip'ing hands. But I shall never forget my surprise, as we returned in the soft sunshine of the spring afternoon, at the cheerful call of a countryman ploughing his fields, unmoved, as it seemed, by the desolation around him, or by the fear of coming evil.
And now the crisis rapidly approached, and rumours, and then grave peril gathered thick and fast. Round Shanghai the danger was great. The French admiral Protet was killed in a sortie against the T'aip'ings, and the English admiral was wounded. The T'aip'ing soldiers in Ningpo, expecting an attack daily, were said to be tying up their booty in bundles as if for flight. On the 23rd of April, Fan, the second-in-command, returned from Nan- king with great triumph and jubilation. He had gone thither to lay at the foot of the ' throne ' a report of the capture of Ningpo and of the occupa- tion of Chekiang, and he returned with the title of wang or king for himself and for his senior comrade in arms. The ebbing tide was rushing fast ; and the sight of a hundred and more gaily- decorated boats sweeping past us, with the garrison turned out at the east gate to welcome their ' king,' was striking and ominous. Loud salutes were
60 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
fired, and, not for the first or last time, with ball- cartridge. We saw the little French gunboat UEtoile, which lay at anchor near the east gate, in commotion. Her big gun was run out and loaded. Had she fired, it might have been the death-knell of foreigners on the settlement side, and of the crowd of Chinese refugees. No wonder the Frenchman was excited. Three Chinese were killed by that volley of salute, and a score of bullets passed over the gunboat. But evening fell ; the jubilant T'aip'ings withdrew inside the city ; and the crisis passed.
The next day I went into the city with my brother to visit our houses. No harm befell us, but I was heartily thankful to get safely out again. Three days later the corvette Encounter, mounting twelve guns, and the gunboat Hardy steamed up the river from Shanghai, with Captain Roderick Dew in command. He was the bearer of an ultimatum from the British admiral, and an offer of terms to the T'aip'ings. We had just bidden farewell to Mr. and Mrs. Russell, who were compelled to return to England on furlough after fourteen years' con- tinuous work. The sailing-ship Harvest Home, with our friends on board, was dropping down the river when she met this little squadron steaming up. Mr. Russell could not restrain his anxious interest, and persuaded the captain to put him on shore and allow him to run back to inquire what the demonstration meant.
Captain Dew now (29th of April) communicated his instructions to the rebel chiefs. The well-built and well-armed fort which the T'aip'ings had erected
THE T'AIPING REBELLION : ITS CLOSE 61
outside the east gate, commanding the shipping and the settlement, was to be dismantled ; and the guns on the north-east wall, which also threatened the settlement, were to be dismounted. If these demands were complied with, then the British guaranteed to the T'aip'ings the peaceable possession of the city, and the prohibition of the threatened attack by Ahpack's piratical fleet. The offer was made in good faith. Captain Dew called at our house the same day, and told us that he had offered fair terms, and that the rebels would be very foolish if they rejected them. ' But,' he added, ' I can't be sure what they will decide ; and I hope the ladies will not then be startled if they hear a little noise of guns at two o'clock in the morning.' On the 30th the rebel chiefs scornfully rejected Captain Dew's proposal. They claimed the settlement as belonging to the ' Heavenly King.' ' Come on, you Dew ! ' said Fan ; ' and let us see which is cock and which is hen.' And the captain came on. A price of a hundred dollars was set by the rebels on every foreigner's head. All residents on the south bank were now ordered to leave and cross to the north bank. The ships of war took up their posi- tions. The Encounter anchored off the Salt Gate ; the despatch-boat Ringdove at the north gate ; the Chinese gunboat Confucius, manned by IMalays, and the French gunboat UEtoile at the east gate ; while the British gunboats Kestrel and Ilardij were under steam. Boats with muffled oars patrolled the river to give notice of any sudden attack on the settlement. As I write, after the lapse of nearly half a century, I can see their gleam through the
62 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
darkness of the night, and just catch the sound of the oars' touch on the water. We had a native boat moored near our house, and were prepared to move the ladies and children at a moment's notice, the scull being kept in the house lest the boatman should make off with his boat. We kept the night watches in turn. My watch was from 1 to 3 a.m. Suddenly I saw a bright light blaze out near the east gate, and I called my brother. The light died out. Then I heard — I could hardly be mistaken — the shout, swelling on the night wind, of the rebels advancing, as we feared they would, from the sea- board which they held, to attack the settlement in the rear. I listened once more before giving a second false alarm, and found that it was merely the full cry of multitudes of frogs in the paddy- fields. My watch was relieved at 3 a.m., and at 4 we were called up to see what appeared to be a rocket or lantern-kite, sent up as a signal in the eastern sky. We looked again, and it was the morn- ing star shining through rifts in the flying clouds.
On the 1st of May, much to the annoyance of the merchants, who were disposed, I think, to minimise the danger, all merchantmen (of which there were thirty or forty sail in the river) were ordered two miles down stream, out of the way of fire-rafts, and to give the men-of-war room to manoeuvre and fire. On the 2nd the T'aip'ings parleyed : they would brick up the embrasures of the fort and on the wall, but they would not remove the guns. On the 8th word was secretly sent by Luh Sin-Ian to a family still lingering on the south bank, to leave immediately, as an attack was planned that night.
THE T'AIP'ING REBELLION: ITS CLOSE 63
The imperialist Taotai, after capturing Cliinhai at the river mouth, was creeping up the river under the shelter of the English ships, and he had announced a counter-attack for 3 a.m. on the 9th of May. The missionaries drew up two petitions, one to the English admiral and one to the Taotai^ begging them to prevent cruelty and bloodshed as far as possible. A proclamation had already been issued ordering the people to shave their heads once more after the five months of non-shaving in accordance with the T'aip'ing custom and command, this com- mand being a protest against the foreign Tartar dynasty, which had imposed shaving of the head and wearing of the long queue as a badge of sub- jection. This proclamation was premature, and it caused disaster in many places, the shaved heads falling by rebel swords, and the vacillating or unshaven heads by imperialist cruelty. 1 took the news of the expected attack to Captain Dew, but he thought, with the ships placed as they were, such an attack was unlikely. The threatened fight on the 9th did not take place, and an uncertain rumour flew about to the eft'ect that the T'aip'ings were abandoning their bombast and defiance, and were prepared to come to terms.
This was but a feint, however, and the final attack was planned on both sides for the 10th of May. I rose at four o'clock, and watched. The Cantonese war-junks were slowly moving up with the fiood- tide. They slackened and anchored. The hour for attack, five o'clock, passed, and nothing occurred until nine o'clock. The junks were under way again : they dropped anchor under the bows of the Con-
64 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
fucius, and would go no further, nor engage the fort. Mr. Hewlett, interpreter to the consulate, went down in a gig, revolver in hand. He threatened to fire at the helmsman of the hindmost junk unless they advanced. They obeyed and slowly forged ahead. At half-past nine desultory shots were fired from the rebel fort. At 9.50, as we watched the densely-crowded battlements over the Salt Gate, two men sprang to the front, and sharp ringing musket-shots, aimed at the Encounter, were heard. In an instant she replied with a broadside. The Ringdove at the north gate joined in with the roar of her big guns. The gunboats engaged the east gate fort, and for over two hours the bombardment went on, without a pause and without any per- ceptible effect. The T'aip'ings fought their guns well : one gun in particular, on the wall nearly opposite, from which balls passed over our house and pitched splashing in the paddy-fields close by, was knocked over three times by the Encounter, and each time remounted. We saw a boy waving a red flag by the gun till he was struck, and sank down dead through the embrasure. At 1.30 the English ships which were under steam moved up near our house, and concentrated their fire on the Salt Gate, where the rebels were in full force. A strong party now landed from the Encounter and occupied a foreign house, recently inhabited by Mr. Hewlett and myself, just under the wall. The marines, stationed in the turret of this house, tried to clear the wall with their fire, but two of them soon fell, badly wounded. A field-piece was next landed, and its fire from the courtyard of the house
THE T'AIP'ING REBELLION : ITS CLOSE C5
knocked to pieces the brick battlements of the city wall. At 3 P.M. Captain Iloderick Dew led a storming-party, and was first on the wall. His lieutenants, Cornewall Lewis and Hugh Davis, were just behind him, and Lewis was instantly shot dead. Lieutenant Davis the next day described to me the scene. They were shoulder to shoulder, and actually touching one another ; and he felt the shock and shudder in his comrade's body as he was struck and fell. A marine and a bluejacket were killed at the same time. The gallant Captain Kenny of the French gunboat UEtoile was mortally wounded, but the storming-party gained a footing on the wall, and the T'aip'ings fell back. It was a perilous position. With the Ringdove storming- party of about thirty men, which had also gained the top of the wall, there were not two hundred Englishmen opposed to the rebel garrison, twenty thousand strong. We strained our eyes across the river, and saw to our dismay a dense column of the T'aip'ings advancing from the east gate to over- whelm the storming-parties ; and from behind the tombs inside the wall rebel sharpshooters were firing hotly. Captain Dew told me the following day that he thought for the moment that all was over. But just then the cooks and stewards of the Encounter, who were left, under Paymaster Swain, in charge of the ship (the bluejackets and marines having all left to join the storming-party), seeing their captain's danger, trained their big gun on the wall, and let fly a shell which burst between the opposing columns. The T'aip*ings wavered, broke, and fled.
E
66 HALF A CENTURY TN CHINA
Meanwhile, imperialist soldiers on the north bank, who had been brought up on board the Cantonese junks, slunk away, and dared not cross the river to enter and occupy the city, the chief gate of which had been opened for them. They had actually to be forced into boats by foreigners before they would venture. The day was fast wearing away ; the garrison was still at full strength ; and the grave fear was before us of a dark night in which the T'aip'ings might rally and drive out the insignificant force which had stormed the walls. But now the Kestrel, by a bold and skilful manoeuvre, gained the day. She had sixty-eight round-shot in her hull alone : one which struck only two inches from the boilers was given to me afterwards by the crew. Her rigging, too, was severely damaged, but she fought on, and, seeing the obstinacy of the T'aip*ings, steamed up the south branch of the river. As she was stopped by the chained bridge of boats, the key of which was in rebel hands, her boatswain with his men landed under a heavy musketry fire, cut through the chains with a cold chisel, and let the bridge swing apart. The Kestrel steamed on, till from the south angle of the city she shelled the west gate, the only available line of retreat for the T'aip'ings. The garrison, finding this exit also commanded by the British fire, cried out and fled, every one of them, in dire confusion.
It was now nightfall. Would they rally, and turn back and reoccupy the scarcely held city ? The imperialists were utterly unreliable, the English party wearied with the fight, the French captain mortally wounded, the city on fire in many places.
THE T'AIP'ING REBELLION: ITS CLOSE 67
The night passed darkly and doubtfully for us, but it passed in safety. ' At eventide behold terror, and before the morning they are not.' The next day was Sunday, and going on board the Kestrel to offer service as usual, I found her under steam. Lieutenant Huxham, full of thankfulness for the victory of the preceding day, told me that he had orders to steam up the river and ascertain the whereabouts of the rebels. He returned at night, having found that the host, flying headlong to the great western sluice and ferry, ten miles from Ningpo, had struggled and fought for the few boats lying there, fearing that the gunboats would come in pursuit. Very many were drowned, and the rest had taken refuge in Ts'zch'i. Our house on the edge of the ' Little Parade-Ground ' lay just in the line of the guns of the Encounter, which by sights taken from the fighting-tops had been trained on this rendezvous of the garrison. We found our house shot through by a cannon-ball from end to end. Two old men were in charge, one a Christian and one not. When the bombardment began they ran into the verandah, and prayed, and as they knelt, the Encounter's round-shot, crashing through the house, passed just over their heads, and spent its force against the boundary wall. The men jumped up and ran to the school-yard behind, and, getting into two large water- jars, hoped thus to escape from danger. The Encounter fired again, and a second round-shot struck the school-house, and passed over them once more without hurting them. These two cannon-balls still lie in our house as a remembrance of those days.
68 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
The rebels hovered round the city for many weeks, burning and sacking Ts'zch'i a second time ; and, after a desperate fight in the hill-passes with the men of the plain, they ravaged the great Sanpeh region. On the 26th of May we returned to our city-home, and began work again, after some attempt at clearing the canals near by, into which many dead bodies had been thrown. On the 30th of May the city was so quiet that a cricket-match was played on the parade-ground in front of our house. The cricket-gear of the navy was for three or four successive years deposited with us. Shanghai was hard pressed at this time, and Ningpo was actually appealed to for reinforcements to help the European defenders of that supremely important centre.
Gradually the T*aip*ings were pushed back from the Ningpo district, and well kept in check all the summer at Yiiyao, thirty miles to the north-west. I remember climbing the ' Great White Mountain ' near Ningpo one afternoon in August, and hearing the far-off echoes of cannonading directed against the rebels as they attempted to advance again on Ningpo. On the 4th of August, however, Yiiyao fell, and Ningpo breathed more freely. On Sunday, the 14th of September, I went down to Changkiau, a station near Ningpo ; on the 18th we Avere startled by the news that the rebels had swept down on Ts'zch'i, had captured and burnt what remained of the city, and were marching on Ningpo. On the 19th, five days after our quiet service there, they had entered and burnt Changkiau, our small Christian community escaping with the utmost diffi-
THE T'xilP'ING REBELLION : ITS CLOSE 09
culty to Ningpo. Most providentially the tide was favourable, and the strong arm of the Christian who owned the rescue-boat sculled them just in time down the canal to the river. They had scarcely reached mid-stream when the rebel soldiers came up to the ferry at a run, and fired on the refugees, but they were unhurt and reached Ningpo in safety. The Encounter now moved up to the north gate, and her guns were trained on the west gate as well. I called on board, and as I was talking to the officers Captain Dew came on deck, conversing eagerly with a short, wiry, soldierly man — the well- known General Ward, the American adventurer, who first trained Chinese soldiers in western drill and tactics, and had come down from Shanghai to help repel this sudden and dangerous inroad. Dangerous it was, indeed, for now the ' brothers ' were brothers no longer, but the SAvorn foes of foreigners. I watched Ward as he pointed scornfully towards Ts'zch'i, in which direction we could see incendiary fires burning in village after village. The plan of attack was arranged for the next day, and only two days later General Ward was mortally wounded under the walls of Ts'zch'i, which he was in the act of storming.
On the 20th of September a hundred tliousand men were reported as advancing on Ningpo from the south-west, and we heard afterwards from our Chinese friends in the country something of that terrible march. Tlicsc poor people, a man and liis wife and daughter, fled from their cottage and hid for three days amongst the thick, tall reeds and rushes of the canal, up to their necks in \\ater.
70 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
They heard the host go by in the neighbouring street, and the tramp did not pause or cease for sixteen hours. On the 23rd my eldest son was born, in the heart of the city, with war surging round, and the city shut up hard and fast. The parade-ground was filled with recruits being hastily drilled. The T'aip'ing host was outside the city, and many of them had entered in disguise, and were waiting to overpower the guards and open the gates. On the 24th the rebels were seen from the walls. The city was in a state of wild and dangerous panic, when Captain Dew ordered Lieutenant Tin- ling to land with seventy men; and the cheerful and gallant lieutenant spent a long afternoon in marching and countermarching his little band all about the streets and lanes of the city, till the astonished and delighted citizens, believing a strong English army to have come to their relief, quieted down. ' Fifty of your men,' they said, ' are worth five thousand of ours.' How long will this be true of China, with the new learning and the new drill ?
For the country those days of suspense were in many places days of indescribable terror. Some years later I was walking amongst the hills ten miles from Ningpo. It was a lovely afternoon in April, and the lower slopes of the hills were red with azaleas. I pointed them out to my Chinese com- panion. ' Ah ! ' he said ; ' do you see that hill ? When the long-haired made their last assault on Ningpo, the people of " Yellow Valley Market " ' (the little town which we were then approaching) ' offended them in some way : they attacked the place, and all the inhabitants fled to the hillside ;
THE T'AIP'ING REBELLION: ITS CLOSE 71
and there I myself saw men, women, and children lying dead, as thick as the flowers to-day.'
On the 8th of October Captain Dew, with rein- forcements from Shanghai, started to attack the T'aip'ing stronghold, Funghwa, thirty miles to the south-west. The rebel army fell back to defend their base, and the siege of Ningpo was raised. Funghwa was beleaguered for three days, and desperately defended by the T'aip'ings. They had some foreign advisers with them, but when these men arrived on the field of battle in sedan-chairs, they were peppered so hotly by the fire of the English marines that they jumped out and escaped. A pitched battle in the open field followed, a rare occurrence in this campaign. The loss on the English side was twenty-three killed and wounded, but the rebels were defeated. They abandoned Funghwa and retired. Admiral Sir James Hope arrived the day before this battle, just in time to join the little force during the fight, and he was present at a thanksgiving-service held on the Encounter on Sunday, the 12th of October. In this last battle a strong detachment of the Chinese foreign-drilled levies, the Green Caps, as they were called, under Colonel Cooke, with Major Watson second in command, took a prominent part. The pluck and enthusiasm of these men when well led was sliown a few months later. The T'aip'ings in Hangchow, hard-pressed by the French levies who were besieging the city, made a sortie, defeated these levies, crossed the Tsintang River, and were reported to be advancing on Ningpo once more. Volunteers for the front were called for. Many of
72 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
the Green Caps were just then in hospital, but they all found themselves suddenly convalescent, and eagerly asked to be allowed to go to the front.
The French forces under M. le Breton, who
arrived on 23rd October 1862, and was killed later
by the explosion of one of his own siege guns before
Shaohing, did good service in pressing the rebels
back to that great city, and then further on to
Hangchow. The French and English acted in
perfect harmony, both forces recognising, however,
the supreme ability and dash and tactical skill of
Captain Roderick Dew. When the French before
Shaohing were in grave danger of defeat, Captain
Dew, ignoring the instructions from home as to
confining the defence of Ningpo to an imaginary
thirty-mile radius, went in person to support the
French with a siege gun, a small body of marines,
and his second lieutenant, Tinling. With true
genius he recognised that in a country like Chekiang,
rivers and mountain-chains, and not the limits
prescribed in Downing Street, must be taken into
consideration ; and that if the rebels burst out of
Shaohing, eighty miles off, no arbitrary thirty-mile
limit Avould arrest their invasion of Ningpo. The
combined attack eventually succeeded (15th March
1863), though with serious loss of life. The death
of Lieutenant Tinling, who was mortally wounded
under the walls, cast a gloom over the whole of
Ningpo, as well as through the fleet and in far-off
Gloucester. The T'aip'ings held out in Hangchow
for nearly a year, and then suddenly abandoned
the great city in the night (10th March 1864). They
moved south-westwards, and threatened the province
THE T'AIP'ING REBELLION : ITS CLOSE 73
of Fukien, which had hitherto been untouched by their devastating inroads.
The going down of this long storm of confusion and bloodshed and rapine was protracted by mutinies in Ningpo, quarrels among the leaders of the various contingents, treacherous cruelties on the part of the imperialists, and the desolation of countless homes. The foreigners of all nationalities who had been engaged to fight for the imperialists or the rebels were now thrown out of employment, and many of the less reputable of them roamed about the country levying blackmail. It required the utmost energy and courage on the part of the newly-formed police, under Colonel Cooke and Major Watson, to arrest and scatter them. In November 1864 a large body of Hmianese braves were ordered from Hangchow, then in imperial occupation, to Ningpo, to embark there in steamers for Foochow, which was tlu-eatened with a last despairing rebel attack. These men were born soldiers, but wild and ill-disciplined. My brother, on a tentative journey to Hangchow, met this body of braves and sent me a warning message about them. The week which they spent in the parade-gromid by my house was one of no little anxiety to me. I tried to show them civility, calling on them and giving them books. When they moved off on the 19th of November they favoured us with a parting salute, presumably with blank cartridge, but I heard bullets rattle on the roof over my head. The men mutinied during the voyage to Foochow and had to be battened down.
Thus peace came back to the distracted land, not
74 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
gently and smoothly, but as though terrified to return to scenes from which she had been so long banished. One of the most serious symptoms pointing to the uncertainty of peace and the insecurity of the Government, was the very early manifestation of the ingratitude of the Chinese towards their friends and deliverers. The recrudescence of the oppro- brious terms applied to foreigners, and the childish manner in which they tried to assert their fancied independence, were not encouraging. In order to protect the Ningpo settlement and, through it, the city of Ningpo itself, against sudden assault from the north-east (seawards), a canal was cut, under the direction of the officers of the Encounter, through the narrow piece of land, scarcely a quarter of a mile wide, which forms the neck of the bottle- shaped peninsula on which the foreign settlement stands, thus joining the waters of the great curves of the river Yung ; and two forts were built on the canal banks, armed with guns from the fleet. The canal was not only a defensive work of real value, but also a sanitary improvement of the first import- ance. The once green, stagnant, and offensive canals at the back of the foreign houses were now flushed with salt water twice every day, and the sail round the newly-formed island in the hot weather was a pleasant and refreshing diversion. But five years later the scholars amongst the ruins of Ts'zch'i, a city once famed for literary merit, were annoyed and surprised at their repeated failures in the periodical examinations. On con- sulting a geomancer, they were informed by him that the luck of the city was injured, if not destroyed,
THE T'AIP'ING REBELLION: ITS CLOSE 75
by this newly-opened mouth, gaping at Ts*zch'i from the east. After long-drawn negotiations and threatened riots the canal was closed.
A smaU obelisk, built in memory of the English and French who had fallen for Ningpo, was erected out of the stones of the demolished rebel fort near the east gate. The ungrateful and foolish people rioted over this also, saying that its sharp apex would injure and annoy the spirits of the air. But in this case the mob and the mob-led mandarins were not allowed to prevail, and the obelisk stands to-day. The inscription on it has recently been restored and recut, by order of the British Admiralty, in concert with the French authorities.
Hung Siu-ts'lian committed suicide on 30tli June 1864, when all hope of defending Nanking was lost. The city was taken by assault on 19th July by the troops of the imperial commander, Tseng Kwoh- ts'iian, with the help of General Gordon. It was after this that the rebels moved south, on Fukien, as mentioned above. Repulsed thence, the T'aip'ing bands scattered, and little is known of their subse- quent movements. Some years later I was travel- ling in Chekiang, Avhen I met a Chinese merchant who had returned from a long journey in the interior, visiting, as he told me, the southern part of Szchuan, and the province of Yunnan. He had heard positive tidings of the T'aip'ings, whose power we supposed by that time to have entirely collapsed. A hundred thousand of them, my informant said, had settled down in the south-Avest of China, imperialist man- darins, and the people generally, giving way before them. They were quiet enough if unmolested, but
76 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
showed fierce fight, as of old, if meddled with. These remnants of the once mighty host were (if we may- trust recent accounts) driven at last over the Chinese border into Tongking ; and they formed the main force of the Black Flags who gave the French so much trouble in those regions nearly twenty years later.
In 1867, one summer afternoon at Ningpo I noticed a procession of seven stretchers with bodies on them being carried to the hospital near the Salt Gate. On inquiry I was informed that some boys, playing on the shore of the small west lake within the walls of the city, and paddling in the mud which had been exposed after long drought, had struck their feet against a heavy round object, and rolled it out. It was a shell, thrown there during the bombardment five years before. A man took it up to examine it ; the shell slipped from his hands, fell on the paving-stones, and exploded, mortally wounding seven onlookers. I am not far wrong, surely, in regarding this tragic event, first as a Avarning of the seeds which war sows for future trouble ; and further, as affording a hint to the rulers and people of this great and awakening China to search carefully for all secret or half-developed sources of discontent, oppression, and confusion, and to remove them, not hastily but soberly ; all defects in law or custom or fashion ; all that stifles or dwarfs knowledge and noble freedom of thought ; and all unworthy elements in pride of race and antiquity.
It cannot be Avise, when aiming with truest patriot- ism at the elevation of country and people, to revive
THE T'ATP'ING REBELLION : ITS CLOSE 77
or intensify supercilious contempt for Western learning and Western helpers in learning. And the expansioii of China's influence cannot be compassed by still shutting her up within her own borders, and excluding Western enterprise and legitimate co- operation. On the other hand, it Is not only folly, ^, but mischievous ignorance, which leads some too keen Western educators to minimize or despise Chinese learning and scholarship, and her great achievements in the arts of peace in past ages, with the implication that the ancient wisdom is dead, and that aU wisdom will die for China if she fails to conform to Western ideals.
But far more important than any other is the consideration that the ' Heavenly Kingdom of the Great Peace ' which Hung Siu-ts'iian promised to establish ; that security against continual convulsion and reiterated calamity — ' quietness and assurance for ever ' — can only be obtained for China by the whole nation rooting out its unbelief in the one true God, and accepting in the power of the Divine Spirit the faith of Christ.
NINGPO, ANCIENT AND MODERN
CHAPTER IV
NINGPO (ancient AND MODERN), * THE CITY OF THE PEACEFUL WAVE'
Old city wliere the waves lie still,
Thy threefold ramparts circle round,
Thy proud defence and ample bound ; Strong walls and streams and distant hill.
The hills, dark blue against the gold
At eve, clear-cut in lines of snow.
Or sleeping in midsummer's glow, City and far-stretched plain enfold.
The tides are swaying past thy feet, And the still moats on either face With their broad depths thy walls embrace ;
And close the circling waters meet.
The walls with honeysuckle clad, And rose and fern above the gate. Surround, but could not guard from fate
The rumour-shaken city sad.
My recollections of life in China are concerned chiefly with three great cities : Ningpo during nearly thirty years, Hangchow, and Shanghai.
Ningpo and its calamities during the rebellion have been my theme in the last two chapters, and I propose now to write of the city itself, and of its surroundings.
' The City of the Peaceful Wave ' leads us by its historical documents and legends far back into the earlier ages of the world, and touches itself or by its
F
82 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
environments some of the most stirring events of China's modern history.
Its present situation is almost ideally perfect for commerce in peace, and for defence in war ; if only we could dispense with the troublesome and merci- less instruments of modern warfare. The Chinese have a saying which contains sober sense in its bombastic language : —
' Traverse and search the whole wide earth, and after all What find you to compare with Ningpo's river-hall ? '
The city lies at the junction of the two branches of the river Yung. The south-west branch rises in the heart of the Funghwa mountains, and in the direction of the ' Snowy Valley,' and waters a large part of Ningpo's rich plain. The north-west branch rises near the shores of the Ts'aungo River, and bears in its higher waters the names of China's primitive emperors, Yao and Shun ; and passing the busy city of Yiiyao and the sleepy city of Ts'zch'i, brings down large wealth of inland com- merce, and carries on its bosom great numbers of travellers.
Both branches are now traversed by steam- launches, the service on the Yiiyao River being regular, and the boats crowded with passengers. The two branches join near the east gate of the city, and flow in one broad and winding stream, twelve miles to the sea at Chinhai. A very large trade centres at Ningpo, and radiates from it northwards to Shanghai, and up the Yangtse, and to the northern ports, and soutlnvards along the coast, and inland to Shaohing and Hangchow, and beyond. Though
NINGPO, ANCIENT AND MODERN S3
foreign commerce is not nearly what it was forty years ago, the native trade is steadily growing and developing, and the sea-borne business enjojs far greater secm-ity than in former years, now that revenue steam-cruisers patrol the coast, and the whole junk-traffic is under the supervision of the Imperial Maritime Customs.
The city forms what is in a true sense an epitome of four thousand years, linking in its history the events of history, and the characteristics of the old China and the new.
The strategic importance of Ningpo, to which I alluded in my introductory chapter, is demon- strated by the fact that the great Japanese general of the sixteenth century, Hideyoshi, the conqueror of Korea, who was hindered only by death from attempting the conquest of China, had fixed upon Ningpo as one point of special advantage in his proposed campaign. He doubtless realised that Ningpo, through her outpost, the Chusan archi- pelago, would control China's greatest waterway, the Yangtse, which stretches three thousand miles inland, up to and beyond the extreme south-^est borders.
Mount to the top of the pagoda, ' Heaven-in- vested,' and see the great city below you, and mark the three-fold embrace with which nature and art have combined to surround her, and, as the Ningpo people once fondly hoped, surely to protect her. 8ee the magnificent sweep of the amphitheatre of hills, a hundred miles and more in circuit, with peaks rising to two or three thousand feet. They bend coastwards from Chinhai to the south of the
84 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
eastern lakes, and then twining behind Funghwa to the ' Snowy Valley ' hills and the great 8ze- ming-san range, leap the Yung River to Ts'zch'i and the ridge of mountains which sweeps to the ' Crouching Dragon hill ' and Hap'u. Thence to Chinhai — a distance of about ten miles — stretches a low shore with shoal-water, from which the sea is fast receding ; and this forms the mouth of the amphitheatre, and the opening of the horse-shoe, and is itself a continuation of the defence. Then watch the gleam of water all round the five miles and more of the wall, the two branches of the river washing the south-east and north-east faces ; and the broad moat on the north-west and south-Avest, with only a narrow neck of land at the north gate, less than a hundred yards in breadth — the only breach in that circumambient watery defence.
The third and inner line of all is the wall itself, eighteen Chinese li (rather mider six miles) in circuit, with an average of twenty-five feet in height, and a width of twenty-two feet at the base, and fifteen at the top. The wall is pierced with six gates, with a barbican to each ; namely, the North, South, East, and West Gates, and the Salt and Fairy-bridge Gates. The last-named gate leads to the old bridge of boats, of unknown antiquity, crossing which we enter one of the busiest suburbs of the city, Kiangtung, or ' East of the River.' There is a second floating bridge, of recent date, connecting the east gate with the foreign settlement.
Now this city, though probably at least twelve hundred years old, is not old Ningpo. The origmal city lay at some distance fi'om the present site, and
NINGPO, ANCIENT AND :\IODERN 85
I have seen the grass-covered heavings of the ancient walls. The old name was Yangchow or Yungtung, a name which it still bears in certain documents. It was a comparatively insignificant place in ancient days. In the time of the great Yii (B.C. 2205) it was under the jurisdiction of Kwekyi, which now forms one of the districts of the Shaohing fu (prefecture), and is in its turn, by the revolution of the destinies of countries, under the control of the Intendant of Ningpo.
The province of Chekiang, of which Ningpo is the commercial capital and the chief seaport, is full of the voices of the past. Perhaps this is not to be wondered at, as Chekiang formed the southern limit of ancient China. Shun, the Chinese Cincin- natus, called from the plough to the throne, tilled, if he ever really did so, his fields with an elephant and an ox near the site of the present city of Yii3'ao, thirty miles above Ningpo, It was in his home there that he maintained so calm a demeanour amidst the quarrels of two troublesome wives, as to attract the attention of the emperor Yao, who called him thence to share with him the Dragon Throne. The young empire was already like a household, and he who could order even a disorderly family well, and produce peace where there was no peace, surely must be the heaven-sent helper to secure and maintain order in the household of China. Fifty years later, the great Yii subdued the floods which submerged China, after nine years of such incessant care that he is said to have passed and repassed his home again and again deaf to the call of wife and children. His tomb and image are to be seen
86 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
standing to-day near the city of 8haohing. The dates assigned to Yii and to Noah are ahnost the same.
Ningpo was still standing on its ancient site when, some eighteen hundred years later (about B.C. 210), She Hwang Ti visited the place, coming down from Hangchow. This emperor, as is well known to all who study Chinese history, destroyed as thoroughly as he could the classical literature of China, and extirpated her scholars, not so much from ignorant vandalism as from an ambitious desire to recreate China, and make its history commence with the inauguration of his own reign and name.
In the year a.d. 713, twelve centuries ago, the city was transferred, Ave know not certainly why, to its present matchless site. It was named Ming- chow after the celebrated range called the ' Four Illustrious Hills.' These mountains have their southern base in far-off T'aichow, their western branches behind Shaohing, and the northern and eastern spurs dip into the sea. The title ' Four Illustrious,' which is still used of Ningpo, is con- nected with the legend of a hill in the range, on the top of which there is a natural observatory, with apertures in the rock facing the four quarters of the heavens, for celestial and terrestrial survey. To this day, influenced partly, perhaps, by a freak of local pronunciation, and partly by a remem- brance of the old name, some people call the city Mingpo.
When the Ming dynasty came to the throne, anxious fears beset the minds of the loyal citizens as to the propriety of continuing to use the name
NINGPO, ANCIENT AND MODERN 87
Ming (now identified with the illustrious imperial family) as the name of their mean city. But the emperor of the time came to the rescue, and sug- gested a change. ' There is a city,' he said, ' sixty miles to the eastward, named Tinghai (" Settle the sea "). When the sea goes down, the waves are at peace ; why not call your city Ningpo (" Peaceful Wave ") ? ' This suggestion was accepted with much fervour of gratitude, and Ningpo remains to this day the city's name.
Meanwhile Ningpo had sprung up, and gro\\n round the ' Pagoda of Heavenly Investiture.' This pagoda dates from a.d. 696, or seventy-six years earlier than the building of the city itself. The following seems generally to have been the order of events in the foundation of a Chinese city. First, the luck of the place was ascertained, and the approach of evil influences repelled b}'^ the pagoda, or suppressed by its weight. Then the circuit of the walls was traced, and, finally, the houses filled in. Stirring events in the west have coincided with the vicissitudes of the pagoda's history. It was built A.D. 696, when Oswy was Bretwalda in Britain. In 1107, just as the majestic cathedral of Durham was rising on its wood-fringed island- hill, the pagoda was destroyed. It was restored in 1145, when the yellow plague was devastating Europe. In 1221, during the reign of one of the Chinese emperors, who strove to suppress Buddhism, it was levelled to the ground, and houses were built on the site. In 1285, with the iirst Edward on the English throne, the pagoda rose from its dust and ruins. In 1327, at the time of our third
88 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
.Edward, it entirely collapsed. In 1330, and again in 1411, it was restored and repaired. In 1413, the year of Agincourt, it was struck by lightning ; and in the stormier days of our Elizabeth, about the time of the Armada, it was blown over by a hurri- cane. In the year of the Restoration it was rebuilt ; and it stands to-day, stripped of its outer galleries, apparently by fire, but erect and picturesque still, though repaired fifty years ago, and looking as though a gentle earthquake shock might over- throw it for final ruin. When seen from the neigh- bouring hills, its dark pencil-like form, rising from the smoke and haze of the great city, is a familiar and striking object.
A legend, thirteen centuries old, lives on in some of the names and places of the city. Near the site of the new bridge of boats there existed in ancient times a ferry, called T'au-hwa-tu, or ' Peach-flower Ferry.' Twenty miles north-west of the city stretches the fine range of hills separating the Ningpo plain from Sanpeh, and one of the many passes through these hills is called the ' Peach-flower Pass.' It was much used by the T'aip'ing rebels, but it is little frequented now. I imagine that the pass and the ferry had an intimate connection in this legend, even as they bear the same name. The events of this strange story antedate the foundation of the city ; but they may possibly have combined to hasten its transference to its present site. The legend runs thus. In ancient times a dragon used periodically to emerge from the river, and unless appeased by the yearly offering of a boy and girl, it would ravage the banks of the river, and terrify
NINGPO, ANCIENT AND IMODERN 89
the inhabitants. So this periodical sacrifice was a custom observed with agony by those whose children were selected for the purpose, and with awe b}^ the people generally. In the year a.d. 618, a mandarin named Huang Shing was on his way up to the cit}'- to assume office, coming perhaps across the ' Peach- flower Pass.' As he wended his way through the great plain, he caught up two country people, man and wife, with two little children, a boy and a girl, who were to be the victims, wailing and lamenting as they walked along. ' What ails you ? ' asked the magistrate ; and they told him the pitiful story. The magistrate's heart (large as the proverbial heart of the Prime ^linister himself, ' of capacity enough to float a ship ') was stirred with compas- sion and fired with indignation. On his arrival at the spot where the dragon was said to appear, he mounted a white horse ; and, armed with a sword made of rushes, he plunged into the river and was seen no more. Neither was the dragon seen from that day forward ; only, after a commotion of the waters, they became dyed as by the colour of the peach-blossom, with the mingled blood of the dead dragon and the dead but victorious champion. At nearly the same moment, caused by the dying throes of the dragon, a pool welled up within the bounds of the present city ; and this still remains, with a temple on its bank to the memory of the ancient hero. On the anniversary of this event, in the month of I\Iay or June, every house in Ningpo has to this day over its door a cross of rushes in commemoration of the sword of the avenger. 1 have myself traversed the ' Peach-flower Pass,'
00 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
probably unchanged during these thirteen hundred years. But the ' Peach-flower Ferry ' is no more ; and the hero's spirit has to endure the screeching of the sirens of the Httle river-steamers, moored close to the shore from which he plunged.
These thirteen hundred years have not passed over Ningpo simply with the roll of the seasons, the tranquil occurrence of births and deaths, with cold and heat, and day and night, and summer and winter in featureless succession ; with the fair circling hills now capped or furrowed with snow, now all ablaze with azaleas, and later lit up with the lightning of summer storm and reverberating with its echoes ; its rich plains now covered Avith wealth of wheat, and the fourfold rice-crop and cotton, now brown under winter skies, with clang- ing geese flying over the frozen lakes and pools. Events have occurred here which doubtless broke the monotony of the busy city's life. But most of the old voices are silent in history and silent to memory ; I have not been able to search minutely into Ningpo's old annals, but I record here one or two of her ancient and modern historical events.
During the Ming dynasty, probably about the time of their commercial enterprises in Japan, both Portuguese and Dutch merchants appear to have settled for a time in Foochow, Amoy, and Ningpo.
A Ningpo man once threatened the reigning dynasty, and in fact helped to bring to an end the great and regretted rule of the Ming line. This man, Li Ch'ang, with the title of Tsz' Ching, Avas a woodcutter on the hills, near a town on the banks of the eastern lakes, twelve miles distant from
NINGPO, ANCIENT AND MODERN 91
Ningxoo, a district in which I have often taught. One hot da}^ early in the seventeentli century, he was stooping down to drink and bathe in the moun- tain-stream, when he saw, reflected in the mirror of the water, horse and foot-soldiers in bright array, with banners flying, and at their head a man on a white horse, the very image of liimself. Astonished at the apparition, he believed that it Avas his fate or his honour to lead an army and to found a dynasty. He raised a rebellion, and so severely defeated the imperialist troops that the emperor Ts'ung Cheng hanged liimself on the ' Coal Hill ' in Peking, and Li mounted a throne, though it was not the Dragon Throne. But eventually he was defeated, and his power overthrown by the generalissimo of the Ming line. Possibly this general was an ancestor of Hung Siu-ts'lian, the T'aip'ing leader. These lake-people have much independence of spirit, and during the occupation of the country by the rebels, the lakes were carefully avoided. Earlier than this, in 1858-1859, at a time of oppressive taxation, the lake people, under chosen leaders, marched on Ningpo ; and defying the ragged soldiers of the time, compelled the mandarins to accede to their demands. And then, with that combination of contempt of life, regard for law and order and noblest altruism, which the Chinese sometimes exhibit, the leaders, having gained their point and rescued their fellow-lakesmen and the country generally from oppression and wrong, calmly gave themselves up for execution, in order to save the magistrates' honour and to safeguard the law.
One poet and patron of literature is specially
02 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
remembered in Ningpo, and a temple to his honour still stands on the shores of the small west lake within the city wall. He is known in some connec- tions, so Mayers tells us, as the ' Madcap of Sze- ming.' But there must have been more in this man (Ho Che-chang) than the stories of his joviality and dissipation would imply. He lived at the same time as Cuthbert of Northumbria, and the outburst of English sacred song from Caedmon's voice and harp in the halls of Whitby's abbey. The Ningpo poet and patron of letters is said to have brought to imperial notice and favour the most widely cele- brated poet of China, Li Peh by name, who flourished and faded in fame, and revived, and wandered from far Szchuan to the Court, where his Ningpo friend described him as an immortal banished to earth. Subsequently, becoming involved in some intrigues, he was banished, not back to heaven, but to remote Yunnan, and eventually died in peace at Nanking, not far from his patron at Ningpo.
These ancient singers of China sang of lower themes than those which made Caedmon's old voice young again. Not the glory and the Avorks of God, but the follies and excesses of bacchanalian scenes too often formed their subject. But in some of these songs, and in Chinese classical poetry gener- ally, as distinguished from the stilted verses of modern times, there is the truest poetry. Nature is described with the accuracy of careful observation, but softened by the silver haze of tears which love for her beauty and grief for her fading call forth from the heart. Such description is itself noblest sentiment and deepest teaching. The soul of nature
NINGPO, ANCIENT AND MODERN 93
lives and sings in the true poet's heart and voice, while he never altogether forgets the power divine around and above and within her.
It is difficult to imagine in the friendly and prosperous Ningpo of the present day hoAv un- friendly it has sometimes been in the past, and how terribly it suffered during the great rebellion. There are some people still living who remember and have described to me the stranding of the transport Kite on the shores of the Hangchow Bay, sixty years and more ago, and the exhibition in the streets of Ningpo of the captain's wife, who was seized by the wreckers and carried about the country in a criminal's cage. She was finally released, but was for a time exposed to the insult I mention by the people who now, in city and country alike, are courteous and friendly to all those who treat them with courtesy, and not with supercilious contempt.
The peninsula on which the foreign settlement of Ningpo stands has a strange story connected with it. In former times an official of high rank was falsely accused and beheaded. The dead man's friends sought to honour him by fitting a golden head to the corpse, so that he might not appear headless in Hades. But lest the precious mass should be stolen, they built six elaborate and costly sepulclu*cs to baffle search. And then, to make the secret doubly secure, they cruelly put to death all the workmen who had been engaged in the build- ing of the tombs.
The hills and plains of Ningpo are for the most part free from both dangerous wild beasts and venomous reptiles. I>ut three times over within
94 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
my memory royal tigers have visited the immediate vicinity of the city, and leopards and large wild cats are frequently seen in the Ningpo hills. A sportsman once told me of an adventure he had on the hills to the north-west. He was lying on his back one moonlight night watching for wild geese to fly over, when a beast leapt over him, and then turned and faced him, near a white grave- stone. To his astonishment he saw that it was a full-grown wolf; and the country-people told him next day that wolves hunt in packs in those districts. Two large wolves were shot at the lakes near the city a few winters ago.
RUMOURS AND LEGENDS
CHAPTER V
RUMOURS AND LEGENDS
It is, I think, quite possible to exaggerate the vahie of the assistance given by foreign nations to China, when she slowly rose from the dust and mire and endeavoured to collect her distracted forces, and to stand and rule again after the staggering blows of disastrous foreign war and the unparalleled woe of the years of the rebellion.
The assurance that the imperialist Government could now count on foreign sympathy and help, as shown by the operations at Nanking and round Shanghai, and by the later events at Ningpo, removed a great incubus of apprehension, and set the despair- ing Government free to concentrate all its energy on the restitution of law and order, and of industry and trade, in the desolate land.
On the other hand, foreigners are most liable to underestimate China's own God-given and eminent power of cohesion and recuperation. Only those who have seen with their own eyes China's life and activities almost silenced, her cities and plains desolate and scorched, her educational system paralysed, and her power and rule so completely shattered that a tripartite division of the land by three leading European powers seemed the kindest thing for a country already apparently in a state of
98 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
disRolutioji — those eye-witnesses, and they alone perhaps, can appreciate the wonder of China's revival, and of the restoration of the activities of education, agriculture, handicraft, and commerce — that fourfold division of Chinese life — which, after a pause necessitated by the awful fatigues of fourteen years of civil strife, renewed their existence.
The destruction of the Buddhist and Taoist temples and monasteries, and the abolition of the idols, afforded one instance only of the desolation in all departments of life and work. The mandarins, with the acquiescence of the people, presuming on the practical genius of the race, forbade for the time being all expense and toil in the rehabilitation of the idols. I have seen proclamations from non- Christian official pencils forbidding the practice of idolatry and prohibiting the rebuilding of the temples, on the double ground of their essential uselessness and the waste of money at a time when all available capital was required for other projects. Nothing more scathing or more drastic could have been issued had a Christian magistrate or a church official, acting under unwise advice, sought to coerce instead of to influence conscience and belief. The proclamations contained one signifi- cant and characteristic clause ; the idol-temples were indeed on no account to be restored till further notice, nor were the images to be settled on their pedestals again, with new heads and limbs provided for them, but it was added that exception might be made in favour of such hero- and guardian-images as had deserved well of the people. The Chinese
RUIVIOURS AND LEGENDS 99
possess, besides the shrines of their recognised systems. Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism, temples called side miau, erected in memory of local heroes, the merit of whose exploits in the past is supposed still to guard the luck of the special locality. These temples are quite distinct from ancestral temples, which, as a rule, have no images in them. So far as I miderstand them, they are in a sense mider the patronage of the established creeds Taoism and Buddhism, and special ceremonies in them would be under the control of Taoist or Buddhist priests. The idea of these guardian spirits, deified and powerful, was expressed not obscurely in William the Conqueror's dirge and prayer over Harold's tomb at Battle Abbey : —
' Let his corpse guard the coasts wliich his life madly
defended : Let the seas wail his dirge and girdle his grave, And his spirit protect the land that hath passed to
the Normans.'
It is noteworthy, however, how audacious the materialistic and unspiritual nature of Chinese religious thought may suddenly declare itself to be. Here the mandarins, under the pressure of national calamity and present want, set tlicmselves to sit in judgment on the gods, to criticise their powerlessness in the struggle through which China had just passed, and to point out that deities which could not keep their heads on their own shoulders could not be of much avail in saving the people from decapitation, and that it might be mere irony to rehabilitate and re-establish those mIio lia(i
100 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
fallen so low. At the same time they claimed, as I have said, the power of discrimination, and rewarded those gods who had tried to do their duty. This very mixture of superstition, incre- dulity, and insolence, however reasonable and true in such a connection, scarcely avails to hide from view the real unreligiousness of the Chinese nature.
It was a further proof of the pathetic hopelessness of the people and of the helplessness of their own religions, that, knowing the iconoclastic rage of the T'aip'ings, the Chinese endeavoured frantically to save the images which could not save them, by hiding the idols within the black-walled ancestral temples. Ked or yellow waUs distinguish the temples of Taoism or Buddhism and of local heroes and genii, and thither the iconoclasts would go for their destructive work ; but the people hoped they might avoid the black ancestral walls, since no images would be expected there.
I have spoken above of the after-days of China's great woe being like the heaving and sighing of a storm going down. China had been rudely awak- ened from end to end. That rude shock Avas in some senses the first symptom of the greater awaken- ing which has now, after several intervening shocks, thrown the land almost into convulsion. But that upheaval not only aroused a feeling of insecurity and a yearning for some sound and practical reform, with patriotism also struggling for a voice : it seemed to influence society in all grades, and for a while to release from all control the generally sound sense and practical genius of the Chinese, and to
RUMOURS AND LEGENDS 101
lead them to believe, in a kind of frenzy, any monstrous tale, any rumour of magic or of portent, and even to invent such if they could not encounter them.
It was strange and disappointing to note how readily the people and the government forgot what they themselves had been so loud in proclaiming, their debt to foreigners for delivering them from their oppressors, and for saving so many of them from slavery, starvation, and death. Some of their cxliibitions of ini2;ratitudc were either malicious or childish, such as the riotous demand for the filling up of Dew's defence-canal, and the threat to demolish the obelisk erected in memory of those who had died for Ningpo. But early in these unsettled years unrest and dissatisfaction were aroused amongst the people by more serious causes. The coolie-traffic in the Eastern seas, sometimes semi-officially recog- nised, though with certain restrictions, sometimes lawless and contraband, was carried on largely by foreign adventurers in fast-sailing barques or lorchas. They would lie at anchor near the mouths of rivers connecting with large cities and towns, and sending well-manned boats with muffled oars in the dusk up these rivers, they would waylay and carry out to sea unwary countrymen on their way home from market. The form this Iddnapping was supposed to take at Ningpo was expressed by the shout, L^ao dac, 'gag biin in the sack,' which I have had shouted after mo many liuudred times, innocent as I was. The story was that the kidnappers carried sacks with them, which they threw over the heads of their victims, and then tied tightly, so as practi-
102 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
cally to gag the men and render them helpless. Some such cases must certainly have occurred to account for the frenzy of the people. It became so serious as to form a menace to all foreigners. I was at the time the senior member of our mission in Ningpo, my brother having gone inland to open a station at Hangchow ; and I was summoned one day by special messenger to the British consulate to attend a meeting, with closed doors, of an emer- gency committee, at which the consul, the captain of the man-of-war in harbour, and a few leading residents were present. The danger was deemed by them so grave that a scheme of defence in case of attack was drawn up, and signals were agreed upon. I Avas directed by the consul to have a swift ' foot- boat ' (described in chapter vii.), with two strong and trustworthy men, ready to convey a warning as swiftly as possible (in days when no telegraph was available nor steam on the inland waters) to Hangchow and the mission there ; a warning which was to imply a command to leave for the nearest port. My brother was privately informed by myself of the danger, and of the possible arrival of such messengers. He communicated the news to the Roman Catholic sisters residing alone in the city, and was warmly thanked by them. The danger passed, but it had been a real danger, and the rumour was renewed from time to time.
I was sitting one day in my study with my Chinese pupils, when a Chinese preacher ran in to inform me that an anonymous placard of a peculiarly truculent and dangerous character was displayed
RUMOURS AND LEGENDS 103
in the main street of the city, near my house, and that a great crowd was eagerly reading it. We went out together to see what could be done, and found a man reading the placard aloud to the people. It related that on the previous day a certain man had freed himself from the kidnappers by a desperate effort, and leaping into a boat bound for the city with the rushing flood-tide, had escaped from his enemies, who were making slow progress down stream and against the tide. He was said to be in a house in a street specified on the placard, and to be dying from the effects of the fright and the struggle ; and the people were urged to avenge the outrage. We drew nearer, and I addressed the crowd, telling them that this was a serious affair indeed. If true, the kidnappers must be pursued and punished : if false, those who issued the placard and invented the story would be punished severely. ' I must remove the placard,' I said, ' and bring it to the notice of the mandarins and of the English consul' We then carefully tore down the placard and pocketed it, the people apparently acquiescing. ' But meanwhile,' I said, ' will you not accompany me to call on this poor dying man ? Here we have the name of the street and of the house where he is lying, not far from this spot.' I then led the way with my Chinese companion, the mob following with curiosity or serious intent. We found the house, and knocking at the door, we asked with great concern whether it was true that a man who had escaped from the wicked kidnappers was lying there at the point of death. ' He has been here,' the people of the house replied, ' ])ut he left early
104 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
this morning for a house near the south gate.' ' Is that possible ? ' we replied ; ' we must hasten to find him at his new residence.' Turning to the crowd I said that if they would spare the time to walk another mile or so, we would search for our dying friend. We reached the south gate, and knocked at the door of the house specified. ' Is the man here,' we asked, ' lying at death's door, who, as we are informed by the placards, escaped with the utmost difficulty and danger from the kid- nappers ? ' ' Let me see,' replied the man who opened the door ; ' yes, he has been here, I believe. But he has gone off now to the country.' I then turned again to the crowd, which had already dwindled to a much smaller company, and asked them if they believed the story. They laughed heartily, and broke up with restored confidence. The placard was not re-issued, but danger for a time was imminent.
It will hardly be possible for China to experience again the excitement and the frenzy described in the following narrative. Already the daily press, with morning and evening Chinese newspapers in large cities, and country editions as well, has shamed away some of the most barbarous features of Chinese justice, such as torture and excessive scourging. These are not so lightly inflicted now, with the wholesome fear of the next morning's police-reports published in the columns of the daily newspapers. To a yet greater extent, perhaps, will rumours of magic art or portents, invented by dealers in false news, cease to be believed by the people, when they no longer pass like winged words from mouth to
RTOIOURS AND LEGENDS 105
mouth, with no responsible author and with few data as to time and place, but appear in print, involving risk to the credit of editor and corre- spondents, if proved to be only baseless machina- tions. It is true, however, on the other hand, that some papers would lose their attraction and suffer accordingly if they closed their columns to all fanciful stories and marvellous tales. During the present year (1010) rumours of what is called ' cutting the melon,' by which phrase is meant the suspected design of Western powers for the parti- tion of China, have been fully reported and eagerly commented upon in the press. The remarkable feature in the stories which follow is that they spread like an epidemic through the land, a feature, in my sober opinion, pointing to something lower and yet mightier than human agency.
It was about the time of the great famine in the north (to which 1 refer later), and the period of the Mohammedan uprising in Yunnan and in the far north-west, when the portrait and seal of the coming Moslem emperor were secretly distributed. It was the period also a\ hen the great Tso, with his Fabian policy of delay, halting his army more than once to sow the fields and garner the harvest, prepared for another great stride towards the far-off' enemy, the Mohammedan rebels ; and so, gathering strength as he advanced and halted and then advanced again, struck, when he did strike, with full and resistless force. It seems probable, from some of the symp- toms accompanying these rumours, that the renniants of the T'aip'ings also were biding their time and preparing for another bid for power. Some of these
106 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
rumours and consequent panics burst upon us suddenly ; others arrived after long weeks of distant warning.
I was residing at the time in the interior, working in the first inland city (Hangchow) definitely and permanently occupied as a place of residence and mission-work away from the coast or river-ports. I was rendered uneasy in the late spring of 1876 by rumours of secret signs and magic arts which seemed forewarnings of an early call to arms by some hidden revolutionary agency. The sign was the disappearance from many heads of the long queue, which is regarded as a badge of subjection imposed by the Tartar rulers of China. It is longer than the English queue of a century ago. The rumour leapt from lip to lip and from town to town that these queues fell off by some unseen and un- known agency, and it was a fatal sign of calamity for a tailless man ; he would die in three days or in three hundred days. Strange to say, instead of suspecting the secret agency of T^aip'ing emissaries, which seemed more than probable from the fact that the T'^aip'ings themselves, in their conquests, every- where compelled the abandonment of the queue, the distracted and ungrateful people began to lay the blame on foreigners, and as missionaries were the only foreigners in the inland districts, they looked askance at us. Many times, when after preaching in the street-chapel I walked with my wife and children to the nearest city gate for air and exer- cise, the men as they met us in the crowded streets would sidle away, holding their long queues over their shoulders tightly in their hands. It was diffi-
RUMOURS AND LEGENDS 107
cult not to feel amused contempt for their cowardly and unfriendly folly. The rumour soon touched us very closely, and possibly by that close touch, com- bined with other causes, warded off the danger of actual violence. My trusted and much-valued Chinese helper, ^Matthew Tai, when kneeling at evening prayers in his own house with his family and some school-boys, found on rising that his queue was gone. He had felt no jerk, and was unaware of any jar of scissors or shears separating the coil ; yet the twists of a Chinese queue are so thick and close that nothing but a sharp instrument and a strong hand, and that with an inevitable shock, could effect it. His tail was gone ; and, though not believing in magic or trusting the sinister pro- phecy, neither he nor we felt quite comfortable in the matter. I suspected at the time one of the school-boys who was present, and who was notorious for merriment and, when possible, practical joking, but this conjecture was rudely disposed of the very next day. This boy came to my house at three o'clock on a summer afternoon. On his way home, a distance of only a few hundred yards, he met no one ; but on his reaching the door, his mother, to her horror and alarm, saw at once that her son's queue was gone. He too was quite unconscious of any shock or jar or sound. Our English doctor, suspecting the employment of some strong chemicals, very carefully examined the edges both of the fallen queue and of the stumps remaining, but he could trace nothing. 1 can see now the awed and half- guilty faces of the man and boy side by side in chiu'ch the next Sunday, and the expectation of the
108 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
congregation. Three days, or three hundred days ! What a starthng prospect and agonising suspense ! Tlie days of probation passed in peace for them both, and the boy, after thirty-four years, with a new queue is Uving still. This rumour, Avith its mis- chievous consequences, subsided ; but the real occurrence of such portents remains a fact of history, and that they have never been fully explained is also true.
During the summer which followed on this queue- cutting scare, we noticed with anxiety the news in the weekly press of the appearance in the far north- west, and the gradual spread through the provinces, of what came to be known as the ' paper-man ' portent. The story was that paper figures, either in human form or in the form of some animal, were cut out by unseen hands with magical art, and sent up into the air, to return heavy as lead and crush to death the victims on whom they descended. We watched the progress of this rumour as it crept or sprang, like some beast of prey, from province to province and from city to city. The direction taken seemed to point towards Hangchow and Chekiang. It drew near. The inhabitants of a town only ten miles to the north of HangchoAv, T'angsi, maddened by the supposed arrival of the monster, seized, on suspicion of black arts, a Buddhist priest and a Roman Catholic Christian, and burnt them alive in the market-place. On Saturday, the 7th of September, the news came that the mysterious visitant had reached the northern suburb of Hang- chow, four miles from our mission-house. A busy Sunday followed for me, with Sunday-school, two
RUMOURS AND LEGENDS 109
Chinese services, and baptismal and funeral services in addition. Tired ^'►liysically by the long day, I was pacing to and fro in my verandah at 9 p.m., when suddenly I was startled by an unearthly scream and shout, followed by a noise as of horse-hoofs trampling on a loose floor, and the cries and murmurs of a crowd in the ' Horse Lane ' outside my garden wall. Feeling sure that the mysterious visitor, whatever it might be, had leapt to our very door, I called my Christian cook, having no English colleague in the city at the time, and directed him to light a lantern and accompany me into the lane outside, to mingle with the crowd and see what help we could render them, God guiding us. It was probably a risk, for already, as shown in the town named above, the blame for these magic arts was by mischievous and unfriendly people laid at the foreigner's door. I found the lane crowded with people, jostling one another and shouting. ' What is the matter, my friends ? ' I asked. ' Don't you know ? ' they replied. ' He has come ! ' ' Who has come ? ' ' The paper-man, and he has fallen and nearly crushed to death a weaver in the house just opposite.' I asked if I could see him ; not the paper-man, for I did not believe there was such a being, but the man on whom he had fallen. ' Please come in,' they said, ' and examine the victim.' I entered the house, and found a young weaver raving with terror, running and stamping up and down the floor. I begged him to sit down and taUv quietly, and he became calmer. Then, as we fanned ourselves in the dense hot atmosphere, he told me what had happened. ' I luid finished my
110 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
supper,' he said, ' and had lain down, drawing the mosquito-curtains round me, when suddenly they seemed to be lifted, and something fell on me like a lump of lead, doubtless this paper-man. Had I not cried out, and thrown it off, and leapt out of bed, I should have died as others, we hear, have died.' ' Where is this paper-man ? ' I asked ; ' what has become of this weight of lead ? It must be somewhere in this room.' ' It has gone,' they aU shouted ; ' the paper-man is never seen ! ' I asked them then to answer two questions. ' Were you not all sitting up late in the hot street, gossiping and discussing this very rumour ? Is it strange, then, that this young friend of ours dreamed of it as he fell asleep, and with a nightmare reahsed it ? And once more, may I ask the victim what he had for supper ? ' He replied indignantly that that could not account for it, and it Avas impossible to laugh the matter to scorn, and explain it by ridicule. I said that such a thing was farthest from my purpose, and that I had made the sugges- tion only to comfort them in that special instance, not to deny the possibility or the reality of portents which we could not at once explain. I wished further, I said, to present to them a better prophy- lactic than that which was then recommended in the city. Umbrellas were to be held up day and night, and gongs were to be incessantly struck, to ward off and frighten away the magic. There was not another umbrella or gong to be bought in the city. I told them there was an even better plan. In every trouble sharp and strong, as in that visita- tion, or amidst their ordinary daily annoyances and
RTOIOURS AND LEGENDS HI
anxieties, they should go straight to the great God, only ' three ieet above their heads,' as their proverb told them, a God near and not far off, their God and Father in Christ, and like as a father pities his children, so God would pity them. The crowd did not cheer, but with a murmur of appreciation and thanks for my sympathy it dispersed, and I re- entered my garden-gate. The danger had passed away for us ; but all through that sultry night we heard, now near, now further off, the same sudden cry of surprise and anguish as one house after another, street by street, was visited by the strange portent.
After some time the story of these incidents came to the ear of the Viceroy. He was informed of the dangerous proportions the rumours were acquiring, and of the imminent danger of attacks on missions and on Chinese converts. The Viceroy acted at once. He was no friend of foreigners or patron of Christian missions, but he was an honest and powerful ruler. He issued a proclamation, which was largely distributed, and Avas affixed to the great gates of the pubUc enclosure in Nanking, which contains accommodation for fifteen thousand graduates, when competing for the degree of kil-jin, the second degree. The proclamation thus met the eyes of the proud and inimical gentry, as they entered the enclosure day after day, for it was at the time of examinations. The proclamation ridi- culed the credulity of the people \\ho could place credit in such foolish and groundless stories. They were forbidden to circulate the rumours any longer, and were exhorted to be quiet and do their own
112 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
business. ' At any rate,' the Viceroy proceeded, ' of one thing I can assure you ; the Christians have nothing whatever to do with this mischievous con- spiracy. I can testify that they are amongst the most peaceable and law-abiding of my subjects.' The effect was almost instantaneous ; the rumours died away, the paper-men became extinct, and God made the wrath of man to praise Him.
Not all the legends and superstitions, however, which dominate China's thought, and often dominate her society, are of so malicious and hostile a nature. The deepest pathos lies in some of the old stories and in the folklore of the land, of which I WTite in my chapter on country-life. A great charm attaches to the dark and cold winter and early spring in the part of China with which I am especi- ally acquainted, because of their early and sweet- smelling flowers. The lah-mei, or waxen almond, bears yellow globular blossoms, which cluster along its twigs by the side of, or pushing off, the brown leaves of the dying year, and appear long before the spring leaf-buds show themselves. This flower is very fragrant ; and, shining through the snow of Christmastide and early January, is specially welcome. The lan-hwa also, an orchid with green- veined and pink-lipped flowers, of a gentle fragrance and with long thin grass-like leaves, is greatly prized through February and March. But the sweetest of all is the narcissus ; the ' water-fairy flower.' The bulbs can be purchased in Northern markets in late November, and other varieties, all of which are said to come from the South, go on flowering till the end of March. The orthodox plan
RUMOURS AND LEGENDS 113
is to place the bulbs in shallow blue dishes, filled with water, and with small stones or preferably sea- or torrent-pebbles surrounding them. A prac- tical reason for the addition of these pebbles would seem to be the support afforded to the bulbs, which prevents their falling over when the plants are full- grown and heavy with the leaf-sheaths and clusters of flowers. But legend is stronger than use, and the real reason, so the Chinese say, is as follows. Long, long ago, an old man and his wife lived in extreme poverty, near to a mountain stream in Southern China. They had the blessing of two daughters, who would not leave their parents for homes of their own, but dutifully and tenderly cared for them. The old people died, and were buried near ; and the poor girls went daily to the side of the stream to weep. Narrow strips of ground with poor sandy soil, stretching along the bank formed their sole patrimony ; but now, as their tears fell like rain, the sand and pebbles heaved ; and the leaves, and then the sweet flowers of count- less narcissus plants pushed their way through, and their whole heritage shone with a fragrant and valuable harvest. They sold and sold again this bountiful gift of the divinely-sent fairy, and their descendants (so the legend concludes) for long generations have derived wealth froni this soiu'ce.
The Chinese in this region do not seem to care to preserve the roots, after flowering, for the next winter, though they succeed fairly well if planted out. The natives seem to prefer to wait for a fresh supply from the regular market in the south. It is a beautiful legend, fragrant with tlie best traits
H
114 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
of Chinese filial piety and ancestral worship, and sweetest of all because it puts women in the place of honour as the heroines of virtue.
The following simple lines narrate in verse the story of the ' water-fairy ' flower.
In bygone days, so runs the tale, There lived in a lone upland vale, Husband and wife, poor, blind, and old. Their lowly hut by waters cold Of mountain stream, yet bright and fair Shone with the rays of treasure rare. The duteous love of gentle daughters.
The winter streams now darkly flow, With skirt of ice and fringe of snow ; Death rides upon the stormy blast. And those tired souls away have past. Hopeless upon the pebbly sand The lonely maidens weeping stand ;
Their tears mix with the moaning waters.
This dreary reach of barren soil,
That yields no harvest to their toil,
This is their patrimony poor ;
Nay ! rather Heaven's high promise sure,
That crowns with blessing filial love.
And hfts into the ranks above
The lowliest home with this fair order.
Sudden, as touched by Eden's breath, Light springs from darkness, hfe from death ; The sands are clothed with sheaths of green. And fragrant blossoms shine between ; The sweet narcissus crowds the land ; The roots on the smooth pebbles stand. Firm resting as in garden border.
RIBIOURS AND LEGENDS 115
Soon far and near the rumour spreads Of the sweet water-fahies' beds ; And from the wealth of flowers there came To the poor maidens wealth and fame. And still wide China draws her store Of stone-rimmed flowers from that lone shore ; Far echo of tlie ancient story !
Fair flower, the first to break the gloom With fragrance, ere the violets come, And hyacinths blow, and tulips blaze, And the red rose in summer days ; Thy I\[akcr walked this earthly road. With love to man and love to God ; The flowery path that leads to glory.
8uch legends of benevolent beings, however, arc not numerous ; and those of malevolent spiritual in- fluences in sorcery and witchcraft are more common. A belief in demoniacal possession is ridiculed by many to-day as behind the times, and a relic of superstition and the dark days of hunum thought and fancy. But it is a subject as to which, to use Huxle3^'s dictum in regard to miracles, impos- sibility must no longer be predicated, nor prejudice decide, but where evidence must be demanded and examined. Our Lord's divine veracity and supreme knowledge arc challenged by those who would deny such demoniacal possession when He was on earth ; but if the unseen powers hostile to man as to God were active during our Lord's mission on earth, in testing and opposing that mission, it is surely to be expected that when Christ comes in power and love to a country like China, with its limited knowledge and strong intellect, the attempt
116 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
should again be made by occult influence, as by open attack, to turn aside converts from the faith. It is in this way that witchcraft has crossed my path.
I knew, many years ago, an earnest but reticent Christian, a woodcutter in the western hills of Ningpo. He stood alone as a Christian, amongst the numerous towns and villages of that beautiful region, and was distinguished not by eloquence or by scholarship, but by consistent Sunday observ- ance. A reputed witch in the same village set her ' evil eye ' on him and on me and on the church. ' If you go up to the city to-morrow for service,' she shouted to him, ' you will find your house on fire when you return.' The Christian was aware that it was not her magic art that would set fire to his house, but she herself who would, under the cloak of demoniacal control, certainly do it, if he specially provoked her wrath. This woman was sub- sequently married to a young man of my acquaint- ance, a fine, stalwart woodman, and always courteous and friendly to me. Soon after their marriage, the man was infected by the same unaccountable influ- ence ; and from time to time raved and prophesied and divined as his wife was doing. They came one evening to my house in the city of Ningpo, and humbly begged for a lodging, as they had missed the market-boat. I demurred strongly to this request. ' You are continually reviling Christianity,' I said, ' and opposing our work most unkindly. You say that this is not your own action, and that you are prompted and controlled by mysterious powers. I have no wish to harbour such powers
RmiOURS AXD LEGENDS 117
under my roof.' ' Sir,' they protested with manifest sincerity, ' we will tell you now the whole truth of this matter. Sometimes, indeed, for the sake of gain, we pretend to hold communication with the spirit-world. We tell lies, and draw on our imagination, and invent what is not there. But at other times it is not so. A real and sensible and terrible power beyond our control enters in, and speaks and acts through us.' ' I believe you,' I said ; ' there may be such mys- terious and unseen influence, and certainly I can show no hospitality to it.' ' Let us in, sir,' they persisted, ' let us in ; save us for this night at least. These evil powers a\ ill not venture to enter here.'
On one occasion direct and, I fear, fatal injury, not to the body but to the spirit, was wrought by one of these women. She was called in by the weak-minded widow of a Christian farmer Avho had recently died, to conjure up his spirit and to converse with him. I had baptized this farmer some time before, and had rejoiced in his honest whole-hearted and consistent life. His little grand- son lay dying, and in anguish a message was despatched by the mother for a Taoist exorcist, to expel the evil spirit which was kilHng her child. The farmer, hearing of this, sent two messengers who outran the first, and called the Chinese clergy- man and the nearest doctor to come with all speed. Earnest prayer came first, and was heard ; whole- some remedies were applied and were blessed by God ; and the exorcist and fortune-teller arrived too late. The boy recovered, and was afterwards
118 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
baptized. Then the head of the household fell ill and died, a Christian death-bed of the noblest and most peaceiul kind. He had no fear. ' I die in the faith of Christ,' he said ; ' I shall live again and go home to God. Wife, children, follow me, as I have tried to follow Christ. Abandon all idolatry ; attend Christian worship ; believe and pray your- selves ; and we shall meet again.' He was buried, and the family reverently remembered for a while this solemn wiU and testament, till the foolish widow, as I have said above, called in the ' Vv itch,' to know how her husband was faring in the other world. ' He has come ! ' said the witch, pausing in her incantations. ' He is groaning and crymg, and begs you on no account to become a Chris- tian. His spirit is not allowed to enter the back gate or the front door of the ancestral temple, and he is shut out in cold and misery.' The effect of this malicious lie was disastrous. The widow and the greater part of the family abandoned their incipient faith, but one son held out. ' Do not try to persuade me,' he said ; ' My dear father's dying words and his life and example weigh with me ten thousand times more than the lies of this wicked woman, who in- vents these stories for gain.' He held fast to his faith, and spent many years of consistent Christian life.
One day I was crossing a pass in the momitains, when I noticed a number of hill-men gathered together. I drew near, and saw and heard a lad swaying to and fro in a frenzy, regardless of the exhortation or rougher rebuke of the people
RUIVIOURS AND LEGENDS 119
round, and uttering in his fit or possession pro- phecies, objurgations and incantations. The people gradually became silent, awed, as it seemed, by the presence of some mysterious power, and persuaded that the lad Avas really possessed by the soul of some departed spirit speaking through him.
Within the past three years, the great alluvial plain of Sanpeli, the chief cotton-growing region of these districts, has been seized with a rage for lottery-gambling, as with a demoniacal possession, which the magistrates were powerless to exorcise. The furor affected all classes, and was closely con- nected with magical arts, cleverly manipulated by the promoters of the gambling-ring. The people were invited to subscribe to the lottery, and a large number of prizes were announced, varying from about ten thousand dollars to ten, in value. The poorer people would part with almost anj^thing in order to find money for the purchase of these tickets ; for they were told that by sleeping all night on the ground by certain tombs on the hill-sides, they would have a dream, and in the dream a spirit would reveal to them the prize-numbers, and guide them in drawing the numbers at the office the next day. Men and women left home and shelter, and crowded together, regardless of the weather, and regardless of that separation and decency so natural to the Chinese, spending the nights thus on the hill-sides. The craze was taken advantage of by robbers, who watched their opportunity, and attacked isolated bands, depriving them of clothes and money. This infatuation lasted
120 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
for many months, and breaks out still from time to time.
It is remarkable how calamity or unusual pro- sperity seems in Chinese thought to be connected sometimes not with magic art or with the incanta- tions of witch or wizard, but with a name or site. Chinese artificial canals stretch in long and appar- ently regular lines through the fields ; but whenever it is possible, what would be a straight and un- interrupted reach is artificially broken and deflected according to the rules of fung-sliui, the system of geomancy, in order to perplex and hinder the flight or flow of evil spirits and influences in that direction.
A few years ago I attended a remarkable enter- tainment at Ningpo, on the occasion of a great Cliristian gathering amongst the Chinese churches. The chief mandarins of the city had received a courteous invitation from the missionaries to attend a social meeting of the convention, when Christian loyalty and patriotism and obedience to the powers that be were discussed. The Taotai of the city, with his colleagues, returned the compliment by inviting all the foreign missionaries and visitors to a luncheon. The feast passed off weU, and friendly and courteous words were interchanged, and the high philanthropy of our mission was explained. As we separated, the mandarins stood in a double row at the door, and with stately poUteness said farewell. We had hardly left when the sad news reached us that during our quiet meeting a small coasting-steamer, moored not a mile away, just weighing anchor and moving into mid-stream, had
RUIVIOURS AND LEGENDS 121
capsized and sunk. A sudden panic had seized the dense crowd of jiassengers, which led them to rush to one side of the vessel, and the crank craft, unal)le to bear the strain, turned over and went to the bottom. Out of the three hundred on board, scarcely ten were saved.
Was there not a sinister omen, it was asked by the Chinese, in the too euphemistic name of the ill- fated vessel, ' The Waves at Rest ' ?
I composed and sent to the broken-hearted Taotai\ as a token of our sincere sympathy with him and his people, the following brief dirge. I print it here in romanised Chmese, with a literal English version, as a specimen of the rhythm of ancient odes, on one of which it was modelled, and as embodying both the play on names m hicli Chinese superstition countenances, and the higher hope which we have brought to the people : —
Da jri ao yi t'in ts ming yi Se pell k'o ts'eh pih we me yi Joh oil Cii sing teh ii gong nyi.
Po nying hae ding hweh yiu jiin tao Shing sih ts kj'in siao pin ae 'ao Ts'aen jd song yi k'oh sing long dao.
Kao yi gyi yi Zong ti eng yi Sing ts dae we so kyi sing yi Sing tsiae k'o teh Sing ling dzu tsi
Uong yiin dzae t'in fong ding long zing.
Great aye ! deep aye ! Heaven's decrees be ; Wlio can trace them ? yet how noble ! Who can guide and teach the highest ?
122 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
Waves still, sea still, see the boat sinks, In a moment laughter ceases, And the wailing comes like billows ! Oh ! the sadness ! oh ! the heartbreak !
Great aye ! deep aye ! God's great mercy.
His dear Son to ransom cometh.
His blest Spirit strength and grace gives ;
Heaven knows ever wind still, sea still.
INLAND CITIES. HANGCHOW AND CHUIvI
CHAPTER VI
INLAND CITIES. IIANGCIIOW AND CIIUKI
My personal recollections carry me now to inland China ; not, indeed, far from the coast, for China proper, embracing eighteen provinces, stretches from Ningpo and Chusan, as the farthest eastern limit, due west to the borders of Burma, and north- west to the confines of Tibet. In the one case, passing through the provinces of Chekiang, Kiangsi, Hunan, Kweichow, and Yunnan, the distance is about fifteen hundred miles ; in the other, passing through Kiangsu, Anhui, Hupeh, and »Szchuan, it is about two thousand miles. Beyond these pro- vincial limits stretch the yet vaster regions which acknowledge China's rule or suzeraint}', Tibet, Eastern Turkestan, and INIongolia.
My inland step is a short one, of only about two hundred miles, but far enough to lead us, in the early times of which I write, three or four days' journey away from the coast and the open ports, and from the presence of Europeans ; from that also which was deemed by adverse critics the indispensable accompaniment of missionary enter- prise, the inevitable gunboat.
The city to which my story now leads is Hang- chow, the imperial capital during the souHumii Sung dynasty from 1127 to 1280 a.d., and bearing still
126 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
traces of its old grandeur, in some of its finer build- ings with imperial yeUow tiles fast fading in colour ; in its dialect, a refined form of the dialect of the court ; and in the solemnity of its surrounding hills, its broad river, and matchless lake.
The position of Hangchow for influence and exer- cise of rule, and for communication, seems to be superior to that of the other ancient southern capital, Nanking. The circuit of the walls of these cities must originally have been nearly the same, some thirty miles. Though Hangchow is nearer to the open sea than Nanking, its outlet to the ocean, a hundred miles av/ay, lies down its dangerous and treacherous river, issuing in a shoaly bay, vvhile the broad Yangtse wafts Nanking's fleets or merchant- men more secm^ely to the outer sea. Hangchow has, at any rate, the advantage of being the terminus of the Grand Canal, which leads through Soochow, the capital of Kiangsu, across the Yangtse and across the Huangho, six hundred miles to Tientsin. This canal was the second of the great constructive works of She Hwang Ti, self-styled the First Uni- versal Emperor, B.C. 209, who built the Great Wail, 1260 miles long, defending the north-west and northern frontier. He was the destroyer of the canonical literature of China, especially of its historical classic, and the would-be exterminator of Chinese scholars, not contemning, it is true, their learning, but fearing lest their memories should reproduce the old records of the empire which he strove to abolish, and hoping to make Chinese history begin with himself and his audacious reign. Hangchow is famous, according to Chinese pro-
HANGCHOW AND CHUKI 127
verbial lore, in the estimation both of ancient and modern pleasure-seekers. ' There is heaven above ; but there is an earthly paradise too — Hangchow and Soochow,' beautiful in situation, celebrated in art and song, intellectual and scholarly, but supreme, in the opinion of the not heavenly-minded young China of ancient and modern days, as the homes of luxurious pleasure. The description of Kinsay, as he styles Hangchow, by Marco Polo in the thir- teenth century, represents these different features, the picturesque, the intellectual, the sensual, of the celebrated city ; and the visions still pass before us, and the figures of pleasure - seekers in silks and satins, not aU ghostly and imaginary, still haunt the lake and the islands and the sacred hills.
Turning for a moment from the consideration of political or commercial advantage, it is interesting to note that the intrepid traveller Gutzlaff, whom I mention elsewhere, when asked about ninety years ago what place he would recommend as a strategic point in the enterprise of Christian missions, advised Singapore as an outpost and as a place of observa- tion and preparation, and Hangchow as a centre of supreme advantage when once a foothold should be gained on Chinese soil.
We are noAV approaching Hangcho\s', having crossed the Ts'aungo River in safety ; and we arc passing through the densely-peopled Shaohiug plain, with its spreading camphor-trees and pellucid canals, and its towns and villages, better built than those in the Ningpo plain, with stone foundations and strongly- built walls as a defence against sudden
128 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
inundation. I have reason to remember this river Ts'aungo. It has on either bank a succession of pa^ or haul-overs, with mud inclines leading up the high banks which protect the lower level of the plain from the river when in flood. The boats on the canal-line of traffic between Ningpo and Hangchow cross the river, and moor at the foot of the incline, waiting, with sometimes thirty or forty companions, to surmount the bank. The nooses of two strong hawsers, cross-wise, are slipped over the stern of the boat, and sometimes, when the boat is specially heavy, additional ropes are attached to an extempor- ised pole amidships. The windlass on the top of the bank is first set turning, and the ropes, which have been fully paid out, are drawn taut ; then a dozen or more men, assisted by half a dozen water-buffaloes on either side, begin to haul, while other men at the stern or at the sides of the heavily-laden boat literally put their backs to the work, and give the boat a heave and a jerk to set it going. Once really on the move, they attempt to increase the pace, and with shouts to the buffaloes and rough songs in time, strive to lift it onwards. It sticks fast, and another and yet another united effort, with much additional shouting, are required before the boat reaches the top of the incline. Here it is balanced for a few minutes. Custom-house officers, with dubious authority, come to search the baggage ; and altercation goes on as to the amount of the fee to be paid to the haulers. A boat of such unheard- of weight, a morning of such exceptional wet and cold, and the Avell-known generosity of the pas- sengers— aU are urged as reasons for a few more
HANGCHOW AND CHUKI 129
cash. At last all is settled, good-humour hke sun- shine generally breaking through the passing clouds of Chinese quarrelling. The hawsers are unshipped, a shove is given to the boat, and it slides swiftly down twenty or twenty-five feet into the canal below, the boatmen on the boat's sides and head deftly preventing contact with the stone base of the incline, or with other boats moored at its foot. I had crossed the 'pa on the western shore of this river one October day, and was in the river slowly tracking up the stream against the tide, aiming at the corresponding haul-over a mile away on the eastern bank. I was reading quietly in the boat, and enjoying the freshness of the line autumn air. ' What o'clock is it ? ' shouted the boatmen to me. ' Nearly 1 p.m.,' I answered. ' What o'clock is it no^^^ ? ' they shouted again, three or four minutes later. ' Quite 1 p.m.,' I replied. ' What o'clock did you say it was ? ' they called again, with much agitation. I was annoyed by their persistence, and asked hastily what it was they really wanted to know. ' It is just past one ; do not trouble me again.' They uttered an excited exclamation, leapt on shore, and both of them witli might and main towed the boat up stream so as to reach the haul- over. A moment later, with a louder exclamation they leapt on board again, and pushed the boat off into mid-stream. At the same time I seemed to hear a roar overhead, such as I have heard in times of great drought in the winter from m^Tiads of \\ild- fowl sweeping over in dense clouds searching for water. Looking from the boat's head as it now pointed down stream, I saw and heard coming round
I
i:}0 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
a sharp bend which we had passed, a wall of water nearly five feet high careering along at a great pace, and apparently preceded by three waves, with a deep trough between each. It was the tidal wave, the full moon autumn bore, which was rushing up the outer stream (the Tsintang) from the sea, and was pushing into this feeder (the Ts'aungo). The boatmen knew that it was due, but they had hoped to get over the further pa before the wave came up. Though they were caught now, they knew from experience what it was wisest to do. Instead of running the boat ashore, and trying to scramble up the bank through the mud — a course which would have meant the destruction of the boat and its cargo, and the loss of our lives — they turned the boat, so as to meet the bore in mid-stream. But it was almost too strong for us. We weathered the first wave unhurt, but as we dipped into the trough the second wave was upon us before we could fairly right ourselves, and knocking in the boat's head, it half filled the boat with water. We rode over it somehow, and surmounting the third without further injury, found ourselves swayed and whirled about on the agitated face of the incoming tide, but with no more waves. This tide wafted us in a few minutes to the pa, and with thankful hearts we found ourselves at rest in the tideless canal beyond. My boatmen were old sea-fishermen, and they told me that they had never before, even in the open sea, been in greater danger. As the tide sped on up the river, I could see junli after junlv seized and tossed violently to and fro, and the river's face was marked with poles
HANGCHOW AND CHUKI 131
and bamboo boat-tilts which had been washed away.
It would have fared differently with us had we encountered the bore on the main river itself. The tidal wave on the Tsintang is well known to science as one of the most remarkable bores. There is a perceptible wave with the incoming tide every day of the year ; but in the spring and autumn, at the special seasons of high tides, the phenomenon is one to inspire awe. Sucked from out the ocean washing the Cliusan archi- pelago, and fed by the coastal tides entering the Hangchow bay, by the currents and tide from the outer sea, and by the wash of the Yangtse coming down from the north inside the Chusan group, the flood, with these united forces, moves up the bay past Chapoo, and enters the narrow funnel-shaped mouth of the Tsintang at Haining. The roar can be heard fully half an hour before the tide comes up, travelling at the speed of thirty miles an hour. It pushes through the funnel, sweeping clear of the cleverly- built bamboo sidings to which the junks have rini for shelter and where they ride in safety, and is lifted to a wall of water twelve feet high and two miles wide, the head breaking in foam like a horse's mane. I have seen the people along the shore bow down to worship the god of the tide as he passes by. The mandarins outside the ' Tide-waitintr Gate ' of Hangchow used to go out to worship there. Hang- chow is thirty miles from the river's mouth, but the bore rushes past with scarcely diminished force, till after another ten miles' race westwards, it is checked by a great bend in the river, and dies away
132 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
into a more normal tide. The large free-ferry junks, carrying fifty or sixty people each — a remarkable public charity, endowed, partly by rich individual philanthropists, partly by the guilds at Ningpo — almost always calculate accurately the time of the passing of the tide, and lie up in the sidings till it has gone by. But occasionally a strong wind from the sea, or some unusual current, brings it up before time ; and then a junk may be caught, and all on board perish. A pathetic story was reported to me by the country-people on the banks of the Tsintang, the very legend forming a proof (as it seemed) of their belief, not so much in the consideration of the tide-god, as in the tender mercies of the great Creator Avhich are over all His works. During the years of untold misery which marked the sieges of Hangchow and its alternate occupation by imperial- ists and T'aip'ings, the country-people on either side of the river were constantly flying across its face, to and fro, to escape from this enemy or that. Were the T'aip'ings coming, and had the country- people shaven heads, they must fly for their lives, for they would be beheaded if they were captured. Were the imperialists rallying and coming back, and had the people long hair and unshaven heads, it was a case of life and death again, for there was no time to shave their heads and don the queue once more. Sometimes they had to fly at an hour's notice, and neither wind nor tide, day nor night, could be considered. But when the bore was due, though they dreaded it less than the human foe, could they possibly brave its overwhelming force ? It never came, they said. They assured me that
HANGCHOW AND CHUKI 133
for nearly three years the great wave ceased to roar and flash by, and they could cross and recross the river in safety.
On the banks of this river, I had once, during my residence in Hangchow, an interesting experi- ence, which illustrates certain phases of Chinese thought and hfc. I was starting on a visit to Shaohing and Ningpo, and proposed to cross by the free-ferry. To my surprise, the boatmen refused to start, though there was an average number of passengers already on board. On inquiry, I was told that in those times of trouble (that is, the expedition of General Tso against the Mohammedan rebels, and the famine raging in the North) the lead- ing banker in the city, who Avas treasurer both to the army commissariat and to the famine-fund, empowered by the authorities of the city, was detain- ing each boat on the free-ferry (of which he was one chief guarantor) until the passengers had placed a small sum in the collecting-boxes on board. The countrymen in my boat were indisposed to con- tribute, and time just then seemed to be no special object with them. Meanwhile the boatmen sat whistling, and made no show of starting. Time was, however, an object with me ; so after much protestation against compulsion of what were called voluntary offerings, I ostentatiously took out a dollar, threw it ringing into the box, and demanded a start to save the time of the poor industrious people. A shout of approbation met me from both boatmen, and passengers, praising my exemplary self-denial and bountiful charity. We moved gaily across the river, the passengers helping at the oar.
134 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
But in the court of my conscience, I fear, there was no such sounding praise.
The railway projected between Hangchow and Ningpo, and communicating from Hangchow with the Yangtse railway system, has been surveyed. The chief difficulty is the crossing of this dangerous river, the Tsintang. Abreast of Hangchow, and up and down for some distance, the river has a bed of deep, shifting sand. I have watched the destruc- tion and construction wrought by the bore on the bed of this shallow river. A sand bank had been formed, and apparently consolidated. It lifted itself above the river's surface ; soil was soon developed ; coarse grass covered it ; huts were erected upon it. The ferry-boats found it worth the while to land passengers there, and let them walk across to other boats waiting to convey them to the further shore. Thus I crossed on one occa- sion, as I went home to England on furlough. On my return, after eighteen months' absence, I found the ferry plying without interruption straight across. The island with its verdure and habitations had vanished altogether, swept away by the destruc- tive tide. It seems impossible, therefore, to build for a bridge a mile and a half long piers strong enough to resist the tidal shock. It might be feasible to throw a suspension-bridge across, with towers on the banks ; and if the reluctant Chinese railway-projectors would trust English engineers, such a triumph might be effected. But they will probably decide to employ a steam-ferry as a con- nection, a dangerous experiment, since from over- confidence or forgetfuLness it may be overtaken by
HANGCHOW AND CHUKI 135
the bore. The last proposal is to cross the river six or seven miles above Hangchow, where the hills come down to the water's edge, and rock can be struck in the river-bed. It seems likely, therefore, that this old free-ferry charity will not be inter- fered with, and the junks will ply as before. The ancient and stately city is being worried out of its dignity by young China's ambitions.
One of the newly-appointed provincial assemblies, the practice-ground for China's future parliament, has its spacious courts in Hangchow. There is a Chamber of Commerce also, which is making experi- mental attempts to regulate and restrict the lease or sale of land and houses to foreigners. The streets are policed by men standing every hundred yards, with swords instead of the batons and rattan canes with which they were at first entrusted. There is some pretence at scavenging in the streets, in addition to the old methods of cleaning the houses. One great advance in social reform may be seen in Hangchow, as also in most of the cities and towns in the empire. The change is so great and universal as to be almost inconceivable. During my resi- dence in the city, thirty years and more ago, in all the lanes and cross-streets, opium dens were con- spicuous, with their darkness and squalor and shame. My Chinese writer, an old man who had known Hangchow from his youth up, informed me that in his childhood opium smoking was little practised in the city. There were no public divans. Opium was consumed secretly. Then suddcnl}', after the so-called opium-wars and the larger influx of Indian opium, the scene changed, and opium-
136 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
shops began to multiply in the city. Lately the fiat went forth from Peking, and the edict has been promulgated in every province, that all opium- shops were to be closed on a certain day ; the cultivation of the poppy for native manufacture was to be at first restricted, and then (as at the present time) altogether prohibited ; and the use of opium as a luxury was to be abandoned by all, after brief periods of grace in certain cases. Recently in Hangchow eight thousand opium-pipes and lamps were consumed in a holocaust, with flags flying and drums and horns and bugles sounding ; and the city is apparently freer from opium now than it was a hundred years ago.
During my residence in Hangchow, the ancient custom was observed of prompt and rigid shutting of the city gates at night. In the district and departmental cities, the land- and water-city-gates (most of the cities having this double penetration of the walls) can be opened in times of peace by loud battering on the iron-sheathed gates, or by the offering of a few copper cash. But in the pro- vincial capitals a far sterner rule prevailed. The sun goes down ; the guards at the gate light a red tallow candle, and place it in a socket on the ground, allow- ing it to burn itself out, which with the flickering and flaming caused by the wind, occupies twenty minutes or so. Directly the candle goes out, the gates are closed ; and it used to be declared that the governor of the province himself would not be allowed to enter when once the doors were barred. Friends of mine, hurrying back from the country, were thus shut out one summer night ; and after friendly
WATKR CATK OF A CITY
Mi: a. H'alttr
HANGCHOW AND CHUKI 137
parleying with the guard on the wall, they were informed that they could not have the gates opened, but that as the late mail was sometimes let down in a basket from the wall, they might perhaps meet it and go up in the return basket. My friends eventually had to spend the night outside the city, trying to sleep on a hard table in a tea-shop, with no covering, and persecuted by clouds of mos- quitoes. Now the stern rule is being relaxed. At the pilgrim season, when endless lines of devotees come up from the country, to worship at the great temples, T'ienchuh and Linyin, beyond the western lake, the gates are, by order, left open till midnight in the fine weather of April ; and the pressing need of a foreign doctor summoned to see a patient out- side the walls will open the gates which neither governor nor grandee could open in days that are past.
Strangest of all, and (as it seems to me) more to be deprecated than all, is that to which I alluded in a previous chapter, the discovery of the useless- ness of these ancient and picturesque city-walls, and the announcement of their impending destruc- tion, the demolition of the gates, and the building of macadamised roads along the historic lines. Reforms of this nature, however, cannot be effected without danger. As a rule, the suppression of the opium-trade, and of the abuse of opium, is found throughout the provinces to have the conscience of the people behind it. That overrides the clamour and obstruction of the governors and the traders. But in these other changes, which have no moral significance, and seem to insult the shades of China's
138 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
history, no enthusiasm is Hkely to be aroused, but rather strong opposition.
When I first reached Hangchow, I looked with interest towards the blue mountains on the southern horizon, eighty or a hundred miles distant. They were, I was told, the mountains of Chuki, and some- where in that region dwelt a Christian girl, who had recently been taken from our mission-school to be married to a non-Christian husband. She had pro- mised to write, if possible, and let us know how she was, and whether she prospered in every way. No tidings came ; the place was, we believed, remote, and postal communication was impossible, as the village was scarcely known, but I was dissatisfied until some effort had been made to find her. Though I was not sure of the name of her village, I knew at least half of the name, and as it had an unusual sound, I hoped to be able to trace it. During two journeys through wide tracts of the Chuki district, I seemed again and again to be close to the village. ' No, this place is called Yangsaen, not Yangwu, as you had supposed. Yangwu you will find ten miles further south.' When I reached Yangwu, the people told me there had been a young woman there who had learnt to read Chinese in a foreign school ; but she had left, and they hardly knew where to advise me to seek for her. I continued to search, penetrating almost to the walls of the proud city of Chuki. This city had some reason for her haughty pride, and (as I experienced later) her indignant refusal to admit a foreigner, how- ever benevolent he might profess to be. Had not Chuki stood out almost alone in Chekiang, and
HANGCHOW AND CKUKl 139
indeed in all the provinces, with the exception of the city of Changsha, against the terrible T'aip'ings ? I saw at some distance, the white walls of what was once a rough fortress, P'ao-tsong. Behind those walls, with one antiquated long gun, the people of Chuki, under a capable leader, and with enthusiasm and pluck, had defied all the forces the rebels could spare from Hangchow to attack them. Three or four hundred of the rebels were killed, and the fortress, if I remember rightly, was not stormed, but abandoned in the night. The walls of the city were placarded a little later, when we were planning to gain an entrance for our mission, witli the announcement that so long as the world stood, Chuki would never allow the despicable foreigner, Moule, to rent houses or to come near the city. Would Chuki, who had stemmed the flood of rebel- lion, give way before a single foreigner ?
I received no insult, however, during those first exploratory visits, and subsequently, when my own search had failed, I found the young woman, my wife's former pupil, through the enterprise of a Christian Chinese, who went down alone. After- wards, under his guidance, I reached her remote village, travelling behind the majestic ' Lion Moun- tain' ; and it was worth all my toil by water and on land, to succeed at last in my search. The scene was, in some respects, most unusual. I went inside the house, being kindly welcomed by the girl's mother-in-law, and the room was soon filled to overflowing with the men just back from tlie fields and hill-sides, for their midday meal. A foreigner, through all the centuries, had never been
140 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
there before. I called to my young friend, who, shy before such a company, had run into the interior of the house. She came forward, bringing her Chinese New Testament at my request. Then, at my suggestion, she read the first few verses of the third chapter of St. John's Gospel, well and clearly, showing that she had not forgotten her reading. Her elder sister-in-law, who was not a Christian, told me that so far from forgetting or neglecting what she had learnt, Ruth (as she was named) used to go upstairs three times every day, spending some time in reading and praying ; and ' moreover,' she added, ' she is teaching me.' The men then joined in a chorus of rough but friendly admiration. ' Why should you be ashamed,' they asked, ' to come forward and read ? It is we who ought to be ashamed. You are a fine scholar, and we know not a character.' It was a proof to me at the time — — alas ! how frail human nature is — of the great power of the Christian faith, that this young timid woman could for long stand her ground, quite alone, with no church or school, without Christian teacher or friend.
My next visit to this region, thus forcibly brought to my notice by the accident of an acquaintance lost amongst the wilds, sprang from an almost supernatural incident, and it carried me, as I desire to carry my readers now, into the very heart of this district, with its rough and yet not barbarous nor wholly uncivilised inhabitants.
Outside the ' Periwinkle Gate ' of Hangchow, the present site of the railway-station, I had opened a small mission-room for preaching and conversation.
HANGCHOW AXD CHUKI 141
The venture seemed a failure ; no one came in. It was proposed to close the room and try in another quarter ; but I preferred to wait awhile, and unexpectedly the work bore fruit. One morning, when the doors were closed and the shutters put up, as no preacher had arrived, a man passed by on his way to the market. He was a native of Chuki, and had come up to Hangchow on a visit to friends. He was a fair scholar, and master of an endowed school in his native village amongst the mountains. As he passed the room, the sign over the door caught his eye — ' The Holy Religion of Jesus.' He stood still, reading it aloud to himself ; and as no one was about except the landlady of the room, he asked her what the sign implied, and what the name Jesus meant. She replied that she could not tell him much ; she believed it was a good doctrine, and that they were good people who preached. He had better go into the city and see them for himself — iMr. Moule and Mr. Tai. She offered to guide him, as he did not know the way ; and, notwithstanding her cramped feet and the two miles' walk, she brought the stranger to my helper Matthew Tai's door, and left him there. The Chuki man at once avowed the reason of liis visit, and the catechist without wasting lime in complimentary talk took him to the liible, and for two or three hours, out of the Law of Moses and the Psalms, the Prophets and the Gospels, lie expounded to him the things concerning Jesus Christ. Then they came over to the mission-house to see me ; and as I welcomed this stranger and heard a little of his history, 1 was astonished to
142 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
observe how eagerly he brushed aside preHminary topics and went straight to the point, narrating with clearness and earnestness the Gospel story, and discussing Christian doctrine. I asked him politely how long he had been a Christian. ' I do not understand you, sir,' he said ; ' I know not what a Christian is.' ' How long, then,' I con- tinued, ' have you been acquainted with the Bible and Christian literature, enabling you to speak so clearly on these matters ? ' ' For a period of two hours and a half,' he said ; ' I never heard of Jesus or met with preachers or Christian books till ]Mr. Tai read with me and instructed me.' He seemed on the spot to have received the truth of God in the love of it, and after thirty-five years of chequered life he is living still, a headstrong, wayAvard man, as he has shown himself from time to time, but never abandoning his faith, and possessed of a sort of genius and unquenchable zeal for evangelisation. I do not attempt to relate his history at length, but as he was my chief guide to the heart of Chuki, where we are lingering now, I could not omit to mention him. This visit of his, followed by three weeks' reading and study and prayer under my roof, led to the foundation of a church in his mountain- home, which has since extended to almost all parts of the district of Chuki. After my first visits to that region, and the baptism of nineteen men, women and children, and the further spread of inquiry, persecution broke out, the first miu"murs of w^hich had been heard on the very morning of the first baptism. That baptism was held by the gracious permission of the clan, a permission they
HANGCHOW AND CHUKI 143
speedily repented of, in the great ancestral hall of the Chow family. Behind me, as I conducted the service, rested on shelf over shelf the tablets of the family, the habitation of the souls of those who through three hundred years had climbed those hills, and toiled on those terraced fields and in the plain below. When the persecution fell, some of the Christians, the young men particularly, faced the shock, but most of them fled for refuge to Hangchow. IMy later journeys, after the persecu- tion had abated, led me further afield, and showed me more and more of the state of this wild region. On one of them I was introduced, for once in my life, to the inner rooms of a Chinese yamen.
I was calling on the chchien, the chief mandarin of the district, with my card, to thank him for his exertions (however tardily put forth) to protect and bring back the fugitive Christians. A violent thunderstorm gathered and broke as I was con- versing with the magistrate, and I had been already detained by flood-water in the river. When I rose up, avowing ni}' intention, late as it was, of pressing on through the night to the village of ' Great Valley Stream,' he interposed with a courteous but positive veto. He would not answer for my life if I ventured through the floods. I must spend the night under his roof, and my room was already prepared, lie kindly promised to have the yamen gates thrown open as early as I pleased, even at break of day, the next morning. A secretary was detailed to attend on me ; and the mandarin's son was my host at dinner, an attractive, scholarly lad, who had just taken his first degree. For a time I conversed w ith
144 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
the magistrate himself, pleading earnestly the claims of Christianity. He then retired, as he told me, to his court of justice, which was to be opened between 9 and 10 p.m., according to the custom in this region. My watch had gained an hour, and instead of calling the unfortunate secretary at five in the morning for my breakfast, I summoned him at four ; and instead of leaving the yamen gates at six, we were off at five. The magistrate had talked to me with much feeling of the turbulence of the people, and of the difficulties of his post, bringing forward these as some excuse for his own extreme remissness, if not hostility, in not preventing or for the time allaying the fierce attack upon the Christians. ' What do you think happened to me last week ? ' he said. ' A funeral was taking place. A fight began over the unclosed coffin, and with the dead man's eyes upon them, between the two branches of the clan to which he belonged. I was summoned to attend and restore order, but for a while I was powerless before the clansmen.'
The Chuki people seem to regard lawsuits, and any dispute which may lead to litigation, as the very breath of life. One man, on his baptism, brought me as a sure proof of sincerity a large chest full of deeds and other documents referring to laAvsuits, some still pending, others still unsettled of more ancient dates, with all of which he desired finally to break. Yet amidst their contentions and head- strong ways, much strength of character and rude nobility shine forth. I was warned, when entering these regions, that they were always fighting. I was told that if a man were killed in a quarrel, the
HANGCHOW AND CHUKI 145
murderer without hesitation or delay would walk up to the yamm, not waiting for runners or police, and deliver himself up to be tried for murder or manslaughter.
The state of social life and the standard of morality in these regions are not low, if not conspicuous for refinement and order. The canonical hour for weddings is not before noon, as once prevailed in England, or in the early afternoon, but at midnight. In other parts of the country the hour is in the late evening, and this does not conduce to the mainten- ance of decorum, which is sometimes rudely dis- regarded by the friends of the bridegroom and by strangers on these occasions. I camiot but testif}^ however, with admiration, that in China's ordinary social life, and even in the accessories of their idolatrous worship, outrages on decency and morality are quite the exception, and are in no sense part of their customs and worship.
On one occasion I was invited to perform a mar- riage service under somewhat strange circum- stances. I fixed eleven o'clock in the morning for the time of service, and enjoined strict punctuality, as I had a long journey to take in the afternoon. The wedding-party accepted the hour, and promised conformity to my conditions as to time. 1 arrived on the stroke of eleven, and was smilingly informed by the bridegroom and the host that the bride was not quite ready ; but if I would sit down and partake of refreshment, all would be arranged. 1 did so reluctantly, and nibbled severely some nuts, and drank a cup of tea. I then went out for a five minutes' stroll, telling them that on my return 1
K
14G HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
should proceed with the service. I was received
with fresh smiles and excuses. The bride was not
yet quite prepared ; they were sorry for the delay ;
would I accept further refreshment ? I sat down
for a minute, conversing with them and explaining
my views on punctuality and also on the solemnity
of this service. I then started for a somewhat
longer stroll, mounting a low hill. In half an hour
I was back, and prepared to push matters to an
extremity, but it was quite useless. There were
unavoidable hindrances ; all would soon be ready ;
would I accept a cup of tea and some fruit ? I
soon left, to climb a yet higher hill, and strove to
restrain my vexation. My ascents and descents
and remonstrance and hope and despair lasted till
five o'clock in the afternoon. It was getting dark ;
my onward journey was out of the question ; my
head was aching violently ; when suddenly I heard
a shout and a scuffle. The bride was pushed in,
and the service proceeded, not with much edification,
I fear, in the darkness and confusion and crowding.
At the end I was informed that the bride, out of
consideration for me, had consented to get up at
five in the afternoon, instead of at nine in the evening,
the usual hour, and had considerably shortened her
lamentation and tears at the prospect of marriage,
a form of mourning in which, according to the old
rule of China's etiquette, every bride should indulge.
Round and above these vagaries of human nature,
how beautiful and melodious, and, in some true
sense, how sympathetic, are the sights and sounds
of God's earth and sky ! I was being carried on one
occasion by night far into the depths of the hiUs,
HANGCHOW AND CHUKI 147
not knowing whither I was going, at the mercy, so it seemed, but really with the loyal and respectful care of my bearers and companions. As we passed through the fields half inundated for the rice-grow- ing, the bright stars overhead were reflected in the water, the reflection broken at times by men fishing in the canals with flaring torches to guide their hands and to lure their prey.
The hill-sides in spring-time, colourless in the gloom of night, are by day lit up with azaleas. Some of the hills are three thousand feet high, and covered to the top with the flowers of this shrub — scarlet, crimson, purple, pink, with occasional white blossoms, or great spikes of yellow — a sight so beautiful as to make it worth the while to run round the world to behold it. The cuckoo is sing- ing, our own English bird ; but its note to the Chuki people is both more promising and at the same time more deceptive than the song, without such words, which in sweet English fields makes the roving schoolboy stop and listen. Tsoh-k'u, tsoh-k'Uy the Chinese interpret the call, ' INIake my nest, make my nest ' ; a boast or promise addressed to the bunting or hedge-sparrow, ' Next year I \\ ill make my own nest.' Or perhaps the boast is addressed to the more credulous public, and refers to the present season, ' I made the nest ; I made the nest.'
Again there resounds through the hills the in- cessant cry of a hill-bird, one of the cuckoo species, and this cry also to Chinese ears has two interpreta- tions. K'dng-k'tng-mah-koy ' Hide, hide the wheat- cakes ! ' cries one. H yiao-ts-tdng-t6ng, ' Dutiful son
148 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
will hold you up,' cries another. Thus two pathetic and tragic stories of ancient days are blown about the hills. Both seem to make old China's vanishing life live on in these remote hills, though new China comes bustling through her cities and plains.
Once upon a time a poor down-trodden girl lived with her cruel mother-in-law, working hard and being half-starved. One day she was desperately hungry, and ventured to take two small newly- baked wheaten cakeB from the oven. She heard her mother-in-law's step approaching, and in terror stuffed them both into her mouth, hoping to hide her theft. But she was suffocated and died, and ever cries now with returning spring, ' Hide, hide the wheat-cakes ! '
Long, long ago a dutiful son was mourning bitterly his mother's death, his father having died some years before. His mother was carried out for burial on the distant hill-side, and as the procession wound along the pathways, they had to cross a narrow stream. The bearers carrying the coffin stumbled ; and the weeping son ran forward, and received the weight of the falling coffin on his own shoulder. He was crushed to death, and he cries now everywhere on the spring winds, ' Your loving, dutiful son will bear you up.' The musical calls of the hill-birds, which should sound notes of praise and gladness, seem to turn, as so often with us, to the wailing of the fifes and the roll of the muffled drum as the dead pass on to the grave.
This double view, of a great and ancient city waking up for movement and experiments in reform and change, and a great region hard by, scarcely
HANGCHOW AND CHUKI 149
touched by the awakening, yet sighing for something new and something better, presents — not, I trust, without significance — an epitome of the China I am trying to portray.
Meanwhile, to the old and new China alike God's remedy for sin and sorrow, and change and disap- pointment and death, is being offered.
JOURNEYS BY LAND AND BY WATER
CHAPTER VII
JOURNEYS BY LAND AND BY WATER
The time seems to be hastening on when descrip- tions of travel in China, both over faniihar routes and in hitherto untrodden regions, will form com- paratively monotonous reading, for they will so closely resemble European traveUing in the acces- sories of locomotion. Let me then, before old China fades from view, conduct my readers on a few trips by land and by water through the China that I have known.
Some thirty years ago there occurred at Ningpo a manifestation of the fear entertained by the Chinese boatmen and others as to the probable effect on their boat-traffic of the introduction of steam navigation. The people rioted, because the chief magistrate of the city gave permission to run a steam-launch both for passenger-service and for use as a tug-boat about thirty or forty miles up the main river. In the face of this opposition the launch was withdrawn ; but before many years had passed other companies petitioned the magis- trate, and at the present time two or three lines of launches, carrying about two hundred passengers each, ply to and fro daily. The effect on the ordinary boat-traffic must be (one would think) considerable, and it will be aggravated when the
163
154 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
railway between the capital of the province (Hang- chow) and the chief port (Ningpo) is opened. But at present it is scarcely apparent. The smaller market-boats for passenger-traffic, and the larger black-tilt boats both for passengers and for cargo, crowd up the river with every tide, and come down, sometimes a fleet of them, with the ebb. Each boat is provided w^ith protuberant red eyes and white eyeballs, not for the skipper's use as tele- scope or binocular, but for the boat's own conven- ience and clearer vision. These boats, which with care can be made almost as comfortable as the Shanghai house-boats, will be needed for long years to come in these regions, intersected as they are by canals and creeks and rivers which no steam- vessels or branch railways will ever traverse or tap. The express-boats of this part of China, called by foreigners ' snake-boats ' on account of their wriggling motion, and by the Chinese ' foot-propelled boats,' draw very little water, and can run up the rivers against the tide by creeping inshore, or can pene- trate into the narrower creeks and canals where larger craft would be stranded. The one long scull is seized and worked by the boatman's two bare feet. He sits on a narrow plank at the stern, with an upright board for him to lean against, and a small paddle under his arm by which he can steer and steady the boat. Then gathering up his legs he drives the oar through the water with a strong stroke and feather, the boat travellmg at nearly double the pace of ordinary boats. The passenger must be content day and night to lie down flat, or to sit on the boat's floor with his back propped
JOURNEYS BY LAND AND BY WATER 155
against his roll of bedding. The tilt drawn over him as a protection against rain or the blazing sun is too low to allow of his sitting up in a chair, and if he stands up the boat will capsize. Many years ago I conducted an episcopal traveller in such a humble and crazy vessel for about a hundred and fifty miles up the country. It was a serious respon- sibility. I waited on the bishop's boat in a similar one of my own ; tied my boat to his at meal-times ; served him out his meals and washed his plates for him, as it was not convenient to take a servant. Finally, I saw the prelate into bed, with respectful but strict orders not to move about or toss to and fro, or turn over suddenly. Darkness fell, and I hoped that we were safe for the night, when a sudden call from the boatman told me that the bishop was in danger of upsetting the boat by violent rearrange- ment of himself and his bedding. Just in time he consented to lie still, and the danger of capsizing was averted. But for those unaccustomed to this kind of travelling neither comfort nor safety can be assured.
There are several other methods of travelling which may be mentioned. In the north, where rough roads are met with, you may travel in mule- litters or carts, both most uncomfortable, from my experience of them in Shantung. Wheel- barrows, also, are constructed with one tall central wheel, and a ledge on either side of the wheel on which heavy baggage can be laid and strapped tight ; or on which, carefully balancing themselves, two or even three passengers can sit by either face of the wheel, one leg hanging down, the other eased
156 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
by a rope stirrup. The strength of some of these wheelbarrow-men is extraordinary, and they sometimes have an auxiliary in a small sail which they set to waft them along. For land-travel in Mid-China, alike in the cities with their narrow paved streets, and in the country, and in the hill- districts, intersected by yet narrower paved paths, wide enough only for passengers in single file, we depend on sedan-chairs with two bearers, one in front and one behind, supporting the bamboo poles on their shoulders. In the case of long distances there are one or two extra men to each, and they change shoulders without lowering the chair. These conveyances vary in style. We have, first, the mandarin's chair, with scarlet cloth seats and inside padding, and four bearers with extra yokes, and runners and lictors before, sounding a trumpet with shouts to clear the way. Then, since these grander conveyances are prohibited to all but officials (though I have once, to my annoyance, in the heart of the mountains, been surreptitiously carried over the hills by an illegal quaternion of chair-bearers), you may hire ordinary chairs with tilts over your head, and closed in on both sides with sliding windows. Or, finally, you may travel lightly if unrestfuUy in mountain-chairs, consisting of three pieces of wood affixed to the two long bamboo poles ; one plank to sit upon, one to lean against, and one narrower piece of wood, fitted with ropes, as your foot-support ; and with no cover against sun or rain. In mission-travel, however, when we aim not so much at reaching far distant places as at moving from point to point over the
JOURNEYS BY LAND AND BY WATER 157
plain or amongst the hills, we trust to our feet, carefully shod so as to stand the jar of the rough or uneven stone or pebble paths ; or with the useful guard of straw sandals strapped under the boot, so as to prevent stumbling on the steep and slippery mountain-roads. On one occasion I was crossing a pass in the Ningpo hills, called the ' Pass of the Long Winding Torrent.' A number of passengers were travelling by the same route, some going, some coming. ' Look,' said one, ' at that foreigner on foot ; why does he not hire a chair and ride ? ' ' He is parsimonious,' replied his friend, ' and wants to save the chair-hire.' ' I know better,' said another ; ' he walks because we walk, and he wishes to talk with us on the way.' That true word made my heart glad, and my step lighter.
The preparations for a prolonged absence on such journeys sometimes involve special precautions, in the case of mission-houses isolated in crowded cities. The tifao or constable of the district is sent for. He is informed that the master is starting on a journey, and will be absent for some days. The house is solemnly placed in his care. The mistress is here, and the children ; he must be very careful, and will be held strictly responsible if thieves should break in. With polite assurance we remind him that he knows all about the thieves, and that with the greater confidence we commit the matter into his hands. A theft is committed, and on the master's return the constable is sent for. He professes indig- nant and agitated surprise. He will make in([uiries, and do his best to recover the rroods. lie fails to
158 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
do so once and again. The magistrate is then informed, and the constable in evil case is beaten, and ordered again to investigate the matter. Then the chief of police, the hu-yuh, is summoned. He, too, fails in his investigations, and consequently is beaten with bamboos. This last castigation never (or seldom) fails to result in the discovery of the thief and the restitution of the goods. For in the old China I have known, ' set a thief to catch a thief ' was an acknowledged principle, since the superintendent of police was generally a well-known trainer or patron of thieves. This grotesque state of things, so familiar to those who have long known China, and her rough and yet ever ready ways of doing things, will doubtless be a thing of the past in the near future of new and reformed China. About thirty-four years ago, when living in the heart of the city of Hangchow, I was much annoyed by the continual throwing of stones, some of large size, over my high garden wall, to the danger of life or limb. We could not trace the culprits, though our suspicions were awake. I therefore sent for the constable. ' You see the state of the case,' I said to him ; ' you probably know all about these out- rages on propriety and neighbourly duty. This stone-throwing must cease. If one stone comes in after to-day, I shall report the matter to the man- darin, and demand your punishment. If no stone comes over till the end of the year [this was in July] you will be rewarded with a dollar.' The bargain was kept on both sides. No more stones were thrown, and the constable claimed and received his dollar.
JOURNEYS BY LAND AND BY WATER 159
Journeys in China must be undertaken in all kinds of weather, from deep snows and raging wind to almost intolerable oppression of dry or moist heat. We have, however, more equable and settled weather in late autumn and early winter, and also in early spring. November, for instance, so often veiled in the west with gloomy skies and cold fogs, is accompanied in this part of China with brilliant sunshine, cloudless skies, and keen and fresh air.
I was once travelling in a boat along the canals not far from Ningpo. A heavy thunder-storm broke, and the rain leaked through the bamboo tilt, so that when I retired to rest I was obliged to have a small tub suspended over my head to catch the water. My attention was soon taken off my own position by observing that the storm's chief fury was being spent over the city, twelve miles awa}'. I reached home the next day, and found that the thunder and lightning had been of exceptional and alarming violence. One of our mission-rooms in the heart of the city was struck twice in the same storm. On going to examine the damage done, I saw running down a certain wooden pillar two dis- tinct grooves cut by the lightning. Tlic wife of the Chinese preacher who was my companion on the journey had been sleeping with her head close to this pillar. She was quite unhurt, though shaken with alarm, and no further damage was done to the house. I therefore questioned the neighbours and others as to the effect which this stroke from heaven, falling on a Christian building, would have on the thoughts and superstitions of the city. Was it a
160 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
sign of heaven's wrath or vengeance, a curse, a warning ? ' On the contrary,' they said ; ' it is a most propitious and fortunate sign. Some evil spirit was doubtless seeking right of asylum in your sacred courts, and the vengeance of heaven fell twice to drive the evil influence out.' This seems to be the accepted view on the subject. An indi- vidual struck by lightning is himself the object of heaven's wrath. A building struck is honoured and sanctified thereby, as protected by heaven itself from the inroads of evil spirits. It seems possible that the custom by which trees scarred and blackened by lightning are left standing and regarded with superstitious awe, and sometimes adorned with a small shrine and image, bears the same interpreta- tion. The tree was not at fault because the light- ning struck the life out of it, but the evil spirit lodging there was scorched and expelled. The tree's truer life remains ; and now as a nobler inmate, and a preserver of its sanctity, an unsightly image is set up. The recognition of higher and spiritual powers, guiding and controlling the powers of nature, is a remarkable feature in Chinese thought ; but it perplexes one to find how so wise and under- standing a people can go as far and as foolishly astray in legend and myth as the most barbarous tribes, leading them to worship and fear not the Creator but the deified creature. This phenomenon of folly and ignorance in the highest region of thought, and on the part of a people so wise and so scholarly in other departments, is an illustration of St. Paul's strong saying, ' The world by wisdom knew not God.' ' The God of glory thundereth ;
JOURNEYS BY LAND AND BY WATER 161
the voice of the Lord is full of majesty.' The Chinese admit this in their own proverbial sayings : —
* Fear'st thou not God ? Be still, 0 soul ! And listen to the thunder-roll.'
But for worship they conceive the idea and mould the image of the uncle and the aunt of thunder. ' The voice of the Lord is upon the waters.' I have seen the hundred miles of hills surrounding the Ningpo plain scarred by landslips caused by the breaking of the springs during torrential typhoon rains and the accompanying waterspouts ; and the plain itself, over a thousand square miles in extent, completely under water. This is the linger of God, the Chinese inner conscience admits ; but the accepted account, half believed in, is that by these burstings of the springs great frogs, which were con- fined there, are released, and pass out to sea on the wings of the tempest, to be examined for the degree of dragon. The dragon is the rain-king ; and if you venture to doubt this you are asked to watch a waterspout by sea, or more rarely by land, the sure sign of storm and abundant rain. ' See ! ' they say, ' the tail of the god is let down, and the dragon is drawing up the water.' It must be added, in justice to Chinese thought and reasoning, that there may after all be some reason in their superstitious madness, though it be reason clouded by wilful ignorance. In the case of drought or flood, when all prayers and incantations to the higher powers and the heavens seem to fail, the people and the magistrates combine to bring the gods to their senses, and to arouse the virtue of sympathy by
L
162 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
enforced fellow-suffering. They carry the idols into the blazing sun for a sense of the torture of drought, and into the open court where the rain is descend- ing in torrents for the knowledge of flood ; and so endeavour to compel the spirits to care for men.
On a recent occasion in Ningpo, an incarcerated robber, who was being taken, heavily chained and under escort, to a distant place for punishment, was rescued by a band of desperadoes. The man- darin who was responsible for the prisoner, with the alternative of heavy penalties and degradation, despairing of tracing the criminal, at last caused the stone figures of dragons and lions at his yamen gate to be exposed to the sun and rain, in order to extract the secret from them. A year ago, in the hills from which I now ^vrite, during a time of protracted drought, imperilling the whole rice-crop which was fading and withering just before the harvest, some woodmen whom we knew well appeared with native sportsmen's guns. They were bent on shooting the rain-god or dragon, and proposed to fire on the first living creature they met with, in which the dragon might possibly be hiding. This violent and aggres- sive way of crying ' 0 Baal, hear us ! ' would, they hoped, melt the brazen heavens and bring down rain. When remonstrated with on their apparently impious conduct, they avowed that their wrath and importmiate threats were not directed against the great God above, the supreme emperor. He would not be unkind, or do Avrong. But the dragon-king and the deities represented by the idols, who were merely subordinate gods, his mandarins, were failing in their duty, and for personal interest neglecting
JOURNEYS BY LAND AND BY WATER 1C3
the orders of the emperor far off in his capital. These they must censure, even as the people from time to time besiege and force an entrance into the yamen, and bring unjust and oppressive mandarins to their knees. But no insult was intended to the supreme God, and no insurrectionary plot aimed against the emperor. This belief is expressed in the proverb, ' Heaven is very high ; the emperor is far off.' In the words of Mencius (Bk. I. Pt. ii. iii. 7), partly his own, and partly a quotation from the classic of history, ' Heaven, when sending down the people to earth, appointed for them rulers and teachers, simply saying, " They are to help God." '
Unfortunately, this special pleading as an excuse for the insulting of idols leaves the main accusation of the neglect caused by idolatry unanswered. For not only are prayers and complaints addressed to these lower imaginary powers of nature, and not to the supreme, whom yet in words they confess, but when the rain does come and drought is relieved, or when the thunder and the rain and the hail cease, and flood is arrested, and the earth brings forth her fruit once more, thanks and praise rise then no higher than to the dragon and the idols. The emperor is in person still unapproachable ; heaven is still high, and God far off.
The myths and superstitions of the Chinese are sometimes connected with prognostications so strange as to startle one by their accuracy. A transit of Venus was announced by western astron- omers as due in a certain j^ear. The Chinese astrologers and fortune-tellers accepted the calcula- tion, which had been beyond their powers, remark-
164 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
able as they have been for long ages in their accuracy of observation and in their minute records. Tliey added then their own interpretation and prognostica- tion. It boded evil. The emperor is the sun of China's sky. A spot moving over the face of the sun means something wrong with the emperor's glorious face. That very year the emperor died of smallpox.
To return to the subject of travel. I cannot call myself an explorer or traveller, although I have in the way of duty seen many comitries. My first place of foreign residence was the island of Malta in 1856-57. Here I experienced a great earth- quake, which agitated the Ionian Islands. This was followed by the breaking up of a drought which had lasted for five months, and had clothed the hot and withering island with a pall of dazzling dust. The monsoon burst at last, after three or four evenings of lightning and portentous phenomena in the west, and by the rushing rains of a single night the island was washed green. I witnessed also the coming on and the raging for ten days of the Euroclydon, a great north-easter. Neither sun nor stars appeared, and a tempest lay on the sea and on the land. The storm ceased, and we sallied forth to see its effects along the coast. After a walk of ten miles we reached St. Paul's Bay, and found there a sailing-ship, driven in by the wind and current, and wrecked on the very spot where almost certainly St. Paul's ship ran aground and broke up eighteen hundred years before. There, too, I saw the English fleet just back from the Crimea, the Duke of Wellington, a four-decker with auxiliary
JOURNEYS BY LAND AND BY WATER 165
steam, but most of the frigates and warships full- rigged and manceu\Ting under sail in a gale of wind. It was an even finer sight than that I witnessed in 1902, the gathering of the fleets in the Solent at the time of the coronation of King Edward.
In recent years I have been several times in Japan, visiting those beautiful and strangely attrac- tive islands before, during, and after the war with Russia. During the war I wondered at the bearing and attitude of the people, so far as I could observe it, so serene, undaunted and self-contained in the tension of suspense, the anguish of anticipation, the intoxication of victory, and the emergence of the nation from the conflict, great and in the first rank of the powers. But all this others have described with varying tones of sympathy or criticism over and over agam.
I have seen also a good part of the coast of China : Swatow, sheltered behind ' Double Island ' from the miseries of the storm ; Amoy, with its low and unhealthy yet populous city and its beautiful island across the harbour, with hedges of heliotrope and pleasant roads and gardens and fair blue sea ; Foochow, and the almost matchless scenery on the river IVIin and round the great city. I have been up the great Yangtse, which, after a course of between three and four thousand miles, falls into the sea below Shanghai. On this journey I passed Nanking, the ancient southern capital, with a wall thirty miles in circumference, and visited the junction of three great cities, Hankow, Wuchang and Hanyang, in what is the exact geograpliical centre of China proper. The mention of these visits.
166 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
with one to the watering-place of Chef oo in Shantung, will serve to show that my travels in China and the Far East have not been wholly confined to the districts of Mid-China with which this book deals. The regions through which I have passed in China and Japan have reminded me, in their infinite variety, now of quiet landscapes in southern France, now of Alpine scenery, and not seldom of village- scenes at home in England.
I turn from the more familiar and well-beaten tracks to the less known pathways of my personal experience.
A few years after the close of the T'aip'ing rebellion I started on a short tour of exploration. I had heard so far back as 1862 of the country people's desperate rally (described above), unable any longer to endure the oppression of the T'aip'ings. The tribes had chosen as their first meeting-place the plateaus and upper valleys of the ' Great Mist Mountain,' rising more than three thousand feet above the sea, and, as they hoped, inaccessible to the foe. The war was over. The White Caps had been fiercely pursued and decimated by the warlike and active ' long- haired.' The dead had long been buried ; the sur- vivors had repaired their blasted homes, and were retilling their fields, which had lain almost desolate ; and wheat and rice fields in terraces and indian- corn plantations appeared once more on the moun- tain-side. Could I not visit them now, I thought, and take them good tidings ? I started on foot up the long valley with a Chinese companion. We passed through continuous groves of mulberrj'^ trees, which had been hacked and lopped and burnt by
JOURNEYS BY LAND AND BY WATER 167
the rebels, but were now slowly recovering growth and verdure with careful grafting and culture. Again, we traversed hundreds of acres devoted to the cultivation of a medicinal plant, used for making a tonic medicine, the price of which shows a steady tendency to advance, and is at present at a high figure, notwithstanding the influx of foreign remedies and nostrums, and the great benefit brought to China by western medical skill. We had walked eighteen miles up the valley, crossing and recrossing a beauti- ful broad stream, with rapids and shallows and deep pools. The passage of some of the bridges tried to the utmost my powers of keeping a steady head. Lifted up twenty or thirty feet above the rushing stream on poles easily removable in case of sudden summer freshets, the bridges were laid with hurdles, seemingly quite loose, and with occasional gaps. ' Keep your eyes straight in front ! ' shouted my companion to me. I did so, and crossed safely, but a slip would have been fatal. Later in the after- noon we reached the slopes of the ' ^list Mountain,' and just as we were planning to attempt a liigher climb, a hurricane of wind and rain met us, and we ran for shelter to the house of a small farmer, a friend of my Chinese guide. He welcomed us in a hospitable manner, and invited us to spend the night under his roof. After supper I talked with him far into the night about God and the life to come and the way tliither. He was an intelligent man and listened well. ' Sir,' he said, ' you have spoken of lieaven. Have you ever seen the place ? ' ' No,' I replied, ' but T hope to see it some day.' ' Well, I have seen it,' he said. ' Last year I was
168 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
sitting at my door, as we are sitting now after the storm, when the sky seemed to open, and I saw, as it seemed to me, straight into heaven. There were such colours of glory and shifting beauty there, it must have been the heavenly land.' I gathered from his vivid yet sober account that he had wit- nessed what is a rare phenomenon in this part of China, a specially brilliant display of the aurora borealis, such as I witnessed in England in October 1869, like the very glory of heaven.
Subsequently I made a second and more successful attempt to scale the mountain, discovering beautiful upland villages, with clumps of silver pine, and spaces like village-greens in England. My visit led to enterprising explorations by other foreigners, and to-day it is a comparatively familiar region ; but mine was, I believe, the first English foot ever to climb those beautiful hills. We have recently established a small mission-station at the base of the mountain.
Let me now lead my readers to different scenes, namely, to the great aUuvial plain Sanpeh, north of the Ningpo hills. The plain stretches from the feet of the northern face of these hills in a deep broad belt to the sea, which is twelve or fifteen miles distant. The sea must have receded gradually, or the land must have been reclaimed, in comparatively recent times ; and the possible return of the sea is guarded against by a carefully built series of sea- walls. Rocky islets crop up here and there in the plain, no longer rising from the salt, turbid sea (coloured here and far down the coast by the great wash of the Yangtse), but from an ocean of beans
JOURNEYS BY LAND AND BY WATER 169
and wheat and cotton. There remain landmarks to bear witness to the former configuration of the district. One of our mission-stations at the foot of the hills is called the ' Eastern Landing-Stage ' ; and a mile fmi:her into the hills there lies a village kno\^Ti as the ' Customs Head.'
Some years ago I was passing slowly do\Mi the plain in my mission-boat, stopping to preach and give books at town after town. One evening, as I was rejoining my boat after what I had intended to be the last address for the day, I caught sight of the figure of an aged man walking towards me, leaning on two sticks. I went to meet him, and saluting him respectfully, I asked his ' honourable age.' ' I am but a child,' he said, smiling, ' 1 am only ninety.' ' That is a great age,' I proceeded ; ' may I have the honour of calling on you and conversing for a short time ? ' ' Do come in,' he replied ; and as the weather was fine and Avarm, he called for chairs and we sat together in the courtyard. My aged friend listened eagerly and reverently to my message, starting once with hot indignation at the account of the Crucifixion. ' Should such a man die for such sinners ? Impossible ! They should all have died for him ! ' Then he invited me into his house to see his aged wife. The old lady, with a dignified and beautiful face, and with snow-white hair (which is quite uncommon for aged women in China), gave me a cordial welcome. She was eighty-eight, she said, and was busy with her daughters, granddaughters, and daught(>rs-in- law spinning and winding cotton. She ordered tea to be brought by this bevy of women, who loolccd
170 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
at me with anything but friendly eyes, fearing lest some harm should happen to the patriarch and his wife. There were, if I remember rightly, five genera- tions living together in one compound, but with separate sets of rooms, and apparently in harmony and affectionate subjection to the old couple. To my distress I found that the venerable and gracious lady was stone-deaf ; and I could only hope that her husband, who was able to read and write, and with whom we left copies of the Gospels, might with his long familiar voice find an entrance where our voices, though raised to the loudest pitch, were inaudible. The old man lived to be ninety-nine, and died just after the emperor, hearing of his age and merits, had sanctioned the family's wish to set up a memorial arch or p'ai-lau. These erections, made of solid stone, have two upright shafts, strengthened and protected by low buttresses, with a shallow, decorated roof at the top, and two plinths below, deeply carved, with sculptures representing processions with banners crossing bridges, and flowers and fruit at the side. The plainest of these would cost one hundred pounds, and more elaborate arches fully three hundred. In the centre, under the stone canopy, the Chinese characters for virtue, charity, and filial piety are cut ; and above, in red letters, are seen the words, ' By the imperial will.' The average length of life both for men and women is not far short of that in England. This alluvial plain where my aged friends lived is cele- brated for its nonagenarians and centenarians.
Some years after this journey, I visited a moun- tain region, beyond the beautiful lake east of Ningpo,
JOURNEYS BY LAND AND BY WATER 171
mentioned in a former chapter. Once after cross- ing this sheet of water, I had called on an aged woman, a Christian, quite blind, and livmg in a lakeside town of eighteen thousand people. So limited was the building area between the roots of the lofty hill at the back and the lake-shore, and so great the increase in population, that unlike most Chinese houses which have one or two storeys only, the houses there carried at least tliree ; and the town was beginning to climb tier by tier up the steep hill- side itself. The lake, six miles long and two or three wide, lies generally tranquil like a silver shield ; but sometimes a gale from the east or south will raise dangerous waves and high water, to the peril of the houses on the edge. Each town, accordingly, has breakwaters, picturesque and efficient, con- sisting of mud-banks in a semicircle, planted with willows to secure cohesion and stabilit}^ and having a narrow entrance for boats to go in and moor by the shore. When the green leaves are out, and the blue water is lapping below, these breakwaters add greatly to the beauty of the scenery. My aged friend came in to see me, led by her daughter. ' How are you, mother ? ' I said. ' Well,' she replied, ' but troubled in mind. I had a dream last night : an angel appeared, and promised mc that I should see when the morning broke. It is morning now, is it not ? I can feel the sunshine, yet I cannot see. Can the angel's promise be true ? ' ' Most true,' I said, ' when the eternal morning breaks. Only walk now, as we must all walk in passing through this dark world, in the true light.' Beyond this lake my wife and I iiad licard a
172 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
rumour of a woman living, who was reported to be a hundred and two years old ; and we planned to go and see her, and talk with her, if it were possible, before her long life closed. We started, I on foot and my wife in a rough mountain-chair, to climb a thousand feet up to the ' Moon Bow Hill.' The summit was clothed with fine timber and bamboo- groves, through which sang and leapt and flashed a mountain-torrent, broken by two or three water- falls. As we approached the outskirts of the village, a prosperous-looking place with two thousand in- habitants and three endowed schools, I accosted a countryman, who was sitting by the wayside. I asked him if he could tell us if there was an aged woman living there, more than a hundred years old ; and whether she was well, and if it would be convenient for us to call on her. ' Yes,' he replied, ' she does live here, and has been well and strong until two or three days ago, when she sprained her ankle. Hitherto she has done everything for her self. Now we think there must be something amiss, for she actually allows her daughters-in-law to help her.' We had been informed that she had six sons, and that she was invited by these dutiful children to to live with them in rotation, a month or two at a time. The eldest son, past eighty years of age, had just died, and they had not ventured to tell the old grandmother. She had heard the wailing for the dead, and asked who had died, and they put her off with an invented stor3^ We went now to the second son's house, thinking it wisest to attempt the fortress of the old lady's sacred presence by gradual approaches. We were courteously received
JOURNEYS BY LAND AND BY WATER 173
by this son, himself nearly eighty, and he sent over word to his mother. A polite message was retui'ned, stating the old lady's regret that she was not able to come over in person to pay her respects to the foreign lady and gentleman : would they take the trouble to come to her humble dwelling ? She had injured her foot, and could not walk for a day or two. We went over at once, and were not welcomed so much as arrested by a crowd of curious and suspicious women, the wives and daughters of the six families, each with their three or four genera- tions. It was a moving sight, as we passed through this bodyguard of dutiful hearts to the central object, the true goddess of their piety. There she sat, a hundred and two years old, but she might have been two hundred at least, so far as the wither- ing effects of extreme old age on her face and hands and whole frame indicated. She looked like a human image of brown paper. She was not dead, however ; her hands were busy with the distaff ; her eyes were keen and bright and fixed upon us, as with a courteous inclination of her head she begged us to be seated. Her voice was strong enough, ordering tea to be brought, but could she hear at all ? I addressed a few words to the ancient lady through her daughter-in-law, who stood guard- ing her right hand. ' Speak to the old lady direct,' called out my Chinese catechist. ' She can hear and will understand.' I did so ; and for nearly twenty minutes, after restless turning of her head to and fro for a time, she fixed her eyes on me, and listened to the glad tidings of salvation and the hope of eternal life, beyond her wonderful century
174 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
of years. Then we rose to go, fearing lest we should weary the old woman, and intrude too long on their hospitality. But before leaving we offered her some simple gifts, scented soap and other trifles, together with a few Christian books. The family politely asked us to stay to dinner ; but they were evidently glad to get rid of their outlandish visitors, probably the first English faces ever seen on that hill-top. On our way home we stopped at an island on the lake, and related our journey to an eager, earnest woman residing there. She asked if she should go and try to teach the old lady more of what we had told her. We gladly assented, and offered to hire a sedan-chair, as the walk was beyond her powers. She went hopefully, and was welcomed and enter- tained by the family for two days ; and she taught the venerable lady as much as she could of eternal truth. After some interval we suggested a second visit, and she mounted the hill again. She called at the house, but greatly to her surprise and dis- appointment was refused admittance, and with angry insults dismissed. ' We know well,' said the irate women, ' what that foreigner and his wife came here for, and you doubtless are in league with them. We have heard of what all China talks about, the evil eye of these foreigners. They pretend with bland and pleasant words to teach us and help us ; but if one listens to them, when death draws near and the " three-inch breath " is breaking, they gouge out the eyes of their convert, and cut out the liver, and make them into medicine — probably opium is one of its forms — to poison and seduce us. Now grandmother's liver, being a
JOURNEYS BY LAND AND BY WATER 175
hundred and two years old, is of course of special value, and that is what they hoped to obtain in coming. Please to leave us and come back no more.' They slammed the door in the Christian's face ; but she was not to be baulked, and watching her oppor- tunity, she sHpped in at the back-door while the family were at dinner, and seeing the old lady sitting alone, she crept up to her and said : ' Great-great- grandmother ! Is this your doing ? Do you wish me to go, and teU you no more about the merci- ful Savioiu" ? ' ' No, no ! ' she replied ; ' it is these women's doing. Sit down awhile, please.' She did so, and related again to her the sweet story of old. Then she left, and hurried down the hill ; and that autumn, just before reaching the age of a hundred and three, our venerable friend went to her long home. The family since then have shown a more amicable spirit.
The malicious and ghastly falsehood related by these hostile women is, as they said, known through- out China. Its origin has never been traced, unless the secrecy sometimes observed in the last rites for the Christian dead in the Roman Catholic Church may have, in some cases, given colour to the already fabricated lie. It has always seemed to me that this story is the greatest insult ever paid by China to herself. It affords the worst instance that I know of the debasing effect of superstition and of ignorant enmity on the clear intellect of the wisest of mankind ; and its ultimate origin, what- ever individual may be to blame, is in the strictest sense Satanic.
My duties as archdeacon have frequently taken
176 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
me to the southern parts of the diocese, to the district of T'aichow. Six or seven years ago I started out, travelling overland, as the coasting-steamers were under repair and withdrawn from service for a few days. This overland route generally occupies at least four days. Leaving Ningpo one night in May, I travelled first by boat up the southern branch of the river Yung as far as the tide would serve, and soon after midnight came to anchor at a point where the river is joined by a small branch-stream which leads up to ' Great Bridge,' the river-port of Funghwa. I rose at half -past four, and finding that we could get no higher up this creek, and that no sedan-chairs were procurable, I set out to walk the seven miles to ' Great Bridge,' where I hoped to hire chairs for the longer stretch through the hills. Starting thus at five in the morning, we were travel- ling continuously until nine at night. I had a mountain-chair with me, and three bearers, but they could not carry me except on fairly level ground ; and as the whole route, with rare exceptions, was one continual ascent, climbing up and down, with seven passes to surmount, I covered the greater part of the 147 li, or 45 miles, of stone-flags and pebbly paths on my feet. The fresh mountain air, and the entrancing interest of new scenery, and constant opportunities for conversation, took away all feelings of extreme fatigue. During the seven miles of walk before breakfast, I crossed a low pass enveloped in mist, and as I sat to rest for a few minutes on a bridge the other side of the pass, my fellow-travellers told me the legend of that very bridge, and of the pagoda just rising out of the
^M\i
!!• V. E. Thompfon APPROACH TO THE CITY OF TAK HOW
JOURNEYS BY LAND AND BY WATER 177
trees through the fog. Two brothers lived once in the village near, well-to-do, and of good reputation amongst the people. They married two sisters, and lived in harmony and happiness till the men both fell ill and died. There were no sons or daughters born in either family, and the childless widows were heart-broken at the loss of those they loved. From love to their husbands they refused to seek rest by remarriage, since that would involve changing the name. Yet how could that name be made to live on ? They consulted together, with tears, and eventually sold all their lands and houses ; and keeping only sufficient money for a life of poverty and seclusion, they spent the whole of the remainder, the one in building a pagoda, the ' Golden Pagoda,' as it is called, with the small bells round its roof swaying in the wind and repeating the name of the departed, and its tower guarding the luck of the land ; the other in building a bridge, the ' Bridge of Tears and Sighs,' comiecting the pagoda-hill with the fields, and weeping the loss of the beloved ; for, like tears of sympathy, drops of moisture ever fall from the bridge, even when scorching drought endangers the crops and makes the gentle stream below dry and silent.
' Great Bridge ' is an interesting specimen of the covered bridges, lined \\ ith inhabited shops, which are to be seen in China, and somewhat resemble old London Bridge. After a short delay at this place, winning the good^^•ill of the landlord of the inn, and gaining the confidence of his little son., I resumed my journey in a chair with three bearers, and a small following of three coolies willi luggage,
178 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
and my manservant on foot. As my servant was not very strong, and much lighter than his master, we ' rode and tied,' and up inchnes where my weight was too great for the bearers they carried the servant. So we journeyed onwards into the very heart of the lofty hills which now closed round us and then widened out continually ; and as we rose higher, the well-wooded valleys below, each with a shining stream, increased in beauty. Suddenly, with a great unveiling south-eastwards, the island-studded coast and Nimrod Sound came into sight, and we turned southwards, dipping down to the sea-level, and traversing the outskirts of the Men (district) city of Ninghai. In the early after- noon we reached a very steep pass, a thousand feet and more in height, the ' Division Pass.' This neigh- bourhood, where three Men meet, used to be the haunt of highway robbers. The hope of these out- laws was that with clever use of the boundaries they could escape from justice. Funghwa, Ninghai, and T'ient'ai meet and join hands on this pass. The Funghwa police and soldiery would be sent in pursuit of robbers abroad in their district. When they drew near in hot pursuit, the robbers stepped across the boundary into the Ninghai district, and the soldiery stopped short : it was not their business to break through the bounds of jurisdiction, even in pursuit of highwaymen. Then Ninghai would despatch her police in pursuit, and the robbers escaped into the T*ient'ai region. Thus passing to and fro they often succeeded in eluding the hand of justice.
Now as I climbed slowly up the pass, I noticed
JOURNEYS BY LAND AND BY WATER 179
near the top signs of military occupation. Instead of the ragged and insolent miUtia of old days, soldiers well-clothed and disciplined saw me and stood at the salute. I stopped for a moment under the rest-shed at the top of the pass, and offered some books to the men. They told me that the garrison consisted of thirty or forty men under a commandant, holding the pass and successfully suppressing the highwaymen who had rendered this great route of travel and commerce almost im- passable. I asked if their commandant was in, and if they \\ ould present a book to him, with my card, and tell him that I was on my way to T'aichow on important business, and begged leave to salute him. Just as I was getting into my chair to ride down the pass, the officer himself came running out, and, taking hold of both my hands, courteously com- pelled me to go into the inner guardroom, and sit and talk with him. I was agreeably surprised at the order of the whole establishment. The large and well-furnished room had a fine outlook seawards. Thirty stands of arms were ranged round the walls. The officer, a soldierly man with a fair amount of scholarship, took down one rifle after another for my inspection and criticism. I pleaded ignorance, but expressed my hope that the weapons were modern and efficient. In reply he told me of his success in restoring order and confidence on the route, and assured me that 1 could proceed with safety. He asked with eagerness about Shangliai, and the changes coming over China generally; and then, ranging further afield, hogged me to tell liini somethhig about England and the great west. Ho
180 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
was full of eager intelligence and of friendly inquiry, nor did his interest flag when I led his thoughts higher to the powers of the world to come. At last I rose to go. He insisted on seeing me into my chair ; and as I went down the pass, I was honoured by an official roll of the drums as a passing salute. At the foot of the defile, I questioned the country people as to the character and conduct of the soldiers of the garrison. They spoke in the highest terms of their discipline and order and good- will ; and the incident gave me a fresh insight into the reality of the more sober reform which is coming over China. In the well-known Sacred Edict of Kang Hi and Yung Cheng, the soldiers, equally with other classes, are continually appealed to as those who should be, and are recognised as being, models of propriety and justice, and as the friends and helpers of the people. But for years past the Chinese army has been (with some exceptions) ill- paid, badly clothed, imperfectly disciplined, and too often the plague and terror of country districts when soldiers are quartered there. The army was supposed to possess in its ranks an average of seventy or eighty per cent, of opium-smokers. The recent change is, so far as I have been able to notice it, great and far-reaching in its effects.
On only one other occasion have I received similar marks of official courtesy and recognition. When, after the Boxer War, official rank was offered to missionaries, to ensure respect and attention being paid to them, the doubtful honour was declined by all Protestant missionaries. These examples, there- fore, of courteous honour spontaneously paid to
JOURNEYS BY LAND AND BY WATER 181
those who have no Chinese official rank, are all the more significant of a certain change in the former anti-foreign attitude of the higher classes. i\Iy own impression is that old and sober China was prepared thus definitely to modify her ways, and to recognise the brotherhood of nations ; and that it is young and half-enlightened and ambitious China from whom danger may be anticipated. The foolish fancy too often possesses headstrong minds that patriotism is best manifested, and the glory and honour and well-being of China best safeguarded, by exhibiting a spirit of rudeness and unfriendliness and exclusiveness to foreigners, many of whom have been China's truest friends, and whose sole desire is now to aid in her revival. The other occa- sion on which I received special honour Avas when returning a call on a mandarin in a small neigh- bouring city. It was a call of courtesy and of friendship, for on such visits we carefully avoid all matters of business affecting the mission or oin-- selves, except in cases of sudden emergency. On parting with the mandarin in the courtyard of the yamhi, I found that he had ordered six of his soldiers to run in front of my chair and escort me to my boat. We passed along streets where in past days I had often been insulted, or tolerated only as an unwelcome visitor. Then, as night came on, the magistrate sent his secretary to ask after my welfare. I replied that I was safe and comfortable. Darkness fell, and again the secretary called to know if I was in lack of anything. Finally, at the second watch of the night, four soldiers with a big drum arrived on the canal-bank near my boat.
182 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
After honouring me with a resounding tattoo, repeated at the beginning of each watch, the men settled down ; and throughout the night they struck the hours and half-hours and quarters on their triangles and on the drum till the fifth watch and the dawn. The time kept was so good, and the sounds so harmonious, that the loud honour did not prevent my sleeping.
As the afternoon proceeded, on my journey amongst the T'aichow mountains, I began to wonder how long we could hold out, and where we should spend the night. My chair-bearers and coolies began to show a more or less pronounced liking for each town and village we reached, with the promise of good accommodation for man and beast ; and the reminder was added that the sun would surely set before long. But I wished to make the fullest pos- sible use of the daylight, and now pressed on far in front of my companions. The twilight deepened : I was on the top of a pass, and could trace, though less and less distinctly, the whole course of the mountain road from the place where my men had lingered to the foot of the pass on which I stood. I gazed and gazed, but could see nothing of the line of coolies. We shouted, but there was no answer ; and I sent back one of my chair-bearers to search for the stragglers. I resolved on no account to go back myself, and they were plainly determined not to come on ; and unfortunately all my provisions and bedding were in their hands. I was chilly and tired, but after a long and weary wait they appeared at last, and w^e hastened on as fast as the difficult and dangerous road would allow. We had no
JOURNEYS BY LAND AND BY WATER 183
lanterns, and the path skirted a hill with a precipi- tous decline into the valley beneath. I walked on, almost feeling my way, and was assured that the ' White Dragon Temple ' and village were near, with an old-established and hospitable inn. Thus stumbling through the darkness, after colliding with an animal (doubtless a wild boar), which grunted and ran into the bushes, I saw at last the lights of the inn through the chinks in the closed door and windows. At that late hour (nine o'clock) and on a dark night, I feared that the inn would be shut up, and no accommodation would be possible ; but I ventured to push the door open and walk in. The inn consisted of a single long chamber, with no upper storey or parlours. The kitchen was in the centre of the room, and there, half hidden by smoke and steam, the landlady stood, with smiling face, busy supplying the wants of the twenty or more travellers who had crowded in and were proposing to spend the night in this common room. Some were actually in bed, some were getting into bed, some were finishing their supper. The landlord and the children were having their meal, spread on the only table of the establishment. ' Where would the foreign gentleman prefer to sleep ? ' they asked. ' There is an inner room partitioned off ; would he like to go there ? ' The foreign gentleman looked in, but finding two more weary travellers there, already in bed, and their bales of goods blocking the way, he elected to sit out the night in a corner of the crowded room, reclining in his canvas travel- ling chair. The landlord kindly finished his supper with haste, and the one table was cleared for the
184 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
stranger's meal. The travellers now sat up in bed, and some rose and drew near to watch the foreigner eat. Until half-past ten they listened to the message which he had brought them. Then at eleven, when all were asleep, the weary but good-tempered land- lady put out the fire, and with her husband's help carried the children upstairs, the ladder creaking as they went up to a kind of cockloft, the only up- stairs apartment. I was left in silence, and occupied my time in reading and in writing to friends in the Far West until past midnight. Then, after dozing awhile, I woke at four, at the first cockcrowing ; and rousing my weary servant — the landlady was already astir — I breakfasted, and started soon after five. I felt no fatigue after the forty-five miles' tramp of the day before, and that day we covered thirty-two miles of mountain travel, and the next day the same. Then followed a far harder walk than those on the preceding days, namely, fourteen miles of incessant climbing over the mountain, two thousand feet high, which looks down on the plains and hills of T'aichow. My second night was spent again in a wayside inn, and this time the landlady arranged for me to occupy an upstairs room, but on the strange condition that I was not to talk at all. The silkworms, the ' precious ones,' as they call them, were passing through a delicate stage of their useful if precarious existence. Their nerves are supposed to be very high-strung, and if frightened they will not consume the mulberry-leaves, with which the upstairs room-floor was strewn that even- ing. I accepted the conditions, and the women hung up a curtain to hide me from the silkworms.
JOURNEYS BY LAND AND BY WATER 185
I mentioned above that just before my arrival at the ' White Dragon Inn ' I ran up against what seemed to be a wild boar. It may be asked why it could not have been a pig from some farmyard near. The answer is that in those regions no Chinese in his senses would fail to secure his pigs and cattle in safety for the night. Tigers are abroad there. We had penetrated into the heart of the hills where more thickly wooded and remote jungle ground harbours tigers, black panthers, wolves and bears. At the foot of the mountain we had now descended lies the town of ' Great Stone,' so called from a flat stone in the main street of the place, which is believed to expand and contract from time to time in a mysterious manner. Full-grown roj^al tigers not seldom invade this region and cause great alarm. There was a drought four summers ago, and birds and beasts as well as men and crops were distressed by lack of moisture. Pits were dug on the lower slopes of the hill-side in the hope of finding water. The beds of these pits were cool and moist, and to one of them came two tiger-cubs for rest. The hill- men killed them both. Not long ago, during after- noon service at our church in that place, the tiger's cry was heard not far off. The congregation decided to spend the night in the church, being afraid to venture home across the fields, a mile and more to the busy town. The cries of what are locally called ' dog-headed bears ' (probably wolves) are heard here every night, and they are dangerous though cowardly beasts. A husbandman and his wife recently went out to work in the fields, the woman with her baby in her arms. When they had reached
186 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
their own plot of ground, the woman laid the child to sleep in the long grass. A ' dog-headed bear ' had followed their steps unknown to them, and when the parents were a short distance away the beast ran in and carried off the child. Not far from ' Great Stone ' I passed through riverside, marshy and waste ground, and was shown the sandy path along which a tiger had carried a pig of two or three hundred pounds' weight in its mouth, clear off the ground, as a cat carries a kitten. Then, apparently tired of the burden, the beast had dragged it along in the sand to a bamboo-grove, as the traces showed, and there undisturbed had devoured the best portions of its victim. Not far from the same region I was dining with a native gentleman, when a Chris- tian woodman came in to salute me. He told me of his recent adventure on a hill only two miles distant. Round this hill a lawsuit between two branches of a clan had raged for two generations, and neither side dared to touch the disputed land. It had therefore relapsed into a dense and almost inaccessible jungle, the haunt of a number of tigers. My friend told me that he went to the hill-side one day to cut cane, and pressing his way a few yards tlirough the thicket, he came to an open space of ground where, to his terror, he saw a full-grown tiger stretched out asleep. The beast woke and saw him, and being apparently as startled as the man, ran east while he ran west. On the same hill-side he had seen, he told me, two tigers standing together, one yellow with black stripes, and one black all over. I asked him if he was sure of the colour and the marking of the tiger. ' Yes,' he replied ; ' it was
JOURNEYS BY LAND AND BY WATER 187
not a beast like this, which we killed the other day ' (taking a leopard's spotted skin down from the wall) ; ' it was striped, not spotted/ Man-eating tigers seldom make their appearance, but the danger is great in certain regions. Only this year, and in the same region, a tiger entered a dwelling-house (a most unusual act of effrontery), and carried off and killed a woman from the very midst of her children. These great beasts occasionally wander from their distant lairs to the more open and thickly populated country. Three times during my resi- dence in Ningpo full-grown tigers, ten feet long and more, have come quite near to the city. One came up in time of snow, hungry, and in pursuit of deer. It was chased into a half-built temple, with the rafters laid and a staircase placed in position. The tiger ran up the stairs ; but missing its footing on the narrow rafters, it hung clinging to the woodwork, with a yelling crowd of husbandmen below, armed with hoes and spades and forks. It dropped at last from exhaustion, and was done to death. Another tiger was driven into a house, blinded with lime, and killed. The third beast I must myself have been quite near to, without knowing it, shortly before it made a nobler fight for life. I had travelled home near midnight a very short time before, passing the spot where the following tragic event occurred. In the dusk of evening a great tiger suddenly appeared and killed a man. The man shrieked and roused the villagers, but he was dead when they arrived. It can only be conjectured what had happened. The victim must have been coming quietly home in the gloaming in a little
188 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
skiff, driving before him his flock of ducks, which were swimming home from their day's feeding and diving in the canal. In his hand he held a long bamboo pole with which to hasten their waddling up the bank to their pens in the farmyard, by the time-honoured device of beating the last duck out of the water. The poor fellow must have seen a beast drinking by the canal side as he passed, and (perhaps thinlcing it was a buffalo) have given it a poke with his pole, and so have been seized and killed. The tiger, meanwhile, terrified by the answering shouts from the village, had run for shelter to a bamboo thicket, and lay there at bay. The village was quite near to a crowded suburb of Ningpo, and only four miles distant from the densely-peopled city. News was sent to the chief magistrate of the city, the taotai, and to the commander of the troops, the titai. The gallant general advanced with half a regiment and two field-pieces. The tiger was traced to its hiding-place, a cordon was drawn round the thicket, and a plan of battle was arranged. The tiger charged and charged again, badly mauling some of the soldiers. At last, either with musketry or with artiUery, the great cat was done to death. Then with the hour of victory came the anxious question to whom the tiger belonged. ' To the governor of the province, the futai,^ said a legal authority. ' To me,' said the taotai, ' as chief magis- trate of these regions.' ' To me,' said the titai ; ' I have kiUed the tiger ; and, moreover, my duty is to be courageous. It is weU known that soup made from tiger's bones is the best recipe for bravery : the beast belongs to me.' A compromise
JOURNEYS BY LAND AND BY WATER 189
was arranged. The tiger's head was sent with compHments to the futai ; the skin to the iaotai ; the flesh and bones to tlie titai. But that was in the time of the old China. What would the new China do under similar circumstances ? Such an event might recur, for tigers are not j^et extinct in these mountains and valleys of Chekiang. Only two summers ago a tiger was killed at a village within half a mile of the hill-station near Ningpo from which I write, and the countrymen here com- plain of the tigers carrying off full-grown cattle.
One Sunday afternoon, many years ago, at the close of afternoon service, I went with my Chinese colleague to the low hills near the city of Ts'zch'i, to preach in the villages there. We were skirting the upper slopes of the hills, when turning round a corner I saw, much to my astonishment, a fox, a badger, and a wild-boar, sitting on their haunches and facing the west, as if in quiet contemplation. They separated, but without hurry ; and when shall I meet such a trio again ? Wild boars of great size, three or four hundred pounds in weight, are met with in these hills, and are dangerous if encountered in a narrow passage.
During my tour through the T'aichow mountains I visited the interesting and picturesque city of T'ient'ai. The great temples there, perched on the lofty mountain tops, form (as 1 mentioned in my introductory chapter) a centre for the visits of Buddhist pilgrims. As I was entering the city a thunderstorm burst. The mission-house, which wo reached just before the tornado, was nearly unroofed by the storm; many houses were ruiiuMl, and even
190 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
massive stone memorial arches were blown flat. Boats in the mountain-stream close by were over- turned, and the passengers drowned. One incident, hardly credible, was soberly related to me by eye- witnesses, as follows. A coffin, which was being borne to the grave, was suddenly torn open by the force of the blast, or possibly by lightning (which sometimes exhibits astonishing power of leverage), and the corpse was lifted out and hoisted up into a tree, whence it fell to the ground, the grave-clothes remaining suspended in the branches. On my return journey from T'aichow, again overland, but by a somewhat different route, I witnessed on the first evening of my journey a wonderful display of light- ning. I had started at five o'clock on a summer morning, and had made fair progress, covering nearly thirty miles by six in the evening. We were stopped by a great thunderstorm, and compelled to run for shelter just as we reached a small town. It was a magnificent sight, the clouds and lightning rushing up the valley. The thunder was incessant ; and the lightning, touching the ground, seemed to bound over the fields. I found my way to the village inn, and was informed that for a considera- tion I could occupy the large upper room in which eighteen men had slept the night before — which did not promise well for its hygienic state. I stipulated that I must have the room completely to myseK, and that it must be cleaned and swept. This was a rash command. Eighteen mattresses and cover- lets of indescribable uncleanliness were piled in a heap close to me. The dust and the vermin of years filled the air as the ostler swept the floor. I
JOURNEYS BY LAND AND BY WATER 191
then left my servant to lie down where he thought fit, but I decided myself to sit out the night in my camp-chair by the open window, as the air after the storm was close and hot. Downstairs, my retainers, the chair-bearers and cooHes, were sup- posed to be sleeping. I dozed for a while, after charging my servant and the men below to be up betimes, five o'clock at the latest, so as to be well on our way before sunrise. Suddenly I woke, and looking at my watch found it was half-past one. There was movement below, and I heard voices ; so I called my servant and bade him go down and see what the men were doing. They were astir, he said ; the dawn was breaking, and they were getting up to prepare their morning meal. I replied that he might let them do so. I knew well that it was not the dawn, but the glow of the full moon drawing westward. As they Mere up, they might stay so ; we too would rise, and my breakfast could be prepared. The men assented, and mc were actually on the march at three o'clock in the morning. Walking on until six in the evening, we made a long stride towards home ; though we were again hindered from taking full advantage of daylight by a heavy and dangerous thunderstorm, from which, through God's mercy, we obtained shelter just in time. The inn on this second night was much like that on the first, and once more I saw no hope of passing the night quietly, except by reclining in my chair by the open window. I had no expectation of another start before tlie dawn, but I urged the men to awake and rise early. To my surprise, as I woke after a short sleep, i
192 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
found it was again half -past one. As before, I heard a noise downstairs, and caught sight of the flickering of a lamp through the chinks in the floor. I ordered the half-awakened servant to go and see what the men were doing this time. He said they had been sitting up, gambling. I told him that he might take them word that they were to stay up, and that I should shortly start. We set out, and the moon being hidden, it was almost too dark to see our way, until the dawn began to breathe and waver behind the eastern hills which we Avere approaching. Fireflies were glancing over the pools w^hich gleamed by the wayside, almost the only relief in the darkness. A second forced march of eighteen hours would have brought us home in ' record ' time, under three days for a hundred and twenty miles, instead of the usual three or four days, had not wind and tide failed us just as we reached the Ningpo River.
In the southern regions of Chekiang, near the sea- board, travel by land and by water is certainly not luxurious. One of my colleagues was shipwTccked on the low shore in a small native junk, and escaped with great difficulty. Another missionary colleague and a Chinese catechist started with me one day to visit an island not far from the Fukien border. We sailed down an arm of the sea in a small junk, embarking at the appointed time, so as to catch the full tide, but the crew of five or six men were not so pmictual. The captain, who was part-owner and pilot as well, was there, and one able seaman ; bub they had to jump ashore, and go shouting across the fields, before thc}^ could secure a sufficient
JOURNEYS BY LAND AND BY WATER 193
number of hands to sail the ship. There was a swell, and the first to succumb was not myself, nor the husbandmen, but the seaman. After getting clear of the land we were met by an adverse half gale of wind. The old junk, sailing and tacking close to the wind, behaved beautifully, and bore up against the full force of the gale. At last, both wind and tide opposing us, we were obliged to run for shelter : the wind was broken by the headland, but the swell continued. On our return, with quieter waters, our track was crossed and recrossed at some little distance from us by a huge porpoise, dazzling white, leaping and plunging across the narrow sea. These great fish play havoc with the strongest nets the fishermen can lay down. As we approached the little harbour, we anchored, and went below to luncheon. In a brief twenty minutes the receding tide, which we had not noticed, had run out so far as to leave us surrounded by a sea of mud. Wading ashore was attempted, but it meant for most sinking over the knees and deeper still. At last one of the seamen got ashore, and ran round the houses near to borrow a flat-bottomed boat in which we might be dragged to land over the mud. He failed in house after house, but at last he returned triumphantly with a washing-tub, just large enough to stand in. So my colleague and I in turn, clamber- ing down the junk's side, dropped into the tub, and were thus dragged safe to shore. A few months after this my friend was sailing this sea alone, and he and the crew were held up by pirates, who, witli sword and firearms at his throat and lieart, de- manded his money and took his clothing and betiding.
N
194 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
With the true heroism of patience and good-humour, he escaped the certain death which would have followed any resistance.
Before I close this chapter of travels, I relate the journey of a laborious and eccentric Chinese, in illustration of a type of character which, though rare to-day, this versatile people may occasionally develop in the future. In my introductory chapter I referred to the pilgrims who, thirteen or fourteen centuries ago, girt with oak and triple brass, crossed the Pacific in the search for relics and documents connected with their faith. The traveller whom I now describe had no such lofty motive on his long journey. One afternoon he reached my house in Shanghai, footsore, indescribably ragged and un- washed, and asked for help and guidance to a respectable lodging. In answer to our questions he then related his strange story. So far as we could understand the exceedingly difficult dialect which he employed, he fled from China, or was carried off as a child by some unknown hand, during the early years of the T'aip'ing rebellion. Settling down in the United States, he learnt a trade, and was, he believed, baptized. He seemed never to have learnt much English ; or else he had forgotten it, or purposely dispensed with it when talking with us. Seized with a sudden desire to see once more, after forty years' absence and silence, his old home, and to find out any surviving friends who might remember him, he took ship for Hongkong. On arrival there he ingratiated himself with the German and other benevolent missions, and, from the little store of his savings which he had brought with him.
J0URNEY8 BY LAND AND BY WATER 195
subscribed to their work, receiving in return for his liberality their thanks expressed in writing, which he showed to me. Thence he went on slowly to his native province, far-off and then desolate Yunnan, travelling up the Red River. He was recognised by some old family friends, and advised by them to marry and settle down ; but his ambition was to found and endow a church in his native town. Still restless, and eager to be on foot again, he formed other projects in order to raise funds for this enter- prise. As a result of the desolation wrought in the province by the T'aip'ings, and the further ruin caused by the Mohammedan Yakub Beg's adventure, the bodies of both men and women were exposed as chattels for sale, and girls could be purchased for a very few dollars. Why should he not collect a cargo of them, convey them carefully to civilised regions, sell them at a gain — not for immoral pur- poses, but to poor and honest bachelors — and with the money thus gained, return to carry out his ecclesiastical scheme ? This plan, inspired by zeal without knowledge, would probably have cost him his life at the hands of the authorities, and was peremptorily forbidden by his friends. He then started on a vast journey to the coast, chiefly on foot, and visited Shanghai, in order to purchase Manila lottery-tickets, intending ^illi the grand prize of ten thousand taels (which he was sure he would win) at length to attain his ambition. In connection with these projects he called on me. He had bought his tickets ; did I not approve of the scheme ? Would 1 not help him, and ensure the realisation of his hopes ? Alas ! for the pity
196 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
of the thing ; I could only reply without circum- vention : ' You profess to be a Christian, and a Christian does not gamble. These lotteries are forbidden and suppressed by your own Chinese law. I dissuade you altogether from having anything at all to do with this matter.' He would not, it seemed he could not, listen to me. Later, he re- turned to tell me that he had drawn a blank ; would I kindly help him with a small sum to enable him to reach Hankow, where other friends would help him home ? I consented, and saw him off with a few dollars in his pocket, and he faded from my view. I have never before or since seen such a union in one person of naive simplicity, conspicuous zeal without a spark of wisdom, a fatal inclination to do wrong, yet without craft or malice jyrepense, a vague ambition and the heart-sickness of hope deferred. Could it be, I asked myself, a type of awakening China, or of China as she was of old, with vague aims at impossible or undesirable ideals ? Or was it rather a picture of the pathos and tragedy of a life lived with any object lower than the glory of God, the triumph of virtue, and the good of men ? At any rate, my poor friend's toilsome journey was not so happy as the journeys I have described above. Yet imagine the scenery of grandeur and wide-spreading beauty through which he passed, of mountain and hill, of valley and plain and desert ; of rolling rivers and broad silver lakes ; of busy cities and smiling farmsteads ; of life in market- boat and passengers' junks ; of solemn solitudes and loud discordant cries in many tongues, during his journey of at least three thousand miles across China.
JOURNEYS BY LAND AND BY WATER 197
The average length of a day's march for foot- travellers in China is ninety /^, or about twenty- eight miles. The thought of these weary marches of millions of footsore wayfarers through all the ages of China's history is pathetic. The divine vision of earthly and heavenly travel is one which we would desire for the Chinese and all mankind : ' The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil ; the Lord shall preserve thy soul ; the Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth and for evermore.'
The very proverbs of the Chhiese speak of life itself as one long journey, and of life spent in earthly houses or lodgings as of a few hours passed under a rest-shed by the wayside, not in an abiding dwelling-place. Ut migralurus hahila.
I close this chapter with an account of m}- journey to China in 1861, expecting, as I write, shortly to return to England by Siberia. The lirst journey was by the aU-bluewater route, taking in my case a hundred and eleven days, though sometimes as much as a hundred and fifty, or a hundred and sixty days. By the Siberian, the all-rail route, London can now be reached in under fifteen days from Shanghai. Had I been able to come to China, or to go home at any time by the American Pacific line, or by the Canadian Pacific — the all-red route — my experience would have been nearly complete. How intolerable would it be to travellers in these days of ever-gathering hurry and accelerated speed to embark in a small sailing-vessel of 750 tons burden, well found indeed, and well mamied, for
198 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
we carried a crew of thirty or forty men ; well sailed and well manoeuvred, though we occupied in beating out of the Channel from the Downs, against the April west winds, nearly half as much time as will be required to hurry us home by Siberia ! No land was sighted between the last point of England and Java Head. We spent eighty days of sky and sea, of storm and calm, without a whisper from or to Eastern and Western hemispheres, save the signalling of the name and number of passing ships, and the request from our captain that they should report us at Lloyd's. Then deep silence fell again, except for the seabirds' voice and the ocean's cease- less call. We had sailed slowly through the Doldrums, the belt of calms, when, after a sunset more lurid and threatening than any I have since witnessed by sea or by land, we were met and caught and shaken, shuddering, to and fro by a great hurricane, a fierce cyclone. The ship could not bear up against the gale ; the master dared not let her drive. He could only lie to. Even a small storm-sail, the only canvas which seemed possible to steady her head, was torn away. The ship laboured, rolling and shivering as the screaming blasts and drenching rain swept by. We listened to the thunder of the blows of the confused waves against the dead-lights of our cabin. Then suddenly calm fell. The cyclone had met us in front ; the plane of the storm, having a wide circumference, was itself moving slowly over the sea, while its outer circles, whirling round at over a hundred miles an hour with hurricane-blasts, had raised the waves literally mountains high. The front semicircle of
JOURNEYS BY LAND AND BY WATER 199
the cyclone had surged past, and was drawing over us the mysterious false calm of ' the whirlwind's central heart of peace.' The air seemed motionless, and we, watching and waiting anxiousty below, imagined almost with exultation that the storm was over and all danger past. The seamen knew better ; the glass had fallen ominously low, and showed in what position we were. No more danger- ous place could be imagined ; there was not a breath of air to sail by or to steady the ship ; the waves, without crests indeed but mountains high, buffeted us with gigantic force. So, as we were helplessly, and it seemed hopelessly, flung to and fro, the fifty minutes of dreadful calm passed by. Then with a shriek and a howl the whirlwind's circling blasts leapt upon us and seized us with greater fury than before ; and once again we were in the grasp of the hurricane. Then slowly the glass began to rise ; the gusts gradually lessened in frequency and violence, and after nearly thirty hours of imminent danger — ' Fine weather,' shouted the second mate to me ; ' we are setting sail, thank God ! ' Morning was breaking, and when the sun was up we were allowed, with a strong arm on either side, to climb the low ladder to the gunwale and gaze for a time at the sea. The cyclone had passed ; the wind had shifted, and had settled down to a whole gale of great force, but with a bright sun and fair sky over- head we flew before it. To our landsmen's eyes it seemed impossible that we coukl ever surmount tlie waves of immense height, with lofty heads breaking in snow, the great Atlantic rollers, the heaviest in all seas, and agitated now b}- the passage of this
200 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
great storm. The words of the psalm were literally true for us : we mounted up to the heaven — the heaven which seemed almost to touch and kiss the foam-flecked top of the blue mountain-wave before us ; then down again to the depths, the blue tossing valleys beneath.
Six weeks later, after catching the trade-winds, now strong, now fair and moderate, and being buffeted by the winter-storms round the Cape, and passing two or three hundred miles to the southward, so as to hold the trades, we sailed at length through the Straits of Anger and Sunda, past the Caspar rocks. We left Krakatoa moodily smoking and awaiting the terrific explosion of twenty years later, the tremor of which was felt round two-thirds of the world's belt, while the dust of the discharge, forced into the upper currents of the air, wandered over the earth and glorified its sunsets.
Then, nearing the Borneo coast, infested at that time, like the whole of the China seas, by pirates, we encountered a second danger, calm, more perilous even than storm. It was better to fall into the hands of the Lord, in whose protection we were kept while the Almighty lifted up the waves of the sea, than to fall into the hands of men, who were in murderous plot waiting for us, and would have attacked us had the terrible calm lasted another hour. We had been lying ten days becalmed on a sea almost molten under a cloudless sky, with an August sun pouring down on us. There was no wind, no breath of air, not even a cat's-paw on the water ; or if such appeared far off, and with infinite toil anchor was weighed, as was done five times
JOURNEYS BY LAND AND BY WATER 201
over one weary afternoon, no sooner was the anchor hauled on deck than the cat's-paw died away and the hope was gone. We had drifted near the islands, and could see the lagoons between the infinite ramifications of the system of islets. We well knew who lived there, and imagined we saw skiffs moving across to carry signals and summons for a fight. Muskets and cutlasses were brought on deck, loaded and sharpened. The sun set, and as we expected at any moment the murderous assaults of the pirates, we watched with grave apprehension while tropic darkness fell. Just then there was a sigh in the air, and a breath, and suddenly a steady breeze awoke. Anchor was weighed with eager haste, and we stood away with a fair draught of wind, and clearing the islands, shaped our course for Shanghai. Our captain's anxiety had been doubly great ; for he feared not only an attack by pirates, but also that which is generally foretold b}^ these summer calms, the approach of a typhoon. Just after we had reached the haven where we would be, and were safe at anchor, one of these terrors of the China seas from June till October burst over Shanghai — the ' great wind ' as the Chinese word signifies, the very demon of the storm, a typhoon such as is raging in these hills as I write, shaking the house and bending double the bamboos. These storms, destruc- tive and desolating as they are, probably tend to purify and regulate the otherwise intolerably hot, close, and deadly atmosphere of sumnioi- and early autumn, and may thus prove to be beneficent and health-bringing to the land, to the sea, and to man- kind.
202 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
Since writing the above paragraphs I have ac- compHshed my projected journey from Shanghai to London in sixteen days. A description of that remarkable route, which is becoming more and more familiar, I must leave to other pens, but I record here the profound impression left on my mind by this all-rail journey of eight thousand miles across Asia and Europe.
In the long sea- journey which I describe above, we were almost oppressed from time to time with the awe of nothing but the great and wide sea, silent save for her own majestic voices, those solitary wastes, with only skies above and with no glimpse of land for eighty days. In the long rail-route the vastness of the depths and breadths of the dry land awed us, its silent steppes and populated areas, the constantly changing features of hill and plain, of lake and river, and specially the hints and sugges- tions of the great regions of Central Asia to our left and right, out of sight but almost felt by their proximity — Mongolia, Chinese Turkestan, Tibet in her white solitudes, Nepal, Bhutan, vast India and Persia, the Altai, and the higher regions of Siberia.
SHANGHAI, PAST AND PRESENT
CHAPTER VIII
SHANGHAI, PAST AND PRESENT
I CANNOT exclude Shanghai from the narrative of my recollections of China during the past fifty years. It was the first inhabited place which I saw on my arrival. It will be the last to fade from sight when I leave China. The strong fair wind whicli I de- scribed in my seventh chapter as springing up at nightfall and rescuing us from tlie merciless attacks of pirates, carried us on past the Paracels and the Pratas shoal, and then through the Pescadores Channel (where the P. and O. liner, the Bokhara, was lost many years later). Thence we sailed up the China Sea, till, driven too near the coast, owing to the treacherous currents and slackening breeze, we sighted the prominent look-out island Video and the Pihting group. So near were we to the ishinds, that a kingfisher flew on board, and other hind- birds had followed us for some days. This devia- tion necessitated a long and tantahsing tack south- eastwards, so as to clear the treacherous shoals and the network of countless islands which fringe the coast for five hundred miles, with scenery as beautiful as the Inland Sea of Japan, though lack- ing the blue water. Stately junks now appeared on the horizon ; and some smaller lishing-smacks came round us, or tried to cross our bows, the crews
206 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
clamouring and shouting, as they do still, and warning the steersmen of the foreign ships to keep clear, if possible, of their great nets with floats, covering the face of the sea. This was my first sight of the Chinese, though, to be sure, I had seen, some five years previously, one of the same race wander- ing, ragged and friendless, in Fleet Street. Chinese visitors are commoner now in our English cities and towns, and hold their heads higher. China was sleeping then, or rather, she was seized by the nightmare of disastrous convulsion, and England was but half awake to the claims and the interests and the possibilities of the Far East.
Now the monsoon strengthens, and with a racing south-east wind we sail past the Barren Islands and the Saddles, the extreme northern point of the Chusan Archipelago, and entering the vast yawning mouth of the Yangtse, pick up our pilot near Gutzlaff Island, and in the early afternoon of the 15th of August anchor at Shanghai's outer port, Woosung, a hundred and eleven days from the Downs.
The names of some of the landmarks we have passed are significant of the still recent history of Shanghai and of the whole neighbourhood. Gutzlaff Island, which now carries an observatory and a flashlight of exceptional brillianc}'', is the first and most important point from which incoming steamers are signalled by telegraph, and derives its name from the intrepid missionary pioneer and explorer, Gutzlaff. It was he who, nearly eighty years ago, long before China v/as opened for residence and trade, except within the contracted limits of the Canton factories, resolved to fulfil his commission,
SHANGHAI, PAST AND PRESENT 207
and distribute the Bible and deliver his message everywhere. He took passage sometimes in the swift barques which carried opium up the coast, and coming on one occasion to the very port which we have reached, Woosung, he decided to press on to Shanghai itself. His enterprise was inter- dicted by the authorities of the then small but ancient hien city of Shanghai ; he was opposed, cajoled, exhorted, threatened and besought, but he made his way up to the city, delivered his message, and returned at last safely to his ship, to the relief of the mandarins, who, however, could not but admire the zeal, if lacking tact and courtesy, of this obstinate philanthropist. A worthy man he was, and courageous to the highest degree ; and his name is held in honour as one of the earliest of the last century's well-wishers to China, coming to warn her of danger, and to point out the right channel to be taken so as to avoid the peril, even as now the Gutzlaff lights continually flash warning and guidance along the dangerous coast. A blind Chinese girl, whom Gutzlaff had rescued and taught, was living still in our mission-house at Ningpo when we arrived in 1861, another link with the stormy days of the first half of the century.
Then, as we left Woosung to run u]) th(' river Huangp'u to Shanghai, we passed Gough Island, at that time a shoal with its surface of mud and slime just appearing at low water. It is now an island threequarters of a mile in length, green with reeds and rushes, and with some huts on it ; and it will doubtless soon be reclaimed and cultivated by the industrious Chinese, if only the myriads of rats that
208 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
infest the island can be extirpated. This shoal is named after the hero of Chillianwallah and Sobraon, Lord Gough, who, as Sir Hugh Gough, captured the Chusan Archipelago and Ningpo, and held his conquest for nearly three years, until the first treaty of peace. Between the northern end of that shoal and the north-eastern shore of the river lay, when I reached these waters in 1861, the Woosung Bar. This barrier Chinese patriots and obstructionists have ever called the * heaven-sent barrier,' as shutting out the too free and forceful entrance of foreign trade, and excluding warships of any for- midable size. Our small tea-clipper, the Solent, of only 750 tons' burden, but with a deep draught and a full general cargo, was detained nearly a week at Woosung, unable to cross the bar until high water. That barrier, continuously abused by the captains of ships, continually excused by the Chinese, frequently dredged and as often silting up again, has at last been circumvented. The old and ob- structed channel has now been abandoned by foreign ships and vessels of deep draught ; and a channel to the south of Gough Island, dredged out and constantly scoured, is made permanently available for large vessels. The Conservancy Board, with a full representation of Chinese authorities and agents, but under foreign control and engineering skill, has long grappled with this difficult problem. Gough Island will now, we trust, no m.ore be connected with ideas of obstruction and ill-will, but with those of open doors and unrestricted channels for legitimate and beneficent commerce, even as the great soldier himself, the loyal and gallant servant of his country
SHANGHAI, PAST AND PRESENT 209
in those far-off days of confusion, desired the prosperity alike of England and of China.
The singular and exceptional importance of this city and port of Shanghai is perhaps not generally known and appreciated. Nearly a quarter of my half-centuiy of life and service in China has been spent in and for Shanghai, and the rest of my years have been passed not far off and in frequent touch with the place. Its history and gro\\'th, its present state after long struggles and its possible future, provide, surely, subjects of unusual interest. It may now, I believe, without any possibility or prob- ability of a rival, be called the commercial metropolis of the Farthest East. Whence does it derive this supremacy and the energies which maintain it ? Its name means not ' on the sea,' but rather the ' upper sea,' possibly pointing to the fact that it was in ancient times a seaport, not as now a river- port, and that the promontory of Pootung, between the Yangtse and the Huangp'u, lay then under water. The yellow muddy sea, stained by the long wash of the gigantic Yangtse, possibly surged round the island or oasis of Shanghai, and then flowed south-westwards through the alluvial plain, which is checked at last by a low line of hills twenty miles distant. The upper waters of the Huangp'u River, near the city of Sungkiang, notorious in Gordon's campaigns, widen out into creeks and lagoons, which suggest the existence in ancient days of broader expanses of water covering the whole area.
Shanghai itself, with its old city walls encircling three hundred thousand people, and its suburbs and settlements containing at least seven hundred
o
210 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
thousand more, and nearly twenty thousand of foreign nationahties ; Shanghai, with its long line of palaces on the Bund, clubs and banks and hotels and offices ; with its countless ramifications of streets and squares with well-paved and well-drained roads ; with its gardens and wide recreation- grounds, its racecourse, its Rotten Row, its theatres, electric tramways and railways ; with all its vigorous commercial life and the enterprises and expansions of trade ; with its intellectual culture and educa- tional development, its love of music and of the fine arts ; its laughter and its tears ; its storm in typhoon and its calm in blazing heat ; its lives and deaths, its meetings and partings — Shanghai is afloat all the time. Water can be struck every- where after not very deep borings ; and the city may perhaps be fitly called not only the ' upper sea,' Shanghai, but the city ' on the sea,' Haishang. What, then, accounts for the exceptional growth and the continuous and advancing life and prosperity of the place, notwithstanding the ups and downs of trade ? These vicissitudes have, indeed, been ex- ceptional and abnormal. We have known of for- tunes in silk, for instance, made or lost in a week ; and of a ' boom ' in land-purchase, especially during and immediately after the days of the T'aip'ing Rebellion, when some bold speculators are said to have made ten thousand per cent, on their original outlay. The fluctuations in the Chinese tea-trade also have been remarkable. Owing to carelessness in maintaining the superiority of their produce, Chinese growers and agents have suffered much from the formidable rivalry of Ceylon and India. Despair
SHANGHAI, PAST AND PRESENT 211
has sometimes seized on the Shanghai markets, followed by revival ; and now better tea seems destined to demand better prices. So that con- tinuous anxiety and depression, side by side with continuous hope and encouragement, have marked and still mark Shanghai's commercial life.
Can we account for the importance, the evidently abiding importance, of the place ? There was not much visible to the eye when I arrived in 1861. Steam was scarcely, if at all, employed in those days. Electricity was unknown ; but Shanghai subsequently had the distinction of lighting her streets with electricity before London, although it must be confessed that our early adventures left us sometimes in half darkness. Instead of running up, as we do now, by steam-launch from the Woosung anchorage to the Shanghai wharves and landing- stages in a little more than an hour, I had, on abandoning the faithful Solent after an acquaintance of a hundred and twelve days, to trust myself to a pilot-boat which was passing for Shanghai, under sail. Wind and tide Avere not propitious ; the xA.ugust sun beat down with almost intolerable heat ; and though weighing anchor before noon, we did not reach Shanghai until half-2)ast six in the evening, weary and distressed. \\g passed by a forest of merchant ships, from three to four hundred sail, a proof in itself of vigorous trade, while there were but two or three merchant steamers in port, besides men-of-war. Among the sailing-ships lay the Julia, a tea-clipper similar in tonnage to the Solent, which had left the Downs at the same time as ourselves, and had proposed a friendly race to the Far
212 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
East. We sighted her only once on the course of fifteen thousand miles, when we were becalmed near Borneo. She seemed then to be passing ahead of us, but eventually the Solent reached Woosung a full day before her rival ; though the Julia, with a lighter cargo and shallower draught, crossed the bar without difficulty, and slipped up to Shanghai before us.
The ten or twelve miles of river up which we were crawling in the pilot-boat exhibit now on either shore for at least half the distance one continuous line of factories, with steam-power and electric light, and relays of mill-hands working day and night. These include paper-mills, cotton-cleaning works, silk-filatures, water-works, foundries, gas-works, docks, wharves, and godowns. Each large block of factories is built in foreign style, with villages round them for the accommodation of the workmen, and country villas standing a little back. Nearer the settlement the streets lie three or four deep, with unbroken stretches of shops and warehouses. Then, as the river bends sharply southwards, we pass the beautiful public gardens, opposite the British Con- sulate, and the long Bund with its green foreshore, and reach the upper harbour, with its crowd of steamers, merging in the distant view into the yet denser masses of Chinese junks, Avhile beyond all the Chinese arsenal stands, a prominent landmark.
Now, when I traversed those twelve miles fifty years ago, there were scarcely any signs on shore of commercial enterprise, and no hint of the coming expansion of this great centre. There were no chimneys smoking by day and by night, and no
SHANGHAI, PART AND PRESENT 213
buildings of any kind, till we passed the upper portion of Hongkew (the name of the so-called American settlement). Another name of that por- tion of the settlement is the ' lower stretch of the sea ' ; and to show the altered configuration of the locality — caused partly by the encroachments of the river on the one bank and its retirement from the other, partly by the reclamation of land for house- building— I may add that as we passed by I saw (and old prints of that time bear witness to the fact) the Church of Our Saviour, built a little earlier by the American Protestant K})i8copal .Mission, standing close to the river bank. The church remains ; but it stands now in the heart of a new and busy town, and we can catch only a glimpse of it through a vista nearly a quarter of a mile in length, opening between lofty godowns.
I have not, however, yet discussed the reasons, geographical, political, and commercial, which have combined to transform this place, formerly some- what obscure, difficult of access, and unimportant, into the very centre and throbbing heart of the trade and enterprise of mid and north China, and of the Farther East. Shanghai lies quite near to the ancient southern capital of China, Nanking, and is now connected with Nanking by railway, as well as by daily communication on the river Yangtse. Yet her comparative proximity to that vast city of thirty miles' circumference had no effect in ameliora- ting the former comparative isolation of Shanghai ; and there are no signs that the improved communica- tion between the two cities is tending to transfer the present prosperity of Shanghai to Nanking.
214 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
Shanghai possesses a supreme advantage in her geographical position, lying near the mouth and entrance of the Yangtse. In war-time, if the forts were backed by an efficient land-force, the Woosung batteries would dominate the Yangtse, and shield Shanghai, thus giving her the strength and prestige of a vital spot in the empire's defences. In times of peace, this geographical position enables her to combine and collect in her markets all the products of foreign and native trade, imported from the west and east and south, and now from the north as well, and to distribute these over trade-routes by land and by water, pushing ever farther into the interior of the empire ; while for exports, she forms the chief centre and agency for collecting and transmit- ting the exports of inland China and the north to the west and south. Her river-trade, two thousand miles inland, her coast-trade, a thousand miles from north to south, her foreign trade, both in foreign and in native bottoms, north, east, south and west — though I do not attempt to particularise — is enormous. There exists no other port capable of such development, because there is none on the coast or up the rivers of China possessed of such incomparable advantages. Hongkong boasts of a larger shipping tonnage, but that great commercial centre is, first, not Chinese ; and, secondty, it is more a port of call and of transhipment than a terminus and a collecting and distributing centre, like Shanghai.
From another point of view, Shanghai, being not only a centre of foreign trade par excellence, but also the great gathering-place of those engaged in foreign
SHANGHAI, PAST AND PRESENT 215
enterprise in all its branches, may be regarded, I think, as a vast exhibition-enclosure, where, in active and working order and life, the developments of western science and discovery may be continuall}^ displayed, and our best methods of education may be seen in operation. To exliibit these is as impor- tant as to engage in the mere contests of the markets, and of barter, and of rival companies. If this be a fair description of the raison d'etre of Shanghai, then no other place on the coast or in the interior can be imagined so convenient, so secure if firmly held, and so peaceable as Shanghai.
Two events stand out in my memory, small and insignificant in themselves, but affording a striking evidence of the growth and expansion of Shanghai. On the 17th of August 1861, after a hot and sultry day, the chaplain of the English church with w hom I was staying took me for a country walk. The chaplain's house, known now as the deanery, stood where it now stands, a short quarter of a mile from the Bund. Behind the house a three minutes' walk took us to the old cemetery which is now closed, and outside the cemeterj^ westwards we passed at once into the open country, with rice-fields — changed a few years later for cotton-fields, much to the advantage of the salubrity of the place — and hamlets surrounded by neat, strongl^^-woven bamboo fences. The country people were cutting their early rice, and chatted in a friendly manner to our guide. Now fields and crops and fences and homesteads and husbandmen have all gone, and a roaring city stretches where green fields alone were then seen. From that cemetery, so local legend declares, the
216 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
long-dead residents of Shanghai rise from time to time, and walk in the stillness of the night up and down the Maloo, the great street which runs west- wards through the heart of the settlement. This would occur, to Chinese thought and imagination, on the fifteenth day of the Chinese seventh month, the time of the annual release of the spirits in prison. The old cemetery, with its carefully preserved memorials of the dead, now possesses an institution of lasting benefit. The mortuary chapel, which is no longer used, has, through the kindness of the Municipal Council, been placed temporarily at the disposal of the Chinese native church, gathered and founded as one result of the sixty-six years' work of the English Church Missionary Society in Shanghai, a work carried on in happy harmony with the other missions. This native church is now self-supporting, and can soon claim to be independent and self-governing in communion with the churches of the west, and part of the Church of China. The chapel is beautifully fitted up, and large congregations assemble here under their Chinese pastor for praise and prayer.
Three years later I was again in Shanghai, ^ly friend the chaplain had died, and a military chap- lain, attached to the large force of British troops then stationed near the native city, was in temporary charge of the English services. I offered ni}^ help, and he asked me to take for him the afternoon military service in a temple five miles off, where the troops were stationed. He mounted me on a charger, with an orderly as guide. I left the chaplain's door, passed the cemetery mentioned
SHANGHAI, PAST AND PRESENT 217
above, and was in the open country immediately. Turning southwards, I traversed the paths through the rice-fields, and crossed several narrow creeks, and duly reached the barracks at the hour mentioned by the chaplain. The general in command gave me a hearty welcome, but he informed me that the chaplain had inadvertently given me the wrong hour, and that he himself had just finished reading the service. So I saluted the officers and men, had tea with the general, and then rode leisurely home- wards across the ciuiet fields. Those fields have completely vanished, due west from the deanery for a mile and more, and south-west and southwards for three or four miles. If you ride or walk, or are carried in sedan-chair or jinrik.'^ha or motor-car or tram-car, not a blade of grass, or a vestige of tree or garden or crops will meet your eye. Only streets and alleys are there, with dense blocks and rows of houses, and multitudes of busy, nois}', shouting people. With the extension and the improvement of the roads, initiated largely by Gordon, owing to the necessities of military transport, the methods and facilities of locomotion have altered greatly. The old church had deep verandahs and porticoes, which were crowded on Sundays with sedan-chairs with green blinds, in which gentlemen and ladies alike came to church. Now no sedan-chairs arc to be seen in Shanghai streets, except when a mandarin, or per- haps a doctor from the country, passes timidl}^ and wonderingly along. Whether this be an altogether wholesome and desirable expansion of Shanghai is a debatable point. When the port was opened for foreign trade and residence in 1843, certain areas,
218 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
now called the settlements, facing the river in its bending course and stretching back a mile or so into the country, were set apart expressly for the erection of merchants' offices and warehouses, and for dwelling-houses. The whole district, about five miles in extent along the river, might probably have been appropriated as a territorial possession or free- hold in perpetuity, even as the French claim to regard their portion of the settlement. But the English, who were paramount in numbers and in influence, declined this privilege from considerations of international courtesy, and occupied the territory on terms of what may be called perpetual lease, with ground-tax paid to the emperor, and with the right granted to residents and occupiers of sub- letting and also of buying and selling land and houses within the settlements. But the district was designed for foreign residents and for business alone, and if this condition had been resolutely observed, we should have had the sight, by the river and in its neighbourhood, behind and beyond the banks and offices, of one continuous park, dotted over with country-houses, surrounded by fair lawns and gardens, such as you see now, to your surprise and delight, if you penetrate four or five miles into the country. When the T'aip'ings Avere in posses- sion of the regions round Shanghai, multitudes of refugees crowded into the settlements for protection ; and the temptation to make money surely and swiftly overcame the consideration of the obvious advantages of the original arrangement for sanita- tion, quiet, and security. The Chinese were ad- mitted within the once sacred precincts of the
SHANGHAI, PAST AND PRESENT 219
foreign concession, and multitudes of houses were erected for their accommodation, and streets were planned, and roads were metalled, stretching in all directions. Fortunes were thus made by the sale or lease of land at fabulous prices, and by the ample return for the outlay in the high rents readily paid for the houses ; while the refugees found better and more salubrious dwellings than they had been accustomed to, and for a time abundant and lucrative employment. The close of the rebellion and the pacification of the country drew back again to their desolated homes and fields large numbers of the refugee population of Shanghai, and this happened so suddenly as to threaten with ruin many of the speculators in land and houses, and to dislocate the labour-market. But the settlements, thus invaded and captured and built over, and then half deserted, never relapsed first into a wilderness and then into their primitive park-like aspect. The supreme advantages of security and order provided in the foreign settlements, and the rapidly increasing demands of trade, attracted merchants, shop- keepers, artisans, servants, and workmen of all kinds to the settlement boundaries ; and the tide of immigration set in again and has never ceased its flow since that date. So that to-day the select population of two hundred foreign residents in 1850, and fewer than that at the opening of the port in 1843, has grown to nearly twenty thousand ; and the small bands of Chinese workers, who formerly entered the settlements only during business hours, are changed for the hum and clamour and bustle and eager life of seven hundred thousand souls.
220 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
I cannot explain, nor can I pretend to justify or condemn the anomaly presented by Shanghai as I have known it for fifty years and as it exists now ; but it seems to me that the Chinese will never suc- ceed in materially altering the scheme of things. It works quite well, and inflicts practically no injury on themselves or on the public generally, if only the exceptional and unique circumstances of the case are taken into consideration. The Chinese patriots, jealous of what they are beginning to call their sovereign rights, and, perhaps it must be added, the authorities of the powers watching, and rightly watching, the interests of their different nationalities, will be Avell advised if they give an ungrudging sympathy and practically a free hand to this supremely interesting exhibition, before the eyes of the watching East and the not unobservant West, of self-government by an epitome (if I may say so) of the best civilisation and enlightenment of the West, to the advantages and securities of which the Chinese, as well as foreigners, are admitted. The land-regulations and the magic cluster of the Muni- cipal Council's laws and by-laws and rights may be all anomalous, for the area in which they exercise their powers is Chinese, not British or German or American ; but the Chinese swarm into this area, where they form the very life and vigour of the place, and are content to live under foreign taxation and foreign police control, with a Mixed Court indeed, retaining the trappings of Chinese authority (a Chinese magistrate presiding), but with foreign assessors ever present to forbid bribery, corruption, torture, and wilful miscarriage of justice. Now aU
SHANGHAI, PAST AND PRESENT 221
these Chinese, contented thus to yield allegiance to this imperium in imperio, are Chinese subjects still, and are not in any specific way detached from their Chinese citizenship or released from loyalty to the throne. But justice, if the Chinese government authorities clamour for justice, is conserved and never wilfully perverted, nor are the high prin- ciples of Chinese jurisprudence broken. China is in fact learning, unconsciously perhaps, but most surely, wholesome lessons from the incorruptibility of our English shipping courts (for instance), the swiftness and directness of foreign incpiiry and pleadings to trace the truth ; and the search-light of a protected daily press turned on to China's old systems of injustice is a most useful educational process. How urgently China still needs such lessons ! As I write, in the neighbouring province three Chinese of respectability, charged with a great crime, are lying condemned or waiting for death, after being compelled by savage torture in a Chinese court to confess what their consciences would never admit. Nearer to me, a husbandman, guilty perhaps of a small offence, for which he has made tenfold reparation, was rearrested by the powerful gentry and handed over to the magistrates on other charges. Before these had even been in- vestigated, the accused man, for the convenience or rather the shifting of justice, was transferred to the court of the governor of the province; and by him, still untried, unheard, uncondemned, was sentenced to imprisonment for life. A few days ago a foreign lady and her husband were sketching near the wall of this enlightened and progressive city of Shanghai
222 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
— an innocent and lawful diversion here, where kodaks are in full operation. A number of lads and others gathered round ; and as one obstructed the view, he was politely asked to move aside. This scion of young China's nobility shouted out in clear English one of the carefully acquired aphorisms of the new learning : ' We stand on our sovereign rights. This is China : I am a Chinese, and I can stand w^here I please.' But young China and old China (though old China knew better) have yet to learn that there are no sovereign rights which allow the Chinese to be tyrannous, cruel, unjust ; and no law, written or unwritten, which permits the Chinese to part with their good manners. This forms, to my mind, the saddest and most ominous feature of China's awakening, of her so-called Renaissance, of her new life and hope and plans for reform and rejuvenescence. She is in danger of losing in part what the T'aip'ings were charged with losing wholly, the two bright characteristics of Chinese nationality, education and good manners. For some of this deterioration in good manners her foreign teachers and exemplars must be held accountable ; but, from whatever cause, she is most certainly threatened with this irreparable loss.
Yet how chivalrous, how high-souled China can be amidst the materialism of her earthly ambitions ! During my residence in Shanghai, in 1884, at the time of the long-draAvn dispute between a foreign power and the Chinese with reference to Tonkin and Annam and the shadowy Chinese suzerainty there, I remember sitting on the Shanghai Bmid and watching the telegraphic news arriving from hour
SHANGHAI, PAST AND PRESENT 223
to hour from Foochow, five hundred miles south, detailing the gradual destruction of the Chinese fleet, decoyed into the harbour and then fired on by the enemy. On that occasion, it seemed to us, the historic chivalry of that western power seemed for the time to have disappeared, making way for the outshining of the chivalry of China. The young Chinese naval cadets on board their ships of war scorned to strike their flags under the crushing fire, and went down with their colours still Hying. At Shanghai an extraordinary scene was witnessed by us. It must be remembered that war was never actually declared, but the declaration seemed every day imminent. A gunboat of the foreign power was at anchor in the higher reaches of the river at Shanghai, opposite the native city. WIkmi the fighting at Foochow occurred, the foreigner was requested and advised by the Chinese to leave for neutral waters. The captain of the man-of-war resented the warning, and threatened to bombaid the city if he were molested. The Chinese replied by anchoring two ' terrors of western nations,' gun- boats with Armstrong guns, one on either side of the foreign man-of-war. They then ])atiently waited, allowing the foreign gunboat meanwhile to be provisioned from the shore ; and at last, when the captain pleaded the impossibility of his running the gauntlet of the Woosung forts as he passed sea- wards, the Chinese placed a mandarin on board the foreign boat, with an escort of two C'hinese gun- boats as guarantees of immunity from attack. Conducting the foreigner past the silent i"oi*ts and beyond the lighthouse limits, the mandarin rejoined
224 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
his own ships, bowed to the enemy, wished him fair wind and fair tide, and returned to Shanghai. Meanwhile at Ningpo, only a hundred and forty miles distant, as I witnessed myself, a state of war without the declaration of hostilities was in progress. The foreign fleet was blockading Chinhai, the port of Ningpo. They lay for many days just out of range of fire of the formidable Chinhai forts, moving back a little indeed, for as they threw an idle shell over the Chinhai hill into the city below, the forts at once opened fire. The banks of the river Yung, meanwhile, were alive with soldiers and countrymen working day and night at the ancient and long-abandoned earthworks between Chinhai and the city. Great excitement and violent indigna- tion prevailed in Ningpo, where these foreigners had serious interests at stake. It was the centre of one of the Roman Catholic missions, with a bishop and a large staff of priests and of sisters of charity. No protection of any kind could be afforded to the defenceless men and women by their own people. Other nationalities at Ningpo were, of course, more or less involved in the general exasperation of the people. But the chief peril seemed to threaten the Roman Catholic sisters. The Chinese, however, with the truest sense of honour, gave minute orders for the full protection of these non-combatants.
The growth and expansion of Shanghai, which I am sketching in this chapter, have been sometimes hindered, sometimes accelerated, by the exhibition of these conflicting features in the character of the Chinese. Their general friendliness and goodwill are marred and shamed sometimes by sudden
SHANGHAI, PAST AND PRESENT 225
ebullitions of violence and the exploiting of griev- ances which could have been easily adjusted by quiet negotiation, without wild riot and assaults on innocent people. Now the wheelbarrow men go out on strike, with trade-unions' violence against independent workers ; now the jinrik^^ha men are on strike, probably when their laborious services are specially needed, their grievance being some small extra tax, or greater strictness in the monthly examination of their vehicles ; now the electric- tram projectors and engineers are warned of a general and dangerous uprising on the occasion of the first tram being put in motion. As far back as 1876, when the first raihvay laid on Chinese soil was opened, in the face of grave opposition, the idea of a riot was abandoned, but a soldier was bribed to throw himself under the engine drawing the first train, with the promise of a hundred dollars for his sorrowing widow and children. He actually per- formed his part, and it was hoped that the luck of the line would be for ever blasted and ruined. The trains ran successfully for a time, the Chinese crowding from afar to see the strange monster, but the promoters were obliged at last to yield to per- sistent opposition, and they sold the line to the government for two million taels, professedly for transportation to Formosa and use there. The material reached the shore of Formosa, and was landed and left to decay. Factious opposition is not, however, always sincere or formidable. Con- siderable excitement was caused at one time by the rifle-practice at the butts just outside the settlement. A shot is supposed to have ricochetted, and so to
I'
226 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
have wounded an old woman as she was working in the fields near. She was promptly taken to the hospital, and the wound not being of a serious character she soon recovered, and was consoled by the gift of thirty dollars. Upon this she expressed her purpose, so soon as she could walk again, to proceed to the same neighbourhood, with the hope of being struck a second time, and a second time well paid for the suffering.
There is one advantage which the Chinese may derive, if they wish it, from the object-lesson of western life and western methods presented before their eyes. They have had for long years, probably for centuries, fire-brigades, with ' fire-dragons,' as their pumps are called. These, hoAvever inefficient in themselves, are worked sometimes with far more pluck and vigour than is generally supposed. On the alarm of fire, sounded on gongs through the streets, it is the duty of the mandarins to repair in person to the place, and, seated in state as near as possible, personally to superintend the efforts made to subdue the fire or prevent its spread. The soldiers accompanying the officials are supposed to suppress the brutal pillage to which the poor people are exposed on these occasions, when their goods, salved indeed from the flames, and sat upon by the family, are yet sometimes snatched away from them. In the main streets of Chinese cities fire-walls are seen, arching the street at every three or four hundred yards' interval, which do not indeed pre- vent the destruction of aU houses between two such walls, but which effectually prevent the fire from passing further. The skill and reckless courage of
SHANGHAI, PAST AND PRESENT 227
the foreign volunteer fire-brigades, with their brass helmets and modern engines, working sometimes in the very heart of the blaze under the almost fiercer heat of summer, but chiefly on winter nights near new-year-tide, with frost so biting as to coat with ice the drenched uniforms of the firemen as they fight the flames, is a sight from which the Chinese may well learn a lesson of true public spirit and devotion.
One feature which too long prevailed on this exhibition-ground of Christian England and Europe and America is now, I believe, definitely lessening, and in some places disappearing. A lax tolerance of houses of ill-fame and the allurements and solicitations to vice so common in great cities, and more particularly in harbours and shipping-centres, is entirely foreign to the Chinese sense of law and order. Haunts of evil are indeed common enough in many cities and towns of China, but they are under a ban, are branded with shame by their low and narrow entrances, and are not seldom suppressed and exterminated during the rule of some rigorous mandarin. The moral feeling of the thoughtful and respectable Chinese was, therefore, shocked from time to time by the comparative publicity and licence allowed to such places and practices in Shanghai. I have heard the taunt and sneer uttered in far-off country districts, and even in other provinces : ' Shanghai ! yes, it is a wonderful city indeed, but a dangerous place for temptation and evil example.' This was never the fault of tlie high-souled leaders of Shanghai's political and municipal life. They surely deplored the state of
228 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
things, but were confronted by the difficulties involved alike in a policy of forcible suppression, and in that of gradual removal, with the help of moral persuasion and the light of public opinion. The reproach has not yet vanished, but it is steadily and surely passing away.
I imagine that Shanghai must be held in high estimation by the country people in the neighbour- hood; and that they, at least secretly, look upon the place as their own, and a proud possession, the ruin of which would involve disaster to them- selves. The growth and expansion of Shanghai has doubtless brought wealth to a very large number of people, by supplying markets larger and firmer than any existing previously to 1843 ; and the country people would probably resent the idea of the disappearance or decay of Shanghai as loudly as any foreigner. But they have hitherto declared their independence in a specially unfriendly manner as soon as foreigners pass beyond the protection and care of the police. This arose, doubtless, in the past from the overbearing spirit and the lack of con- sideration shown too often to the country people by foreigners ; and the exhibition of the hauteur due, it was supposed, from a superior race to an inferior. Owing to the passion for cross-country riding, one of Shanghai's numerous recreations — racing, drag- and paper-hunts, cricket, football, golf, polo, hockey and tennis, baseball, shooting and yachting and rowing, with many others — the gardens and growing crops of the country people were too often needlessly trampled down, when less desperate hurry and a slight curve in the course
SHANGHAI, PAST AND PRESENT 229
would have avoided the plots so dear and precious to the poor, though overlooked by the well-mounted rich. But this feeling of resentment which has, within recent years and quite close to the settle- ment, shown itself in rudeness and rough assaults on ladies and defenceless passers-by, is not by any means universal, and is, we trust, distinctly on the decline. Of one thing I can speak positively, from personal recollection, and it seems to me significant of a true change in the general attitude of China towards her western guests and visitors and immi- grants, and that notwithstanding spasmodic and ominous hints of a desire, not yet extinct, to get rid of us altogether. I refer to the cessation in every district with which I am acquainted of a hateful practice, which during the course of many years had become so common and apparenth' in- curable, that it no longer aroused indignation or caused any serious annoyance. Opprobrious names and epithets, such as ' demon,' ' white demon,' ' red-haired monster,' ' ladro7ies,' and the like, were everjrvvhere applied by the Chinese, by grown-u}) men and children alike, to foreigners. The polite retort that if, in China's noble phrase, ' within the four seas all are brethren,' then it follows that within the four seas all are demons, robbers, anil red-haired, might turn the edge of the attack for the moment, but still the odious and un-Chincse discourtesy continued. After 1000, however, whether awed by the supernatural and sublime courage of the Christians, western and Chinese, in the fires of martyrdom, or amazed at the staying and conquering power of the gallant bekML'ucred
230 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
band in Peking (where again Chinese Christians bore so much of the brunt of the conflict), or convinced of the futiUty of either abuse or brutal violence in trying to remove the foreign incubus, the Chinese have ceased to employ these evil epithets, and the salutary silence has rarely been broken since. Our desire now is that both in Shanghai and wherever the great influence and example of that cynosure of watching eyes can reach, and everywhere throughout China, justice and honour, sympathy in the high aspirations of the Chinese, and hearty co-operation with them in all works of truest philanthropy, may justify this altered tone, and lay the foundations of mutual respect and enduring friendship.
In closing my Shanghai recollections, I record one instance of the way in which, long before these latter and more friendly days, the true courtesy of the people in remote country regions was capable of manifestation.
One day early in the spring of 1887 I was return- ing from Hangchow to Shanghai in one of the ' foot-boats ' described in my seventh chapter. The weather was sultry, with a south-easterly breeze. We had made good progress ; and leaving the waters of the Grand Canal at Kashing, and running through creeks and broad streams near Sungkiang, we had just joined the upper waters of the Huangp'u, about thirty-five miles above Shanghai. We hoped thus to reach the city the same evening. The wind, however, suddenly shifted to the north-west, and a heavy gale struck us, changing in a few minutes the placid face of the river into an angry sea with threatening waves. The slight craft was nearly
SHANGHAI, PAST AND PRESENT 231
overturned, and we hastily ran for shelter into a little creek. It was already afternoon ; important business was awaiting me in Shanghai, requiring my attendance the next morning at latest. The boat- men assured me, however, that the fijale would certainly last for two or three days, and that tlioy could not move till it had abated. We were moored near a village, and knowing that there must be a cross-country road, I directed one of the boatmen to leap ashore and inquire whether sedan-chairs or wheelbarrows or any other vehicles could be pro- cured. The answer came back that nothing of the kind was available in the neighbourhood. When I inquired further through the boatman how far it was by road or footpath to Shanghai, and whether any one would guide me thither, the\' said the actual distance was not more than ten or fifteen miles, but the road was very bad, and in such stormy weather no one would care to guide a foreign stranger. Then I leapt ashore m3^self, and told the villagers my difficulty, and remonstrated with them on their unwillingness to help a stranger. As soon as they heard me speak to them in their own language, or in something approaching to it (they used a very rough dialect in that district), they at once became friendly ; and two of them, plucking up courage, undertook to guide me to the neigh- bourhood of Shanghai, until they could hire chairs for my further journey. 1 think they were more afraid of me, though I was alone and unarmed, than I of them. They insisted tlial Iwo men a( least should accompany me, one to lead and one to follow, each carrying a lantern. 1 urged then an
232 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
instant start, as it was nearly seven o'clock and darkness was falling. But they must first, with much deliberation, eat their evening rice, procure lanterns and red candles, and tie on their straw sandals, taking an extra pair or two for the long tramp. So I rejoined my boat, and had my own supper ; and then, entrusting my bedding and other things to the care of the boatmen to bring on with them when the gale abated, I started with nothing but a thick coat (as it had become very cold), and a walking-stick. The gale did not moderate at all, even at sundown, when the wind generally slackens, and our course lay in the teeth of the wind. The country was quite unknown to me, and I soon began to suspect, as the darkness deepened, that my guides were not certain of the way. As a matter of fact they lost the path more than once, and the ten or fifteen miles of the short cut, avoiding the endless turns of the river, became at least twenty miles before we sighted the Lunghwa pagoda, with seven miles more to go ere my house was reached. We frequently crossed creeks and canals, the bridges over which were no more than eighteen inches in width. As the wind struck us in gusts, the danger of crossing these without the help of a handrail was considerable. So we advanced into the night ; the villages and towns which we passed seemed darker and darker ; the glimmering lights of those who were working or gambling late went out one by one ; and our only welcome, and that an angry and threatening one, was from the numerous fierce village watch-dogs. At about eleven o'clock we passed through a market-town ; and my guides,
SHANGHAI, PAST AND PRESENT 233
determined that I should have some rest and refresh- ment, hammered at the door of a native inn which had been long closed for the night. The landlord got up, unbarred the door, and without grumbling or remonstrance welcomed us inside. He gave us some lukewarm tea ; and I sat some time and talked with him, offering him some Christian books as I left. He declined all offer of remuneration, and bidding farewell to his guest, this outlandish foreigner, coming at so inopportune a time, he retired to rest, while we plunged into the darkness. It was near the time of the Feast of Lanterns, if I remember rightly, and to the right and left the night sky seemed alive with lantern-kites ; while in some places, apparently hung from temple-roofs, long streamers of lanterns were seen swaying in the wind. At one o'clock in the morning we reached the pagoda and the little town in which it stands. There was not a sound to be heard in the streets, except the tinkling of the small bells hung round the ornamental canopy of the pagoda. My guides ran hither and thither shouting for a chaii", and with no response for a time save from the angry and suspicious dogs. At last an answermg shout was heard, and three sedan-chair coolies appeared, who cheerfully carried me through the bitter air and raging wind, and landed me at my door just as four o'clock was striking. I bade farewell to my kind and faithful guides before starting hoincw ards from the pagoda. They had held me all night long at their mercy — had tliey been the merciless and hostile ruffians supposed to inhabit those regions. They had unwillingly misled mc, indeed, but the
234 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
toil and trouble had been borne chiefly by them. They had found me what I wanted, further con- veyance ; and now how could I repay them and adequately thank them for their kindness ? They disdained to bargain before we started, and there was no exorbitant demand now. They did not care for anything but thanks, they avowed, and wished me a safe onward journey. A silver dollar, worth about two shillings, which was all I had with me at the time, but which I promised to supplement by sending further money to their village, or to double or treble if they would come on with me to Shanghai and return in the daylight — this one coin overwhelmed them with gratitude. It was enough and more than enough : they instantly said fare- well, with thanks and good wishes, and stepped back into the black and stormy night for the long march of twenty miles to their homes. It was an exhibition of the truest kindness and courtesy ; rare, perhaps, but characteristic of the Chinese in their better moods ; and a foretaste, let us hope, of that trust and esteem, in co-operative work for mutual good, which shall characterise the future intercourse between China and western nations.
There is no reason why the renewal of the youth of China, and her awakening patriotism and thirst for independence and power, should forbid such a closer rapprochement, and such mutual and practical goodwill, not only in and around the anomalous and at the same time representative Shanghai — to which I now bid farewell — but throughout China, and in her relations with aU nations.
THE MISSIONARY IN CHINA, AND THE PRESENTATION OF HIS MESSAGE
CHAPTER IX
THE MISSIONARY IN CHINA, AND THE PRESENTATION OF HIS MESSAGE
In the preceding chapters I have brought before my readers a country and a people representing the oldest of the living empires of the world. Egj^t and Assyria, Persia, Rome and Greece are as world- empires a name, a voice, and no more. But China, with her roots and foundations of empire struck down into soil as old as the oldest, has outlived them all. With such antiquit}^ in the institutions of civilisation, with a legal and moral code so ancient and so high-toned, with education part and parcel of the nation's life for nearly two thousand years, and Avith the arts of agriculture, handicraft, and commerce so indicative of a wise and great people, it may not unreasonably be asked what right have western nations to come as teachers and not rather as scholars to China ? What right have we to offer to them, in place of the indigenous creeds, Con- fucianism and Taoism, and the once alien creed now naturalised in China, Buddhism, this western book, the Bible, and this foreign creed, which some con- temptuously call ' a local thing,' Christianity ? Confucius indeed says, in the opening sentences of the Analects, ' Is it not pleasant to have friends coming from distant quarters ? ' But that welcome
238 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
was rather to scholars and inquirers after wisdom than to authoritative leaders and masters. The answer to this objection is clear and sharp in its precision. The Bible is at least as much eastern as western, and Christianity is not local but uni- versal ; and both the Word of God and the special message of God are offered and proclaimed to the Chinese by divine commission and command. We come in obedience to the King's marching-orders.
But this answer is met in modern days with special persistence by the further question, whether, if this be so, the Christian faith does not require a restatement, a resetting, a revised and perhaps expurgated or eclectic version, for presentation to these eastern and comparatively enlightened people. Should not the metaphysical mysteries of the faith and its dogmatic supernaturalism, such as the Incarnation, Atonement, Resurrection, sin as a crime and fault and not rather as a symptom, the future state, the judgment to come and its issues, and the imperious command of faith in a God made man as the one condition for salvation — should not all these doctrines be reconsidered and modified and adapted, so as to meet the spiritual instincts of Hindus or Chinese or Japanese, perhaps even shrewder and keener than those of the west ? Besides, is not Christian truth, if it be the truth, encumbered and deformed by western dress and western accretions ? What right have we to go to the Chinese with our creeds and forms from the west, which are surely no essential part of genuine Christianity ? And, once more, do not the assured results, or, as it should perhaps more correctly be
THE MISSIONARY IN CHINA 239
put, the confident assertions, of criticism and of antiquarian research, compel us to utter with more bated breath the truths which we have been accus- tomed to regard as miassailable ?
Perhaps I may be allowed a hearing on these points as one who has spent fifty j^ears in the very centre and living heart of the philosophies of the Farthest East, and who has been at the same time not wholly out of touch with the thoughts and the stirring disputations of the West. I have watched the advances and the retreats, the assaults and the retirements, the flood and the ebb of criticism, which have swayed round the faith and the sacred writings for so long. The tide seems to me to be turning now slowly but strongly in the direction of old dates, old ascriptions of authorship, old paths. What I state here is partly a confession of my personal faith, and also an apologia for having ever come to China to preach Christ ; and a justifica- tion, if indeed it be required, of the whole idea of Christian missions to all lands. It will provide also a reason for the introduction of this chapter into my book of recollections ; since Christian preaching to the Chinese could not exist at all, in my opinion, if these objections which I have men- tioned were valid. It may be permissible, perhaps, to reply to some of these doubts by corresponding questions as to the grounds for their existence.
Quite early in my missionary life and study of the Chinese language, I was almost entranced by finding what I deemed adumbrations of the revelations of the Bible in the Confucian classics of China ; and I pursued the theory to a fanciful extent, pushing
240 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
hither and thither in search of corroborating evi- dence. But this phenomenon of partial and appar- ent resemblance in some aspects between Christ and other masters, Christianity and other faiths, so familiar two generations ago to missionaries and students, is brought forward now as a new dis- covery, and as one requiring a change of method, and an eirenic tone, in place of denunciation and of reproof addressed to the professors of these creeds. But no sober student of ancient literature, and no one face to face with idolatry and heathenism at work, would be so audacious and so foolish as to imagine that these other creeds form a part, precise and designed, of God's revelation, or are in any real sense ancillary to or anticipatory of the Gospel of the grace of God — in such a way, for instance, as the Old Testament may be called the Gospel in promise, in type, and in prophecy. If ethics can save the soul, if a good code of morals, involving some amelioration of the sorrows of earthly exist- ence, can satisfy the desire of all nations and the great need of the human race, then there is much to admire, if something also to condemn, in the teachings of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism in China, and in their feelings after God. But they in no sense meet Christianity half-way. They are not God's primary revelation. Every knee shall bow to Christ alone ; not one to idol, or hero, or philosopher, or sage.
Further, with reference to our Lord's supreme claim to divine authority. His omniscience and His consequent position as the final court of appeal concerning the veracity, the authenticity and the
THE MISSIONARY IN CHINA 241
genuineness of Holy Scripture, some exegetes seem to have gone needlessly astray in expounding what St. Paul had akeady been at pains to define, the meaning of the unique term kenosis. St. Paul evidently confines it to the true yet inexplicable inanition implied by taking the form of a servant awhile, instead of the form of God. Critics, both within and outside the Church, wish to expand its meaning, and refer the word to a voluntary defect of knowledge ; a voluntary assumption of ignorance where He might have known ; a voluntary submis- sion to the sway of environment when He was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners, and the dwelling-place, as God incarnate, of all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Assume then the mistakes necessitated by this mental emptying, and Jesus Christ's testimony to the Bible is in- validated, and the truth of God, preached and wrought out by the very Way, the Truth, and the Life, is only in part divine truth and in part human error. The withering blight which is spread over Christian faith and Christian practice by this gratuitous assumption, cannot, I fear, be fully known. But its effects are seen not indistinctly in the diminishing of genuine missionary zeal, the falling off in missionary funds, the holding back of missionary recruits.
I wiU not pursue the argument further, nor traverse, as I should be disposed to do, every one of the positions of destructive criticism to which I have drawn attention. My object here is simple and precise. If I were not confident of tlic divine commission and of the genuineness and infallibilily
242 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
of the credentials of my commission, I should never have come to China at all, nor have been able to relate to my readers my recollections of fifty years of Chinese preaching. It cannot be a Christian duty to preach to the Chinese, as a necessary part of our message, our Christian doubts. The Church of Christ has surely reached open ground, after long struggle through the early thickets and sunless forests of unbelief, heresy and schism. She has no right, then, to urge the Chinese, for instance, to enter the same jungle, but should rather present to them a clear statement of truth, drawn from the infallible source of truth.
One point, however, I must pause to notice, again in the form of a question. What part of Christian truth and dogma, as taught now to the nations of the east, is essentially western and not equally eastern ? The creeds, the Apostles' and the Nicene, which are surely an essential part of the Christian faith, notwithstanding eminent assertors to the contrary, are accepted by the eastern as well as the western church, with the exception of one clause, and that referring to a doctrine not originally rejected by the eastern church, but excluded now as having been introduced without notice and with- out the combined authorisation of the churches.
The western dress worn by missionaries does not imply that their doctrine is western. We do not repel confidence by the cut of our clothes, but by a lack of courtesy, charity, and sincerity. We get no nearer to the people's hearts by eating what may be to us unwholesome or unsavoury food, than by retaining what they know to be our usual diet.
THE MISSIONARY IN CHINA 243
To perish like flies from cholera in an Indian bazaar or Chinese slum, which is the ideal of duty for some keen volunteers, when with care and precaution one may not get ill and die, but live and go on working, produces no faith in Christ, but in the ascetic's own merits. Try by all means to make the bazaars and slums more cleanly, if you please, and venture into any place and into any atmosphere where j^ou can relieve distress or reach the lost, but do not make a merit of your misery and stay to die, when, without any neglect of duty, j^ou may come out and live. It may further be asserted that not one distinctive doctrine or belief need be re- stated, or withdrawn for a while, because it is western and not universal. The Christian Church in China it is now proposed to call the Holy Church of China. We have been content hitherto either with the Chinese official term for non-Roman Christianity, the Holy Religion of Jesus (the Roman Church being called the Religion of the Lord of Heaven), or with the words The Episcopal Church, The Anglican Communion, with other names for other bodies. I still entertain a hope which 1 have long cherished, that the Chinese churches may some day join the reformed churches of Christendom in corporate yet independent union with (if she be faithful to herself and to God) that which would seem to be the only practical and possible centre for reunited Christendom — and a centre is surely necessary for such union — the Church of England, primitive, apostolic, faithful to KScripturc and Ihe faith of the ages, and containing and harmonising in her creeds and services and solemn ritual all the
244 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
many-lustred truths which other churches hold perhaps too individually and with too little harmony of proportion. This is the hope ; but meanwhile, in order to assure the Chinese of that which they need never have doubted, namely, our desire not to transplant a foreign church, with foreign prestige and foreign dominion, to Chinese soil, but to plant a living branch of the Qi^cumenical Church of Christ, with her own ecclesiastical constitution, her own bishops and presbyters, a friend, companion and colleague, but in no way a subject, of the west — we call the church now the Holy Church of China.
The attitude, deliberately assumed or uncon- sciously displayed, of being one of the ruling race, as in India, or of belonging to a superior and conquer- ing people, as was once the temptation in China, must be abandoned by the preacher, and replaced by an attitude of courtesy and forbearance. But that is all. All western elements, as such, have vanished. The whole counsel of God is our message, to east as well as to west ; and for ever, 0 God, Thy Word is settled in heaven.
It must not be inferred, however, from the fact that the truth of God is uniform, and universal in its applicability and benefit, that the way of pre- senting it is at all times and everjrvvhere the same. If there be no shunning to declare the whole message, the preacher may seek for acceptable words, and cultivate skill in seizing opportunities — ' imprint your seal according to your chance,' as the Chinese proverb says — so as to adapt the subject to the circumstances and constitution of the audience ; and, avoiding the extremes of flattery on the one side,
THE MISSIONARY IN CHINA 245
and harsh denunciation on the other, seek to win all men by all means. Now, if my premises are correct, and it be admitted that we have such a divine sanction and authorisation for our enter- prise, I shall, I believe, interest my readers by a few recollections of attempts thus to preach to these eastern people. If I am wrong, then Christianit}" is only an ambitious and somewhat presumptuous rival to other religions, and no interest can be excited by my subject. For Christian preaching will be then a mere human impertinence, and a needless and futile attempt to unsettle and destroy the faith of ages.
There are more ways than one in which we can, according to the words of our commission, teach and preach Jesus Christ. Now, with the ancillary aid of healing the sick ; now, Avitli Christian religious teaching, that true beginning of wisdom, in schools, providing the Chinese Avith sound training in their own language, and possibly with bilingual study ; again, by the distribution or sale of the Bible, or by the preparation of books and tracts and leaflets ; or, finally, by that round which my recollections chiefly gather, preaching in mission-rooms and halls, at street-corners, or in the open air in country market-towns and villages, in temple-courts, or from house to house. This evangelistic work must be carried on, if at all, continuously and systemat- ically, and with the aid of native helpers where such can be secured. The Bible, when given or sold to intelligent and sincere readers, may be left without note or comment to do its work by its own majestic and supernatural power ; the entrance of God's Word giveth liglit. But for Uw help of those
246 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
whose interest is already aroused careful commen- taries may be abundantly useful, if only they give the results of a careful and devout study of the ])Ook, and not the shifting doubts of men. Special treatises also are prepared, appealing to the scholars and students of China, and intended to remove prejudice and secure an honest hearing of the definite message conveyed.
I give here a brief sketch of such an open letter to scholars, presenting an apology for missions, and a statement of the Christian preacher's unique credentials.
The letter begins with a panegyric on China, not fulsome or exaggerated, but explanatory of the deep and almost romantic interest which China has inspired in the west for generations past ; an interest sometimes ignorant and grotesque, but quickened and deepened greatly by what we have learned in later years. We are impressed not only by the antiquity of the great empire and her people, but more particularly by that which is unparalleled in the history of nations, the early development and abiding nature of her civilisation, her language and script, and her literature, rich in wisdom and philo- sophy, and, with human bounds, in the highest ethical teaching. Ancient also in her pursuit of art, and the culture of the arts of peace : —
' A people numerous as the ocean sands, And glorying as the mightiest of mankind ; Yet where they are, contented to remain ; From age to age resolved to cultivate Peace, and the arts of peace : turning to gold The very ground they tread on, and the leaves They gather from their trees year after year.'
THE MISSIONARY IN CHINA 247
Then this interest in China aroused the spirit of exploration and travel, and the desire for trade and commerce, so eager and active in our western nature. We had, perchance, some goods to offer Avorthy of China's notice, though she is so self-contained that she could have got on very well without us. Of late years we have brought machinery, and other artificial helps to trade and manufacture. We venture to hope, also, that some specimens of our western literature, and methods of education, may be acceptable, and especially the wonderful discoveries of science in medical art. China had on her side precious goods, such as tea and silk, to barter in exchange. Alas ! to our shame, that opium was for so long an article of commerce ; that dark phase of international trade is, we trust, vanishing. Now we confidently desire that with open doors and increasing facilities for business, fair trade may be found more than ever before beneficial to China, and her neighbours, and may prosper and increase. But neither of these motives, the love of travel and the fascinating adventures of trade, accounts for the initiation and carrying on of the work of Christian missions in China. China has her own religions : are they not sufficient ? Yet the fact that all three systems are often pro- fessed by the same individual implies grave doubt as to the reliability or sufficiency of any one of them ; and it may be admitted that foreigners might offer courteously to China one more companion religion, even as Buddhism was introduced from abroad nineteen hundred years ago. Christianity, how- ever, is offered as the supreme religion, and as the
248 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
sole guide, teacher, and ruler of men's souls. Why- is this ? Can this be considered a sufficient motive for crossing the seas, and coming to teach instead of to learn ? The answer is simply as follows. The first duty of man to man is, as Chinese philosophy tells us, the exhibition of love to your neighbour as to yourself. The truest exhibition of love is, as Chinese proverbial philosophy teaches, to sympathise in happiness and to share it with others ; to sym- pathise in sorrow and to alleviate it for others. R-ejoice with those who rejoice ; weep with those who weep. Now Christianity is from heaven and not from England. Jesus Christ saves from sin and death. We have realised this happiness of salvation. Humanity itself, then, and the voice of God above all, urge us to share this happiness with you, honourable gentlemen. The best way in which I can show love to any man is to lead that man to love God. And this happiness of fearing and loving God, universally exercised, will bring the surest blessing and peace to the whole of your great land. On this account we could not resist the call to cross the seas. My friends, do not reject the invitation from heaven.
And now to describe open-air or mission-room preaching. The missionary is confronted by an audience constantly varying in numbers and char- acter. He appeals now not, as in his letter, to a number of scholars able to consider his message at their leisure, but to husbandmen resting for a few minutes under a willow or camphor-tree by the canal- side, or to a crowd of men, it may be, of all classes from the streets — hucksters, stall-keepers, country-
THE MISSIONARY IN CHINA 249
men staying but a few moments and hastening on lest the city gates be shut, artisans on their way back from work, and a scliolar or two, or a merchant, strolhng up for amusement. The preacher, if his mind and conscience be awake, is fired, and yet ahnost paralysed, by the thought that for many of those who hear him this may be the first and also the last time that they will listen to the Gospel. He cannot afford to dally with compliments and light words before he presents to them the Saviour knocking at the door. He must be as direct and yet as fuU as he can in these few minutes. So he spends little or no time in denouncing ' the godless multitude of gods,' of whom Origen speaks ; or in discussing ' the unsettling of old religions by com- merce,' of which Professor Clwatkin reminds us, and of which China's present awakening is perhaps an illustration. It may be a matter of life and death. He dares not hold back for a time, from motives of expediency, the Cross and the central fact for all mankind of the death of Jesus Christ. But how shall he begin ? He must be quick to watch for, or even to force, an opening, and not to rely on the delivery of a well-ordered and well- prepared discourse, though he will have done a\c11 if he has spent time beforehand in prayer and in careful study of some special passage from the Bible. Some answers to a question from the preacher himself, or some flippant remark from a member of the audience, may be the opening of the door ; and he must be alert with proverb, illustra- tion, classical quotation, or humbler folklore to press home his message. ' You cannot tell in the
250 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
morning what will happen at night,' the speaker reminds his audience ; ' but besides this famihar Chinese aphorism, hear further the saying of Con- fucius, " If you hear the doctrine in the morning, you may die in peace at night " ; or the yet nobler anonymous saying, " If you have done nothing against conscience, a summons, a knock at dead of night Avill not startle you." ' The speaker asks what doctrine this is, and where such sinless people are to be found. ' There are two good people, and two only,' say the Chinese ; ' one is dead, and one not yet born.' ' Even the saints and sages of old had at least three parts out of ten bad,' the Chinese hold. ' Now listen,' the preacher continues. ' Nov/ or (it may be) never : —
*'An inch of time, I 'm told Is worth an inch of gold : But more than gold 'twill cost To ransom time once lost."
So the rhyming Chinese proverb warns us. " You pull off your stockings and shoes to-night ; will you put them on to-morrow ? " is another of your sayings. Your very clothes and food, and the breath you draw ; whom do you thank for these ? In your own words, " You eat the rice of the man opposite, who is your benefactor : you thank the man next door, who is nearer to you, though he has never helped you." Yet remember that Con- fucius said, " If you sin against Heaven there is no place for prayer." But you feel aU the while that you must pray. As another of your proverbs says, " Heaven's height is not high : man's heart soars
THE MISSIONARY IN CHINA 251
ever higher ! " We have the same in our western dress : —
" The Peak is high, und the stars are high. And the thought of a man is higlicr."
Yet you yourselves say all the time that you are the offspring of God, heaven-nourished, heaven- born ; He is your Father. Your proverb says, " Man nourishes man, and he is all skin and bone : Heaven nourishes man, and he is fat and well- liking." " Heaven produces no man without his appropriate blessing : the earth produces no plant of grass without its provided root." Seek God's happiness, then, and do not fear man. " Man ma}^ despise me," you say ; " but if Heaven spm'ns nie not, then loss is gain." '
Thus provided with a repertory of proverbs and illustrations, the speaker opens his Bible for his text, for the substance of his discourse, and for final appeal ; and begins to preach. It will be well, also, if with care and accuracy he can intersperse quota- tions from the philosophy and sententious sayings of Confucius and Mencius, not for the display of his scholarship, nor as a feeble admission of parallel divine teaching, but rather as an evidence that Christianity is not an abstraction and out of sym- pathy w^ith the aspirations and nobler thoughts of all nations, but in deepest sympatliy with them, and that it brings the fulfilment of their highest hopes ; and again to show that without Christianity all the wisdom of the Four Books and Five Chissics together can provide no remedy for the ills bewailed, no realisation of the ideals presented.
252 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
I sketch ill what follows an imaginary but thoroughly typical address, drawn partly from my remembrance of effective native preaching, and partly from my own experience.
The text in the preacher's mind is, ' The wages of sin is death ; the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.' The speaker has no sur- plice or bands or preaching-gown ; the discourse is not divided into so many heads and addressed to different classes of the congregation ; the pulpit is a little elevation under a tree by the canal-side, or on the steps of a temple-court ; the congregation consists of a knot of friendly but curious men, and one or two women. ' What is your honourable family-name ? ' asks the speaker, accostmg the senior of the band of listeners. ' My disreputable name is Yang,' he replies. ' And your distinguished name ? ' ' My poor name is Mo.' ' What may be your honourable age ? ' the preacher asks again. ' I am but young : my age is sixty-eight.' ' Sixty- eight ! can you add another sixty-eight to your life, venerable sir ? ' ' You flatter me,' he replies ; ' who can live so long as that ? ' ' Why not ? See this camphor-tree ! It is five hundred years old at least. Why are men so short-lived and trees so long- enduring ? But if it be so as you say, my venerable friend, and if more than half your journej^ is over, what place do you hope to reach at the end ? Your proverb says, " This Avorld is very well as a rest- house, but not as our abiding home." There is no real and lasting happiness here. You commonly say, " Gold is empty, silver is empty, and when death comes, who can hold them in his hand ? " We
THE MISSIONARY IN CHINA 253
are but pilgrims and strangers, and our home is in heaven. You yourselves confess that you are heaven-born, that the heavenly Ruler is your Father in heaven. As children on foreign travel you hope to return home after a while. Is that your hope, venerable sir, and yours, honourable friends, to go thither ? ' 'To be sure,' they rej^ly ; ' but -who can go to heaven ? ' ' What difficulty is there in the way ? ' asks the preacher. ' I refer you again to your own sayings. " Bright and clear is the way to heaven," you say ; " the myriad people are unwilling to walk in it." And again you say,
" Heaven has a shining path ; none walk along it : Hell's gateless wall to scale, the nations throng it.'
" The good go to the good place," it is said ; and are none in your honourable village good ? ' 'To be sure,' they reply ; ' everywhere there are bad and good to be found.' ' Indeed ? ' rejoins the preacher ; ' in all foreign countries we cannot find one truly righteous person ; and I have heard that in your honourable country there are just two, one dead and one not yet born.' This raises a loud laugh, but yet a laugh of assent, for by the witness of a Chinese proverb all the Avorld is accounted guilty before God. ' Now, my friends,' proceeds the speaker, ' it is guilt that makes us short-lived ; it is sin that has brought death into the wojld, and which fills even the longest life with sorrow ; the wages of sin is death. It is this which nuikes us fear we cannot reach heaven. Sin, as you all avow, must be punished sooner or lalci-, and Confucius says that " if you sin against Heaven there is no
254 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
place for prayer." What is to be done ? You, my venerable friend, are like yon westering sun. Your day is far spent, and you, my friends, young and old, remember the proverb, " Who knows in the morning what will happen at night ? " Is there no remedy for sin, no salvation, no Saviour ? Will fasting serve, or penance, or almsgiving ? You yourselves say that so long as the heart is unchanged, outward observances, such as vegetarianism, are powerless. Or can Confucius save you, or Lao Tsze forgive you ? Or Shakyamuni, he too a foreign sage, could he take sin away ? These are all teachers and exhorters, but not saviours. Now if I saw you, my friend, tumble into this deep canal, and knew you were drowning, would it help for me to shout to you, to exhort you, to quote Confucius to you, and to tell you that you ought never to have fallen in ? No, no ! you will never exhort a man on to the bank. Bring a rope, a bamboo-pole, or jump in yourself and save the drowning man ! That is what we require ; salvation first, and then the exhortation, "Walk warily, do not fall in again ! " Now this is exactly the religion that I come to preach to you. " Within the four seas all are brethren " ; and we as brethren have come to tell the good tidings to our brethren.' From this vantage-ground plainly, fully, lovingly, we preach and teach Jesus Christ. ' Jesus, the Son of God, gave Himself a ransom for all, outweighing in value all the human race, even as a good silver dollar exceeds in value a small base coin.'
' All very good ! ' shouts out a man on the out- skirts of the crowd ; ' all very weU ! But this
THE MISSIONARY IN CHINA 255
doctrine comes from abroad, and it is you foreigners who bring us opium.' ' My friend,' interposes the Chinese catechist by the preacher's side, " do you buy hicifer matches instead of your old flint and steel and tow, or do you not ? Do you wear foreign calico ? Is it not plain that some foreign things are good, and some bad ? Even supposing Chris- tianity to be foreign (which it is not, for it is from heaven), yet why reject it unheard ? Why, you let in Buddhism nineteen hundred years ago, a downright foreign creed. And see how foolish we Chinese are ! Here comes a pedlar with two packs of merchandise ; one, beneficial to body and mind, and freely distributed to all applicants ; the other, ruinous to a man's whole being, and yet an article for which a heavy price is demanded. For the brief enjoyment of the latter, thousands and millions are willing to sacrifice fortune and life ; but for the first, with its lasting blessing, few will even stretch out a hand to receive it as a gift. Is not this what we are doing ? We reject Christianity's priceless blessing because we fancy it is foreign. We accept Buddhism, and spend much money with little profit, and we greedily consume a ruinous drug, knowing both to be foreign.' ' Well, well ! ' retorts this same critic ; ' but the fact of the whole matter is this. We in the middle kingdom have Confucius ; you in the west Jesus.' ' My friend,' replies the preacher, ' Confucius and Jesus can- not thus be compared together. It is not just to your great and noble sage; it is not just to tlie divine Saviour. The people of your hon()uial>l(> country resemble a man walking along a iliilic nil.
256 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
dark and slippery path, with a precipice on either side ten thousand feet in depth. One false step, and you will be over the brink, and no power or device of your own can then save you. As you enter the path a kind friend gives you a lantern, by using which you may perhaps avoid some of the dangers. This is Confucius, and his light is contained in his canonical books. Have you always used this light, and the candle of your own conscience ? ' ' No, no ! ' they all exclaim ; ' not one of us has fully followed the doctrine.' ' Then you are already on the very edge of the precipice. As you fall, all Confucius, Mencius and the sages can do is to look over the edge and say, " I told you so ! " Only the power and wisdom of God can save. Christ is that power, Christ that wisdom. But remember, my friends, that Christianity is not a foreign creed. We foreigners are but letter-carriers and heralds. The letter and the message come from heaven. See that setting sun ! Is it a native or a foreign sun ? ' The crowd laughs : ' We suppose you foreigners too get some warmth from it ! ' ' Cer- tainly we do,' the preacher proceeds ; ' there are native and foreign lamps and candles of many varieties, but there is only one sun ; and when the dawn comes, and the sun is up, blow out your candles ! You have many kinds of fans, most use- ful in the heat and close atmosphere. But the free wind of heaven is for all, and when it comes sweep- ing along shut up your fans. So when the doctrine of Jesus Christ comes, and the Holy Spirit's power is felt, these glimmering specks of light, these feeble movements of the air, cease to be of lasting use.
THE MISSIONARY IN CHINA 257
My friends, while you have the light, believe in the light ! Do not be half persuaded ; do not, in the words of your proverb, have one foot in one boat, one in another, lest they push off and both fail you.' ' But Avhere is this Jesus ? ' earnestly asks an old woman, seated at a house-door just within hearing. ' How must I pray to Him ? ' 'Do you not know,' replies the preacher, ' your common saying, " Three feet over your head is God "' ? Jesus is God, everywhere present. In your bedroom or sitting-room or in the open air, or (if you will come) in His house of prayer you will find Him. Pray, trusting in His merits, and you will surely be heard. Then at last the words written over all your shrines and in your temples will be real, '' Pray, and be heard ; pray, and you will receive ! " No candles are required by Him in worship, who made the great lights of heaven ; no incense by Him who made the sweet flowers in the gardens and on a thousand hills. Trust in the incense of the Saviour's life and death, and you are safe. And as a thank-offering give to him henceforth not your old threefold sacrifice of fish and flesh and fowl, but the lip of truth, the uncorrupt life, the clean heart.' ' Ah ! but 1 am fixed in evil, born to it, as our proverb says,' she replies. ' How can I change ? '
' Go, shake yon mountain range ! Man's nature who can change ? '
' You are right again,' we reply ; ' but God can move the mountain and change the heart by the power of His Spirit. Accept His salvation ; we are ambassadors for Christ ; we beseech you, wo
R
258 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
pray you, be ye reconciled to God and He wiU lead you safely home.'
Then tea is brought from several houses, and books and tracts are sold half-price or given away, according to the missionary's discretion. The ser- mon is over ; the audience is invited to attend the nearest mission-chapel ; the crowd breaks up, and the missionary and his assistants, promising other periodical visits, pass on to preach thus in other villages also, for therefore came we forth.
Now it may fairly be asked, as I close this brief narrative of my recollections of preaching, whether I can point to any results following from that which, as St. Paul reminds us, is called by some ' the foolishness of preaching.' The question may of course be turned aside by the familiar dictum that duties are ours, results are God's ; and as this preaching has been demonstrated to our consciences, at any rate, as a duty to God, we perform it, and ask no questions. This fencing with the inquiry will perhaps do as a device of cold disputation ; but when life and death are the issues, and when promise is attached to the faithful performance of duty, the question may justly be put a second time : ' Are teaching and preaching thus effectual ? Can you point to definite results ? ' It is, I believe, quite legitimate, and very much to the purpose, to reply that the intellectual and educational and political awakening and uprising both in China and in Japan are attributable to the proclamation of Christianity in public preaching and in Christian education, and also in the presentation of Christian philanthropy, far more than the patriots and
THE MISSIONARY IN CHINA 259
reformers in those countries would be prepared without mucli thought to admit. It has been truly said that ' Christianity absolutely and always declines to meddle with revolution, while it is incessantly teaching principles of the true spiritual order, which lead to sound and lasting reform.' Most certainly the thirst for wider kno\\lcdge and for the best literature of the world, and the demand for a wider curriculum in education, are directly traceable to mission-schools, and the issue of scholarly translations of western literature, and to the light of the Bible itself scattered so widely now, that noblest illuminating and expanding influence on the intellect as well as on the spiritual life of men. But more specifically as to public preaching or private enunciation of truth — is this agency in itself effective ?
I was greatly interested some years ago in the case of a Buddhist nun, far advanced in life. .She found her way one afternoon into one of our mission- chapels while public preaching was going on ; and after a foolish attempt to ridicule and ojipose the preacher, she was arrested tiiere and Ihen by the doctrine of the Fatherhood of God. She heard and believed, though with trembling at first, the truth that one who had wandered so far and so long in superstition and ignorance migiit now enter the family, and be reckoned among the sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty. After a few months of happy Christian life she died in this faith.
My attention was drawn during a long evangel- istic tour to a small and secluded village, * Lake
260 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
Side,' which we were passing. It seemed so in- significant a place, with only half a dozen families, that, Avith my eye fixed on the town of the ' Pure Water Lake,' with a thousand inhabitants, in front, I had not even noticed this little hamlet. The Chinese colleagues who were with me suggested what I had myself forgotten for the moment, that our commission was to preach to ever}^ creature, and that this small village should not thus be totally ignored. So we turned aside, and saluting the people, asked permission to deliver to them a most important message. They had never seen an English face before in their village ; but with the greatest kindness and cordiality they begged me to come in and sit down awhile in the open air, as it was a fine spring evening. We did so, and as time was pressing, we went straight to our great subject, and almost immediately an old man amongst the little band of listeners, struck to the heart by conviction of wrong-doing, and stirred to the depths by the news of forgiveness and salvation, repented and turned to God, and accepted and held fast till death the truth of the Gospel. He was known as the worst man in the j)lace, notorious for violence of temper and foul-mouthed abuse ; quarrelsome, and at enmity with all. This was aU changed. He despaired at first of curbing a tongue and changing a nature inborn — as the Chinese phrase expresses it, ' Nature is fixed and unalterable, like the inset flowery ornament of a steelyard ' — but he tried the effect of faith in divine influence and help. He conquered his tongue, and became a benefactor, a helper to his fellow-villagers, through nine months
THE fflSSIONARY IN CHINA 261
of happy Christian life. He burnt a cross into his wrist with a hot iron, so as never to forget the cruci- fied Saviour. He died, fully conscious to the last, in the unfaltering profession of the faith.
These, however, it may be objected, were illiterate and perhaps excitable individuals. I narrate, there- fore, as a proof that the results of Christian preaching affect all ranks and all classes, an incident which occurred in the market-place of that proud and once most exclusive place Cliuki, mentioned in my fourth chapter. Public preaching was going on ; a great crowd had assembled ; and there were indications of rudeness and rough opposition, partly at the instigation, as it appeared, of a Chinese gentleman standing with the mob. He seemed to be agitated and annoyed, as though some word which he had heard had gone home, like a sharp arrow in the heart of the king's enemies. He was politely re- quested by the speaker, the late Bishop Hoare, to refrain from captious interruption, as it hindered others from hearing. The man indignantly refused to listen to this friendly remonstrance, and became more troublesome and aggressive, till the leader of the preachers beckoned to one of the Christian students Avho were with him, and directed him politely to request this scholar to withdraw from the crowd and talk quietly to him if he had any difficulties or any questions to propound. The scholar sullenly assented, and passing out of earshot to a bridge-parapet, he sat and talked with the student for an hour. This Chinese gentleman, scholarly, shrewd in argument, and plainly ill at ease in mind, turned at once on the young Cliristian
262 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
student, and asked about the mystery of human nature, the problem of moral evil, its origin, and the being and nature of God, a future life, and the credentials of our message. ' Jesus Christ ! What need have we in the Central Realm of a foreign sage ? And what after all must I do for peace of mind and of soul ? ' On every point of atheistic, agnostic or philosophic doubt and objection, the Christian apologist, setting aside for the while his own store of apologetic learning and research, begged his aggressive friend to listen to a higher authority, to God's own Word. And then, with wonderful strength of memory, and ability of exposition, for every question the Confucianist scholar asked he turned to the right book, chapter and verse, and found the answer there. These replies struck home with the clearness of conviction, as coming from a voice and a mind which, so this scholar afterwards confessed, had known his thoughts long before, and had anticipated and met them all. ' Hold ! ' he said at last. ' Enough ! that is an extraordinary book. I must study it.' He carried it home, and the entrance of the Word of God once more brought life and light to a soul.
It is not always so. As with St. Paul's meetings for debate in his own hired house in Rome, so here during public preaching in China, some believe the things that are spoken, and some believe not.
I was once reading and speaking far into the night in a house in a country village. The schoolmaster and reading men of the village were there, with a number of husbandmen. They listened well, and argued keenly and fairly. Then as I drew to my
THE MISSIONARY IN CHINA 263
climax, and held up the Cross of Christ, the offence of the Cross broke out with its ancient virulence. They frowned, and moved uneasily, and would listen no more. Ethics and science and philosophy, even western discoveries — yes ! But atonement and the doctrine of one dying for those who them- selves deserved to die — no ! they did not care to hear of this. It was late, too ; at some convenient season they would hear me again of the matter.
Another time I was preaching in the market- place of the town ' Pure Water Lake,' mentioned above, when a man, a veritable Saul, breathing out threatenings and opposition, and prepared, if he could have his way, to show violence also, con- fronted me. He told me afterwards that he remem- bered in his early boyhood accompanying his father and uncles, while they were patrolling at night the banks of the river Yung. It was during the time of the first war with England, and before Ningpo was opened as a port for residence and commerce. The object of the patrol w^as to waylay and arrest, and, if there were opposition, kill any foreigner who might have been foolhardy enough to land from the ships of war outside and wander into the country. His old animosity seemed to revive when he saw and heard this Englishman preaching. On two occasions he vigorously opposed the preacher ; but the word which he heard at last went home, and he became, by baptismal name and by earnest evangelistic zeal, Paul instead of Saul.
To show that effects may follow from public preaching without the speaker's knowledge till long after, if ever, I may relate, in closing, what happened
264 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
to me only a few months ago, amongst these hills from which I write. I was visiting a mountain- village two thousand feet above the plain, and after I had been preaching for a time in the house of a Chinese acquaintance to a not very sympathetic audience, the elder brother of my friend, who had been listening, turned to me and said, ' Twenty- seven years ago you sat where you are sitting now, and preached to us this same doctrine.' ' You are surely mistaken,' I replied ; ' I have no recollection of ever having been here before. But if it be so, will you not accept now this repeated invitation ? ' On my return home I consulted my diary, and found that he was correct to the very year. I had forgotten what seemed to me, doubtless, at the time a resultless preaching. But it had not wholly faded from the memories of those to whom I spoke.
In conclusion, it may be asserted, not on the ground of human estimates, but from the express promise and purpose of God, that such preaching is never wholly without effect. ' My Word shall not return unto me void, it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.'
EDUCATION AND LITERATURE
CHAPTER X
EDUCATION ANT) LTTEKATFRE
I PROPOSE in this chapter to offer to my readers, besides recollections and observations of educated and civilised China, some remarks on the unique and unprecedented spectacle which meets us in China to-day, the significance and wonder of which most people seem too busy or too self-absorbed to notice.
Here we have a great and ancient people educated for long centuries, and we propose by our own western methods, if not in person, to educate them. Civilised also they were long before the dawn of civilisation in Europe, and we flatter ourselves that we can aid in their civilisation. Amonirst the Chinese people, meanwhile, we notice the ebullition of what we never credited China with in former years. She seemed too vast, too heterogeneous, too provincial, ever to be really Imperial. But now patriotism, in name if not in reality, has come to light. This jiatriotism leads young China to boycott sometimes, to despise, to reject in thought and theory l)ul not somehow in action, everything that is foreign, including foreign education and civilisation.
Yet that very patriotism ever and anon blinds the eyes of patriots to this foreign element, if only in our systems and plans of education and of reform
268 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
we can help China to be great and strong and prosperous once more.
Three years ago I received an invitation and re- quest from the gentry and inhabitants of a large market-town only eight miles from my present lodging. They offered me a five-roomed, one- storey house, which they proposed to put in repair, setting apart one room for residence and another large room for Christian worship if we so desired, but first and chiefly for the opening of a school. They would guarantee at least twenty paying pupils if I would provide a master. They said they knew the ability and character of our masters trained at Trinity College, Ningpo ; they taught well, and would impart all the knowledge the applicants cared to know, and much better than the new government schools and teachers could guarantee. After careful inquiry I was arranging to accept this offer, when a telegram reached the town-leaders from a so- called patriotic club in Shanghai, busy at that time in boycotting American goods in consequence of their indignation at the treatment received by some of their fellow-countrymen in certain of the American states. The telegram ran thus : ' Don't have any- thing to do with anything that is foreign ' ; and for a time the plan has fallen through. I mention this recent event as illustrating the double attitude of the Chinese mind at the present time.
Two thousand years and more ago Mencius spoke thus to his disciples : ' I have heard of persons using the doctrines of our great land to change the barbarians : I have never heard of any one being changed by the barbarians.' Yet now the scholastic
EDUCATION AND LITERATURE 269
system of the land, her scheme of education, her methods of examination, are all changing ; and in that change, inevitably, her literature and ancient teaching and doctrines Avill be involved. The barbarian, if not changed himself by the Four Books and the Five Classics, is allowed to do his worst in his own barbarian manner to change and enlighten great China.
In order to estimate right!}' the significance and the probable permanence of these changes, it is, I think, legitimate to ask what in Chinese estimation and what in western estimation is meant by educa- tion and civilisation, and Mhat motives are at work in the mind of China, and what ideal the Chinese set before them in these drastic changes, in the new thirst for knowledge and the resolve to make all things new.
Civilisation and education are joined together very clearly in the theories of most reformers. ' To civilise the people,' says a philosophising theorist in one of Count Tolstoy's stories, ' three things are necessary : schools and schools and schools.' It was objected that the addition of knowledge and the expansion of information touching other men and other things would create the idea of new necessities in the minds of young and old students alike, and that education in itself has no power to satisfy the cravings it has created. This possible fiasco is illustrated in dark colours in India at the present day, and it will surely affect China if she pursues the same path. The acquisition of some foreign language and the knowledge of science and literature seem to the student to raise liis personal
270 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
value higher and higher in the market of govern- mental or commercial or educational posts. He can, when he has ' graduated,' command a high salary, and can hope then to satisfy the new neces- sities which his education has suggested, by visions of luxury and enhanced comfort and enjoyment in life. Moreover, in India — and, so long as schools are founded and carried on more or less under government control, in China too — the persuasion will persistently prevail that it is the duty of govern- ment to provide such posts for all successful students. The market will, before long, be quite overstocked, and the disappointed scholars, indisposed to turn their talents and thoughts to other occupations, and stranded in literary solitude, will drift gradually into the ranks of the discontented and then of the insurrectionary plotters. There is grave reason for the fear that an exaggerated and perverted inter- pretation of the dictum ' Knowledge is power ' may be largely influencing young China at the present time. She hopes to gain through education power to conquer in every fight, power to lead and control and not follow the nations, power to get rich and to rise continually in the scale of human progress.
If, then, this desire for mastery, material pros- perity and national glory is the one mainspring of China's awakening, it is impossible to take any very keen interest in her race for knowledge and in her precipitate pursuit of educational methods. Neither can we feel hopeful as to the part which western teachers, with their curriculum, their schemes, their text-books, will bear in assisting
EDUCATION AND LITERATURE 271
China's mere ambition of rivalry, unless it become a nobler ambition.
But it is quite possible to frame a more hopeful and a more charitable view of China's awakening, and of the revolution in her educational system, and of her demand for a constitution and for con- stitutional government.
Mencius, in striking words capable of more exposi- tions than one, describes the great end of learning as nothing else than ' to seek for the lost mind,' and in the context he defines benevolence as man's mind, and righteousness as man's path. ' When men's fowls and dogs are lost,' he goes on to say, ' they know how to seek for them again, but they lose their mind and they do not know how to seek for it.' The philosopher seems here to mean not so much that they are out of tlieir minds, in our ordinary expression, but that their minds are some- how outside them. If this was true of China more than two thousand years ago, and of education which has survived and flourislied in China ever since, is China conscious in these later days of awakening that more than ever she has to seek her lost mind, to come to her sober senses, and to search for the highest wisdom which secures this sound mind V If so, the prospect is a more hopeful one, and the subject becomes one of absorbing interest. It has been truly said and with solenni significance that the supreme love of God is the sum of man's duty ; and further, that sucli love is the germ of all goodness and especially of all true benevolence to man. Now benevolence, so says Mencius, is China's lost mind. She desires now to
272 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
seek it, and find it, and bring it back. Education, she hopes, will do this for the people at large and the nation. It follows, then, that secular educa- tion in the cold precision of this term, that form of education and civilisation which Chinese as well as Christian philosophers are beginning to brand as vulgar materialism, can never seek and find the lost. The fear and love of God must be, for China and for every soul of man, the beginning and the end of true wisdom ; the foundation and the root, the core and the heart, the flower and the fruit of true and effective education. China must learn this, or she will fail in her ambition. English philanthropists and western educationalists must remember and accept this in their efforts to supply China with models of the best methods of western education, or their attempts are likely to prove abortive.
This view of the education of man of course lifts the subject to a higher plane, and suggests that idea which is very generally ignored, namely, that we are learning and training for another life, a nobler sphere. ' If the sole aim of civilisation,' says a modern philosopher, ' be to translate every- thing into enjoyment, then I prefer to remain a barbarian.' The meaning, I apprehend, is that life on earth and man's action must be laborious and earnest, because it is the training-ground for the life to come. Confucius says that the words ' No continuance ' are inscribed over everything, and to educate pupils for a life of vapour, for a dream, for a brief flash of sunshine, is not worth the trouble. To use once more a Chinese figure : A school under
EDUCATION AND LITERATURE 273
a rest-shed, with wandering beggar-lads as pupils, here to-day and in the woods to-morrow, is a grief and a distress to the learned pedagogue.
But to educate for a coming life, for distinction and usefulness in a long home of gladness and beauty — that is worthy of the best gifts and powers and perseverance on the part of master and scholar alike.
To anticipate for a moment my later conclusions, I feel sure that the noble enterprise inaugurated by Lord William Gascoyne-Cecil and his associates, to present to China's eyes and ears and to offer to China's use and assimilation the best specimen possible of English university life and teaching, will fail if it be not distinctly and avowedly religious and Christian. The glory and strength of our ancient universities has been, and surely still is, the fact that they are religious foundations. If this glory is not to pass, and if the substance of all true learning and beneficence is not to be removed, then we must still hold to the idea which animated Erasmus and Colet, that with all tlie riclics of re- discovered wisdom and the fascination and alhirc- ments of science revealing nature's secrets, and the mathematical laws of the skies suggesting their order and their Maker and Controller, the foremost learning of all lies in tlie reading and study of tlic great classic of heaven and earth, the J^ible. Dr. Lindsay, in his Ili.^tory of the Bcfoniialiun, tells us that Alexander Hegius (1433-1408), the founder and teacher of the truly great school at Deventer, one of the forerunners of the Renaissance, with Erasmus as one of his numy illustrious pupils, maintained
s
274 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
continually in his promotion of learning the maxim that knowledge without piety is rather a curse than a blessing. Pope Julius ii. (1503-1513), when commanding Michelangelo to portray him as Moses, described this revival of learning as the blessed promised land, to the borders of which he might guide the Church, a land consisting in the enjoyment of the highest intellectual benefits, and the training and consecration of all the faculties of man's mind to union with God.
If we adopt this description as a whole it may form a hopeful forecast of the effect on China of this revival of learning in a learned land. But if the description halts at the enjoyment merely of intellectual benefits, and falls short of union with God, the curse which Hegius feared may fall, instead of the blessing invoked by Julius. The Chinese will think lightly and speak sneeringly of any eirenicon Avhich, while professing to bring to China our best educational apparatus, hides or omits or relegates to hostels and outhouses the foundation and glory of it all.
I am aware of the perplexity of the problem, and of the distressful and almost deadly slur on the Christian faith which arises from the practical question, ' How can Christian faith and teaching be set forth as the prominent part of a university course of study and lecture, when Christians are not agreed among themselves, and when even in China there are nearly a hundred separate Christian religious bodies ? ' But I write with the persuasion, drawn from long experience, of the real union and possibility of co-operation between all who are one
EDUCATION AND LITERATURE 275
in the faith of God and in trust in His Word. I am persuaded that, rather than present to the Chinese a mere teaching-machine, having all the branches of literature and science and scholarship professed and lectured upon by an array of learned men, except only the Christian faith in theology and bibUcal research, the churches should decide to place such definite teaching in the hands of one church, and that not a branch merely but one of the very roots of the Church universal, containing within its constitution and orders and doctrine and sacraments all that is apostolic and primitive and truly catholic, restored to Christendom at the Reformation. The English Church— as I point out elsewhere — if she is true to herself and her history, is not sacerdotal, political, and social alone, accord- ing to the somewhat harsh condemnation of a modern writer, but she is truly catholic in her order and doctrine and sacraments. She docs not exclude, and she has abundant room to include, the churches which profess and accept the same scriptural doctrine, but most of them with rather isolated programmes, and with somewhat exaggerated exhibition of the individual doctrines of Christen- dom. The English Church, stretching back through the British cliurches to Rome and tlie apostles themselves, embraces within the fold of her doc- trines and of her observances Episcopalian, Presby- terian, Congregationalist, Baptist (without their negative denunciations), Methodist — all these not merged and fused and obliterated, but rather in- cluded in the harmony of the proportion of the faith. The professors, however, of Christian doc-
276 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
trine in such a Christian university, and guided by- such a Christian church, must not be professors of their own learning and theories about the Bible, but professors of the sacred book itself, and of the supernatural religion it proclaims. The under- graduates and graduates meanwhile would under- stand that in the affiliated colleges and hostels connected with the university they can study if they please the minor differences which exist amidst the majestic unity of Christians, and the several aspects of the one truth.
But suppose this be guaranteed as one great contribution from the west to the new educational enterprise of China, a help to her, in fact, in the search for her lost mind, another question under- lies the whole discussion. Mencius defined this search as the great object of learning and education many centuries ago. How far has the sacred literature of the Chinese, which has formed the aliment of her educational system since then, and how far also has the system itself failed or succeeded in the quest ? Has the failure been so complete as to justify what seems to be the sudden and drastic sweeping away of the whole by the Dowager- Empress's edict of 1905 ? Was the system incap- able of readjustment and reform ? Could nothing but western methods and learning and languages be substituted, drawn from lands and peoples barbarian long after the old sage thought China could change them and that they could never change China ? Look at the language of China. Is it quite necessary for sound education, and for the successful recovery of China's lost mind, to teach
EDUCATION AND LITERATURE 277
English or some other language compulsorily in schools for all classes, to the inevitable nealect of the study of their own language ? Goethe assures us in one of his sententious sayings that the man who is unacquainted with foreign languages knows nothing of his own; and tlie great advantage of bilingual study to most minds is insisted ujion by many experts. But the Chinese may be said to engage of necessity in bilingual study, owing to the peculiar character of their own language in its many varieties ; and multitudes of them surely know a great deal about their own language. There are several distinctive tongues, dialects for speech, the kwan-hwa or mandarin dialect being the most widely spoken colloquial, as well as the court dialect for the whole empire. They have besides, as the substratum and the glory of them all, as well as the most concise and yet the richest and most graceful of tliem all, iren-li, not a tongue, not a dead language — for it has never been spoken and was never designed for oral communication — but a language for literature, for oflicial proclamation and edict, for epistolary communication and for scholarly exercise. It can be enunciated as it stands according to tlie pronunciation or province of the district or reader, sounded indeed, but still unintelligible to the ear of most listeners, till translated clause by clause into the hcaicr's own home speech. The training of mind and memory, therefore, implied by the acquisition, tirst, of the colloquial of a Chinaman's native province ; secondly, of this luen-Ii, silent to the ear, eloquent to the scholarly eye, and yet making itself recognised here
278 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
and there in polished phrase of the higher colloquial ; and further, for many, the learning of this third language, the Court dialect kwan-hwa — this tri- lingual study may surely suffice for the athletic exercise of Chinese minds and memories, and for the expansion of the brain and intellect, without the necessity of further training in some foreign tongue. I speak here of language as an exercise and a part of the mind's reclamation from its lost estate, not as a supposed royal road to higher learn- ing, nor as a certificate for lucrative employment. Confucius gives a warning on this subject : ' The object of the superior man is truth : with learning emolument may be bound up ; but the supreme man is anxious only lest he should not get the truth, not lest poverty should ensue.'
In China's new programme, therefore, of educa- tion and of competitive examination, it will surely be disastrous if the Chinese language is in any definite way ousted by foreign tongues. It is doubtful whether for the true study and apprecia- tion of the best of western literature, the Chinese language is not expansive enough, and rich and elastic enough, in scholarly hands, to transplant such literature in Chinese vessels to Chinese soil. I do not underrate the linguistic powers being developed now by many students from China and Japan, and the growing number of those who are able (they assure us) to read and understand the language and the thought of European literature. But if such a triumph of study and of intellect implies, as it generally does, the loss or defect of scholarly and classical Chinese iven-li, and the
EDUCATION AND LITERATURE 279
neglect and the passing into oblivion of the treasures of their own literature, I believe the advantage will be dearly bought. On the other hand, careful, accurate and scholarly Chinese translations, such as are continually being produced now, will both conserve for China her own incomparable language, and secure at the same time what is really valuable in the treasures of foreign literature.
Thus far, therefore, in the consideration of the language and literature of China, we must conclude that through the long-established system of uni- versal education, and through the cohesive power of the public competitive examinations, much has been attempted during these two thousand years, in the w'ords of Mencius, to ' bring back the lost mind.' But the serious question occurs again, though in a different form. Language alone, how- ever polished and expressive, can never produce benevolence or lead along the path of righteousness. What learning, we ask, have the Chinese found in their own language, gathered from the lips and the records of sages and heroes before the great trans- mitter and editor, Confucius, with his own high- soaring thought, and his reverence for the times that are past ; before, also, the great philoso])h(M- Mencius, with his harder logic and more audacious speculation and broader mind ? Nothing need detain us in this inquiry as to Chinese canonical literature after the fourth century' before Christ. The canon of Chinese scripture, the Four Books and the Five Classics, was fixed about a.d. 4. The books were gathered and copied from apparently genuine originals, copies being discovered, or r<-
280 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
produced from memory, after the burning of the books, all but the Record of Changes, in B.C. 202. The authoritative comments of Chu Hi, in the twelfth century, the Chinese read and learn ; and the countless treatises on all subjects which scholars have produced down the Christian era ; and ethical works, echoes of the teaching of Buddha and Lao Tsze, they possess and learn, and the effect of these latter treatises has not been small. But by the canonical books alone can the usefulness and effi- ciency of Chinese education in the past be judged. Is it worth while for awakened China and for the sympathetic west to conserve and still utilise this ancient learning and this ancient system ? Or must the whole be rooted up and swept away before the new can be planted and take root, and rightly and efficiently educate China ?
This latter seemed to be the tendency of the drastic course adopted quite suddenly in 1905 by the Empress Dowager and her chief advisers at the time. Neither the Chinese classics nor the memory and cult of Confucius were allowed to be despised or forgotten, yet with the whole curriculum of education changed and the subjects for public examinations, leading on to public office in the state and in society, altered, the ancient literature must of necessity retire to a subordinate position ; and the old system which has, I believe, made China stable to a wonderful extent in the past will be forgotten.
Is it quite too late to arrest the process, and is it worth the while ?
About 1891, if I remember rightly, and during
EDUCATION AND LITERATURE 281
the closing years of the last century, a process was observed in action of gradual change, which would, if conducted wisely and cautiously, yet with courage when a faster speed was possible, liave secured for China something more suited to the nature and genius and character of the pooj^le than our arti- ficial and sometimes dangerously intiated western methods. Gradually, and as it were inadvertently, new subjects were announced as to be introduced and marked and fully recognised in the public examinations. An essay on some recondite theme from the Chinese classics, such as, ' Having no ofh- cial emplo3nnent, I acquire many arts,' or, ' The accomplished scholar is not a utensil,' might be omitted to make room for papers on the geograjihy of other lands, on mining, on the history of Euro})e, and such new and startling themes. The students in preparation for the examiiiatit)ii would find liltlr about these themes in the Four Books and the Five Classics, and were obliged to turn to the books and magazines published by the different Christian Literature societies, including each month, besides the higher learning, articles of useful information on science and discovery, and news of the great barbarian world beyond the seas. The themes had still to be written in sonnd and elegant irni-li, and the grace of style and apt quotation, and the llexi- bility of this apparently stilT and |)rini hut lrul\ plastic language, were not to be forgotten.
The long vista of the past, narrowed as it had been on either side for the glimpse of China's past alone, and used hitherto as the sole ])ractising-groun(l tor scholarship and research, foi- prose-essays, and for
282 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
the strictly regulated and legally rhymed imagina- tions of poetry, remained, and was not clouded over or blurred by neglect and the conceit of modern knowledge. But it was being gradually broadened and lengthened, so as to let in the sights and scenes of other lands, and the stirring life and action of more modern days. The near firmament of China's sky (to adopt Macaulay's words of the Renaissance in Europe), which had seemed so fixed and un- changing and solid, moved gently back, still holding in its embrace the old lights and glories and great memories of its literature and customs and history, but passing into the vaster depths of the thickly peopled ether of the world which was living and breathing round and beyond China, and which she could no longer despise nor shut out from her atten- tion, and on to the depths, vaster still, of the dis- coveries of science, theoretical or applied, in earth and air and sea.
Now such a development might go on without any violent upheaval. The same system in the innumerable country schools, some few of them being endowed charitable institutions, but in the vast proportion of instances self-instituted and self-supported in every market-town, might con- tinue ; with the same sure if slow method of learning the formidable complications of the Chinese written character. But here an earlier touch of sympathy might be introduced between master and scholar than has obtained of old, by the explanation of words and sentences, not reserved as now for specially promising pupils and for a later period in the plodding schoolboy's career, but explanation
EDUCATION AND LITERATURE 283
and exposition and enlightening given pari passu with the drudgery of mechanical learning. Let the same horn-book be used, and elementar}'^ treatises, and the same gradus ad Parnassum : and let the classics be reached at last, and in the old order. But into each grade of learning and into each school there should be introduced — as is indeed already done in many cases, though with insufficient care as to selection — elementary treatises, witli illus- trated charts, on general information and on easy scientific subjects— geography, botany, zoology, history, geology and chemistry. It might perhaps be suggested without disloyalty and offence that the Spring and Autumn Classic, dry as dust as it seems to our eyes, though Confucius deemed it his greatest work, might be omitted, as Chinese history seems sufficiently handled in the great classic of History, and also in the Four Jiooks. There is one treasure which must, it seems to me, be retained at all costs. I refer to that almost unique feature of Chinese education, and that unique distinction of Chinese intellect, the genius for reject it ion ])y heart. This used to be a prominent feature in western education, but it seems to be disappearing now, and is, we fear, doomed in China. This genius of memorising, however, if rescued from neglect, should not be so indiscriminate as in the ])ast. Only those portions of Chinese classical writings which are of an ethical character, or suitable for repetition at all times, should l)e committed to memory. This might apply to text-books (.r larger treatises on Mestern science and learning. Let much be committed to memor\-, but onK those
284 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
portions which are of value in quotation, in calcula- tion, or in continuous admonition.
I emphasise here the grave importance of retaining subjects and methods of education which have been in vogue for eighteen hundred years in China, as indispensable to a Chinese programme for the nation's future education, and this with a definite reason. We desire with Mencius that China should find her lost mind. Her subjects and methods of education during long centuries have been deficient, and she is still affected by aberrations of mind, notably in the higher regions of thought and aspira- tion, and perceptibly also in the lower regions. But Chinese literature and the modes of imparting knowledge have not been wholly useless, and their best advantages may be retained amidst, or even sometimes as a direct substitute for, more reckless experiments in reform. If we can be sure of trans- planting to China at once, and if China would accept the gift of the whole of our apparatus of perfected education in the fear of God and the reverence and love of man, let it be thus transplanted, but let China herself uproot that which decayeth and passeth away. Yet that is not, we fear, what the awakened country is now aiming at and desiring. Education without ethics, save when spasmodically interjected ; education without subordination of pupil to master, of child to parent, of subject to sovereign ; education, above all, soaring in conceit above faith in and worship of the Supreme — this is what threatens China, and it is coming in like the flood-tide. In order that the nation may be pre- served from rupture and decay, and may hold to-
EDUCATION AND LITERATURE 285
gether and still live on, till the day of the dawning and the rising of the true light and the higher learning, I contend that the retention and use of the old system of imparting knowledge, witli the due gradation of subjects and the glory and the exhilaration of the old competitive examinations, opening as before to poor and ricli ahke tlie hope of honour and of literary renown, — the retention of this great cohesive and stimulating process, ever enlarged and expanded and vivified by new litera- ture and new subjects, will maintain an etliical foundation, the spiritualising — if I may say so — of the lower strata of man's lost mind, without which (to quote Chinese opinion once more) education and civilisation are but vulgar materialism. It will preserve also that wholesome and intelligent regard for antiquity, for authorit}', and for years, which is slipping away so fast from Chinese life and cliaracter, as from the whole hurrying world. I do not inuigine for a moment that ethics can find and save the lost soul, but ethics can show it in some sober maniMM- how far it has wandered ; and, with the higlier etliics of duty to the Supreme, point out the place where the ways parted and the mind went astray. I'm t h«r-, with the contrast which they present to mans actual life and moral achievements, they must kcc}) the student humble, and expectant also of some higher ethic which shall su])ply that lack which was mourned over by Confucius and .Mcncius and all great teachers: 'We have the ])()W(m/ said Mencius, 'to teach, but we cannot iini)art our- selves the love and genius of learning to tiic hearts of our pupils. A cai'pontcr or a carria^c-niakcr may
286 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
give a man the circle or the square, but cannot make him skilful in the use of them.' Chinese students, with even the limited ethics of their own sages before them, will possess a wholesome preventive against the conceit which half-knowledge or suddenly acquired knowledge so commonly produces.
' Knowledge is proud that she has learnt so much ; Wisdom is humble that she knows no more.'
And then, if the government and reformers in China will have the supreme wisdom to accept the Christian faith as embodying both God's truth and the very foundation and superstructure of all wisdom and all knowledge, imparting both instruction and energising life to her scholars — accept it, not for compulsory national conformity, but as the very essence and efflorescence of that education and enlightenment for which the nation yearns — then in a wonderful way our utmost desires for China may be realised, and China's most vivid waking dream may be fulfilled. Doubt is no part of the education of the soul and of the search for the lost mind. Discussions and differences between teachers are not much desired or appreciated by those who seek for reliable teachers and sound education. But Christian education and civilisation, and auth- entic teaching, gently laying aside for the purpose her many varieties of thought and many preferences of expression, and generously accepting and sus- taining one orthodox expression of the common faith, may be welcomed as China's great teacher for the learning of time and for the scholarship of eternity.
Let us listen for a while to some of the sayings
EDUCATION AND LITERATURE 287
and aspirations and laments recorded in these canonical books of Chinese literature, which for tMo thousand years have been read aloud and repeated and sung by the now silent voices of untold myriads of Chinese scholars ; now in elementary schools, each scholar with his back to his mast€r and sway- ing to and fro from one leg to the other ; repeated again, with eager anxiety, by freshmen and under- graduates and graduates as the sounds of ancient wisdom and their guides for the present, but chietiy as the subjects for examination and the themes for prose and verse in those supreme moments of their literary career, involving success or failure in com- petitions for degree and honour and oilice. These sounds have been heard, borne on the winter blasts, as the school-door stood open for a moment, or on the soft spring breezes and the strong summer winds ; heard, too, in the village-school held in some hired house or temple-court ; and in guest-rooms, again, for reading-parties in monasteries or remote hill-temples. IMore loudly and persistently do they sound as the sometimes deadly days of autunui pass, and the kwei-hiva, the flower of scholarship and scholars, is out, and the ten thousand siu-ts\n, or candidates for the second degree, are waiting for the sunimons to enter the lanes and dens of the great examination-enclosure for their nine days' incarceration and seclusion. Thus in audible repeti- tion the voices of Chinese scholars all down the eighteen centuries have declaimed these words of wisdom or despair or mistake. If to these pathetic and dying sounds of the past are now added, taking the leading part or rather the energising and
288 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
harmonising music, the glad tidings of heaven's wisdom and salvation, and the lost mind and soul found and changed and taught and enlightened for ever, then the day of China's rejuvenescence and the renewal of her strength will indeed have come, and her past search and the records of her search will not be all a pathetic loss. They were not indeed God's full revelation, but they were the yearning after such a revelation, and are now ful- filled and satisfied.
It may be worth while here to make my position clear ; for what I state somewhat dogmatically is not, I am aware, the accepted view in this age of thought, even amongst enthusiastic supporters of Christian missions and believers in the supreme claims of Christianity. We are encouraged by some great leaders of thought to regard ourselves as emerging now after long centuries of perhaps neces- sary narrowness of view into the clearer atmosphere and nobler large-heartedness of, for instance, Clemens Alexandrinus, who held that the true philosophy of the Greeks, and with perhaps equal reason, it may be added, the nobler philosophy and reasonings of ancient thought in all nations, were given as a preparation and a training for the Gospel, and to be regarded as a real revelation and justifying covenant with God. What is meant by a justifying covenant with God I cannot pretend to define. If it means another Gospel, or a justifying and saving portion of the only Gospel, the statement is surely erroneous and misleading. If it means, however, what I wholly believe, that as we hold faith to be the justifying requirement before God, because of
EDUCATION AND LITERATURE 289
the justifying merit and death of Jesus Christ, so we may beheve and rejoice in the hope that to very many in all ages who have ' revolted from idohitry and sought for the truth of God,' and have stretched out through the darkness of the search true faith, however feeble, in the unknown, to them the justify- ing covenant, sealed by the Lord Himself, is effica- cious— that is a very different consideration, and one which we msiy, I think, thankfully accept. But if this argument is utilised in proof of the further theory of the evolution of religion, then when we come to China and listen, as I ask my readers now to listen, to the teachings and aspirations of her ancient instructors, we find ourselves confronted by this phenomenon. Evolution of religion has been, so far as we can miderstand these ancient and somewhat obscure literary relics, not from darkness or dim light into the dawn and the sun- rising, but from the already fading evening light of China's earlier knowledge of God, derived we imagine from those to whom the Word of God did come — Abraham, for instance, and his descendants — on to the twilight of mere philosophy, the worship of the powers as well as the Creator of heaven and earth ; leading on to ancestral worship, deeper silence about the Supreme, with widening distance from him, ethics and precepts for the visible and natural world alone, the reality of the spiritual being overclouded ; and ending in the darkness of the idolatries of Buddhism, and of Taoism which followed its new rival's idolatrous lead. In the sacred courts the canonical literature and the ancient teaching still sounded on, but the voices of
T
290 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
idolatry and the comparative desecration of true religion were heard above them.
Let us listen, then, to a few of these ancient words of China's wisdom in verse and prose. The pathos and significance, to my mind, lie here, that they have not only been read and studied in silence, but have been heard in continuous repetition all down the centuries.
I do not attempt to arrange these excerpts under subjects or in groups, but take one quotation here, another there, as significant of the general tone of the long reverberations.
I quote first from the more ancient utterances of the Odes. These Odes were ancient in the time of Confucius, and were edited and, some say, selected by him, leaving three hundred and five as the Classic of Poetry. I quote also from the sayings of Confucius himself, collected chiefly in the Analects, which are regarded as the sacred centre of the Chinese canon of philosophy and instruction. These date from the fifth century before Christ. Again I cite a few of the sayings of Mencius, who is known as the ' second sacred sage.' His life and teaching date from the third and fourth centuries before Christ.
The other canonical books, the Changes, the History, the Rites, the Spring and Autumn Classic, the Great Learning, the Golden Mean, and the semi-canonical classic of filial piety, do not utter different sounds, though the style and matter var3^ But the selections which I give, as stating and illustrating the principles of government, the rights of kings and the rights of the people, the five cardinal virtues (benevolence, righteousness, propriety, know-
EDUCATION AND LITERATURE 201
ledge, fidelity), the five relationships (sovereign and minister, father and son, elder brother and younger, husband and wife, friend and friend) — tliesc, with their far-off religiousness and glimpse of the Most High, and their nearer unreligiousness or the silence of awe and distance, will suffice to illustrate my con- tention that the ancient literature of China and her ancient method of instruction are worthy of sympa- thetic and genuine interest, as the}' sound on the wind and the airs of two thousand years, and are worthy of being sounded still, if only accompanied and out- sung by the yet more ancient divine song of revela- tion, the finding of the lost mind and soul of man.
The Book of Poetry, the contents of which are the most ancient of the Chinese writings, is some- times ascribed to Confucius as a redactor, sometimes as a mere editor. He is credited by some Chinese critics with the rash and somewhat presumptuous task of examining the three thousand odes which were current at his birth and rejecting all but three hundred and five. But more probably the old baUads and poems of the land, scattered through the centuries, had already been collected and ac- cepted when Confucius reverently edited them, with the mingled delight and awe whirh he must have experienced in his office of transmitter rather than that of rough critic or independent autiior. Confucius himself praises them as pervaded with ' thought without depravity.' They give ghmpses, indeed, of the looseness of social life and moral corruption in those ancient days, hardly consistent with our dream of the golden past and of better days than ours ; but the tone of the Odes may l)o
292 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
called moral throughout, since the evil is described as a truthful picture of what is at the same time deplored, and in contrast to the many scenes and characters of high-toned excellence. Through them all, while the mysteries of providence and of human life are lamented, the reverent recognition of the Supreme sounds out again and again. The Odes are frequently quoted in the later canonical books. ' It is by the Odes,' said Confucius, ' that the mind is aroused ' ; and one of the two, and only two, admonitions which Confucius is said to have ad- dressed directly to his son, hurrying as he was through the house to avoid his father's frown (for according to the ancient rules of propriety a father must exercise towards his son ' a distant reserve '), was this : ' Have you read the Odes ? Go and study them ; otherwise you will be a man not worth conversing with.' In a specimen of verse referring to an age much more ancient than that of the canonical Odes, a picture is supposed to be given of the life and habits of the country people in the days of the semi-legendary, semi-historical, Yao and Shun, in the third millennium before Christ. The description might well suit this second millennium after Christ, as expressing the countryman's crude idea of getting on well enough without emperor, and, it is to be feared, without God. I have not seen the original, but I give Dr. Legge's translation : —
' We rise with the smi ; We rest at sundown. We dig wells and drink ; We till our fields and eat. What is the strength of the emperor to us ? '
EDUCATION AND LITERATURE 293
Shun himself, the Cinciiinatus of Cliina, called from the plough to help in the guidance of the empire, is esteemed the first Chinese poet, B.C. 2255. But his tone, both about the throne of man and the throne of God, would be different. ' Shun,' says Mencius, ' rose from the furrowed fields.'
Those more ancient and doubtful odes, however, from which I have just quoted, are not taught and repeated in schools.
We come now to the canonical Odes, and lind this as the battle-cry given to King Woo, B.C. 1100, by one of his officers, a cry remembered and adopted in later battles for the throne, ' God is w itli you.'
' Great Heaven makes no mistakes,' says another in times of sceptical despair.
' Think of the imperial and supremo God. Is there any being who is hated by him ? '
Then, in words the very ring of which has sounded the call to pious reverence all down the ages, ' Be reverent, be reverent, O soul ! Heaven will soon reveal Heaven's mind to you.'
We hear also, as a far-off double note, first, of the distance of God from us, an idea which is pleaded so often as an excuse for idolatry, the worship of God's delegates, and the minor deities, tlie powers of nature, and then, of the sympathy and of the communion of God with man. First comes the confession of faith : —
' 0 vast and distant Heaven Who art called our ])arent ! '
(Parent, literally ' our father, our mother.')
294 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
Then follows an ancient expression of the heart's awe at the apparent mystery of the dealings of God, but accompanied by a vindication of God's justice and the assurance that the crooked things of man's actions shall be made straight, that clouds and darkness are round about Him, righteousness and judgment are the habitation of His throne.
' How vast is God, the ruler of men below ! How awful in terror is God ! How many things seem inept ! '
' Are these all His ordering ? ' So seems to speak the complainant. Yet, the poet proceeds to reply, you dare not complain of God's doings, for —
' Heaven gave birth to the multitudes of the people ; But that nature [heaven-conferred, man himself has
made] unreliable. All are good at first. But few prove themselves to be so at the last.'
' All are good at first.' This seems echoed by the first sentence in the first Chinese reader put into the hands of pupils, ' Man's heart is originally good.'
Then, letting these sounds in metre and sometimes in rhyming verse echo on as the expression of the higher thoughts and lower imaginations of three thousand years ago, listen to those which China used chiefly to love, though now growing fainter to her ears, the sententious sayings and aphorisms, and teaching as of household words, of the Con- fucius ' before whom never was a Confucius, after whom never shall another Confucius arise,' so great is he, so humble, so deprecatory, so authoritative ;
EDUCATION AND LITERATURE 295
and listen also to the stronger A\'ords of liis disciple and successor, Mencius.
But here, first, is a general statement about man and the whole duty of man, attributed to the grandson of Confucius, K'ung Ki : —
' What Heaven has conferred is called the nature : accordance with this nature is called the path : the regulation of this path is called instruction.'
And, as a solemn anticipation of 8t. Paul's teaching that ' the things that are seen are temporal ; the things that are unseen are eternal,' K'ung Ki speaks thus : —
' There is nothing more visible than what is secret, and nothing more manifest than what is minute. Therefore the ideal man is watchful over himself when he is alone.'
Then Confucius himself speaks of man's state and position in the world : —
' Death and life have their appointment. Riches and honour [come not by chance nor by violence, but they] too are the gift of Heaven.'
Confucius in his own sayings rarely uses the name of God, though reverencing and, if one may say so, sanctioning its use in the ancient books which he edited, adored, and transmitted. J3ut of Heaven both he and ]Mencius often speak, sometimes per- sonally, sometimes evidently impersonally.
'If you sin against Heaven,' says tlit^ Master. ' there is no place for prayer.'
Yet when asked further about prayer by his disciples, and about his own private prayer, he says, ' My praying has been for long time.' As much as to say, ' I have had a place for prayer ; 1 have used
296 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
it by my conscientious seeking after righteousness and not sinning thus against Heaven.'
But anon he breaks out into deprecatory self- condemnation : —
' Alas ! alas ! I have never yet met a man who loves virtue more than he loves sensual pleasure.'
Or again : —
' I have not yet seen a person who loved virtue, or one who hated what was not virtuous.'
And of himself he says : —
' A seeker, a sincere inquirer I may be. But the two great words, holy, benevolent, I dare not apply to myself.'
The Chinese word translated ' holy ' seems to bear the sense of the highest attainment of moral and intellectual power.
The Master says again : —
' With coarse rice for my food, with water for my drink, and my bended arm a pillow, I have joy still present with me.'
These remarkable words will bear a brief exposi- tion. Coarse rice and tasteless, havmg no ' under- rice ' (as fish and vegetables for flavouring are called), is given as a punishment to a refractory child. ' With such poor fare, and not even the weakest tea ' (another punitive idea), ' but water to drink ' — ^the Chinese scarcely ever drink cold water — ' and my bended arm a pillow, I have still joy.' The Chinese words here are very expressive. They mean, my joy in goodness is free and inde- pendent. It lives and sings anjrwhere, and here also with such food and drink and unrestful repose I can be glad.
EDUCATION AND LITERATURE 207
' Heaven produced the virtue that is in me,' Confucius said in a time of great danger to his disciples who urged him to fi}^ ; ' Hwcn T'uy, what can he do to me ? ' Hwen T'uy was a high officer from the imperial court sent to attack him.
' Nothing can hurt me till Heaven's time has come.' I will not fear what flesh can do unto me.
' It is all over,' said the Master at another time, analysing the mysteries of human nature. ' I have never seen a man who can perceive his faults and straightway inwardly accuse himself.' This seems to imply that the acknowledgment of fault in the court of conscience comes later in time than acknow- ledgment in the court of human inquiry.
Confucius and his disciples Avere one day })hiying at the sober game, if I may say so, of relating their hearts' wishes, and the absence of selfishness in each was remarkable.
Tse Loo, Confucius' favourite disciple, wished for chariots and horses and fur dresses, but to share them with his friends, and avowed that he would feel no displeasure if they were all spoilt and worn out.
Yen Yuen would like never to boast of liis own merits, or to describe at length his o\\n meritorious deeds.
Confucius would desire most to afford rest to llio aged, to be sincere in dealing witli his friends, and to show tenderness to the young.
Then suddenl}' Confucius seems confronted \\itli the solemn problems of life and death.
The Master said, ' If a man in the morning hear the right way, he may die in the evening without
298 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
regret.' But he does not specify and point out what is the right way.
' I venture to ask about death,' said Kee Loo, another of his disciples, one day.
' Whither does it all lead ? ' he seems to say. ' We are growing old along with you, great master. Is the best yet to be, the end of life, the great after- death, for which the first was made ? I venture to ask about death once more.'
The answer has been sounding for two thousand years and more : —
' If you do not know life, hoAV can you know death ? ' An avoidance of teaching just when the scholar's needs were direst, but a question which the Lord of life alone can answer.
Once more coming back to life and its duties, Confucius speaks in a nobler tone. When he was asked if he could give one word which might serve as a rule of practice for all men's lives, the Master answered : —
' Is not shu such a word ? '
The Chinese word used by Confucius corresponds to St. Paul's ' moderation,' consideration for others, treating them as you would be treated yourself. Dr. Legge renders it by ' reciprocity,' the negative side, and yet sometimes the most positive and practical side, of the Golden Rule.
Then Mencius calls to us down the centuries. ' I love life,' he says, ' and I love righteousness. If I cannot keep both, I let life go and retain my right- eousness.' A thought and a resolve of the noblest type, and implying, however inarticulately, a belief in that after-death which Confucius had set aside.
EDUCATION AND LITERATURE 200
' Weeping for the dead,' says Meiieiu.s again, ' should be genuine sorrow for the dear departed ; not for the sake so much of the living ' — in the selfish thought of personal loss or in the display of noisy grief.
Here is one delight of the ' superior man ' of whom Confucius and Mencius speak so much, the ideal sage and saint, yet possessing an excellence which all men should aim at.
' When looking up he has no occasion for shame before Heaven.'
Heaven is surely used here in a personal sense, though Confucius and ^fencius, as I mentioned above, refer seldom to God as the personal Shang Ti.
' And below he has no occasion to blush before men.'
' Herein do I exercise myself,' says St. Paul, with a similar desire for pure delight, and with a know- ledge of the secret of attainment ; ' to have always a conscience void of offence toward God and toward men.'
The voices which 1 have now sounded in my readers' ears are but isolated ejaculations and calls, heard and then silent in the pauses of tlic uiiids which waft down to us the life and tlie thoughts of two thousand years. They are, in the writer's estimation, with all their imperfections, and the imperfections and mistakes and omissions in the great body of history from whicli tliov are extracted, sufficient to sustain the contention tli.il tlicv are worth preserving.
China will not only be ungrateful to her teachers and sages of the past, she will be untrue also to herself
nOO HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
and to history, if, by practically abandoning her classics in teaching, and allowing thus the memory and high honour of her sages to wither, if not to die, she announces to the world that she has been barbarian and not civilised, rude and untaught rather than educated, for more than twenty centuries.
CONCLUSION : RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT
CHAPTEli XI
CONCLUSION : RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT
It is remarkable that in a country peopled so long ago, and settled, ordered and unchanging for so many centuries, there seem to be few really ancient buildings and monuments of the past. Confucius himself lamented this in his daj^ ; the records of the wise men of his ' long ago ' had perished, and he could not invent history. Amidst the shifting sands of the desert, Egypt's ancient pjTamids renuiin conspicuous and unmoved, though the king of Egypt in now ancient times was ' but a noise ' ; he had passed the time appointed, China, rivalling Egypt in early civilisation, amidst her mountains and rivers and plains, has no pyramids and but few ancient monuments. But though her dynasties have come and gone, yet her ordered state, her throne and theory of government, true monuments of the past, remain. Is she not, after all, lier own great memorial ?
I was invited not long ago to see and measure two ancient yew-trees in England, with the rejmted age of two thousand seven hundred years. (Ireat age is, if not accurately reckoned, yet suggested by the fallen companions of the yew-trees. Two oaks, sprung from acorns which long long ago were dropped at the roots of the already aged yews,
304 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
unable to contend with the strength of the older trees, grew, nevertheless, and flourished for centuries, leaning outwards so as to avoid the yews' straight, stiff growth and foliage. At last, only two or three summers ago, weary as it seemed of the fatigue and humiliation of this everlasting submission, and overburdened with their own gathering weight of timber and foliage, they quietly lay down and died, and the yews live on without decay, with nine yards' girth and vigorous growth.
China has seen, not by her roots' side indeed, nor blighted by her proximity and power, but afar, ancient empires in Europe, Asia and Africa, flare up in the firing of the woods, or fall prostrate from deca}^ ; but she lives on. Some say that she is fast renewing her youth ; others, that the changes now threatening to convulse her will mean uprooting, or the lopping of her branches, or the splitting with wedge and mallet, or with stronger explosives, of her great stem, three or four thousand years old.
It may be asked whether a country and a people so ancient and stable, so highly educated and civilised, need any radical change at all. Who told the Chinese that they must change, lest the oaks springing up all round press her too close, and monopolise the soil, and stunt and ruin her growth ?
We looked at the old yew-trees with awe, not wholly unmingled Avith incredulity. Tavo thousand seven hundred years (or, according to the revised version of experts, two thousand six hundred years) old ! Then they could remember, if the news were wafted so far, the foundation and the rising of the low walls of early Rome. Rome has come and gone.
RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT 303
but the yews live on. Yet that far-off year of their reputed birth marks only the days of niediaBval China. Lao Tsze, the founder of Taoism, had not yet been born, nor the Buddha, nor Confucius ; but when those philosophers began their lives, and still more so when Buddhism entered China, it was an already ancient empire to which they came. Wliy should China change at all, then, wlien her present constitution and order have served her well for three millenniums ? Can she not live on without foreign artificial culture, perhaps till all things are uprooted and changed ? Or is the more serious question and forecast of the future rather this ? Are there, as some long ago suspected, seeds of decay developed through contact with the west, whidi if not removed will strike down to the roots and wither the great tree ?
It is to some of these symptoms of decay, calling for definite remedies, that 1 call my readers' atten- tion in this closing chapter.
The only warning I should like to sound i/i lifiiinc is, that we from the west may be running a doul)lc risk : first, in suggesting to China change where she needs no change, simply because the great east happens to differ from the great west ; secondly, in tacitly assuming, or loudly proclaiming, that what suits the bustling west must be the one remedy for the wants and woes of the more deliberate and tranquil east.
A series of lectures has recently been gi\('n in Shanghai by a true and devoted friend of Cliina's progress, and an earnest pleader for interiuitional amenities. An institute has been formed for tlie
u
306 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
promotion of these objects, a club in which the east may touch and grasp, if she will, the hand of the west, and enjoy the interchange of thought and the study of international problems. The course of lectures to which I allude consisted of a review of the different systems of government in the states of Europe and in the United States. Informing and stimulating as the dissertations were, it must have struck thoughtful and patriotic Chinese that a two- fold assumption underlay the whole. First, that China is wholly dissatisfied with her present govern- ment and constitution ; secondly, that, if she changes, she cannot reform and remodel herself, but must adopt some western method, or leave the enterprise alone.
We take for granted, perhaps correctly, that the phenomenon of change in China is so significant as to mark a new era in the world's history, because China has refused to change for so many centuries. This may be generally true. China's implements and methods of handicraft and agriculture are much the same as a thousand years ago, and in her culture and preparation of tea and silk — though accelerated by machinery in its later stages in some centres of industry — the methods of three thousand years ago are still employed in countless homes in hiU and plain. But it is a fact, though often overlooked, that all the time China has been quietly changing. She has had her ebb and flow of fashion in the past ages — even in the past generation — as the following slight indications show. Young China now seems unable to use the large black folding-fans of twenty or thirty years ago, with their gilded inner face and
RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT 307
gold-dust drawings on the outer side. The fans in fashion to-day are scarcely more than half the size of the older patterns. The cut of men's loose sleeves, and the number and arrangement of buttons on women's jackets, have changed more than once. One fashion, everywhere conspicuous in the neigh- bourhood of Ningpo fifty years ago, has entirely disappeared. Girls before marriage would wear their black hair plaited in a long queue ; but later it would be put up, and worn with an appendage at the back of the head and reaching half-way down the back. The effect was somewhat like a dragon- fly's wings, now drooping, now slightly expanding, the coarse hair being arranged in two frames of thin whale-bone, meeting at the base in a pad \\liicli was attached to the head. These wings disappeared about twenty years ago, and after lingering for a while amongst the women of the low class, consisting of chair-bearers, barbers, actors, and go-betweens, they have now completely disappeared. The par- ticular class to which I refer had been under a ban for an unknown period, apparently as a punislnnent for sharing in some insurrectionary movement. The men were forbidden to compete in the j)ublic Uterary examinations, and though living in the midst of the common people they did not intermarry with them. Then change came. The ban was removed by imperial edict as an act of grace about eiijlit years ago ; but, to the astonishment of the public, the boon was declined by this independent class. To show their real independence, and that tlieir menial occupations were voluntary and not enforced, the barbers and chair-bearers struck work : and further.
308 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
to show that China changes not, they did not care to avail themselves of the permission to compete for literary distinction.
Now the forward look which I attempt in this chapter, and the suggestion of a forecast as to China's near and more remote future, necessitate a look back- ward at her great and glorious and peaceful past, and at her past of turmoil and disruption ; her ' battles of the warrior with confused noise and garments rolled in blood,' her sitting apart from the nations in magnificent solitude and remoteness, save for some passing touch or glance, till now she is vivified and awakened by contact with the west, and the spur and the shock of daring innovations. How has her past in methods of government and education and civilisation served her ? Must they be readjusted merely, or radically changed ? I noticed in my last chapter a possible method of gradual or vigorous change in the curriculum of education. Many particulars in this imaginary transformation have already been adopted, and are now in operation in numerous government and private schools. Yet it seems significant that there are symptoms, if not of reaction, certainly of slacken- ing in the process of enlightening and reforming the nation. The histories of other lands, and the geography of the world, two great items of education, in which China obviously required a widening of her knowledge and teaching, are in some schools being dropped ; and Chinese history, which is being reproduced in numerous hand-books, is to be the subject after all. The glory and power of China must be the object in life of the new China, not the
RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT 300
acquirement of knowledge for its own fair and noble sake.
This same idea may be made the ruling principle in dealing with the ancient monuments of the land, when China is confronted by the problems of tlic future. What is to be done with these monuments in stone and brick, in literature, and in the state and constitution of China's realm ? Let us consider these relics in order, and imagine ourselves in the place of thoughtful and reasonable Chinese patriots, eager for their country's honour and power, but more zealous still for her enlightenment and for that ' righteousness ' which Confucius set before him as his own aim, and which alone ' exalteth a nation.'
What part have old pagodas and temples, and Chinese literature, and her constitution and mode of government, borne in the fortunes and stability of the empire ? Have they still their uses, or are they so much out of date and out of keeping, in the dream of a new China, as to be doomed ?
The first two,i:)agodasand temples — whether for the worship of idols, or for the cult of deified heroes and benefactors — have been designed, indeed, to lix and preserve the fung-shui ; the luck, that is, of cities or districts, of river-bed or bridge or mountain-valley.
The following brief account of fumj-s/iui will accentuate the question whether the past shall live on in the future of enlightemd ( liina.
Fung-shui means literally 'wind and water'; and some say that it is so called ' because it is a thing like wind, which you caiuiot com])r(^h(Mi(l ; and like water, which you cannot grasj)/ I'.ui tliis is vague and superficial.
310 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
The formulated system of fung-shui has four divisions : Li, the general order of nature ; Su, her numerical proportions ; KH, her vital breath and subtle energies ; and Hing, her form or outward aspect. The harmonising of these four would appear to constitute a perfect fung-shui ; the contrary will produce calamity.
Three points are insisted upon by the professors of this art, in which truth and error strangely mingle : (1) that heaven rules the earth ; (2) that both heaven and earth influence all living beings, and that it is in man's power to turn their influence to the best account for his own advantage ; (3) that the fortunes of the living depend also on the good- will and general influence of the dead. In direct connection with this third point comes in ancestral worship.
Under Li, or order in nature, the Chinese, believing implicitly in the Reign of Law, make much of the number 5. There are five elements — metal, wood, water, fire, earth ; five planets — Jupiter, Mars, Saturn, Venus, Mercury ; five viscera ; five colours ; five kinds of happiness ; and the five relationships — viz., those of prince and minister, father and son, husband and wife, elder and younger brothers, friend and friend. As to the Su, or numerical proportions of nature (closely connected with the Li), ancient and modern fung-shui literature are at variance. At the time of the Yih King, the most ancient of the Chinese classics, they recognised six elements. The modern system of fung-shui, formu- lated by Chu Hi (the great commentator on Con- fucius), and by others during the Sung dynasty (a.d, 112(5-1278), endeavoured to harmonise the
RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT 311
two; and taking 10, or twice 5, as the sacred number for heaven, and 12, twice 6, or 8 and 4, the numbers of the two sets of mystic diagrams known to the ancients, as the sacred number for earth, they constructed 10 heavenly stems and 12 terrestrial branches, and from their combination composed the cycle of 60 names, which is now used to designate successive years.
A clever geomancer, well versed in this intricate but meaningless array of formulae, imposes with ease on his ignorant and superstitious clients.
The Chinese think that the soul of man is two- fold. They distinguish an animus and an anima : the first is the breath of heaven, and at death returns thither. The anima is the earthly or animal element, and returns to earth at death. The common people, modifying this doctrine, suppose that the dead are chained to the tomb by the earthly soul, and that the spiritual nature hovers round the old home ; and therefore, as there must be an action and reaction of the two souls on one another, the comfort of the corpse makes the earthly soul complacent, and, flashing complacency to the spiritual soul, produces in some unseen way prosperity in the home of the living. It is said that in Hongkong Chinese who wish to obtain some favour from foreigners will actually sacrifice and pray in the foreign ceme- tery, so as to secure the good offices of the spirits of the departed in influencing the living. Again, it is asserted that in cases of rebellion the first step taken by government is to send secret agents, who discover the tombs of the ancestors of the insurgent leaders, and then proceed to open them, scatter the
312 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
contents, desecrate the graves, and insure in this way calamity from the disturbed and annoyed spirits on their Hving and rebeUious representatives.
It will be impossible to enumerate here all the steps necessary to secure the quiet repose of the corpse and the consequent luck of the house. The tomb must be guarded from all noxious influences, which come chiefly from the north. Trees are planted, or mounds raised to ensure this ; water also, as an emblem of wealth and affluence, should be near ; and straight lines in paths or water- courses must be avoided as unlucky.
The connection between ancestral worship and fung-sliui will, however, be sufficiently clear without further detail. And in very deed it presents the Chinese virtue of filial piety in a somewhat im- amiable light. The long days spent in the land given them by the Lord God seem to imply the existence of at least some genuine honour for parents amongst the Chinese. But there is a vast admixture of selfishness in the practice. It is rather from the fear of evil consequences to the survivors than from loving care for the dead that sacrifices are offered, and tombs are so carefuUy tended and visited.
And it will be seen that whilst fung-shui is a formidable obstacle to railways and other modern improvements, since some lucky tree or mound or tomb meets and resists the bewildered contractor every hundred yards or so, the system of ancestral worship is a tremendous obstacle to Cliristianity. It has the sanction of very ancient observance ; it has the far stronger sanction of the virtue of filial
RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT 313
piety, of which it seems to be the sure expression ; and it has the yet more powerful motive of self- preservation and self-aggrandisement. Christianity, forbidding and condemning this practice as super- stitious and idolatrous, encounters a mighty foe, which the almighty power and wisdom of God alone can overthrow. The question has often been asked with much earnestness and anxiety, by both mission- aries and Chinese converts, whether some Christian rite may not be substituted for ancestral worship ; which, while omitting and condemning all that is merely superstitious, idolatrous, or utilitarian, may yet preserve the Christian religion from even the appearance of sanctioning the neglect of filial piety.
To resume, the temples have covered the land, dotting the vast plains with red or yellow walls and roofs, and placed sometimes picturesquely on mountain ledges or in gorges and valleys ; and their removal would seriously spoil many a landscape where man's works and God's seem from a distance to combine in harmony of form and colour. Have they had any further efficacy and pacifying influence in the empire ? A certain instinct of religion may have been satisfied at first by them, a kind of impression that the unseen but real powers of nature and of the spirit-world have not been wholly neglected in seed-time and harvest. But they have led the people, with the eyes of conscience not Avholly closed, from the Creator to the creature for worship. Even cold and soulless science in the new secular schools is leading the nation to awake, and perceive the follies of superstition and idolatry. Shall
314 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
pagodas, then, be levelled to the ground, as was done in the thirteenth century, during the reign of one of the few Chinese emperors who strove to suppress Buddhism ? Shall the temples be destroyed, or turned wholly into secular schools, as has already been done in many cases ? Or shall they be allowed to live on in a dying life, sad, melancholy in their picturesque ruin, sounding on their stiU rolling drums and gongs and in their deep-toned bells the echoes of their unsatisfying teaching ?
' Lo ! as the wind is so is mortal life, A moan, a sigh, a sob, a storm, a strife.'
The city walls, again ; shall they disappear, as marks of barbaric unrest, or of the times of inter- necine strife and dynastic wars, and as unsuited now for practical defence ? The remains of the old wall of London, visible here and there, shut in and pressed upon by warehouses and crowded streets ; or Caracalla's wall, near York ; or the traces of the old vallum at Dorchester — are they of practical use to modern England ? Will young China in her advanced civilisation decide to have these city walls levelled all over the land, and roads made in their place ? I dip into the future, but I cannot conjure up such a picture of Chinese cities and towns, or believe that such a change would be altogether for her good. A better course w^ould be that the more serviceable of the old buildings should be used, as some now are, for secular purposes ; or better still, as we may hope in the near future, for purposes of Christian worship ; ^^'hile the rest could be preserved
I >
3:
RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT 315
as historic monuments to prevent young China from forgetting her glorious past.
I have alread}^ discussed the question of the conservation of China's most ancient monument, her Hterature, and her system of education. I address myself now to the last subject, Avhich seems to be absorbing interest at the present time, the question, namely, of the future mode of government in China. It will be found, if I mistake not, that this subject also is bound up with the past history of China, and as such it suggests an inquiry of profound interest.
Is reform in the departments and details of govern- ment all that is required ? ShaU its ancient regime of paternal, patriarchal rule live on, with the emperor the father of his great family, reigning indeed, autocratic, supreme, but ruling with the sole and overmastering desire for the good of each member of the family, inquiring into their needs and fore- stalling them, listening with patience to their complaints, guided and helped by the counsel and growing experience of the elder children, but ruling, not ruled ; a leader and a legislator, not a puppet and figurehead ? And shall the emperor's delegated authority continue in the person of the higher and lower grades of mandarins throughout the empire, clothed with the same solemn responsibility of un- selfish, untiring care for the people, and not for self, ' bearing not the sword in vain,' but also ' the father and mother ' of the people ? Is it not the failure of the individuals on the throne or in the yameUy and not the failure of the ideal and of the constitu- tion which has ' reduced China,' in the pathetic
316 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
moan of the late empress dowager, ' to a halting position in a dangerous and sorrowful place.' Does not the empress herself hint at the reason for this state of things ? ' China's government,' she says, ' has been for long ages established, but officials have forgotten to protect their people, and the people know not how to assist their country. A veil hangs between those below and those above.' Surely the failure of officials and people cannot be urged as the fault of the theory of government, but rather as an infraction of its first principles and rules. What might not the effect be if a drastic reform in the practice of old principles and rules were attempted before the old principles and rules were condemned as effete ? Suppose, for instance, the unfortunate officials were paid adequate salaries instead of the starving pittance dealt out in most cases now. They would thus be lifted beyond that which is now almost a resistless temptation to accept bribes and to exact more than is legally due. They would think no longer how much, during their term of office, they could extort from the people, but how much they could do, by just and humane rule and sympathetic counsel and help, to benefit the people and pacify the country. The people then in their turn would be law-abiding, loyal to the ya^nen, and loyal to the throne.
China has known and still knows such rulers, though they be, it is to be feared, few and far between. A great viceroy had so endeared himself to the people of the two provinces over which he held sway, that they followed his barge, men, women, and children, for miles, weeping their farewells.
RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT 317
when the time came for him to leave his old post and go into retirement. It is not every one who can do as he did, but the present system of fatal underpayment for officials renders it practically impossible for the government to work efficiently, and for the relations between the emperor and the people, the upper and the lower, to be maintained without incessant ebullitions of unrest and ill-will. No vox populi roaring in a parliament formed entirely on Western models, demanding, perhaps, the rights of one class, and forgetting or opposing the rights of another, will necessarily remedy such a state of things. It is profoundly interesting to notice in the records of China's past how theories of rule were early formulated, and early subjected to almost violent suggestions of reform, and how many of what we deem modern, socialistic, and democratic extrava- gances were in ancient times broached, advocated, exposed, and condemned, the good in them pre- served, the bad submerged. The idea which is said by some to be the reality in the British con- stitution, that our ' Mother of Parliaments ' is supreme in administration and legislation alike ; that the king is not ruler, but servant, and liable to dismissal, not controlling, not advising, not objecting or vetoing, but simply recording the will of his Parliament if the two Houses agree — this abolition both of the royal prerogative and of the people's own last safeguard of liberty finds no place in China's past theories and practice of government. But tlie sovereign, though supreme, and the acknow- ledged fountain-head of law and of taxation, holds his prerogatives fenced round, and the rights and
318 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
liberticF; of the people fully protected and defined. Take, for instance, the legal necessity of justice, of benevolence, of sympathy, of mercy, of setting the people first and the country's weal and honour fore- most, or, again, the absence of forced loans to the sovereign for the sovereign's extravagant use, and of favouritism or partial patronage : all this constitutes the keeping of a contract far better than any Bill of Rights, and yet preserves the divine right of kings to rule, and of the people to honour and obey. I insist upon this point, because it appears to me that, as in the case of education so in the case of consti- tution-building, China will be best advised if she amends her constitution not by slavish copying of Western models, but by self-improvement and self- reform, conserving as far as possible all that is just and beneficent in her own ancient system. Our Western fashions will not of necessity fit and adorn Eastern constitutions. Imagine party government introduced into China, and the vast country, with ten times the population of England, broken up into ten times as many contending parties ! How few would be for the state, for the empire, for the welfare and mutual content and uplifting and highest good of all classes, and how many for their own class and private interest alone ! It is surely a relief to many and a gladness to know that their kings and queens, with all loyalty to constitution, do reign still, and that allegiance is sworn and rendered to ruling persons and not to ornamental relics of the past. It appears, at any rate, from the various decrees and memorials on this great subject, either presented to the throne or issued
RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT 319
by the prince regent and his council as from the throne, that the authority of the emperor must be preserved, supreme, while subject ever to the yet more supreme consideration of the good of the people, whose needs and wishes — perhaps a more constitutional word than ' will,' which is too im- perious— shall be ascertained in the future in a more satisfactory way than in the long past. The people have made their voices heard all down the ages in China, but too spasmodical^, too much under the excitement of oppression and sudden wrong. Now they will have their representative assemblies ; country clubs of advisers, and benches of magistrates ; county councils and provincial councils ; and the national assembly, to constitute eventually the Parliament of the empire with two Houses. The voices of such representatives will be more dignified and more influential, perhaps, than what I have witnessed myself, the right and power of the poorest peasant, or of women, to demand special audience from the local mandarin, and procure administration of justice in case of special wrong, or on the failure of justice in the ordinary courts. Widows oppressed by an adver- sary will fall down and stop the chair of just or unjust judge alike, and compel attention and redress. I saw a young man on one occasion, alone and without card of patron to herald him, enter the yaiMn door, penetrate into the second court, and striking violently and urgently a bell hung there for the purpose, without any opposition from the runners and the lictors, continue the noise till the mandarin himself came out of his private apart-
320 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
ments, and gave this peasant an audience and promised redress. More dignified, if not less loud, may be the debates and representations of these national assemblies, and if they can enunciate the nation's wants and rights as forcibly and directly as the peasant did his, the emperor and his council will listen and obey. It is surely a consideration worthy of serious attention whether, in attempting to formulate a constitution under the special pressure of indiscretions and wrongs in kingcraft, the framers of some Western constitutions have not gone near to ruining the people's rights and powers by para- lysing the power of him whose supreme right and glory and prerogative it is to see that the people's rights are safeguarded and preserved. If the king reign and rule but in dumb show, the sovereign people will be at the mercy of those who are neither for king nor nation, but for party and themselves. China seems alive to this danger in these times of the forging and polishing and framing of a constitu- tion ; and with a wholesome regard for the power and rights of the people, the government are not disposed to abdicate on the emperor's part his supreme power by which those popular rights are guaranteed. But it is a critical time. It is far more dangerous for an ancient state which has known ordered rule to act as though it were begin- ning its political life, and to proclaim a constitution as though such had never been known, than for a youth amongst the nations, which has won its spurs by patient endurance of oppression and the exhibi- tion of powers which can be trusted with authority, to formulate and demand a constitution.
RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT 321
Unless China is content to believe that the past has not so grossly \\Tonged the empire, and that she has much to learn from that past, and much thankfully to retain in her schemes of reform, she is sure to wreck her high emprise by headlong pace and neglect of the balancing powers in a true constitution.
The following significant and sober words of Goethe are far-reaching in their application : —
' We require in our language a word to express the same relation to the word " nation " as " child- hood" bears to "child." The teacher must hear childhood and not the child. The lawgiver and ruler must heed " nationhood " and not the nation. The former always says the same things, is sensible, consistent, straightforward, and true ; the latter wants so many things that it never really knows its own mind. And in this sense the law can and ought to be the generally expressed will of " nation- hood," a will which is never declared by the mob, but which the intelligent man is able to detect, which the wise man knows how to appease, and the good man is eager to satisfy.'
Hear now how these problems of king, lords, and commons, of sovereign power and sovereign rights, have stirred the thoughts of China's sages for two thousand years, and consider whether they are not still capable of application.
Confucius describes the duties of a ruler compre- hensively but somewhat vaguely thus : —
' There must be reverent attention to business ; the exhibition of sincerity ; economy in expenditure ; love for men ; and the employment of the people at the proper seasons.'
X
322 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
These departments of administration are now of necessity delegated to different departmental officers, but the emperor must retain in his ruling mind and hand the principles of all and the ability to transact all on emergency.
And now as to the requisites of government. They are threefold. ' First, sufficiency of food ' (involving good harvests, good markets, fair trade, constant employment). ' Secondly, sufficiency of national equipment ' (a powerful fleet and a well- drilled army). ' Thirdly, confidence of the people in their ruler.'
' But suppose one at least of these requisites must be abandoned, which of these could be spared with least loss,' asked one of Confucius' disciples.
' Military equipment,' said the Master.
' And when dire necessity comes, which must go next ? '
' Part with the food,' said the Master with startling precision. ' Of old death has been the lot of all men.'
No need of regret, then, if you die early rather than late, if only the ruler be still trusted and main- tained on his throne.
Watch, now, one of these ancient emperors on his throne. So far-off he appears, four thousand years and more ago, that we cannot see his features right. Even now the Chinese emperor, seated in remote Peking, is mysterious and invisible to the people.
' May not Shun,' asked Confucius, ' be described as having governed efficiently without exertion ? What did he do ? He did nothing but gravely and reverently occupy his imperial seat.'
RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT 323
This was a lesson, no doubt, as to the influence of the emperor's personal character, but Shun, if he were living now, would leave his throne, and in person, like our great English sovereigns for seventy years past, ascertain the needs of the people and of the whole realm, and ' with exertion ' and in council with his private advisers, hearing first his faithful Commons and his faithful Lords, govern and rule.
Here follow rules for the renovation and regulation of an empire.
' Resolve, 0 Son of Heaven, to regulate well your state ; then your family ; then your person ; and then your heart. Sincerity is thus produced. That leads to extension of knowledge, and extension of knowledge to the investigation of all things. Then [working backwards] complete knowledge and sin- cere thoughts and rectified hearts and cultured per- sons and regulated families and rightly governed states, result in empire, tranquil and established.' And the regulation of the empire is further enforced by the remembrance that all that is required in the constitution of a state is included in a perfect family. ' Filial piety means that the sovereign is served. Fraternal submission means that elders and superiors are served. Kindness and love are the virtues wherewith the multitude must always be treated.'
Confucius then quotes the Odes, where it is said : —
' Let the ruler discharge his duties as a father, son, and brother — as a model ; and then the people will follow and imitate him.'
And here again speak the democratic and yet imperialist Odes : —
' When a prince loves what the people love, and
324 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
hates what the people hate, he is called the parent of the people. By gaining the people the king- dom is gained ; by losing the people the kingdom is lost.'
Yet how supreme the emperor is ! He is his own minister of religion ; his own chancellor of the exchequer ; his own minister of education. ' To him it appertains to order ceremonies ; to form the measures ; to determine the characters.'
But who is sufficient for these things ? Confucius seems to lament.
Let us now hear Mencius treating of empire and of government. Of the origin of power he writes sometimes vaguely, sometimes with startling directness.
' The emperor cannot give the empire to another. Heaven gives the empire : the people give it. There- fore in the Great Declaration these words occur : — Heaven sees as my people see ; Heaven hears according as my people hear.'
Again, Mencius seems to forget for the moment his great teacher Confucius' estimation, and his own elsewhere, of imperial power.
' The people are the most important element in a nation ; the spirits of the land and grain the next ; the sovereign the lightest.'
' Feed the people,' he says to the ruler, ' and then educate them. If they have a certain livelihood, they will have a fixed heart.'
' There is a way to gain the empire,' he says again. ' Get the people, and the empire is got. Get their hearts, and the people are got. Collect for them what they like ; lay not on them ^^ilat they
RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT 325
dislike. The people will turn to a benevolent rule as water flows downward.'
Hear, again, the ancient Odes of the time of Chow and King Wan, of the emperor and the hundred generations which would follow him, supreme, a ruler in the fear of God and love of man.
The Ode speaks first of him as he was when a ruler below, and of his place now in the unseen world, and as it seems of his touch still maintained on the dynasty and the empire he made so great.
' King Wan is on high ; 0 bright is he in heaven. King Wan ascends and descends On the left and right of God. Full of earnest activity was he. His fame is without end. Profound was King Wan.
The gifts of Chow extend to King Wan's descendants. Ever think ye of your ancestors ; Take your pattern from King Wan.'
It would appear, from these specimens of theorising on the subject of empire, that the problems of con- stitution and government, with which it is now proposed to agitate China, have been known to her and to her sages and leaders for long centuries. The mutual relationship between sovereign and j)Coplc, the one ever above, the second ever below, yet the Son of Heaven ruling enthroned above, living and reigning solely for the benefit and the peace and the higher welfare of the sovereign people — this secTus to be the ideal. To ensure this, China has developed the patriarchal, or rather the paternal, form of
326 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
government. The father of the people must rule, even as the father of a family is supreme in the house. But with a true father and mother, their waking thoughts and sleeping dreams are occupied not with self, but with the welfare and education of the children and with the good name of the family. In early life this rule is absolute, and the obedience of the children should be unquestioned. China, after four thousand years, is not in a state of abject tutelage, or of tender subject childhood, unless she be in danger of a second childhood manifesting itself by rash and self-willed folly. But the ideal of a Chinese family may be the ideal of a great nation. I have seen it myself, as I relate elsewhere, and have watched the life of such a family. Five generations, separating into different households, but living practically under the same roof of the ancestral compound, dwelling in peace, bound together by the common love and reverence and obedience rendered to the nonagenarian parents yet spared to them, living, loving, and reigning still. The patriarch leans on his sons for counsel and support and suggestion, whereas once he supplied all these to them, but his decision and his will still form the final court of appeal. If China resolves to break up her great family, to leave with violent insurrection the paternal roof of empire and imperial rule, and to break up into eighteen or twenty independent sovereign and soon warring states, then constitution and government and order wiU find little guidance save of the loudest warning from the history of her past. But if she remain one empire, then her new constitution may realise the best ideal
RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT 327
of the past, correcting subsequent errors and supply- ing deticiencies. The voice of the manhood of China, her womanhood also not quite silent, will be heard in her tentative provincial councils, in the national assembly to meet this autumn, and eventually in her Parliament with an Upper and Lower House. This voice, if it is the voice of the many-tongued and dififerently constituted provinces and prefectures and counties and districts, and not the voice of tyrannous majorities closuring and stifling the voice of temporary minorities, will be listened to and adapted to the needs of the empire by the acuter ear and clearer vision of the Upper House, un- trammelled by the needs of party. The emperor, too, seated on the Dragon Throne three thousand years old, but in person not yet in his dotage, will, with his privy council of state (especially if the seat of empire be moved to the ancient southern capital), listen to the wishes of his people, and if he finds them to be the voice of the empire, and for the good of the empire, not mere whims of party or petulant demands of selfish intrigue, will make the people's will the sovereign's will.
So far as the information at present procurable guides us, it seems probable that, miless fear of dynastic revolution alter violently the course and development of events, some such enlargement and adaptation of the ancient government of China will be adopted, such as have been realised in some of the golden periods in her history. The emperor will still be supreme and rule, the source of power and law, but so completely and continuously in touch with his people, sympathising with their
328 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
legitimate ambitions and patriotic hopes, expressed and explained by constitutional utterances in legal assemblies, that the people will rule while they serve, and the emperor (in the high regal words which guide our own sovereigns) wiU serve while he reigns.
I cannot but regard the political future in this forward glance as ominous and uncertain, though not without rays of sunshine struck across the haze. But in at least three directions there is ground for legitimate congratulation and bright hope. I allude, first, to the great reform of the abolition, by imperial exhortation if not decree, of the deforming and useless fashion of binding and cramping the feet of Chinese girls. This reform is spreading, and be- coming the true fashion in higher society, but the unnatural custom (which is probably a thousand years old) is scarcely altered at all among the industrial and agricultural classes. The uplifting of woman's position in society, which I notice below, will gradually, perhaps quite soon, accelerate and complete the process of reform. Secondly, I notice a change of the utmost significance, namely, the prohibition and gradual suppression of the gro^\'tll of the poppy for the manufacture of opium, and the sale of the drug and its use as a vicious luxury, a reform extending to all ranks of society and to all parts of the empire, and by mutual arrangement for gradual but steady withdrawal, afiecting the foreign trade in opium and causing it also to cease. This reform, thus inaugurated and carried forward, surpasses the most audacious dreams of early Christian workers and philanthropists, and the
RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT 329
utmost hopes of China's own great dreamers. It requires on the part of the Chinese incessant watch- fulness and the frequent issue and repetition of prohibitory decrees, lest by easily opened back- doors both the growth of the poppy and the sale and use of opium be secretly revived and reintro- duced. The great reform is hampered somewhat, yet from another point of view perhaps stimulated, by the remembrance that the co-operation of England and India in this prohibition and suppres- sion depend not wholly (as they should depend) on motives of humane justice, but on the condition of China's honesty in carrying on 'pari passu her own prohibition, her own suppression. But if only the exclusion and death of one vice do not admit and foster habits and vices of yet more deadly power, the change is one deserving of profoundest con- gratulation, adding to the health and strength and conscious manhood of China, and securing her esteem and influence amongst the nations.
Perhaps the brightest prospect of aU lies in the introduction of education for women, a great and noble reform, very largely, if not exclusivel}-, due to the stimulus and example given by the w ork of Christian women from the west for their sisters in the east. Woman has not been subjected in China all down her history to the degradation and oppres- sion and downright wrong imposed in barbarous or semi-civilised lands. China has not always thought or spoken so viciously and so contemptuously about woman as did the excited and irate Earl of Fan, when speaking about King Yew and his advisers nearly three thousand years ago. The earl seems
330 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
specially contemptuous when woman as by accident is educated and by chance is wise.
* A wise man builds up the wall : But a wise woman overthrows it. Disorder does not come down from heaven : It is produced by the woman.
Those from whom come no learning and no instruction Are women.'
In the same ode there follows a violent condemna- tion of woman's interference in subjects outside her home-duties.
* A woman who occupies herself at all in public affairs Leaves her silkworms and weavmg.'
But China has held woman in higher estimation than this throughout her history. The sanctity of marriage, one of China's greatest glories, the tone of sober happiness and contentment and order of innumerable Chinese homes show this. But such a state of things would be impossible if in China a woman were a mere despised slave or chattel. Solomon, writing in his haste, as the Earl of Fan spoke — both of them probably with special instances before their eyes — mentioned the woman whose heart is as snares and nets and her hands as bands ; and spoke of one man amongst a thousand as worth finding, and a woman amongst these as not to be found. But Solomon ends his divinely-inspired proverbs of wisdom by the noble panegyric on the virtuous woman : Her price above rubies ; the heart of her husband trusting in her ; she does to him and her household good and not evil all the days of her life ; provident, prudent, indefatigable,
KETROSPECT AND PROSPECT 331
educated surely, for she opens her mouth with wisdom, and that best fruit of high learning, the law of kindness, is on her tongue ; ' her children rise up and call her blessed, her husband praises her,' and her example is the theme of praise in the gates of her native town.
China has known such women, and she needs no further touch for the perfection of the picture, save this : —
' A woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised.'
' I am but a poor reader and scholar,' said a countryman to me the other day. ' You wiU find me to be slow of speech and dense of apprehension, but you should hear my Avife. How^ sensible and quick she is, and so wise and good ! Do talk to her and examine her ; she will speak for me.'
Yet with all this rule of comparative dignity and recognition, and with all these exceptions of educa- tion and developed intellect, woman in China has been, according to the sadly prevalent custom, un- educated and untaught. This state of things is now rapidly changing. Woman is being recognised more and more as the help meet for man in the companionship of mind as well as of life and of the same roof. The shrewd remark was made by a Chinese gentleman that men in the A\cst, though rendering to woman all chivahous honour, and giving her precedence and the first consideration in social life, yet all the while rule and control.
In China, however, while Avoman is not honoured as she should be, and is considered inferior in position and in authority, yet after all it is she who rules
332 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
the Chinese house and life. And as education, from whatever ulterior motive, is being aimed at so generally by men, young China's young men desire to have young China's girls educated at least as carefully and thoroughly as themselves; and the girls and their parents respond to the challenge, a call and response full of promise in this survey of China's future. Perhaps the fears which spring to the fancy are exaggerated if not groundless, yet it is impossible to suppress the persuasion that every- thing, humanly speaking, depends on who the teachers of these girls are to be, and what the pupils are to learn, and with what object and to what end. There is a grave fear lest Chinese girls' schools should overleap the primary and secondary stages, and mount at once to what is called high-school educa- tion, in the luxuries and fancies and mere displays of education — a fear lest both teachers and scholars should think that to read their own literature in their own language with ease, and to compose clearly and with elegance, and to know something of the history and geography and productions of the central realm and of other countries, are not of great consequence compared with the accomplish- ment of playing an American organ instead of their old tuneful lutes and guitars, or with excerpts from scientific treatises and the delights of calisthenics and of fancy-work, instead of plain hemming and sewing, or lessons in cookery or in other useful house- work. If this be so, higher education must retire for a while and make way for practical, deeper, broader, more truly refined learning. There is danger, of course, of reaction from the old state of
RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT 333
comparative humiliation and submission to a clamour as to rights, and the equality, if not the superiority, of woman ; and that not only in her own department, which may yet be a wide one in the household or the state.
Not long ago I witnessed an instance of what seemed a symptom of a coming regime, though it may have been only a rare exception. In one of the side-streets of Shanghai, as 1 turned a corner with a friend, we met a procession of Chinese girls. A teacher led the long line of forty or fifty girls, ranging in age from fifteen or sixteen to ten years. Another teacher brought up the rear. They had been attending drill, and they marched back to their school with a military, defiant air, lifting their feet with the high step of the march, and v/ith the intimation in their steadfast, upturned faces that China defies the world. These same sirls had a short time before made a bonfire of the flags of all nations, China's flag alone being left unscorched above the ashes.
But there are already symptoms abroad \\hich show that the first outburst of excitement and foolish bombast is dying down. The insurrectionary spirit amongst the large numbers of Chinese students acquiring western learning in Japan, a symptom which had so alarmed the Chinese government at one time, is gradually disappearing, and a more genuine zeal for learning seems to be setting in. The acquisition of the English language, at first avowedly desired simply as a means to obtam lucrative employment, is becoming more and more a genuine intellectual ambition ; and at the same
334 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
time we are assured by those who call themselves the leaders of China's true reformers, that the quality and purity of the English acquired are continually being improved, while the number of really competent professors and students of English is steadily on the increase. They go so far as to prophesy that the coming language of China will not indeed be that which so many regard as the coming language of the world, English, but a curious amalgam of the kwan-hwa, changed by contact with the many other dialects of China, a contact which railways will quicken and facilitate, with a large accretion of English and of other western tongues. I had always anticipated the disappearance of some at least of the many varieties of dialect in China by the closer communication caused by the accelera- tion of locomotion, but I had not anticipated such a complete change as these reformers expect in the general speech of the empire.
The present aspect of the political, educational and social reforms in China gives rise to the hope that the reformers in China and the government generally will speedily abandon the folly of attempt- ing retribution for the wrongs received from the west in the past, by the suicidal policy of treating that which is now the friendly west with hostility, suspicion, and attempted exclusion.
We may also venture to hope that that Avhich is so pressing a question in the business world of the present time, the reform of the currency and the steadying of exchange, may be so negotiated and arranged as to result in the mutual advantage and prosperity of commercial China and her commercial friends from the west.
RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT 335
But now to speak more directly of great China herself.
I mount the hill, from the slopes of which I am writing, and look down on a scene familiar to me for fifty years. As I gaze, the landscape north, west, and south seems to widen out to the utmost limits of the great empire, and beyond them to other lands with which China is now in contact. The question rises, as I turn away from this contemplation of the outward face of China and from my recollections of the land, and notices of her ancient history and new enterprises — what does she really want ?
Long lines of woodmen, heavily laden with bamboos or fir-poles, and in the spring months with loads of bamboo shoots, descend the stone-paths among the hills upon which we have been gazing, returning with yet heavier sacks of rice exchanged for the timber. They live a life which has been going on for centuries. The crops in the plains below have sometimes been ruined, and the grace- ful bamboos uprooted by tempest and flood, but oftener the rice has been reaped and garnered, and the treasures of the hills gathered in safety and plenty. The fishermen, in like manner, storm-tossed, wrecked, lost sometimes in the howling typhoon, but oftener returning under full sail with gi'eat hauls to fetch good prices ; and the traders in the hot crowded streets, or with snow drifting in on to their exposed counters and benches ; and the artisans and the merchants, and the scholars in their retirement of country-house or village-school — do all these represent in their stirring life of action and thought what a modern Chinese
336 HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
writer has called ' a deficient and rotten social order ' ?
What now do they propose to will and demand by the voice of Parliament and the declaration of the people's wishes ? Where shall reform, with tact and practical innovation make itself construc- tive and useful, and not destructive and meddle- some ?
I have suggested above one imperative need, the satisfaction of which will be full charged with bene- ficial effects on society generally — the generous and adequate pay of the magistrates. This w^ould bring with it the removal of one fear which over- shadows the thoughts and lives of these hill-men and plain-dwellers, even more than the dread of flood or drought ; I mean the imposition of arbitrary and oppressive taxes just when the people can least bear them. The markets also, both native and foreign, will with this reform gather, in all proba- bility, greater steadiness azid reliability. Facilities of locomotion will extend the area of the markets, if it does not rumously affect the ancient calling of boat-traffic and porterage. China, again, may gladly welcome sanitation, some compulsory by the order of the local magistrates, some Avhich their own hands alone can effect, bringing health and cleanliness to city and upland village alike.
These changes, with drastic reform in the pro- cedure of the criminal and civil courts (the code of law itself is perhaps too indiscriminately condemned), will brighten the lives and lighten the burdens of very many. But change will not always and every- where be welcomed, where from generation to
RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT 337
generation, with Chinese air and cHmate, Chinese custom and instinct, Hfe has been lived out for such countless multitudes with Chinese methods and appliances, so well and with such placid routine. Change is not always to be desired. If it excites the dangerous and insatiable passion for fresh change, the changing East may become a less pleasant place for life and work than the old East afforded ; while to be abreast of the West in education, civilisation, culture, and power may mean a loss of stability, of rest and reliance.
I can only say, in conclusion, to my Chinese friends and fellow-countrymen, in the words ascribed to our Lord Himself, cut on an eastern bridge : — ' Life is like a bridge ' across a rift in the deep sea of eternity. The Chinese people, like all mankind, are setting their feet on this bridge. ' Cross it ' as best you can, and as conveniently and com- fortably as may be possible. ' But do not build upon it.' Your higher concern is with the farther shore.
INDEX
INDEX
Ancestral worship, 52, 114, 312,
313. Ancient China, 304, 305. Ancient monument^, 303, 309. Astrolojxy, 1G3.
Bible, the, 237-242, 245.
Boat travel, 154, 155.
Bore on the rivers Ts'aungo and
Tsintang, 127-133. Bridges, 167, 177. Bruce, Sir Frederick, 36. Buddhism, 4, 6, 7, 52, 99, 100, 233,
305.
Cecil, Lord William Gascotke,
273. Chang-viao, 47. China, new and old, 5, 222-224, 229.
changing, 306-308, 314.
her needs and hopes, 335-337.
Chivalry, Chinese, 222, 223, 231-234.
Chu Hi, 280, 310.
Chuki, ch. iv. and 138, 139.
Church I^nion, 275, and vide Preface.
Chusan, 3.
CLin fights, 12, 144.
Classics, Canon of the, 279, 280.
Comets, 7, 8.
Confucius, 251, 255, 256, 272, 279,
283, 285, 290-292, 295-298, 321-
324. Conservatism and change, cli. i. an<l
306, 307.
Constitutional government, 318-320,
327. Cooke, Colonel, 71, 73. Cornewall Lewis, Lieutenant, death
of, 65. Cotton, culture of and trade in, 54,
169. Country life, 335. Cyclone, a, described, 198-200.
Dew, Captaix Roderick, 40, 60-72.
Education, ch. x. and 7. Encounter, H.M.S., 60, 64, 65. Examination halls and degrees, 26, 111, 279, 280, 287.
Fa Hien, 4.
Fan, the T'aip'ing leader, 47.
Ferry, free, 133.
Fire brigades, 226, 227.
Fishing industry, the, 35.
Flowers, 112-115, 147, 287.
Foochuw, 165.
Foot-binding, 328.
Funghwa, 37, 71.
Fiiiig-shni; 120, 309-311.
(iAMIlLINC), 119.
Gates, city, 47, 84, 136. 137, 207,
208. Gordon, General, 75, 217. (Jough, Lord, 3, 39. Government, Chinese, the, 315-321.
341
342
HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA
Grand Canal, the, 12G. Green (Japs, the, 71, 72. Gutzhiff, Karl, 127, 206, 207.
Haimen, 3.
Haining, 131.
Hangchow, ch. vi. and 32, 71.
Hankow, 165.
Hanyang, 165.
Hardy, H.M.S., 60.
Hills, 83, 84, 86, 139, 166.
Hope, Admiral Sir James, 54, 59,
71. Huangp'u river, 207, 209, 230. Hudson, T., 48, 49. Hung Siu-ts'iian, ch. ii., iii. Huxham, Lieutenant, 36.
Inns, country, 183, 184, 190, 191. International Institute, the, 305, 306.
Japan, 83, 165, 278, 333.
Kang Hi, 180.
Kenny, Captain, 65.
Kestrel, H.M.S., 38, 61, 66, 67.
Kidnapping, 101-104.
Kinsay, 127.
Kwan-hwa, 277, 278.
Kwanyin, 5, 6.
Lao Tsze, 305. Leang Ah-fah, 27. Legends, 114, 147, 148, 161, 177. L'Etoile, gunboat, 60, 65. Letter to scholars, a, 246-248. Literature, Chinese, ch. x. Longevity, instances of, 169-175. Luh Sin-Ian, 39, 40.
Malta, 164.
Mandarins, 17, 179-182, 188, 315,
316. Marco Polo, 127.
Marriage customs, 145, 146. Mencius, 163, 268, 271, 279, 285,
298, 299, 324. Ming dynasty, the, 25, 26, 86, 90,
91. Missions, Christian, ch. ix. Mohamiiiedanism, 105, 195. Morrison, Robert, 27. Moule, Bishop G. E., 33, 34.
Nanking, 30, 31, 120, 213.
Newspapers, 104.
Nganking, 31.
Ningpo, ch. iv. and 33, 35, 36.
storming of, by the T'aip'ing.s,
42-44. storming of, by the English and
French, 62-65.
Odes, the, 291-294.
Official rank, offered to missionaries,
180. Opium-trade, the, 13-16, 135, 136,
328, 329.
Pagodas, 87, 314. Parkes, Sir Harry, 47. Patriarchal government, 325-327. Pirates, 6, 193, 194, 200, 201. Poetry, 92. Police, 157, 158. Preaching, 248-264. Protet, Admiral, 59. Proverbial sayings, 249-257. Provincial assemblies, 135. P'ut'u, 5.
Queues, 105-108.
Railways, 134. Religion, 100, 237, 243. Repetition, 283, 287. Ringdove, H.M.S., 64. Routes to Cliina, 197-202.
INDEX
343
Rumours, 105, 111, 175. Russell, Bishop, 39, 60.
San-ko-lix-sin, 32, 55. Sanpeh, 58, 59, 168, 169. Schools, ch. X. and 11, 282, 283. Sedan-chairs, 155-157, 217. Shanghai, 33, ch. viii.
new, 220-222.
old, 215-218, 227-229.
position of, 209, 210.
trade of, 210, 211, 214.
Shaohing, 36, 72.
She Hwang Ti, 86, 126.
Shipping and seamanship, 4, 192, 193.
Shun, 59, 85, 293.
Silkwonns, 184.
Soldiers, 178-180.
Solent, voyage in the, 197-208, 211,
212. Soochow, 32. Spring, 147.
processions, 10, 11.
Sungkiang, 209, 230. Swatow, 165. Sze-ming-san, 84, 86.
Tai, Matxhkw, 141. T'aichow, 176-192. T'aip'ing.s, the, ch. ii., iii.
driven out of Ningpo, 62-65.
meaning of the name, 29, 77.
origin and early history of,
25-30, 105, 106. storm of Ningpo, by, 42-44.
Ta-lan-san, 55, 166-168.
Tao Kwang, 29.
Taoism, 99, 100, 234, 305.
T'au-hwa-tu, 88-90.
Temples, 38, 98-100, 309, 313.
Thunderstorms, 159-161, 189, 190.
T'ient'ai, 5, 189, 190.
Tinghai, 3, 87.
Tinling, Lieutenant, 72.
Triad Society, the, 26.
Ts'aungo river, 127-131.
Tseng Kwoh-ts'iian, 75.
Tsintang river, 131.
Tso, General, 105, 133.
Ts'zch'i, 37, 74.
Typhoon.?, 201.
Wang, the T'aip'ing leader, 47.
Watson, Major, 71, 73.
Weather, 159, 160.
Wcn-li, 277, 278, 281.
Wheelbarrows, 155.
White Caps, the, 55-57.
White Lotus Society, the, 31.
Wild beasts, 94, 185-189.
Witchcraft, 116-119.
Women, status and education of, 2-1,
169, 172, 173, 329-333. Wuchang, 165.
Yamen, 143, 144, 162.
Yangtse river, 83, 165, 214.
Yao, 85.
Yii, 85.
Yiiyao, 37, 38, 85.
Printed by T. anil A. Constablk, Printers to His Majesty at lli« Rdinburch Univorsity Press
/
S D N V I >4
MAP TO ILLUSTRATE HALF A CENTURY IX CIUNA
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY
Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below.
A.M.
JS. BEC 13 lOT
0£C 131371
WMAR 0 8
\*^^
k
Form L9-32m-8,'58(5876s4)444
UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL ;jfiD«Dvc.
AA 001 051 035
# ^'i
.f 1.f\./4/:|
If ff
^••^•-.. • >^
^^; ^^1' %■ '^'-^^^
■; |
||
1 1 |
■ ■ |
|
■ ■ |
I^H ^^ |
|
t^m |
||
■ ■■ |
||
S3 |
1 |
|
m |
||
1 |
Zl 1 |
|
J 1 |
||
■ ■ |
||
■ ■■ |
||
■■■ I^H ^^Hj |
||
1' |
■ ■■ |
1 is' SR^ ^
■ CMM.:
....-.^-n j: V ■*' ;i I
J^^-'^:.,:-
tttt fr-r ^
r*y