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GLIMPSES OF
CHINA

AND CHINESE HOMES

EDWARD S. MORSE

tVic ®'hcol0gic^(

PRINCETON, N. J.

Purchased by the Hamill Missionary Fund.

Division

• n S .6.

Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2016

https://archive.org/details/glimpsesofchinacOOmors

Glimpses of China

and

Chinese Homes

Cook's house. Canton

Glimpses of China

and

Chin ese H omes

By Z'

Edward S. Morse

Formerly Professor of Zoology In the Imperial University, Tokyo
Author of

“Japanese Homes and Their Surroundings,” etc.

Illustrated from Sketches in the Author's 'Journal

Boston

Little, Brown, and Company

1902

By the “American Architect and Building News” Co.

By Little, Brown, and Company.

Published October, 1902.

UNIVERSITY PRESS • JOHN WILSON
AND SON • CAMBRIDGE, U.S. A.

Something is to be learnt from every hook

Chinese Proverb

PREFACE

The following brief memoranda and sketches
were made some years ago during a short visit
to China, after a residence of nearly four years
in Japan, two years of which I held the chair of Zoology
in the Imperial University of Tokyo. This experience
with a related people may add slightly to the value of
my observations in China. My only excuse for publish-
ing them is that they deal with certain phases of Chinese
life, which, though often commented upon by various
writers, have rarely been depicted by sketches. The
drawings themselves are reproduced directly from my
pen-and-ink journal sketches made on the spot in ill-
lighted rooms, amidst jostling crowds, and wherever a
point of vantage could be got for the moment. Nothing
can be claimed for them in the way of artistic merit, for
they have none; many are mere sketch memoranda,
though it is hoped that they may add a few points to
the overwhelming mass of facts and observations which
have been chronicled for the last few hundred years.
Any one attempting in the future to co-ordinate the
various characteristics of this bewildering race as re-
corded by hosts of writers, may possibly find a few items

vii

PREFACE

to utilize in this material. One may perhaps judge of
the weight of this contribution by the following quota-
tion from the preface of Arthur B. Smith’s book entitled
“ Chinese Characteristics.” Dr. Smith was for twenty-two
years connected with the American Board of Foreign
Missions in China. He says: “The circumstance that
a person has lived twenty-two years in China is no more
a guarantee that he is competent to write of the charac-
teristics of the Chinese than the fact that another man
has lived for twenty-two years in a silver mine is proof
that he is a fit person to compose a treatise on metal-
lurgy or bi-metalism.” This is unquestionably too
modest, as will be realized by any one who has read his
remarkable analysis of Chinese character, yet it may
stand as a warning to those who generalize about the
Chinese on slight acquaintance. Whatever conclusions
I have come to, superficial as they may be, are curiously
borne out by the testimony of others who have spent
as many years in the Empire as I have days, and have
travelled as many thousand miles in the country as I
have single miles.

Most of this material appeared first in a series of ar-
ticles in the “American Architect” under the title of
“ Journal Sketches in China,” and to the publishers of
that journal, and to its editor, Mr. William Rotch Ware,
I am indebted for the privilege of publishing them in
book-form. A number of sketches have been added,
as well as numerous notes and memoranda.

viii

PREFACE

I desire here to express my obligations to Mr. Edward
B. Drew, an officer in the Chinese Custom Service,
for many courtesies while in Shanghai; to Dr. B. E.
Martin, who kindly read my preliminary manuscript;
and, finally, to Mr. John Robinson, of Salem, who has
suggested certain additions to the text.

CONTENTS

Chapter Page

I. The Yangtse and Shanghai 3

II. A Chinese Home 25

III. A Chinese Dinner 65

IV. A Backyard 75

V. A Chinese Theatre and Prison 83

VI. A Peasant’s House 95

VII. Canton 1 1 1

VIII. A Buddhist Temple and the Sacred Hogs . 143

IX. Howqua’s Mansion 151

X. Tobacco Pipes, Examination Hall, Water Clock,

ETC 165

XI. A Soldiers’ Drill- Room 179

XII. A Potters’ Town 187

XIII. A Chinese Mob 195

Index 213

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Cook’s house, Canton

Bird made of hard pottery — Length 6)4 in.

Vignette on title

Doorway in Shanghai

Gateway, native city of Shanghai ....

Pottery yard, Shanghai

A common Chinese razor

Sedan chairs, Shanghai

((

Court-yard : private house, Shanghai . . .

Foot- warmer

((

Library, private house, Shanghai ....

Writing-table, etc

((

My host’s little sister

Sideboard and cupboard

Dining-room, private house, Shanghai . . .

{{

Baby’s high chair

((

Old servant washing clothes

((

Backyard of house, Shanghai

Kitchen range, Shanghai

Back porch of a Chinese house

Kitchen

Baskets with paper to be burned at grave . .

Garden and passageway

((

Female slave servant

xiii

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Diagram of table

A study of roofs, Shanghai

Gateway : farmhouse near Shanghai

Farmhouse near Shanghai

Cotton-gin

Device for cleaning cotton

A rude wooden spinning-wheel used by the country

people

Loom for making cotton cloth

Cradle

Baby chair

Woman’s bedroom

Pottery pedler on Canton River

So-called chair in which one travels

Kitchen range, Canton

Kitchen shrine, Canton

Study-room in school

Plaster cast of compressed feet

Stringing a bow

View from city wall. Canton

View from five-storied pagoda. Canton ....
Boats on river, from hotel steps, Canton ....
Dwarf tree in Temple Garden, Canton ....

U ll (( U (i C(

(( (C tc U il tt

Ceremonial gateway, Howqua’s house. Canton . .

Kitchen, Howqua’s house. Canton

Page

((

97
99

{(

100

101

{(

102

103

104

105

106

II4

117

124

125

127

130

132

134

136

138

144

145

146

153

156

XIV

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Rice kettle, Howqua’s kitchen 157

Third side of Howqua’s kitchen “158

Lotus pond, Canton “159

Alley wall and cement water-conductors, Canton . “ 16 1

Tobacco pipe with water receptacle “165

Tobacco pipes, etc “166

Doorway of shop. Canton ‘‘169

Water-clock, Canton ** 17 1

Examination hall. Canton ‘‘ i73

Drill-room, Canton “180

Huge iron implements resting against frame ... “ 181

Drawing heavy bow. Canton “ 182

On the river above Canton *^190

A potter at work *‘198

The crowd on the river bank 202

Gateway of village 204

THE YANGTSE AND SHANGHAI

GLIMPSES OF CHINA AND
CHINESE HOMES

THE YANGTSE AND SHANGHAI

Leaving japan, the land of gentle man-
ners, rational delights, and startling sur-
prises, I looked forward with eagerness
to the promised glimpses of China, the mother
nation of these eastern races from whom they
have derived the arts of written speech and about
everything else, — a nation, or, perhaps better, a
congeries of tribes which in the past had antici-
pated the Europeans in many arts and inventions.

Our steamer had threaded the intricate passage
of the Inland Sea and passed through the Straits
of Shimonoseki to the ocean beyond. From
Shimonoseki to Shanghai is a comparatively
short passage ; to go from Toky5 to Hong Kong
is a sail of over twenty-five hundred miles. So
little do we appreciate distances on a crowded

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

map that one is surprised to find the remoteness
of these places from one another. We were sail-
ino: on the Yellow Sea and the waters were as
blue as those of any ocean, but we were yet
one hundred and forty miles from the Chinese
coast.

Within one hundred miles of the mouth of the
Yangtse, however, the sea becomes yellow and
the water opaque from the mass of mud brought
down by this great river. The Yellow Sea, the
name of which I had learned in my early school-
days, was now clearly understood, so much better
is a single object-lesson than pages of dull de-
scription. With the understanding of this came
also a realization of the mighty changes which
are slowly taking place in the wearing away of
land-surfaces and the filling-up of sea-bottoms
through the erosive energy of water. Here was
this great mass of water, one hundred miles
from land, made noticeably yellow by the mix-
ture of fine sediment brought down by the
river. I could not help reflecting that if, in the
future, a yellow flood of human detritus should
overrun Europe and America it would render
civilization just as opaque and make shallow the

THE YANGTSE AND SHANGHAI

great depths which mark the intellectual suprem-
acy of our race to-day.

We anchored at midnight some miles within
the mouth of the river and at dawn started again,
still, apparently, in mid-ocean, as no land could
be seen on either side. The river at this point
is forty miles wide, and one realizes its magnitude
when he is told that for eight hundred miles the
river is deep enough to float the largest ships.
We sailed for an hour and more and the expanse
of water seemed illimitable. Gradually we neared
the southern shore, and long, low stretches of
land came in sight. The scene was desolate to
the last degree. The vessels we passed were
numerous and quaint ; we had seen such craft
figured in books and were familiar with their
models in the museum at Salem, but here were the
veritable objects : fishing-boats, trading-vessels, en-
gaged in the enormous coast-wise traffic, and war-
junks. The fishing-boats had a huge dipping-net
standing up like a sail on either side of the boat,
and not on one side, as I had noticed in Japan.

My attention was soon attracted to the peculiar
features of the land, which was covered, so far as
the eye could reach, with low mounds. It pre-

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

sented the appearance of a salt-marsh covered
with hay-cocks. My first impression was that
they were prehistoric mounds, and consequently
offered a great field for the archaeologist. I soon
learned that these mounds, extending to the very
horizon, were simply ancestral tombs, or burial
places. Here, then, we had, even before landing,
a glimpse of how a baleful superstition could
arrest the progress and development of a people.
Not only was a vast amount of arable land
thrown forever out of cultivation by these sur-
face-consuming sepulchres, but the necromancers
insist that no road shall be built through them,
nor must the shadow of a telegraph pole or wire
fall upon them. One no longer wonders that
there are so few roads in China. Some slight
respect might be felt for this superstition if
these mounds showed any evidences of tender
regard or care for the dead. A closer examina-
tion, however, shows them to be in the most ne-
glected and dilapidated condition. The contrast
between their treatment and the treatment of
similar places in Japan, where graves three hun-
dred years old even are still freshly decorated
with flowers, is striking.

THE YANGTSE AND SHANGHAI

After sailing for several hours, entertained by
the diversified craft on the water and depressed
by the dismal and monotonous landscape beyond,
we turned into the Shanghai River, and, crossing
the bar, after another hour’s sail, reached Shang-
hai and came to anchor. I noticed the little
boats as they came out or floated by were brown
with dirt and grease; indeed, the woodwork re-
minded one of the inside of a hut for smoking
bacon. My standards of comparison were always
with Japan, and this was certainly unfair, but
there came to me the memory of Japan, where
the woodwork of boats recalled the cleanliness of
a Quaker kitchen and even the sewage-buckets
came back from the country scoured like milk-
churns. The memory of Japanese cleanliness
rendered all the more shocking the ‘ exceeding
dirt of this people.

The foreign city of Shanghai, with its beautiful
buildings, fine streets and parks, has often been
described, and the contrast, as one passes from
its spacious avenues to the dirt and squalor of
the Chinese quarter, is appalling. It is diffi-
cult to realize that this great object-lesson
of order, elegance, cleanliness, and comfort is

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

looked upon by the Chinese with supreme
contempt.

When I looked out of my hotel window the
next morning a glimpse of one form of Chinese
architecture was in view just across the street.
It was a typical doorway of a business enclosure,

THE YANGTSE AND SHANGHAI

and a sketch of one is a sketch of all. The vari-
ous mouldings and the ornaments over the door-
way were very elaborate, and nothing short of a
painstaking drawing or photograph could do jus-
tice to the work. The little groups of carved
human figures and pheasants, brightly colored,
and tinsel-like accessories, might have meant
something to the Chinese brain, but they looked
trivial and insecure for the entablature of a door-
way. Whole streets in the foreign quarter are
lined with these rather high, windowless walls.
Some of them had stone or glazed pottery panels
with figures of flowers moulded in high-relief.
The ridges of these walls gracefully turned in
broad curves, and the imbricated coping of roof-
ing tiles, bedded in cement, presented features
that our architects might study with profit.

After breakfast I hunted up Mr. Edward B.
Drew, an American by birth and an officer in
the Chinese custom-service to whom I had a
letter and who during my short stay in Shang-
hai greatly facilitated my work. His father
kindly offered to go with me to the native
city of Shanghai. It should be explained here
that the Chinese towns are surrounded by high

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

walls having several gates which are closed at
night.

The irregular lanes which function as streets,
with the filth and noise of these overcrowded
communities are intolerable to our race, and one.

Gateway t native city of Shanghai

therefore, finds at Shanghai, Canton, Tientsin, and
other cities a concession of land upon which the
foreigner lives apart, with his own ideas of streets,
buildings, and cleanliness. This, then, was the
foreign city of Shanghai, with its imposing build-
ings ; villas with well-kept lawns and gardens ;
broad avenues and open parks modelled after our
own ways and presenting the leading character-

THE YANGTSE AND SHANGHAI

istics of our well-ordered cities. The dwellings,
with their open character and their broad veran-
das, have just enough flavor of native architecture
to add piquancy to the effect, and the Chinese
nurses, with strange coiffures and silken gar-
ments of curious fashion, accompanying little
English boys and girls, present a continual series
of interesting sights to the foreigner when he
first lands. Then in contrast is the ancient
walled city of Shanghai, out of whose dungeon-
like gates swarm a living stream of natives, re-
minding one of a colossal ants* nest.

As we neared the city the swarm and bustle
increased, — an eager, active crowd, pushing, jost-
ling, shouting, and intent on getting somewhere
with their multifarious loads swinging from the
ends of their carrying-poles, which they deftly
guided through this dense current of humanity.

The grim walls of the city towered just beyond
a bridge which spanned a narrow canal filled
with all manner of liquid impurities. The walls
were crenellated for cannon, but no cannon
could be seen, and with their massive thickness
and rounded buttresses they presented a most
formidable appearance. Outside the wall were

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

piled to a great height pottery jars of all descrip-
tions. It was a veritable lumber-yard of pottery.

Pottery Yard, Shanghai

There must have been thousands of pots and jars
in these accumulations. They were piled up in
regular and solid masses nearly to the height of
the city’s walls, — huge water-jars, bathing-tubs.

THE YANGTSE AND SHANGHAI

flower-pots, etc., all of coarse pottery with brown
or green glaze. One wondered if they ever
tumbled down, and wondered still more how they
had been piled up to such a height and so
securely.

As we entered the city the crowd became
denser, and such a swarm of shabbily dressed,
men and boys I never saw before. Now and then
a mandarin, with his brocade and silken vest
ments, rendered more striking by contrast the
squalor of this unkempt crowd. A few women
and children were being hustled in this living
stream which incessantly flowed in and out of
the gateway. We passed through by dint of
much dodging, and became one with the innu-
merable mass that filled the irregular-running
streets. Palanquins, each with a number of
bearers, swinging along and crowding obstructors
to the wall ; peasants, with buckets hanging from
the ends of long carrying-poles containing the
sewage of the city, rudely sweeping by, shouting,
and by no means careful whether they brushed
you with their filthy receptacles or not; water-
carriers moving rapidly along with slouching step
in cadence with the oscillations of their carrying-

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

poles, their legs fairly buckling under them from
the enormous weight they were bearing, and call-
ing out in curious cries to make a way; wheel-
barrows loaded with market produce and human
freight as well, awkwardly jamming into the
crowd, all combined, made an impression never
to be effaced. Everybody was dirty, and the sur-
roundings were dirty and old. The city looked
as though it had never been swept or cleaned, and
it never had. Mediaeval microbes and prehistoric
odors were always in evidence; many buildings
going to ruin, and, apparently, nobody with time or
interest enough to arrest the decay. Indeed, in
my brief experience in China, I do not recall the
sight of any one repairing or cleaning a building.

The street sights, as in all Oriental cities, were
of abounding interest. Here was a group of little ^
boys gambling with copper cash and wildly and
noisily gesticulating. The Chinese are born gam-
blers, and their various methods and intricate
games of chance render poker, to them, a kinder-
garten game. In a little open space, wet and
muddy, was a wreck of a street juggler, ragged
and dirty to the last but one degree, with an
assistant reaching the last degree of dirt and

THE YANGTSE AND SHANGHAI

dilapidation. The properties with which they
played were equally squalid, — a basket, a rag, a
wooden doll, a cup, a few bamboo tubes, and
other junk-shop material. Now, the marvel was
to see these vagabonds, with vagabond material,
play the most wonderful sleight-of-hand tricks.
After seeing these wrecks perform, I could well
believe some of the marvellous stories about the
Indian jugglers. A circle of admiring men and
boys surrounded them, and despite the danger of
contagion, for at that time the people were dying
by hundreds of small-pox, and one passed on
the street cases showing full efflorescence, I joined
the ring. The ancient trick of sword-swallowing
was done with a long, rusty sword, and there was
no trick about it, for the rusty blade was literally
thrust down the stomach. The man had picked
me out as a victim, and with body inclined and
straightened he came directly to me and held out
his hand, nor would he remove the sword till I
had given him some money, the crowd, mean-
while, eying me and derisively shouting. When
he withdrew the sword, tears flowed from his eyes
and copious phlegm ran from his mouth. It was
a most painful and disgusting sight.

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

It was an odd experience to have to provide
one’s self with a little bag in which to keep small
fragments and crumbs of silver in lieu of coin
in order to purchase anything in the shops, the
shop-keeper furnishing the little scales which,
according to all authorities, never weighs in the
buyer’s favor. The whole transaction reminded
one of a miner’s camp where gold dust is used
as currency. But fancy this primitive method in
the great cities of Shanghai, Canton, and other
places.

In purchasing objects at the shops, the Chinese
seem less solicitous for trading than the Japanese,
though they do not allow a chance to escape to
sell you something.

Our guide was to take us to a famous tea-
house, and the remembrance of the Japanese
tea-house, with its exquisite neatness, simple and
satisfying surroundings, and quiet demeanor of
the attendants — all girls — was fresh in my
mind, so I looked forward with interest to the
sight of a Chinese tea-house, and a famous one
at that. I felt assured that here, at least, were
to be seen some attractive features in the way of
cleanliness and pleasant surroundings, — some

THE YANGTSE AND SHANGHAI

contrast to the squalor through which we had
been roaming during the morning. I fully ex-
pected to have a new experience, and here was
the tea-house : a two-storied building in typical
Chinese style, certainly quaint in its architecture,
and recalling the pictures one sees rudely de-
picted on blue-and-white china. The building
rose from the centre of a pond, and was ap-
proached by a zigzag bridge. Now the house,
bridge, and pond were in an equally dirty condi-
tion. The water was covered with a green slime
and emitted foul odors. We crossed the bridge,
entered the building, and found our way to the
second story. Taking a seat at one of the tables,
we ordered the usual tea, which was brought to
us by a male attendant, in large covered porcelain
cups, accompanied by a tray full of unsavory-look-
ing cakes. If there is one evidence above another
of the absence of all artistic tastes among the
masses in China, the appearance of the food
alone might be offered. In Japan, the little street
booths exhibit a variety of cake, rice-balls with
fish on top, and confectionery, and these are
all made in tasteful forms and moulds. The
Japanese not only enjoy the simple art displayed

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

in all such matters, but seem capable everywhere
of fabricating tasteful-looking objects. The Chi-
nese tea offered us, was far more to the foreigner’s
taste than is the best of the Japanese. One of
the unsavory-looking cakes was carefully dis-
sected. Its contents appeared to be closely
chopped vegetables or fruit or something else,
and its taste resembled the odor of mouldy salve.
A dish of finely chopped ginger sprouts salted
was exceedingly good ; the preserves were rather
too sweet for our taste ; the tea was perfectly
delicious. At a table near us were three man-
darins, and, judging by their fine clothing, evi-
dently of the better class. They looked at us
inquiringly for a while, and finally one of them
arose, crossed to our table, and shook hands with
Mr. Drew, who thereupon presented him to me
as one of the famous class of Hartford students
who were all recalled by the Government while in
the midst of their studies. The two others then
came to our table and an interchange of intro-
duction followed. Mr. Drew explained to them
my desire to see the interior of a Chinese house,
and one of them, turning to me, said that he and
his companions had all been so kindly treated in

THE YANGTSE AND SHANGHAI

America when students at Hartford that they
would be only too pleased if they could be of
any service to me. Gladly accepting their kind
offers as hosts and guides, I promptly dismissed
my guide who had brought me hither, and under
their lead at once started off on a round of inves-
tigation.

It was a rare and interesting experience to ran-
sack the native city with three mandarins dressed,
of course, in their full Chinese costume, with
their long queues hanging down behind. All
of them spoke English without an accent ; they
were even familiar with our peculiar New Eng-
land idioms, and even with our slang. As an
illustration : I stopped to buy some trifle at a
shop, when one of them said, “ Oh, come along,
Mr. Morse, don’t bother with him, the fellow’s
giving you taffy.”

It was, indeed, a rare opportunity, and it was
through their help that I was enabled to make
many sketches of house interiors. One of them
kindly invited me to his home. How he ever
found his way there is a mystery to me to this
day. It was a long walk through a tangled laby-
rinth of narrow and exceedingly crooked streets.

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

On entering his house we apparently passed
through the side of a shop and came to an open
court-yard. From there we passed into a kind of
reception-hall used by two families in common. A
side entrance from this led us into a more secluded
reception-hall. His little sister came out to meet
us and I held her for a moment, but she seemed
very shy, as well she might, for she had never
been so near a “ foreign devil ” before. A little
brother, equally shy, stayed by me for a while
despite his fears. I was shown rapidly through
the ground-floor of the house, including the
kitchen and servants’ quarters, but, as my friend
had invited me to dinner the following day, made
only brief memoranda of the points that had
interested me. The most serious matter was
the very primitive and objectionable features con-
nected with the sanitary arrangements. I have
dealt with this subject elsewhere,^ but must insist
that in these respects the Chinese are degraded
to the last degree, and one wonders, if such con-
ditions prevail throughout the Empire, how the
nation should number four hundred millions,
whereas, if they belonged to the same species

1 “Latrines of the East,” American Architect, March i8, 1S93.

THE YANGTSE AND SHANGHAI

with ourselves, they should all have been swept
off the face of the earth centuries ago. Entering
a room called the study, or library, we were in-
vited to sit ; a servant brought us a light refresh-
ment consisting of fried peanuts, oranges, and a
little root which had a delicious crisp taste. The
root was dug from the river-mud and was quite
new to me. I enjoyed it, not having seen the
river. Wondering how I should dispose of my
orange-peel and peanut-shells, I was told to throw
them on the floor ! The floor, it may be added,
was apparently mother-earth, — damp, cold, and
nearly black in color, in fact, a continuation of
the street surface. Doubtless, the floor was tiled :
the dirt, however, obscured all traces of it.

It was late in the afternoon when my compan-
ions guided me to the gate of the city by which
we had entered in the morning. After passing
through a densely settled Chinese area and
coming into wide streets and fresh air, it was
like passing out of a noisome pit into health-
giving daylight. Outside the city-walls there
is an immense Chinese population, outnumber-
ing the foreigners thirty to one. At the time
I was in Shanghai the foreigners numbered

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

three thousand, while the Chinese, outside the
native city, numbered sixty thousand. At the
present time the numbers have been mentioned
as five thousand and two hundred thousand
respectively.

A CHINESE HOME

The next morning, one of my Chinese
acquaintances of the day before came
to the hotel to guide me again through
the entangled channels of the native city, and to
take me to his house to dinner instead of to the
house where I was first invited. We entered by
a different gate, yet the same throng of people
were pouring in and out, and the walls about the
gate had the same huge piles of pottery in great
blocks. We traversed the same narrow and tor-
tuous alleys, were assailed with the same odors
and hustled by the same rude, hurrying crowd of
water-bearers, sewage-luggers, market-men, and a
hundred other varieties of two-legged carriers. It
was a puzzle as to what they were all about and
why they were in such haste. In the toting of
heavy loads one might imagine the hurry to get
rid of the swinging weight, but everybody seemed
to be impelled by a restless or nervous energy,

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

and yet no race shows more the absence of
what we call restlessness or nervousness than
the Chinese.

A second view of the city opened new sights.
A peculiar effect is produced by the shop-signs,
which are hung at right angles from the shops
and when free hang vertically, as the Chinese
characters are read in vertical lines. These
signs were of all sizes, and the characters were
in gilt or red. Over the door and on the sides
of the posts were strips of paper upon which
characters were written.

Dr. Gustave Schlegel,^ professor of Chinese at
the University of Leiden, has translated a number
of these inscriptions, and they ran as follows :
“ Preserve your virtue.” “ Spring’s brightness is
the first boon.” “ The heart preserved.” “ Spring
never grows old,” etc. He says these inscriptions
often have afar-fetched meaning and for the most
part are neither- understood by the owner who
pastes them upon the lintels and door-posts of
his house, nor by the writer who wrote them.

The narrow streets, curving often, and the pro-
jecting signs, with the close crowds filling the

1 Internationales archiv fur Ethnographie, Vol. VII.

A CHINESE HOME

entire thoroughfare from side to side, give one
a smothered sensation. From the open charac-
ter of the shop-front and the many occupations
going on in the street, one is brought into most
intimate contact with the people. Such a be-

wildering medley of sights, here a barber shaving
and dressing the head, using a primitive-looking
razor and having in addition a long ear-spoon
and a washbowl of dirty water ; another individ-
ual marking the direction on some package in
curious characters ; a tailor pressing a piece of

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

cloth with a flatiron in the shape of a long-
handled dipper filled with burning charcoal,
and at all times these people may be seen sip-
ping their cups of tea, and this is done in a slow
and methodical way. Porcelain-shops and metal-
shops seem to predominate, probably on account
of the cleanliness of the “ blue and white/’ and
the hammering noise emitted by shops of the
other kind. Restaurants were numerous, but
the unsavory dishes offended the eye as well
as the nose. Their markets display the most
dubious looking messes, dirty dried fish, dried
shrimps, smoked ducks, a bright yellow cheese-
curd-looking substance, small seeds of some kind
partially sprouted, little bits of some kind of a
nut done up in a fragment of fresh palm-leaf,
large shallow trays filled with the tiniest dried
fish, and a multitude of other unknown edibles.

Their drug stores with pounded snakes, dried
lizards, gall stones, and other equally absurd sub-
stances, would drive a modern pharmacist stark
mad to contemplate.

On our way to the house where we were to
dine, we stopped at a few Buddhist temples, and
these were so dirty and dilapidated that any de-

A CHINESE HOME

scription of their lamentable condition would seem
exaggerated. It was shocking to see the root of
a tree prying off some delicate bit of stone carv-
ing from an entablature, and no one in the land
with wit or enterprise enough to cut off the
offending root and save the structure. We
stopped at one house to invite a companion of
the day before to dine with us. He was still
abed, though it was past ten o’clock, and so,
while waiting, I had an opportunity to see a
coffin-maker’s place, for that was the trade of
his family. Whether the occupation of coffin-
making is considered respectable in China I do
not know, but a friend of mine, whose family
name is Coffin, on being presented to our
Chinese minister, Mr. Wu, brought out the
brusque response that he ought not to have
such a name. I examined the stock-in-trade.
The coffins were huge affairs, the best ones
being made of thick planks. In these chests
the body is closely packed with powdered char-
coal and may be kept in the house for weeks
before final interment.

In passing some carpenters at work I noticed
that many of the tools were identical in form to

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

those used by the Japanese; the wood-lathe was
used in the same way ; the blacksmith’s bellows,
in the form of a large square box with a square
piston working back and forth, was the same.
The blacksmith, however, stood at his work and
the anvil was raised from the ground. In Japan,
the blacksmith sits on the ground and may be
seen pulling the bellows with one foot, while the
other foot is bent under him, the anvil being on
a level with the ground, the helper, however,
standing at his work.

China, I soon realized, was a land of tables,
chairs, and bedsteads, and men stand at their
work. Their legs are long and well formed, and
the Manchus, as a class, are physically well built.
It is a common impression with many that the
short and often bent legs of the Japanese are due
to their custom of sitting for many hours at their
work with their legs bent under them. If it could
be proved that the shortness of their legs was due
to this universal custom of sitting, — which I do
not believe, — here would be a good example of
the transmission of an acquired trait.

As we approached the place where we were to
dine I was told, on inquiry, that the house repre-

A CHINESE HOME

sented a dwelling of the better class. I asked
my host if there were any streets or regions in

the city specially noted for their finer houses,
and he said, “No; you will find the house of a

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

rich man adjacent to the hovel of the poor.” In
other words, there is no West End or Fifth Ave-
nue, so to speak. This condition was precisely
what I found in the cities of Japan.

The entrance to the house was not unlike the
one we visited the day before. We first entered
an open court surrounded by a high brick wall,
which, in turn, opened into an inner court, on our
way passing a large room in which were a few
palanquins, or chairs, as the foreigners call them,
a carriage-house in fact. In entering the inner
court-yard we could look into the general recep-
tion-room directly opposite the main entrance.
On the sides of this court-yard were rooms which
were designed as studies or libraries. A tiled
roof, supported by upright posts, projected from
the eaves, and had there been a floor beneath, a
veranda would have been provided for these va-
rious rooms. The court-yard was paved with
square stones, and was fairly clean. The main
entrance to the court-yard had an elaborate entab-
lature, too intricate for me to sketch in the lim-
ited time at my disposal. At night all the doors
are closed and barred, and this feature, with the
high surrounding walls of brick, presented a

A CHINESE HOME

marked contrast to the unprotected and open
character of the Japanese house. On either side
of the court-yard entrance were huge pottery jars
for the purpose of holding water. From the

court-yard we entered the library, and here the
family immediately gathered about me, all except
a daughter, aged seventeen, who was as much a
prisoner as any felon. Later I was shown through
the house, and having seen several rooms on the
ground-floor, I asked particularly to see the girl’s
bed-chamber, which was in the second story. The
appearance of my own daughter’s chamber was
recalled, with its pictures and souvenirs on the
3 33

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

wall, and the dainty trifles which brought up so
many pleasant memories of parties, picnics, and
journeys abroad. My host regretfully told me
that it was impossible to grant this reasonable
request; if I were allowed even a glimpse of his
sister’s chamber it might be reported by the ser-
vants and her chance of marriage might be im-
perilled. He further told me that even the lower
classes were particular in these matters. Even
the most intimate friend of the family would not
be allowed to go upstairs.

Until this experience I never fully realized the
condition of women of the more favored classes
in China, though their unhappy lot has been re-
peatedly described in works on the subject. At
the outset the girl’s feet are compressed in a cruel
fashion, so that a dull pain is endured for a year
or two, and in some instances mortification of the
parts takes place and the child dies; with no re-
course to books, as she is unable to read or write ;
at the as:e of twelve or thirteen immured in the
house like a prisoner, with the privilege, however,
of an occasional visit to some intimate female
friend of the family or a near relative, and this
visit made in a closed palanquin; at marriageable

A CHINESE HOME

age compelled to unite with a man she has never
seen and knows nothing about, and consequently
with no choice in the matter, — all of which you
say is barbarous, and so* do I. This, however,
has been the custom for centuries, and a custom
in China is a thousand times more unmodifiable
than with us.

Bearing in mind this custom of rigid exclusion
of the women from every walk of life for ages, let
us try faintly to imagine how to them must
appear an aggressive female missionary boldly
walking the streets in open daylight in a garb
which seems highly disreputable, not to say in-
decent, to the Chinese, and endeavoring, in very
deficient lingo, to induce the people to come to
her compound and listen to teachings as alien to
Chinese beliefs, crowded as they are with super-
stitions, as are the teachings of Ingersoll to the
strictest Presbyterian doctrine. I could not help
picturing what the effect on our people would be
with the conditions reversed, and if a strange and
powerful people by armed force should impose
upon us a treaty in which had been surrepti-
tiously inserted a clause whereby their mission-
aries might own property and preach their

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

dogmas throughout our country. Furthermore,
for just comparison, the female proselytes of this
cult should be seen in our streets with painted
cheeks, dyed hair, and garments extremely short
at either extremity, and riding savagely down the
street on a bicycle. Whatever horrid lie might
be told about such people would certainly be
believed by our masses, just as the shocking lies
told about our missionaries are fully believed in
China. It can be stated, without a shadow of
doubt, that our female missionaries present quite
as shocking a sight to the Chinese as would be
to us the apparition I have just described. Now
we all know and admire the heroism which
prompts our women to part from family and
friends and enter into the arduous work of “ con-
verting the heathen.” In their work of introduc-
ing a new religion, the propriety of which many
question, they teach them at least the laws of
hygiene, proper medical practice, the virtue of
telling the truth, of being prompt, and set before
them the living example of self-sacrifice and de-
votion for the good of others, and yet these
Chinese savages have brutally undone all these
workers have accomplished, not only by murder-

A CHINESE HOME

ing the missionaries, but by slaughtering the
native converts by thousands. It is a pitiful
tragedy, and yet, judging from the outbreaks
within a year in New York, Ohio, and Louisiana,
just such tragedies would be possible in our
blessed land, if the conditions were reversed.

One of the reasons why the Catholic Church
attains greater success than the Protestants in
China is that its missionaries are men, its
preachers are men, the Jesuit dresses in Chinese
garb, he lives among them and becomes one of
them ; he is careful not to interfere with their
superstitions only so far as these interfere with
his own, and is especially careful not to inveigh
against the foot-crushing mutilation. His in-
cense-burning, bead-counting, and picturesque
ritual does not widely differ from the Buddhist.
Kaempfer, when he went to Japan, as surgeon to
the Dutch in Nagasaki, on seeing Buddhistic
worship for the first time, insisted that it was the
devil simulating Christ. Diablo simulante
Christumr Whatever the cause, the results at-
tained by the Catholic missionaries far outstrip
those of their Protestant — I was about to say
brethren; but there is no brotherhood between

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

these two great branches of Christianity. Not
only are the intelligent Chinese perplexed at the
variety of creeds presented by the Protestants,
but they cannot in the least understand why the
French should insist upon forcing the Jesuits
into China, having at one time kicked them out
of their own country.

With this digression let us return to our
Chinese family. This, my first critical visit to
a Chinese home, was made on a cold and rainy
day in February ; there was no fire in the house,
and no visible means of providing warmth ; the
apartments were dark, damp, and chilly, the floor
was wet and cold, and I began to stamp my feet
to get warm, upon which a servant brought me
a bronze foot-warmer. Despite this I
was compelled to wear my thick win-
ter ulster during my stay. It was, in-
Foot-warmer ^ unique Opportunity to be in a

gentleman’s house the entire day and see the full
round of domestic economies, — cooking, washing,
etc., — going on without disturbance save what
my presence excited. The library room was very
formal and stiff in appearance; the place for read-
ing or study consisted of a raised floor which pro-

A CHINESE HOME

jected like a square block from the middle of one
side of the room to a distance of from seven to
eight feet. A higher portion next to the wall
formed a shelf a foot or more in width; resting
on the projecting portion was a long, low, narrow

. Library, private house, Skaughai

table running out at right angles from the wall,
leaving a space three feet wide on either side ; this
space permitted a reader to recline at full length,
or to sit on the edge of the platform resting his
feet on a low stool at the end. Book-shelves
were against the wall on either side of the plat-
form, and on the wall were hung long, narrow

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

kakemono, on which were inscribed precepts from
Confucius or some other revered sage.

The receptacles for books consisted of simple
shelves equal distances apart and not adjustable.
The Chinese books, like those of Japan, have thin
and elastic covers of paper. The books them-
selves are usually thin, and rest on the shelves
flatwise, piled one upon another. In a work of
several volumes a folding case of thick material
usually covered with cloth is provided, and this
is held together by ivory pins and loops. A
number of volumes constituting a set are not
numbered as with us, volume I, II, III, etc., but
are indicated by Chinese characters which mean,
above, below, in case of two volumes; or, for
three volumes, above, middle, below, and when
there are more, other conventional characters are
used. The accompanying sketch will best illus-
trate the arrangement above described : At the
side of the main entrance of this room was a
writing-table upon which was a tray containing a
brush-holder, ink-stone, a Chinese water-pipe, and
other conveniences, and here one of the young
men sat while I made a hasty sketch of him. On
each side of the room, against the wall, was a

A CHINESE HOME

square table, with a chair
on either side in touch
with the table and the wall,
and this looked very stiff
and formal.

During my inspection
of these details a little sis-
ter of my host came into
the room ; she was ex-
ceedingly shy and
held close to her
brother. I tried
to induce her
to come to me,
but though she
smiled at my
attempts in a
frightened way,

I could get
no farther in
my advances ;
whereupon I

proceeded to make a sketch of her, she, mean-
while, looking very dubious and clinging to her
brother all the time. The band over the front

Writing-table^ etc.

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

of her head was a thick affair of black silk richly
embroidered in pearls mounted in gilt ; the stuff
from this, hanging over her forehead and looking
like a bang, was composed of black silk thread.
The hair behind was wound up in two compact
pugs which were secured in some way on each
side of the head; her ears were rather large and
the outer margin had two perforations, and at
the time held two simple gilt rings. She was
very pretty, ten years old, and the daughter of a
Chinese gentleman, and yet when I asked her
brother to induce her to give me an autograph
on my sketch he told me, in the frankest way,
that she could not write, and that girls were
not taught to read or write. Here was another
startling contrast to the Japanese which English
writers, of course, recognize as an evidence of the
superiority of the Chinese. I particularly noticed
the little compressed feet of the girl, and while
sketching her an aunt passed through the room
with the gait that reminded me of a goat, or, one
walking on very short stilts. They do not limp,
but simply stump along.

Every one that I saw in the house was clothed
in thickly quilted garments, and my entertainer

A CHINESE HOME

wore a fur robe besides. It was true I was
chilled to the bone in my thick winter ulster,

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

and from my short experience it seemed to me
that the Chinese city house, though having thick
brick walls and closed doors, was as cold as the
Japanese house, with a chill which the latter
does not possess, and dirt which only an Ainu
hut could parallel.

My host and his friends were dressed in the
ordinary costume of the better class of Chinese,
and, curious to know the cost of their clothing in
order to compare with that of our own, I made
bold to ask my host the price of everything he
had on at that moment. The asking of similar
questions by Li Hung Chang, when in this coun-
try, was considered rude, and it is possible that
my host thought that the questions I asked him
were of that nature ; by no act or expression, how-

A CHINESE HOME

ever, did he indicate a shade of annoyance. In
the one case, however, the questions asked were
probably never recorded nor, so far as we know,
prompted by anything save a passing curiosity.
In the other case the questions asked a Chinese
by foreign writers and students are recorded, and
they are asked for the purpose of acquiring in-
formation, a feature as remote from Chinese im-
pulses as can possibly be imagined, and this my
host, having been in America, probably knew.
Showing no surprise then at my curiosity, he
gave me seriatim a list of the prices which had
been paid for the clothing, which, he assured me,
represented the daily garments of a young man of
his class. Long overcoat lined with squirrel-skin,
^35 ; short satin gown, $6o ; waistcoat, $4. ; leg-
gins, $3; sleeves, $1 ; stockings, 20 cents ; hat, 50
cents ; wadded gown, $5, and a few other items
brought the sum to ^110.70. He further in-
formed me that a finely dressed Chinese might
easily have on clothing costing ^ 1,500.

From the study we entered a large dining-
room, possibly twenty feet square. It was dimly
lighted, like all the other rooms, gloomy better
describes it, and cold and damp besides. In this

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

room were various tables, chairs, a case of large
drawers, a cupboard, and a number of well con-

structed benches, in form not unlike a “carpen-
ter’s horse,” only made of a dark, hard wood and
finely finished. Among other objects was a

A CHINESE HOME

baby^s chair made of a stout bamboo in the
form of an octagonal tube with a partition half
way down upon which the baby rested. It was
as brown as an old meerschaum
pipe from age and grime. Dirt
and disorder were in evidence
here as elsewhere in the house.

The windows had a complicated
framework, too intricate to hastily
sketch. The formula for the
window-frames struck me as the
same over a wide region in China.

I saw the same at Canton and Baby's high chair
have seen photographs of build-
ings in other places in which the same design
appears.

The dining-room opened directly into a yard
behind the main house, and across this yard, at a
distance of fifteen feet, was the kitchen, a narrow
tiled roof extending across the yard from the
dining-room door to the kitchen door. Under
this roof an old woman sat astride a bench wash-
ing clothes in a large shallow tub, which also
rested on the bench. The windows of the kitchen
had close, net-like wooden frames covered with

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

paper, as in the Japanese shoji, but all the little
squares were broken through, and there was no
evidence that any attempt had been made to re-

Old servant washing clothes

pair them, and this neglect in a fine house, too.
Again, the contrast with similar conditions in
Japan, where if by accident a hole is made in the
sJioji, a bit of paper is cut out in the shape of a
cherry or plum blossom and the hole is patched

A CHINESE HOME

with this tasteful device. Even in the poorer
houses in Japan this dainty way of mending rents
is often seen. Nowhere in the house did I see
the evidence of any attempt having been made

to repair or to prevent matters from going to
rack and ruin.

While the window-frames in the kitchen and
out-buildings consisted of a close frame-work cov-
ered with paper, in the house proper many of the
windows were made of vertical slats of bamboo,
three inches apart, to which were tied the thin,
translucent shells of a species known as Placuna,

4 49

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

These shells are flat, circular, and are trimmed
into a rude square and perforated at the edges,
so that they may be tied to the bamboo frames.
The shell admits only a dim light, and represents
the window-glass of China. The use of this
material by the Chinese is a good illustration of
their conservatism. Window-glass can be cheaply
purchased in the foreign concession, yet the usual
contempt that the Chinese holds for anything
foreign confines him rigidly to this archaic
device.

The kitchen was dark, gloomy, and dirty. It
was anything but appetizing to see so much dirt
and to remember that here was to be prepared
the dinner I was invited to eat. The stove was a
curious affair. It was made of brick and plaster,
and occupied considerable space in the room.
Three large iron pots in line were permanently
built into the structure, and two smaller pots
were built near the chimney. Many of the
Shanghai kitchens had chimneys, — a feature
rarely seen in the Japanese kitchen. The open-
ing of the stove was behind, and here the wood
was piled for the fire. In the chimney above the
stove was a shelf-like recess on which was a

A CHINESE HOME

candlestick, and on the side of this recess was sus-
pended the kitchen deity, as well as conveniences
for burning incense. The floor of the kitchen

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

was paved with small bricks, and these were
grimy with wet dirt. There was no scraper nor
mat at the door, and the inmates did not remove
their shoes for indoor slippers. So far as I could
see, the mud and filth of the street were tracked
into every part of the house. The rooms were
all high studded, much higher than our rooms
at home, but the walls and ceilings were discol-
ored with dirt and grime. Back of the kitchen
was a long, narrow, closet-like room, in which
were a number of lanterns hanging from a rope,
a few shallow tubs leaning against the wall, and
at the farther end a niche in the wall holding
some small jars. Even in this shed-like place,
facing the dirtiest of yards, the window-frames
were of intricate patterns. In the sketch of the
kitchen, what appears to be a table is in reality a
chopping-block supported on four legs. In Ori-
ental kitchens a large chopping-block or plank
is always seen, and the sound of the rhythmical
blows as the cook, with a knife-like chopper in
each hand, beats a tattoo is a characteristic of
Chinese as well as of Japanese houses.

In this kitchen, as in other kitchens I saw,
clutter and dirt had the upper hand. Baskets,

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

pots, and dishes littered the table as well as the
little table beneath. There were no chairs in the
room, but long narrow benches such as have
been already described. The floor was also lit-
tered, and confusion and damp dirt pervaded the
place. Indeed, if I pause for a sentence, the ap-
palling character of the dirt, not ordinary clean
dirt, but what appeared to be pathogenic, dirt,
intrudes itself, and I have not done the matter
justice.

I must admit, for fear of doing the Chinese an
injustice, that, the contrast was the more pro-
nounced having just come from Japan, where the
shoes are always removed before entering the
house, the floors and mats are repeatedly swept,
and the woodwork of the rooms and the floor of
the veranda are often wiped with a damp cloth.

In one room we passed there had just been
brought in four large straw baskets fresh from
the maker. These were as big as large pumpkins,
and had a light framework of wicker above, evi-
dently made after some definite formula. The
baskets seemed too frail to bear the usual treat-
ment accorded these archaic yet beautiful devices.
On inquiry, I was told that on the anniversary of

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

the death of some ancestor one of these baskets,
filled with gilt paper representing money and
bought by the peck at a neighboring shop, is
burned at the grave.

One notices at the doorway of shops, at the
gateway of a city, and at other places, little piles

of ashes on the ground, an evidence that joss-
paper, as the foreigner calls it, has been burned
as a propitiatory offering, or to ward off evil in-
fluences. One feels an extreme contempt for a
people guilty of such superstitious and ridiculous
practices until he recalls the various superstitions
and credulities which characterize his own race.
Only a few years ago, in Boston, that centre of
intellectual culture, thousands of so-called “ lucky ”

A CHINESE HOME

boxes were sold. These were said to have come
from India, and to be endowed with some peculiar
property whereby the possessor would secure
good luck, and many testimonial letters were
published showing their marvellous potency.
The city authorities finally stopped the sale of
them as fraudulent, and then it was discovered
that they had all been manufactured in Lynn, a
neighboring town, and the only property with
which they were endowed was the sweat of two
overworked wood-turners. Thus much for cre-
dulity. Indeed, if we but stop to enumerate
the number of superstitions believed in by our
own people the list would almost parallel that of
the Chinese, who are supersaturated with them.
As a proof of this we have only to recall the
appearance of an otherwise rational American
backing out of his front door in order to see the
moon over his right shoulder, or the sight of a
man stepping into the mud rather than walk
under a ladder, or a hungry man missing a good
dinner to avoid making thirteen at the table.
An equal absurdity is to see an apparently sen-
sible man draw from his pocket a handful of
change with which is a well worn rabbit’s foot.

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

These and many other superstitions will readily
suggest themselves to every one. As a matter
of fact, we grow up with our superstitions and
our methods of lying and are no longer im-
pressed by them. We visit a new country, and
the novelty of the superstition or lie arrests our
attention, and we moralize about it.

At one side of the court-yard was a high, nar-
row opening having two doors, one off its pivots.
This led into a narrow yard surrounded by high
walls. The ground of this yard was paved with
stone, and against one of the walls was a brick
pen, four feet wide, fifteen feet long, and three
feet high, very much like a cellar coal-bin. This
was filled with earth and represented the flower-
garden of the estate, doubtless an attractive fea-
ture in the summer, but now presenting only a
few dry stalks and dead leaves. It certainly
looked dreary enough.

Two little children from the neighborhood had
kept close by me during my rambles, and by
pantomime expressed a wish to be sketched.
Afterwards one of these little fellows made cer-
tain motions to my host, at the same time point-
ing to his companion’s head. I inquired why he

Garden and passage ivay

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

was gesticulating in this way, and was told that
he was trying to tell us not to go near the boy, as
he had parasites in his hair, and he was warning
us as quietly as he could, so as not to offend his
friend. In this act there was certainly betrayed
some sense of cleanliness, as well as consideration
for his friend’s feelings, — a trait for which the
Chinese have been given little credit.

While in the house I was somewhat surprised
to have an opportunity to sketch a slave. Those
who are familiar with the literature of China
know, of course, that servants are bought and
sold ; yet to see a veritable specimen of humanity
that had been bought like a piece of merchandise
was, to me, a novel experience. My host brought
the girl into the room to be sketched, and in-
formed me that she had been purchased in
Canton some years before. The price paid was
sixty dollars in our money, but with the instruc-
tions she had received in household duties (which
certainly did not include sweeping and cleaning)
she was worth at least two hundred dollars. In
thus holding the girl as a slave, the master condi-
tions that she shall be married off when of a
marriageable age.

A CHINESE HOME

How meekly this poor creature stood when I
sketched her ; patient, apparently uncomplaining,
literally knowing nothing about her antecedents,

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

doomed to work and slave as long as life lasted,
whether single or married. With the degrada-
tion of women in China, it is possible that her lot
might be considered far happier than that of her
mistress, in that she had her two good feet to
stand upon, and could see the activities of the
street without impropriety. It was, indeed, a
hard lot. The old African slave, with his dances
and songs, freedom in the open air, and ’possum
hunting on a moonlight night, might be consid-
ered in a state of bliss and wildest freedom com-
pared to the lot of a female slave in China.

A CHINESE DINNER

Ill

A CHINESE DINNER

After ransacking the house for an hour
or two, dinner was announced. The
table, for some reason, probably on ac-
count of the clutter in the dining-room, was
placed in the study. It was of dark polished
wood, four feet square, the legs square and slen-
der, with the curious open-work between them
so characteristic of Chinese furniture. A seam
ran through the top of the table where the two
boards joined. In seating guests, etiquette re-
quires that the seam should run at right angles
with a line drawn between the host and guest.

We were four in number, and the first guest of
honor sits directly opposite the host, the next in
honor sits at the left of the host, while the third
guest sits directly opposite the second guest, and,
of course, to the right of the first guest. Women
are excluded from the table, as in Japan. The
5 . 65

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

tables are not placed together, but, if there are
more guests, additional square tables are pro-
vided, which are placed in different parts of

the room ; probably defi-

! ^ nite places are assigned

to them, though about this
matter I failed to inquire.

The dinner that was
provided for me was evi-
dently not a common
every-day dinner, but, as

__J with most of us when we

2 ^ have company — a few ad-

ditional dishes were served.
I should have much preferred dropping in and
taking pot-luck.

Wine and oranges were first offered us ; the
wine, a sake, much finer than I had drunk in
Japan. The dishes of food were placed on the
table in a radially symmetrical manner. No
plates or individual dishes were provided until
the rice was served, and then each one had a
bowl to himself. Each one helped himself to
whatever he liked from the assembled dishes. In
one dish was a fish with rice gravy, and each

A CHINESE DINNER

person picked in turn from it. This, of course,
is done with the chop-stick, and my ready use of
these “ nimble lads,” as they are called in China,
led my host to remark upon it. And I may say
in passing that the chop-sticks are certainly the
most useful, the most economical, and the most
efficient device for their purposes ever invented
by man. Following is a list of the articles of
food which we had for our dinner, with my brief
comments recorded at the time :

Water-chestnut. Crispy and interesting.

Peanuts, fried in oil, served cold. Delicious. (Will
fry peanuts when I get home.)

Watermelon seed. Indifferent, and one wonders what
the Chinese find of interest in the diminutive morsel
within.

An uncooked goose’s egg, four years old. Ghastly.

Salted chicken, cold. First rate.

Salted pork. Fairly good.

Clover-leaf and bamboo. Not unlike spinach. Deli-
cious.

Fish with rich gravy. Delicious.

Shark’s fin, a gelatinous mass. Delicious.

Fermented bean-curd soup. Very poor.

I was surprised to find that nearly all the
articles of food were not only good but appetiz-

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

ing so long as the recollection of the kitchen did
not obtrude. In justice it should be said that
not one speck of dirt or foreign substance showed
itself in the various foods; no suspicious frag-
ments of an insect, no gravel in the clover-leaf,
as one often finds at home in his spinach and
lettuce. With the usual reversal of things Chin-
ese, the kitchen is dirty, while the food is clean.
Judging from this first experience, Chinese food
resembles in taste our own far more than does
that of the Japanese. One has to acquire by
practice the enjoyment of many kinds of Japan-
ese food. Of course the foreigner takes at once
to the Japanese raw fish, with its sauce, which
must have been specially created for the fish,
the rich custard-like chawan-mushi, the fried eels,
and many other delectable preparations. The
Chinese food appeals to one at once. The fish,
with its rich gravy, and the salted meats were not
unlike ours; the salted chicken was remarkably
good, and I would suggest to our farmers that
they prepare a barrel of corned chicken just as
they prepare a barrel of corned beef. Chicken
and turkey might easily be preserved in this way
for transportation.

A CHINESE DINNER

While gnawing my chicken I wondered what
I should do with the bone. It would not do to
lay it down on the polished table-top, I certainly
was not expected to return it to the communal
platter, and there was no individual plate, so in
despair I was constrained to ask my host, and he
told me to throw it on the floor, which I did.
Indeed the floor, judging from its appearance,
fulfilled the function of slop-pail, cuspidor, and
garbage-barrel combined. When one considers
the mud tracked in from the street on a wet day,
and such streets as those of a Chinese city, with
no conveniences for removing the dirt before
entering, it will be readily understood that the
debris from a dinner would add little to the mat-
ter already accumulated. In some ways one was
reminded of the savage Ainu hut, where the
inmates eat out of the same dish and fling the
bones on the earth floor.

The conservatism of the Chinese must have
begun back at the dawn of their emerging from
quadrupedal ancestors ; for this reason one finds
projected into their present life many archaic
survivals. Their fiendish cruelty ; their innumer-
able childish superstitions; their propitiation of

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

unseen evil spirits and influences ; their filthy
manners, and, above all, their absolute indiffer-
ence to ascertain the causes of phenomena must
be regarded as survivals from their prehistoric
savage ancestors.

The goose’s egg was a revelation to me, and
the dainty way in which my Chinese friends ate
crumbs of this awful substance probably has its
parallel in the way we nibble our stronger
cheeses. The raw egg is allowed to go through
every stage of fermentation, putrefaction, and
whatever other unimaginable processes of putrid-
ity it might venture upon. These changes take
place while surrounded by a thick coating of
clay. The egg may be one year old or ten years
old ; conceive for a moment a rotten egg even
four years old ! It resembled a green variegated
soap, and had a greasy crumble to the touch, and
tasted as one might imagine the condensation
from the inside of a charnel-house might taste.
It was simply ghastly, and one taste of it lasted
me a week. My Chinese companions were nib-
bling crumbs of it, not mouthfuls, as I observed.
On my expressing a certain amount of horror at
the idea of eating a rotten egg four years old,

A CHINESE DINNER

they quite justly reminded me of our Roquefort,
Brie, and Limburger cheeses, equally ghastly to
them. They were evidently familiar with the
processes of making our stronger cheeses, for my
host recalled the process of cheese-making by
saying, “Which is worse; a fairly rotten egg
three years old which has never been removed
from its first shelly enclosure, or a liquid sub-
stance derived from a modified sebaceous gland
of a cow, to which is added the active principles
of the gastric juice of a young calf? ” He further
went on by reminding me that in the case of the
stronger cheeses this stuff is put in a skin bag
and buried in lime, so that it will not go entirely
to the dogs ; in the case of Limburger, it is act-
ually permitted to putrefy. Some of the cheeses
are kept a year or more, and we do not hesitate
to eat them when green with mould, as in Roque-
fort, and even fly-blown, with wriggling maggots
within, and yet smack our lips over them ! I
had nothing to say, and had to confess that a bad
egg even ten years old was a fresh dainty tid-bit in
contrast to the substance he had so graphically
depicted. It should be understood that the
Chinese detest milk and all its products, and cheese

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

is particularly repulsive ; the odor even, despite
the innumerable stenches that constantly assail
them, is especially obnoxious.

Returning to our menu, I would suggest that
our people learn to cultivate the delicious clover-
leaf, if clover-leaf it was, ginger-shoots, and other
delightful forms for our salads. Ginger might
be successfully cultivated under glass, and the
young shoot is most delicious.

A BACKYARD

After dinner we left the house by a back-
door and passed through a large back-
yard. In this yard was a huge mound,
at least twenty-five feet high, composed of brick,
plaster, broken roofing tiles, and ashes. I thought
at first it corresponded to the Ko-yama (little
mountain) of the Japanese garden, with its narrow
spiral pathway, quaint shrubs, rustic bowers, and
the like. I was told that, years before, an exten-
sive conflagration had occurred in the neighbor-
hood, consuming many of the houses, and the
debris of this calamity had been gathered here
as the only available place for its disposal. By
what right this huge pile of rubbish had been
placed in this particular backyard I did not learn,
but reflected that there was no other place that
it could be carried to. It could not be thrown
into the shallow river, as it would impede navi-
gation ; all the land surrounding the city was

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

under cultivation or occupied with the innum-
erable sepulchral mounds; it had to be piled
somewhere, and as this was the only open lot
in the vicinity, it was piled here. On the top
of this mound two depauperated trees were
struggling for existence, and from this vantage-
point in a raw, cutting wind I secured a sketch of
the house-tops in the immediate vicinity. How
the Japanese would have utilized for beauty a
mound of this size, and yet here was this pile of
rubbish without even steps, and the two trees on
top were evidently fortuitous.

The house-tops varied but little in their type
of architecture, and reached a nearly uniform
height, with small, low chimneys. The walls
were of brick and plastered outside, forming a
marked contrast to the thin wooden and inflam-
mable buildings of the Japanese. The ridges of
the roof were ornamented with flat tiles placed on
end, as books are arranged in a rack, and appa-
rently without being fastened ; at the ends of the
ridge iron pieces were turned up, against which
the tiles rested. The firmly turned gables and
heavily tiled roofs gave an appearance of solidity
and durability. The terra-cotta roofing tile is

A BACKYARD

everywhere seen. Not only the roofs of houses
are covered with these tiles, but they form ridges
on ornamental gateways and garden walls. The
Chinese tile is the earliest form known in history,
and the earliest type of roofing tile ever exhumed

still forms the roof-covering of the greater mass
of mankind to-day. In China and Japan the tiles
bordering the eaves of the roof are variously orna-
mented, and in some cases glazed; while in India
they often appear of the most primitive character.
I have dealt with this subject, however, more fully
elsewhere.^

1 The American Architect and Building News, Vol. XXXVI.

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

A short walk from the house brought us to the
jail, always described in books as an inferno. It
was certainly a painful place. Here were col-
lected a number of malefactors, dirty and dejected-
looking vagabonds. There were two thieves in
low wooden cages. The worst-looking device was
an arrangement in the shape of a high wooden
cage, in which the criminal is imprisoned for a
certain time. His head is secured through a hole
in a plank which stands vertical and forms part
of the cage. Friends are allowed to feed him,
otherwise he would be permitted to die of starva-
tion. He cannot lie down, and if he drops to
sleep has to hang by his head. This probably
gives him but slight annoyance, however, as the
Chinese absence of feeling is such that they are
said to endure the most frightful surgical opera-
tions with little manifestation of suffering. One
authority, in describing their peculiar insensibility
in these matters, avers that a Chinese can sleep
soundly while reclining across the top of a wheel-
barrow with head bent back at right angles,
mouth gaping and full of flies. However this
may be, the annoyances that set most of us frantic
do not seem to disturb a Chinese in the least.

A BACKYARD

The punishments are frightful in their cruelty.
My companion admitted that the wealthy and
influential often escaped the severer penalties
imposed by the law. He further told me that in
case of matricide or parricide every member of
the murderer’s family, including all the genera-
tions from great-grandfather to nursing infant,
are put to death. Even the first cousins are sac-
rificed, and a school-teacher is impartially in-
cluded, as he was influential in the formation of
the boy’s character. On expressing incredulity
at such monstrous acts of injustice, my informant
insisted that this comprehensive punishment had
been inflicted within ten years.

Coming out of the city gate that night I saw
an emaciated beggar lying prone in the mud and
slush at the side of the crowded thoroughfare.
He was trembling, and apparently in the last
stages of dissolution; an empty basket was be-
side him for the pittance he hoped to attract by
his pitiable condition. In that hurrying throng
no one seemed to notice him. Such heartless-
ness was difficult to understand, until one learned
that if any one rescued such a case he would be
held responsible for the man’s debts and, possi-

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

bly, for his crimes. It was certainly a shocking
sight.

Such dirty booths as we passed, with such dirty
food for sale! Among the common classes, at
least, there seems to be no attempt to make the
food look tasty and attractive as in similar places
in Japan. All of the articles not only looked
unsavory, but some of them appeared positively
disgusting.

A CHINESE THEATRE

A CHINESE THEATRE AND PRISON

IN the evening we all went to the theatre
in the Chinese quarter, outside the city
walls. The Chinese theatre in San Fran-
cisco gives one a fair idea of the native one in
Shanghai ; but for rich colors and gorgeous effects
of dress and banners, bizarre painting of the
face, and ear-piercing sounds, I have seen and
heard nothing to compare. I did not tear my-
self away till midnight, and could have remained
much longer.

The audience hall was large and spacious,
though barny. The floor was covered with small
square tables, at which parties of four sat in hard-
bottomed chairs. These tables were scattered in
an irregular way all over the room. There must
have been at least a thousand men on the floor,
with not a woman to be seen among them, and I
was apparently the only foreigner present. The

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

galleries and floor were packed with an orderly
set of people, all talking and apparently paying
but little attention to the play. In the gallery,
near the stage, were large boxes in front of which
were green baize curtains to be lowered in case
they were occupied by women of the higher class ;
now they were crowded with women of the com-
mon class, every one with her hair properly ar-
ranged in the peculiar and picturesque style of
Chinese hair-dressing. Certain portions of the
play were shockingly indecent and excited much
laughter, yet no one looked to the galleries to see
if the women minded it, nor did I see the slight-
est evidences of disapproval. After we had taken
our seats, a boy came along bearing a large tray
containing dishes of watermelon seed, li-chi, fried
peanuts, oranges, and a weak rice soup. Another
boy soon followed, bearing in his hand a pile of
square pieces of thick quilted cloth ; these were
wet and steaming hot. Each one took a piece
and wiped his face and hands. These had already
been in use before being offered to us. I natu-
rally declined to use a cloth that had already
mopped the dirty mouths and faces of a number
of Chinese, and was probably looked upon as ex-

A CHINESE THEATRE AND PRISON

tremely fastidious. It is in matters of this nature
that the uncleanliness of the Chinese must be
insisted upon. My companion told me that the
Chinese always used hot water, and not cool, for
their faces, and that in the city there were stands
where the poorer people could buy hot water for
a trifling sum for the making of tea and for other
purposes. Still another boy came to our table,
bearing a tobacco-pipe and a light, and this circu-
lated among the audience. It was often smoked,
yet I saw no one wipe the mouth-piece before
using. No wonder infectious diseases have full
sway among these people. Those who had their
own pipes had a slow-match consisting of a roll
of paper as big as a candle, and this could be
blown into a flame when occasion required.

It was curious to observe the absence of con-
centrated attention that one sees in our theatres,
and, indeed, as a play will occupy some days and
even weeks in its presentation, it would be beyond
human endurance to sustain the strain of atten-
tion. My companions apparently understood but
little of what was uttered by the actors, and it
seemed impossible that the audience did, judging
from their lack of attention. It was explained to

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

me that there were long monologues and recita-
tives of no special interest, the familiarity of the
audience consisting in a knowledge of the gen-
eral plot, or story, and not with the words
uttered.

When it is realized that there are a number of
languages and hundreds of dialects in China, it
will be understood that a troupe foreign to the
immediate locality might be speaking in a tongue
unintelligible to its auditors. If the text, in
Chinese characters, could be flashed upon a screen
as the play proceeded, then from one end of the
Empire to the other, a fair idea of what was being
said could be gathered by all the scholars, at least.

In the acting there were the same absurd con-
ventionalities that one sees on the Japanese stage.
For example, the hero is supposed to ride away
on horseback; to represent this equestrian feat
he waves his hand in the air, flings his legs over
an imaginary horse, and then prances — but not
off the stage. As in Japan, the woman’s part is
taken by a man. To get the appearance of the
compressed foot of the woman, the whole foot is
rigidly bound with bands, and a small shoe is pro-
vided, which fits the toes, the actor literally

A CHINESE THEATRE AND PRISON

moving about on the tips of the toes, at the
same time squeaking in a high falsetto voice.
The impersonation is wonderful.

The orchestra, consisting of a number of virile
performers, was provided with a variety of musi-
cal instruments, the counterparts of which may
be seen in our ethnological museums. To hear
their music, however, one must visit a Chinese
theatre. Of all distracting and nerve-harrowing
noises, a Chinese orchestra certainly exceeds all.
We have heard the marriage, war, and death
songs of the Zulu, Kaffir, Hottentot, and other
Africans, and there was something pleasing in
their quaint and subdued intonations. We re-
call with delight the weird music of drums and
other instruments of a party of travelling Arabs.
But Chinese music! — words fail in describing it.
Picture one performer vigorously fiddling away
at an instrument that might be a cross between
a violin and a banjo, and, like all crosses, inherit-
ing the bad points of each, — fiddling, without a
single rest or pause, a continuous series of high
squeaks. The noise might be roughly imitated
with the high strings of a violin compressed
within an inch of the bridge, and filed away at

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

by a boy. Another individual played an instru-
ment something like a banjo, with the same vigor,
but the notes could not be heard. A third one
had three curious tight-skinned and high-pitched
drums, the sound given from them much resem-
bling blows struck upon the bottom of a wooden
keg. Now and then the loose clanging sound of
a gong would be heard. Lastly, the trumpet, a
short kind of clarionet, with brass opening, and
possibly all brass. This was the hair-raising,
goose-fleshing, and cranial-splitting instrument
— whew! As we recall the lusty vigor of that
blower, the enthusiasm of his motions, and the
undisguised delight he evidently took in this
brain-throbbing torture, it seemed that the last
trump must be a gigantic something after the
same kind ; for certainly none could rest easy in
their graves with such sound waves agitating their
skeletons. The hall being virtually naked of all
sound-breaking projections, the uproar was all the
more frightful. There was a flute of some kind,
and its sounds were by no means unpleasant. In
justice to the performers, it is proper to add that
there was a certain symmetry in their music, in
the fact that it was all equally execrable. Syn-

A CHINESE THEATRE AND PRISON

chronous movements were detected, and a repe-
tition of similar strains, so that a Chinese ear
might recognize separate airs ; we detected only
a discordant and horrid noise.

Many of the performers were magnificently
dressed with garments worked in gold and richly
colored silks, and the most surprising head orna-
ments. The long-sleeved gowns were used to
screen their faces in talking; fans were used in
the same way; and one could pick up many in-
teresting facts in watching these strange people.

After this came some extraordinary gymnas-
tic performances in which men, clumsily though
gorgeously dressed in leg-entangling drapery and
elaborate head-dress, with four flags projecting
from their backs like wings, would leap into the
air and turn somersaults. Others would leap
from a high point, striking another in the chest,
and fall with a tremendous thud to the floor,
striking on their backs, and jump up again — not
only alive, but not a feather or ruffle disarranged.
And all the while this marvellous gymnastic per-
formance was going on, the orchestra seemed to
have broken loose, if such a thing were possible,
and was pouring forth a series of sounds that

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

makes one’s brain reel to recall. It is enough
to state that one muscular performer had two
immense gongs which he clashed together with
all his might and main. These crashing blows
were repeated again and again, until one came to
the conclusion that the tympanic membranes
of the Chinese must be of the nature of hosf’s
skin, such as they stretch upon their drum
frames.

I saw a disgusting sight from the banks of a
narrow canal near Shanghai. In the canal were
low open barges, like canal-boats, which had been
poled or towed down from the Interior. These
were the receptacles for the sewage of the city,
and carriers were coming like a string of ants,
bearing buckets of this material, which they had
collected in the city from house to house. These
were emptied with a splash into the barges, in
every case some of the stuff spattering into the
river. The canal itself was green and yellow
with filth, and yet women were along the banks
washing rice, and some were dipping up water
in buckets and carrying it away, possibly to
water their gardens, and one could not imagine a
more generous fertilizer.

A CHINESE THEATRE AND PRISON

Thus far I had seen the interior of three houses
of the more favored classes ; they were all essen-
tially alike in the high walls, court-yards, rooms,
and dirt, and I was told that one house would
answer as a type for the thousands in Shanghai.

A PEASANT’S HOUSE

The next day I had an opportunity of
walking into the country with Mr.
Drew, who was to visit an old nurse
of the family. This woman owned a little house
on the side of a muddy creek. Whether the
house had belonged to a richer person before
coming into her possession, I did not learn ; it
was interesting, however, to observe the- conspic-
uous gateway to the yard. The prominent gate-
way is a distinguishing feature in the Orient.
The evidence of taste and time bestowed on the
main entrance is not only seen in Japan, but in
Anam, the Malay Peninsula, and Java, though in
Java there are so many Chinese that this feature
may be due to Chinese influence. In our coun-
try and in Europe the estates of the wealthy are
marked by prominent and conspicuous gateways,
while among the masses this is rarely made a
prominent feature.

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

The fence on one side was a ramshackle affair
of split bamboo in braided patterns ; on the other
side simply bamboo poles. The framework of
the gateway showed some little carving; the
superstructure was heavily tiled and the ridge
had tiles placed vertically, as in the roof ridges

already described. The gateway and fence were
in the usual dilapidated condition. The house,
or houses, formed three sides of a quadrangle,
the fence and gateway bordering the road making
the fourth side, the space thus enclosed making
a rather spacious yard, which was wet and muddy.
There were no evidences of an attempt at a

Farmhouse near Shanghai

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

garden, and the yard and surroundings presented
a most forlorn appearance. The houses were one
story in height, and the roofs were all heavily
tiled. The walls of the main house which faced
the gateway were wattled and plastered, though
this material was broken away in spots, exposing
the bamboo wattle beneath. The main entrance
to the house was recessed, and on the right and
left sides of this recess were the doorways, and on
each side of the entrance was a window closed
by two outside wooden shutters. Wooden hooks
were suspended by cords from the overhanging
eaves, and on these hooks hung the peculiar
Chinese shoe to dry, an indication that the felted
sole of the Chinese shoe absorbs water. A mass
of straw and twigs was piled up on the side of the
house, this material representing the wood-pile.
Charcoal is also used, as in Japan, but not by the
poorer people. For fuel, dead leaves, bits of straw,
and twigs are garnered along the roadside. The
cast-iron kettles are made with the thinnest pos-
sible bottoms, in order to utilize every particle of
heat emitted from the burning of this light ma-
terial. In our great country, with its long streaks
of Oriental blindness and stupidity in not enact-

A PEASANT’S HOUSE

ing and enforcing proper laws for the preserva-
tion of the forests, it will not be many generations
before able-bodied Americans will be seen picking
up dead leaves and dried pods along the road in
order to cook their dinners.

Farmhouse near Shanghai

The accompanying figure presents a view of
another building of this group running at right
angles to the main house, its end abutting on the
road. In this portion was a bedchamber and also
a large room for the making of homespun cloth.
The little wooden frame-work resting on top of a
big water-jar, and in its turn supporting a shallow
pan which had been dropped there, represents a

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

sort of cage in which the baby is confined when
sitting on the ground. The walls of the building
were of brick and plaster. An abutment is seen
at the end of the house next the fence, and in
this abutment was a little square niche with an
ornament of flowers made in stucco. Over the
doorway was a bundle of green shrubbery, evi-
dently placed there to
commemorate some
event. The window,
like the others, was
closed with heavy
wooden shutters. Be-
sides the large win-
dow were a few small
openings with close
frame-work covered
with paper. Within
was a large barn-like
room with dirt floor
and roof rafters show-
ing, in which were all the devices for convert-
ing raw, cotton into cloth, — a primitive cotton
factory. These simple and home-made devices
were so interesting that I sketched them all. The

lOO

A PEASANT’S HOUSE

cotton-gin consisted of two wooden rollers moved
by a treadle which was connected with what an-
swered to a balance-wheel in the shape of a heavy
stick of wood larger at the two ends ; the slender
roller was of iron ; all the other portions were of

wood held together by wooden pins. The little
hand-crank at one end was simply to start the
machine. The device for making the raw cotton
fluffy, and shaking out the dirt seemed to be a
very efficient machine ; it consisted of a heavy
wooden piece, seven feet in length, abruptly

Device for cleaning cotlon

lOI

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

curved at one end ; a stout cord was strung to
this as in a bow, a bridge at one end enabling
the cord to be made tense. In appearance it
reminded one of a colossal bass-viol bow. This
was held from the ground by a cord which was

A 7'ude wooden spinning-wheel used by the country people

fastened to the end of a long bamboo, rising up-
right from the ground, but now bent from the
weight of the bow. To operate this, the person
sits on the ground ; before him is a pile of dirty
and compacted cotton; in the left hand he holds
the bow ; in the right a thick knobbed stick ; with
this he violently twangs the cord, which vibrates
rapidly in the pile of cotton in a most effective
manner.^ The cotton by this process is quickly

1 My friend Mr. Edward Atkinson, an expert in all matters relating to
cotton, as well as a thousand other subjects, in response to my inquiry

102

A PEASANT'S HOUSE

reduced to a fluffy condition, and is now ready for
the spinning-wheel, which was a primitive and
rickety affair. The wheel was turned by the

foot resting on the bar, the woman sitting on
the bench at her work. Three spindles came

about this primitive device, kindly writes to me as follows : “ Referring
to the use of the Bow in China, not only for clearing the cotton fibre
from leaf or motes, but also for separating the fibre from the seed, it may
be interesting to state that this practice of detaching the fibres of cotton
from the seed is probably as old as the use of cotton itself.

“ When the first shipment of cotton of seven bales was made from
Georgia to Liverpool, it was thought in the Liverpool Custom House

103

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

out just above the wheel, and three threads were
spun at a time. The loom was equally rude, and
the old woman, who was weaving when we entered
the room, was working with the same tireless
energy that seems to characterize these people

in all their vocations. The old nurse was very
polite and kind, and seemed greatly interested in
showing and explaining everything.

that so large a quantity could not have been made in Georgia or in the
United States. It was named ‘bowed Georgia cotton,’ the saw-gin or
engine not having been invented and the lot having been prepared with a
bow. The term ‘ bowed Georgia,’ became a trade-term, even after the
saw-gin had taken the place of the old methods, and may be occasionally
used or heard to this day.

“ This process of separating by the snapping of a bow-string can be
applied to the types of cotton that are slightly attached to the seed. The
East India cotton is very closely attached to the seed, and is removed by
a roller-gin called the ‘churka,’ the bow-string not having sufficient force
and the saw breaking the staple.”

104

A PEASANTS HOUSE

The figure on page 104 shows the baby’s cradle,
consisting of a thick basket held in a stout frame-
work of wood. The mother removed the sleeping
baby and placed it in what looked like an old-
fashioned milk-churn, but was in reality a baby’s
high-chair. A floor-
like partition within
prevented the baby
from going to the
bottom. The inside
of this churn-like re-
ceptacle was highly
polished by the suc-
cessive genera-
tion of babies
who had wrig-
gled in it.

During all my sketching in the house I was
surrounded by fifteen or twenty men, women,
and children who had drifted in from the neigh-
borhood. The crowd seemed to be quite as in-
quisitive as a Japanese crowd under similar
circumstances, but far less gentle and polite.
In this house I was permitted to see a woman’s
bedroom. The room was small and dark, and it

105

Baby chair

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

was difficult to get enough light, even with the
door open, to make out clearly the various ob-
jects and details of the place. The appointments
were not unlike those in our own chambers : a

dressing-table littered with the usual clutter of
a disorderly bedroom; a bureau holding three
drawers rested against the wall. On the top was
a tall wooden candlestick, a few small jars, and
other objects. On the wall behind was a hanging
scroll with the picture of some god or household
deity done in black and white. Chairs, low stools,

io6

A PEASANT'S HOUSE

and a table, with no semblance of order, were
about the room. In one corner was a large finely
carved bedstead, with heavy frame above to sup-
port the bed-curtains. The rafters of the room
were exposed above. At one side was an attic
or space under the roof, the floor of which formed
the ceiling of an adjoining room. I noticed, as
with us, the same accumulation of attic rubbish,
too useful to throw away and too worthless to
keep, — stuff upon which more distracting brain
energy has been wasted by man than in the
writing of big books.

The few temples I saw in Shanghai left the
impression of neglect. They were certainly dirty,
as were the priests connected with them. It
was hard to trace the same cult after seeing the
Japanese Buddhist temples. In one temple which
I visited there was a room, more like a shop and
suggesting a dime museum, opening directly off
the street, in which were various effigies arranged
in order on a series of step-like shelves. A few
people were engaged in prayer. In the midst of
these devotions a woman came in and scolded in
a high, strident voice. No one interfered or ap-

107

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

parently noticed her actions. My escort thought
she was insane.

As I left the city at twilight, after my brief ex-
perience within its walls, and glanced back through
the gateway to take a last look at its narrow
streets and low buildings, and recalled the mass
of filth, misery, and small-pox, I noticed a Jesuit
priest with heavy black beard and unmistakable
French face, but dressed in full Chinese costume.
He was entering the city, in which he lived sur-
rounded by all this squalor and misery. I could
not help admiring his noble devotion, and could
readily understand why the Catholics make such
progress in China in comparison with that made
by the missionaries of other sects, who usually
live in the foreign settlement, associated with
many of the comforts of their more sinful breth-
ren. I further realized that a convert of this
priest might compare notes with a Catholic con-
vert in Thibet or Cochin China, and there would
be no divergence of doctrines in the minutest
particular.

io8

VII

CANTON

VII

CANTON

After a hasty good-bye to my American
friends, who had been so kind to me, I
started for Hong Kong in an English
steamer, having a quiet, uneventful voyage, good
substantial food, exceedingly pleasant travelling
companions, and whist most of the time.

In sailing up the passage to Hong Kong an
expanse of rocks loomed up which seen on the
Norway or Maine coasts would have been at once
recognized as showing typical glacial erosion.

From the damp, cold, and shivering weather of
Shanghai we had been transported in three days
to a tropical climate. In the parks and gardens
were palms, big ferns, and a most luxuriant
vegetation.

The city is policed by Sepoys, and on the
streets one meets many races : heavily turbaned
Hindoos; Parsees, with their caste-marks on their
foreheads, which, curiously enough, seemed per-

III

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

fectly natural; Malay and Indo-Chinese, and red-
coated British soldiers. The greater mass of the
people were, of course, Chinese, who, alone of all
the various peoples, showed the same interest
and persistent activity that I had observed in
Shanghai. There were slight differences in the
dressing of the women’s hair, but the clothing
appeared the same, and the narrow streets of the
Chinese quarter, though cleaner on account of
English domination, sent out the same unsavory
odors.

A day only in Hong Kong, and late in the
afternoon I left the city on a steamer bound for
Canton, a regular white, side-wheel steamer of
the American type, with a Salem commander.
Captain Lefavour. It seemed odd to find a stack
of cutlasses and loaded guns in the main cabin,
and in each stateroom a cutlass in a rack near
the berth. On inquiry as to the necessity of
these war-like preparations, I was told that only
a few years before the steamer “ Swift ” on the
same route had been captured by pirates, and all
the foreigners but one, on board, murdered. As
pirates still abound on the river, these precautions
are wisely considered necessary.

II2

CANTON

It began raining at dark, and continued to rain
throughout the night. The darkness was impen-
etrable, and it seemed incredible that any one
could navigate a boat in a tortuous river under
such conditions. We reached Canton the next
morning at nine o’clock, the boat having anchored
during the night on account of the storm.

A wonderful sight presents itself as you near
the wharf. The river in places, and over large
areas, fairly swarms with covered boats, literally
thousands of them of all sizes and conditions,
and these boats represent the dwelling-places of
families, who for generations have been born,
have lived, and have died without knowing any
other living-place. All the trades and manufac-
tures of a great city are represented in this
agglommeration : fruit-boats, pedlers’ boats of all
kinds, and the famous flower-boats, or, more prop-
erly, gaudy boats, a rendezvous for harlots.

The accompanying figure is a sketch of a pot-
tery pedler, who, with his stock-in-trade of pots
and jars, pans and flowerpots, piled to the gun-
wales, plied his trade up and down the river, and
in and out of this maze of floating craft.

One could not help wondering at the distrac-

s 113

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

tions of a census-taker were he assigned to enu-
merate the river population. The conveniences
of such a residence were immediately apparent
when it was realized that one could easily sweep
overboard all the dirt and dispose of all the gar-
bage ; there would be no sewage nuisance, unless
the river might be considered a sewer, and in

Pottery pedler on Canton River

either case the Chinese are apparently immuned
physically, — absolutely so mentally, — and filth
and stench give them no annoyance ; no lawns to
mow or sprinkle ; no wells running dry or water
to shut off, and when a child disappears, no har-
rowing suspense for days, but quick realization
of the calamity, if calamity it appears to these
cultivated savages ; no upstairs nor downstairs ;
no cellar to clear up, nor attic to put in order.

1 14

CANTON

The boat is not only a residence, but a passen-
ger-conveyance, a baggage-wagon, a pedler’s cart,
a blacksmith-shop, a bakery ; indeed, it lends itself
to every demand of life, active or idle. A glimpse
into some of the boats showed them to be fairly
clean, and prettily fitted up in the way of pictures,
bright-colored curtains, and tinsel. The larger
boats had lashed to their sides blocks of wood in
which were square holes for the convenience of
boatmen who have to ward them off or push
along their own boat. As to the model of these
boats, for they all seemed alike save in size ; a
watermelon cut lengthwise would give a very
good idea of their shape. They were apparently
cranky, but evidently dry.

As soon as the steamer made fast to the wharf,
a guide, who, to my surprise, turned out to be a
woman, was secured for me. Off we started in
a drizzly rain, through a maze of narrow streets,
to find the foreign quarter, where resided a few
gentlemen to whom I had letters. A charming
feature of the East is the unbounding hospitality
of foreign residents; even the English become
more like human beings when separated from
their snug little island. Tempting as the prof-

115

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

fered hospitality was, I had to decline, as my time
was exceedingly limited and it was necessary that
I should get as near the Chinese as possible. This
was fully understood, and I was directed to a hotel
on the other side of Pearl River which was in the
midst of Chinadom, and was kept by a Portuguese
who had married a Chinese. I was also given a
letter to Mr. Sampson, the Director of the Gov-
ernment school. Off we started again, my female
guide appearing quite as masculine in her jacket
as the other sex did with their smooth faces and
hair-braids down their backs. A boat was en-
gaged, literally the man’s house, and he and his
wife rowed us across the river. Opportunity was
then offered for a further examination of this forest
of boats that lined the shore in a deep layer for
miles. It was interesting to peer into some of
them and discover little domestic scenes : cook-
ing, tinkering, children playing, and, indeed, just
those activities that one might see in a busy
street. We finally reached the hotel, which was
certainly all I could desire in the way of proximity
to the Chinese. With the exception of the Por-
tuguese landlord, I was apparently the only for-
eigner in the region and the only guest at the

1 16

CANTON

hotel. I say hotel, for thus it was labelled on the
outside, but its appearance reminded one of a
small tenement house. It was with regret that
I gave up the comforts and quiet of European
civilization in the Orient, with its tennis-courts,
flower-gardens, whist, and the delights with which
the English and Americans surround themselves.
I use the word European,
for the avoidable noises we

two in front and one be-
hind. My first quest was for the Government
school and Mr. Sampson, and away we went at a
fairly rapid pace, through such sights, sounds, and
odors as one might expect to find on some other

produce in America are
only equalled, not exceeded,
by the Chinese with their
fire-crackers, ear piercing
trumpets and gongs.

The landlord arranged
for two palanquins, or
chairs, as they are called,
one being for my guide.
Each of these was borne on
the shoulders of three men.

So-called chair hi which one
travels

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

planet, and a very addled one at that. The city
of Canton is much cleaner than Shanghai. The
narrow streets are paved with stone or big square
bricks, and the buildings, mostly of one story, are
all of brick, with thick, solid-looking walls. Nar-
row shops, or cells, consist in front of a wide door-
way and a wide window through which one,
without entering, may haggle for the goods dis-
played. The shops are rather dark within, as the
streets are narrow, and overhead reed mattings,
supported by wooden frames, provide a constant
shade from the sun’s rays, which in the latitude
of Canton pour down with tropical fervor. The
vertical signs with their gilt characters form a
varied fringe on each side of the narrow, irregu-
lar streets, which in many cases are hardly
wide enough for two chairs to pass. The same
activity is seen here, despite the heat, as in
Shanghai. The crowded thoroughfares are still
more congested by the various artisans carry-
ing on their occupations in the middle of the
streets, in fact, taking up both sides. The peri-
patetic carpenter, with his stock of tools and
lumber, over which one has to step ; the petty
traders and fabricators, crowding the narrow

ii8

CANTON

lanes in a way that would not be tolerated
in our country for a single moment; the ham-
mering, planing, rice-pounding, the loud din of
the coppersmith, the musical clink of the black-
smith’s hammer, the multitudinous variety of
weird street-cries, with the occasional rattling
outburst of fire-crackers, all made up a perfect
pandemonium. The three senses of sight, hear-
ing, and smell were incessantly assailed by inter-
esting, ear-splitting, and disgusting impacts. It
was all intensely absorbing, and I had my eyes
everywhere.

We had a long distance to go to reach the
Government school, and the crowds through
which we forced our way were anything but
friendly. If the Chinese of Shanghai appeared
rude and indifferent, the Cantonese appeared
decidedly hostile ; nor could I wonder at this atti-
tude, for at the time of my visit the French were
threatening their southern frontier, and Manchu
troops were passing through the city on the way
to repel the expected invasion. Aside from this,
there was not a man who was not more or less
familiar with the history of the Opium War and
the calamitous horrors which accompanied it,

1 19

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

when humiliation and death had come upon
them in fullest measure from the hand of the
hated foreigner.

On reaching the school I presented my letter
and was received very kindly by Mr. Sampson,
who at once conducted me to the recitation-room,
in which were five students. They all rose and
said, “ Good-morning,” like a set of automatons.
Mr. Sampson requested them to read in turn
from an English history,' and this they did fairly
well. On my expressing surprise at the small-
ness of the class, Mr. Sampson told me that one
of his greatest difficulties was to impress upon
the pupils the necessity of punctuality; some
days there would be a dozen or more in the class,
and at other times none. Here, in a city of a
million of inhabitants, was this one little school
to satisfy the demands of the people for a knowl-
edge of foreign studies. I could not help con-
trasting this with T5kyo, having the same
population, with its great University, every stu-
dent of which becomes well versed in English
before entering ; the great Medical College, every
student of which has to understand German
before entering; the College of Engineering;

120

CANTON

the Foreign Language School, where a knowl-
edge of French, German, Russian, and Chinese
is required; the School of Chemical Technology;
the Military and Naval College, — all with their
foreign professors and instructors, and the mod-
ern languages taught in the normal and high
schools, and the Nobles’ School, as well, and
thousands upon thousands of Japanese students
punctually attending the classes of these institu-
tions until graduation. What a contrast ! And
yet many English writers regard this hunger for
knowledge with contempt, and esteem the Chi-
nese as superior, basing their judgment on their
own leading characteristic as a nation of shop-
keepers, which quality has dominated nearly all
their foreign wars and their acquisition of foreign
territory. Here in China they find their match
in the astute Chinese merchant, who is equally
honored and respected.

The school consisted of a few private dwellings
which had been brought together into a series of
connecting rooms by simply knocking a few
holes through the thick partition-walls of the
various houses allotted for the purpose. A plan
of Canton with its houses would resemble a

I2I

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

gigantic honeycomb, the cells being quadrang-
ular instead of hexagonal. Mr. Sampson kindly
permitted me to roam over the premises at will,
and I secured a number of sketches. Many of
the features were quite unlike those of the
Shanghai house, though the reception-hall was
planned like the northern one, and the minor
details of work and ornament were somewhat
similar. I may add in passing that the people
are different, their language is different, and a
Chinese from Shanghai is not only regarded as
a foreigner, but is rather brusquely treated as one.
In Shanghai I had acquired a few expressions
such as “ thank you,” “ good-morning,” “ good-bye,”
etc., which had always been understood when I
ventured to use them; here in Canton not a
single expression was understood. I was told
that the two languages were as different as Span-
ish and Portuguese or Italian. They all use the
same characters in writing, however. These
characters are conventional symbols, each one
representing a word or an idea, and hence called
ideographs. Over this vast Empire, as well as in
Korea and Japan, the written language is the
same. Throughout the Chinese Empire there

122

CANTON

are a number of languages and hundreds of dia-
lects. The characters, to the number of thou-
sands, which have come down from the dim past,
have the same meaning. The Chinese must
have had, early in their history, the example of
phonetic writing on their western borders, but
have persisted to the present time in using this
archaic and cumbrous device in expressing their
thoughts.

My first hunt was for the kitchen, for here is
an ethnic feature associated with family life that
persists without change for generations. It is
this feature that is rarely described or figured in
books, and for that reason I made a special effort
to secure sketches when opportunity offered.
The kitchen range was long and had accommoda-
tions for many cooking-pots. Each opening had
three spurs, or supports, so that the vessel was
held some little distance above the fire, as in the
little braziers in Japan. Here, also, I saw in an
open place under the range a number of braziers
or pottery cooking-devices in which charcoal was
used for fuel ; in another space wood was piled.
The rice-kettles were large and somewhat shal-
low ; the cover had the appearance of a shallow

123

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

mb inverted. Mr. Sampson informed me that
the Chinese often utilized the steam arising from
the boiling of rice in cooking other kinds of food.
In the rice-boiler range was a round chimney
which conveyed away the smoke, but for the

long range I failed to note a chimney, if there
was one. The walls of the kitchen were suffi-
ciently blackened by smoke to indicate that no
flue existed. At the end of the long range was
a large jar in which were various wooden ladles
for convenient use, and above, a huge bamboo
brush, or stirrer, was resting on two pegs. The

124

CANTON

materials used in the construction of these
ranges were stone, brick, and cement, and ap-
peared strong and durable. Here, however, the
differences ceased. The resemblances to the
Shanghai kitchen were again seen in the same
amount of dirt and disorder; the floor was grimy
with dirt, — street dirt '
tracked in, — broken
jars lying about, and
everything indicating a
shiftlessness past belief.

At the opposite end of
the kitchen was a little
shelter where sat the
cook, who smoked his
pipe while waiting for
the kettle to boil. It
was amazing to see
this tumble d-d own

shanty provided with the most elaborately de-
signed window-sashes, the details of which I
had no time to sketch. The carvings over the
door and the various intricacies had all to be
omitted in these rapid memorandum outlines.
The kitchen shrine was high on the wall near the

125

Kitchen shrine^ Canton

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

rice-kettle. It was a rough bamboo framework
capable of holding a device, in which candles were
burning; near by were a number of candles made
on long sticks. These were stained or painted
red, and at the ends of the sticks cross-pieces of
bamboo were tied so that they could be hung on
a peg, as shown in the sketch. A number of
Chinese gathered about me curious to know
what my purpose was in sketching, and Mr.
Sampson, who spoke Chinese, asked them what
they supposed I was making the sketches for,
and they replied that the foreigner was about
to build a house, and was getting ideas how
best to do it.

From the kitchen other rooms were visited.
One room, evidently a study, had a very large
window opening into a little garden. On the
garden-wall, opposite the window, was a strip of
paper on which were written four Chinese char-
acters, which after some trouble were rendered
into English as follows : “ May fortunate light
illuminate the gardenr The translation of these
inscriptions in China always comes as a surprise
to the foreigner. Many of them express the
highest emotions, — a love of cleanliness, exalted

126

CANTON

piety, tender compassion, etc. ; and then one
contemplates the people with their cruelty, their
filth, their ignorance, the abject position of
women, and it is realized that the inscriptions are
words — empty words, conveying no more mean-

ing to them than if they had been written in
Coptic. I suppose it may be justly said that the
moral teachings of Christ have in the same way
lost their potency among Christian nations. Dr.
Gustave Schlegel translated an inscription in a
Canton gaudy boat, which read, “ Among pure
breezes we enjoy the moonlight.” It may be

127

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

said with truth that the Chinese, in the cities and
villages at least, are deprived of this enjoyment.
I was shown a few bedrooms, and here, as in
Shanghai, the bedsteads were ponderous affairs,
having a high frame, with tester above and cur-
tains pendent.

The sanitary arrangements were simply abom-
inable. In the three thousand years and more
that the Chinese have been a nation, natural se-
lection has rooted out all those who could not
survive these flagrant violations of all sanitary
laws, the survivors being evidently immuned
against microbes that would kill a European out-
right. The same curious selection has doubtless
taken place in some of our older New England
towns, where the native can drink the well-water
with impunity, while the stranger is affected at
once.

In no other part of the world, unless it be in
Russia, can such depths of filthiness be found as
in the cities of China. Dr. Arthur H. Smith, in
his interesting work entitled Chinese Character’
istics, says that, “No matter how long one has
lived in China, he remains in a condition of men-
tal suspense, unable to decide that most interest-

128

CANTON

ing question, so often raised, Which is the
filthiest city in the Empire ? . . . The traveller
thinks he has found the worst Chinese city when
he has inspected Foo-Chow ; he is certain of it
when he visits Ning-Po, and doubly sure on
arriving at Tientsin ; yet after all it will not be
strange if he heartily recants when he reviews
with candor and impartiality the claims of
Pekin ! ”

The curious custom of compressing the feet of
women, thus in a way rendering them cripples
for life, is always alluded to in books on China.
In the Peabody Museum of Salem are a few casts
of this peculiar deformation made by the late Dr.
G. O. Rogers, formerly of Hong Kong. By the
accompanying figure of one of these casts it will
be seen that the four smaller toes are made to
partially bend under the big toe, and that the heel
is also brought forward. This is accomplished
by tight bandaging, and usually begins as soon
as the child is able to walk. According to Wil-
liams (see The Middle Kingdom, Vol. II. p. 38),
this practice is not confined to the higher classes;
on the contrary, all classes of society, even the
9 129

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

poorest, strive to be in fashion. The Tartars,
though becoming Chinese in most matters, have
had the good sense to let their women’s feet de-
velop normally. As to the origin of this sav-
age custom. Dr. Williams says, “A difference

of opinion exists re-
specting its origin,
some accounts stating
that it arose from a
desire to pattern the
club feet of a popu-
lar Empress, others
that it gradually came
into use from the great
admiration and at-
tempt to imitate
delicate feet, and
others that it was

Plaster c^ompressed feet impOScd by the men

to keep their wives
from gadding ; the most probable accounts do
not place its origin further back than a. d. 950.

. . . The appearance of the deformed member
when uncovered is shocking, crushed out of all
proportion and beauty, and covered with a wrink-

130

CANTON

led and lifeless skin like that of a washwoman’s
hands daily immersed in soapsuds.”

I was much interested in the archery methods
of the Chinese, and an assistant in the school, a
Manchu, illustrated their way of releasing an
arrow from a bow, and also the manner of string-
ing a bow. The attitude of the hand in pull-
ing the string differs greatly in different races.
The Mongolian draws the string back with his
thumb, the forefinger being bent over the end
to strengthen the hold, and the arrow being held
in the crotch made by the junction of the fore-
finger and thumb. In this method a ring is worn
on the thumb to engage the string and to pre-
vent the thumb from being lacerated. That this
method is very ancient is seen in the frequent
allusions to the subject in the Chinese classics.
In the Shi King^ or book of ancient Chinese
poetry (translation of Legge), the thumb-ring is
called a thimble and also a pan chi, or finger
regulator: “With archer’s thimble at his girdle
hung,” and, again, “ Each right thumb wore the
metal guard.” The Mediterranean nations draw
the string with the tips of the first three fingers,
holding the arrow between the tips of the first

131

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

and second fingers. The very lowest savage
races pull the string by holding on to the arrow
with the thumb and forefinger ; a little more ad-
vanced savage assumes this attitude supplemented
by bringing the second and third finger on the

string and thus getting a stronger pull. I have
dealt with this subject more fully elsewhere.^

The stringing of the bow is somewhat peculiar.
The bow when unstrung turns back upon itself

1 “ Ancient and Modern Methods of Arrow Release.” Bulletin of
the Essex Institute, Salem, Mass., Vol. XVII.

132

CANTON

and is so short when in this state that it occupies
but little room and may be carried in a con-
venient case. In stringing the bow the archer
places one end upon his left knee, the bow pass-
ing under the right leg, then by pulling up the
right end of the bow he can slip the loop of the
string into the nock; or the bow is bent over
the knee as in the attitude of breaking a stick
and an associate slips the loop into the nock.
Great care is taken of the bow and a box is
contrived for it in which charcoal is burned to
preserve the bow in a perfectly dry condition.

After spending a few interesting hours at this
place, Mr. Sampson accompanied me on a trip
to one of the city gates and around the city walls.
In the palanquin, or chair, one sits rather high,
as the poles supporting it are attached to the
chair nearly two-thirds from the top, so that one
gets a better view than in riding in the Japanese
kago, which is entirely below the suspending pole,
and one is near the ground.

The encircling wall of Canton is twenty to
twenty-five feet in height and of great thickness.
It is nearly seven miles in length and consists
of an immense mass of masonry resting on a

133

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

sandstone foundation. The top of the wall is
reached by steps and also by gently rising in-
clines. At intervals are gates over which are
large building structures. The gates within have
a semicircular wall perforated by another gate-
way. In the days of bows and spears, which the

Chinese still retain, these grim walls must have
rendered a city almost impregnable, but they offer
little resistance to foreign artillery and dynamite.
A broad roadway is found on top of the wall
which is apparently never used except by loi-
terers like ourselves, and yet this thoroughfare is
wider and cleaner than any avenue I found in the

134

CANTON

city with its crowded thousands. Such are some
of the exasperating perplexities that one encoun-
ters in China. In the following sketch of the walls
a huge building is shown through which the road
passes and below which is one of the city gate-
ways. The building was erected in the fifth cen-
tury, and is leaning slightly. The crest of the
wall is pierced for cannon, and, at intervals, were
small iron cannon, rusted and utterly neglected.
The obsolete and puerile methods of defence
explained at once the easy capture of the city
by the English and French in the Opium War.

I rode in my chair for a considerable distance,
and then got out and walked. In the crevices of
the wall and in a shady nook the last violets of
the season were blooming. Our walk led us to
a five-storied pagoda built in the thirteenth cen-
tury. From the top of this structure a fine view
of the city was obtained. It was interesting to
look over this vast city, where no tall buildings
or factory chimney overtopped the uniform low
level of the roofs. Here and there were the im-
posing roofs of Buddhist temples and the many
roofed pagodas rising conspicuously. It is a
remarkable sight to have a clear view across a

135

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

city to the country beyond. The absence of coal-
smoke accounted for the clarity of the atmos-
phere. This condition was markedly so in
Toky5 twenty years ago, and presented an agree-
able and startling difference from the smoke-

View from five-storied pagoda, Canton

begrimed cities of 'Europe and America. From
the pagoda I made a sketch of the wall which
we had just traversed. In the distance is seen a
cluster of Buddhist buildings, monasteries and
the like. Outside the walls, on a sloping hill-
side, were thousands of little hummocks of earth,
each having a tablet of some sort ; here and there

136

CANTON

an amphitheatre-like structure of stone marked
the burial-place of some wealthy mandarin. I
examined the region afterwards from the wall,
and could not find a trace of tree, flower, green
leaf, or path even. The shocking state of the
place, in view of the fact that the Chinese are
supposed to worship their ancestors, was in
marked contrast to the care and devotion shown
by the Japanese, or by our own people, in their
burial-places. The ground around the pagoda
was covered with a tangled mass of dead leaves
and shrubs. Here I found the shells of a large
snail, a species which as a boy I had preserved
in my cabinet as a rare and valuable object. The
ground was strewn with them, and a little boy,
who had observed me collecting them, at once
gathered a handful and brought them to me, at
the same time promptly holding out his hand for
pay. A few people were in the enclosure gather-
ing the dead grass and twigs for fuel.

Tired out with the novel and interesting expe-
riences of the day, I reluctantly gave orders to
return to the hotel, and again we passed through
the same seething mass of people crowding the
narrow streets. The night was spent in writing

137

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

up my notes. My room opened on a platform
directly over the banks of the river, and the rear
of the hotel came into immediate contact with the

Chinese houses. The river was almost as active
with traffic as the streets. A continual humming
sound, with occasional shouts, came over the

138

CANTON

water, and from the region behind the hotel the
same eternal din of the various activities was
going on, though it was past midnight ; this din
was now and then punctuated by loud explosions
of cannon-crackers, or small cannon, in saluting
some high official just returning or departing
from his house. With this and the banging of
drums, and every conceivable form of racket, sleep
was wellnigh impossible. The streets of an old
New England town on the night preceding the
Fourth of July are the nearest approach to it,
and are a manifestation of the same heedless
barbarism.

The manufacturing activities seem to be as
lively at night as in the daytime. I walked out
back of the hotel at midnight, going through sev-
eral streets, not daring to go far, however, lest I
should be lost. The streets were certainly not so
crowded as in the daytime, though still alive with
people. Here a ragged pedler, selling some
kind of fruit, with a cry sounding like the note
of a Wilson’s thrush and the peep of a tree-toad
combined. The variety of street calls are in a
high falsetto voice and remind one of various
animal calls. The shop-doors were closed, but

139

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

through the crevices glints of light could be seen,
and the coppersmiths and carpenters and other
artisans were apparently just as active as in the
daytime, judging from the various sounds that
issued from these places. Every one familiar
with the appearance of the Chinese laundries in
our country will recall the fact that, no matter
how late one may pass them at night, the Chinese
are usually found at their occupation. It is said
that the Chinese farmer utilizes the moonlight for
his work, and one can readily believe it.

140

VIII

A BUDDHIST TEMPLE AND
THE SACRED HOGS

. •'%

VIII

A BUDDHIST TEMPLE AND THE
SACRED HOGS

The next day I visited a Buddhist temple.

In general style of architecture, with
gateway, huge, carved figures as guards
on each side of the entrance, and the various
appliances within, the temple followed closely the
Japanese type. In the inner court were twenty
or more priests chanting at their devotions, with
a few curiously inclined Chinese looking on.
Such dreary, dirty- looking priests, shoes, stock-
ings and all, fairly dingy with dirt, presenting a
striking contrast to the same class in Japan !
The enclosure had evidently never been swept ;
sticks, dead leaves, and noisome pools were every-
where. Back of the temple was a famous flower-
garden which was in an equally dilapidated state.
There were, however, some interesting evergreens
in large flower-pots, which had been artificially

143

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

trimmed and trained to represent various objects,
such as a fan, a kind of fruit, figures, etc. The

Dwarf tree in Temple Garden^ Canton

figure of a man was quite remarkable in its way,
though the feet, hands, and head were made of

144

A BUDDHIST TEMPLE

some other material. These curious dwarf trees
were in the midst of broken pots, piles of rubbish,
and festering puddles of water. During my ram-

bles about the grounds, I was aware of a new
stench commingled with the other vile odors
which filled the air, and wondered what could be
its origin. In the enclosure back of the temple

145

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

were a number of great fat, lazy hogs, and my
guide told me they were never killed, but allowed

to live and die under the care of the priests of
the temple. They were wallowing in their filth,

146

A BUDDHIST TEMPLE

swarming with flies, and spreading over the neigh-
borhood a most horrible stench. It struck me at
the time that here was an emblematical animal
that ought to be emblazoned on the Chinese flag
beside the imperial dragon. Justice compels me
to confess, however, that the hogs were much
dirtier than their patrons, though hardly more
useless. How many centuries this practice has
been kept up I did not learn, but in Clevelands
Voyages the author records that in 1799 he
visited this temple and found several of the priest-
hood “ whose dress bore some resemblance to
that of Franciscan friars, and whose business
was principally to take care of the sacred hogs.
These were about twenty in number, and were in
an enclosure. They are never killed, but are left
to die in the regular course of time ; and several
of them were so unwieldy that it was not without
great difficulty they could move themselves a few
feet one way or the other.”

With this briefest glimpse of a few temples in
two great cities of the Empire I was inclined to
believe that Buddhism in China was moribund.
I saw no evidence of devotion in the people, no
earnest, prayerful attitude as one sees in Japan.

147

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

The cult apparently excites no religious enthu-
siasm. What must be expected of a people who,
losing their religion, have no science to fall back
upon! At night I noticed a Chinese come out
of his house, yawning and evidently bored, and
burn a little joss-paper before the shrine at his
doorway. The burning of paper, incense, and
lighted tapers seems to be done in the most per-
functory manner. It reminded one of the way in
which some people rattle off an unintelligible
blessing at home. In all these brief glimpses
I could not help contrasting the vigorous and
healthy condition of Buddhism in Japan ; the
fresh-looking temples, though hundreds of years
old, so carefully kept and repaired, the surround-
ings so cleanly swept and in perfect condition,
with the utter destitution and decay of the same
monuments in China. Here was wrack and ruin
everywhere, gnarled roots, by their growth, prying
off delicate sculpture from the walls or over-
turning coping-stones, and no one arresting the
destruction.

148

HOWQUA’S MANSION

The few dwellings I had already seen in
China were those belonging to the more
favored classes, with the exception of
the farmhouse near Shanghai. For purposes of
comparison it was important to get access to the
house of some person of great wealth, and this
opportunity was offered me in Canton. By good
fortune, I got a letter to the family of Howqua,
— a family of unbounded wealth. The great
Howqua was considered one of the richest mer-
chants in Canton. He was known as a person of
sterling character and benevolence. In accounts
of the Opium War his name often occurs as
mediator. The old Boston and Salem mer-
chants knew him as a man of absolute rectitude,
whose word was as good as his bond. He died
some years ago, leaving a great fortune to his sons.
The house was well known to my guide, who
piloted me through the narrow streets to the place.

151

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

Facing the street was a huge blank wall in
which was a single gateway, through which we
passed and entered a great square court-yard
paved with stone and surrounded on three sides
by walls of considerable height, one of which
was the wall through which we had passed ; the
fourth side, which ran at right angles to the
street, appeared to be the front of some fine
public building, but was in reality a gateway
which led to another court and building con-
taining the ancestral tablets upon which were
inscribed the names of Howqua’s ancestors.
On the anniversaries of the deaths of these
various ancestors the head of the family passes
through this imposing gateway in the ceremony
accompanying the burning of incense and offer-
ing prayer. It is only on these occasions that
the gateway is used.

The accompanying sketch gives only a faint
idea of its appearance. The lower portion was
composed of a fine-grained granite exhibiting the
most delicate and beautiful work and finish ; the
upper portion was of brick ; the long, slender
columns were monoliths of the same kind of
granite; the cross-beams just below the eaves

152

HOWQUA’S MANSION

were of wood, and at their junction with the
stone were elaborately carved ; the cornice was
richly wrought in intricate designs, and was evi-
dently of terra-cotta; the circular drum-shaped
discs of the entrance, as well as all the lower

Ceremonial gateway, Howqua's house. Canton

portion of the structure, were fine examples of
stonework. The whole effect was quite impos-
ing, and architecturally very beautiful. The
sketch does but slight justice to its stately ap-
pearance, though the outlines and proportions
are in the main correct.

I had made an appointment to meet a grand-
153

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

son of Howqua’s, who, with his brother, then
occupied the mansion, and so, after making the
gateway sketch, I was guided through an alley
across a dilapidated garden, then through an
ordinary gateway to the mansion itself. After
waiting some time, one of the brothers finally
made his appearance and invited me into the
house. His brother soon joined us, accom-
panied by numerous servants and nurses, the
latter bearing in their arms diminutive speci-
mens of humanity, the offspring by wives and
concubines of these men who had come into the
inheritance. The brothers were not particularly
gentle in their bearing, and made no effort to
relieve me of the pressure of the crowd about
me. Every sketch that I made was rudely
snatched from my hand by one of the brothers,
who disappeared for a while for the purpose of
showing it to the women, who, by etiquette, could
not be seen. The contrast in the behavior of
these men with that of the Japanese, high and
low, was striking. After some time I was invited
to sit down, and a most delicious cup of tea was
brought me. The various rooms through which
I was conducted were marvels in the way of elab-

154

HOWQUA’S MANSION

orate wood-carving and intricate tracery. I found
it useless to attempt any sketch of them. The
brothers asked me to make the most impossible
sketches, which, had I attempted, would have in-
volved days of the most assiduous labor. When
I asked to see the kitchen, they were amazed and
expressed their rather disgusted astonishment
that I should prefer to sketch this region of the
house rather than their more elaborate apart-
ments. I was finally conducted to the place, and
found it quite as dirty and disorderly as any I
had seen. Had the Chinese any realization of
what we call dirt, it would be impossible for
them to permit a place wherein food for the
table was being prepared to be in such a lament-
able condition. Filth tracked in from the streets,
plus the dirty accumulations that come from
their domestic work, made the kitchen a most
unsavory place. I cannot but believe that in
some of the houses of the richer classes the
apartments must be clean, yet how can we unite
such an idea with what has already been seen
in the houses thus far described ?

Howqua’s kitchen was very interesting. I was
told that it was a fine example of the old Canton

155

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

kitchen. It was over one hundred years old and
quite different from the kitchens I had already
seen, though the differences were probably such
. as one might see at home between the ordinary
cast-iron stove and the elaborate range in the

Kitchen, Howqua's house. Canton

kitchen of great houses. Later, I saw the in-
terior of a country-house, north of Canton, said
to be two hundred years old, and the kitchen was
on the same general plan as the one of Howqua’s,
so I am inclined to believe that the Cantonese
affair differs, in many respects, from the northern
kitchen, though in both cases, as before re-
marked, the rice-boilers are very similar. In the

156

HOWQUA’S MANSION

drawings three sides of the kitchen are repre-
sented. It will be seen that the long range with
a number of openings is not unlike the Japanese
range, or kamedo. The fireplaces are square, and
open from top to bottom, and the vessel simply
rests on the opening above.

In comparing certain Chinese objects with the
Japanese it should be understood that the Japan-
ese have, in every case, derived these objects from
China. The ornamental dwarf trees, the form of
range, the carpenters’ tools, musical instruments,
etc., of the Japanese have all been derived from
China in precisely the same manner that our

157

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

ancestors, the English, derived similar methods
and devices from contiguous regions on the
continent.

The kitchen was a large, spacious room, and
had all the appliances for preparing a great ban-
quet; copper kettles, large boilers, ladles, etc.,

were all there, and so was the dirt. In this re-
spect it was precisely the same as those I had
already seen. Now, the amazing thing about it
is this, that if a Chinese cook could be trans-
ported to a kitchen of some great house in this
country, and see the immaculate floor of tile or
wood, the polished coppers, the incredible neat-

158

HOWQUA’S MANSION

ness and sweetness of everything, it would not
excite the faintest emotion or envy. He would
probably look upon it all as a vast waste of hu-
man energy, and would say, if he were capable of
reflecting on anything, “ So long as I keep the
dirt out of the food, or at least render it invisible,
what’s the use of all this effort at dirt remov-

Lotus pond, Canton

ing?”and he might quote our saying which is
such a comfort to slovenly people, “ Every man
has to eat his peck of dirt.”

In the rear of this great house was a large
lotus pond walled in with brick; on each side
were substantial summer-houses, in which dwelt
the concubines. A glimpse of the large recep-
tion-rooms only was permitted. Little bridges,

159

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

such as one sees depicted on old china, spanned
certain narrow places. Here was every opportu-
nity to make a charming retreat, yet the pond
was covered with slime and rubbish, the summer-
houses were neglected and dirty, and, knowing
the great wealth of the family, one was compelled
to recognize this condition of matters in China
as a national trait.

During my brief visit to this place it was plainly
evident that I was non persona grata, and the
intrusion would never have been made had any
one given me the slightest premonition of the
possible character of my reception, so my frank-
ness of comment cannot be considered a breach
of hospitality; there was no hospitality to
breach.

I am not criticising the Chinese for this atti-
tude, for it is about the only evidence of man-
hood, from the standpoint of a Christian nation,
that they possess. It is too much to expect of a
man that he should treat with more than cold
reserv^e an individual who belongs to an alien
race that has systematically robbed his people,
filled his land with emissaries who have done
their best to break down every sacred belief and

i6o

HOWQUA’S MANSION

cherished superstition, and that has defrauded
his nation of vast tracts of territory and of enor-
mous money indemnities.

i6i

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

I left the place by a narrow alley bordered by
high walls of brick. The top of the walls had
great rounded curves like the gable-ends of the
Shanghai houses ; these were imbricated with
roofing tiles, and just below the edge was a line
of glazed panels having designs in high relief.
The water-conductors, in the form of huge bam-
boo, were made of cement, the joints and buds
being well represented, the upper portion bulg-
ing out with flowers modelled in stucco, and
having no relation botanically with the bamboo.
It is such incongruities in present Chinese art
that jar upon the eye. It is possible, however,
that some sentiment was to be conveyed by these
flowers. The whole structure was an interesting
illustration of the survival of form when the
material of the device or the method of construc-
tion has been changed. This example was, of
course, an obvious case, as bamboos are still used
everywhere in the East as water-conductors.

162

TOBACCO PIPES, EXAMINATION
HALL, WATER CLOCK, ETC.

TOBACCO PIPES, EXAMINATION HALL,
WATER CLOCK, ETC.

The Chinese are

inveterate smokers N
of tobacco as well
as snuff-takers. The to-
bacco is milder than ours,
and is cut in the finest threads.

Among the wealthier classes a
form of pipe is used which be-
longs to the class known as water
pipes. These pipes are remark-
able examples of work in metal
and other materials. They are
often very elaborate and highly
ornamented. The water is con-
tained in the large body, which
has a flat bottom, and which rests firmly on the
table, where it is always seen with the ink-stone,
writing brush, paper weight, and other articles.

i6s

Tobacco pipe with
water receptacle

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

The pipe-bowl is in the form of a smaller tube,
the lower end of which is immersed in the water ;
the smoke has first to pass through the water
before ascending the long tube through which
the smoker draws. There is also a receptacle
for tobacco closed by a lid. The little rod ter-

Figs. I, 2, 3, metallic pipes. Fig. 4, metallic mouth-piece. Fig. % jade
mouth-piece

minating in a tassel is simply a convenience for
loosening the tobacco, or cleaning out any ob-
struction in the tube. The Salem Museum has a
number of these pipes, and the sketch on the
preceding page is a figure of one of them.

A common form of pipe among the poorer
classes consists of a metal bowl with short stem
combined. Into this a wooden stem is fitted, and

166

TOBACCO PIPES, ETC.

on the other end a mouth-piece is secured. The
mouth-piece is usually of metal, though bone,
horn, or jade may be used. The wooden stem
may be six inches or three feet in length ; when
the stem is short it is often wound with tinsel or
brass wire. The pipe-bowl may be a rough cast-
ing of brass or very thin white metal, the method
of making being somewhat puzzling.

In Foo-Chow, according to Miss Gordon Cum-
mings, the poorer classes use pipes in the form
of large globular bowls of porcelain, which are
gaudily decorated. The thick wooden stem is
three feet long, and is used as a cane as well.
These people cultivate a coarse tobacco for their
own use. The accompanying figures illustrate
some of the pipe-bowls and mouth-pieces.

The Koreans have a similar form of pipe with
long reed stems, and these are variously orna-
mented with curious designs stained on the sur-
face. A fine collection of these Korean pipe-
stems may be seen in the Museum in Salem.

The doorways seen on the street were in many
cases very high, evidently to give ample room for
the palanquins to enter. The doors are elabo-

167

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

rately panelled, and were double, and each door
had two folds, and these were hinged together.
The door itself, instead of being hinged to the
frame, was provided with a pivot above and be-
low and close to the frame; these were held in
appropriate sockets, the upper one being in the
form of a carved embossment on the frame, the
lower socket being made in the sill. This device
is very ancient, and may'be found in the earliest
Egyptian, Greek, and Roman structures.

In my interesting wanderings about Canton,
my guide led me to the famous water clock. It
was a high building which looked as old as the
clock, which was said to have been running for
four hundred years. The water clock consisted
of four deep copper vessels arranged on steps
one above the other. A flight of short steps
was at the side of this contrivance to enable
the attendant to fill the upper bucket with
water, and this has to be done twice in twenty-
four hours. The water slowly drips through a
faucet in the upper bucket to the next in turn,
and so on down to the lowest one. In this is a
float, to which is attached an upright strip of
wood having painted upon it the characters for

1 68

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

one, two, three, and so on. This strip passes
through a bail which spans the bucket, and as
the float rises the numbers pass in succession
t’^.rough the bail, and thus the hours of the day
are rudely indicated. The keeper has a set of
large boards upon which numbers are painted in
black, and as each hour is indicated by the float
the keeper hangs out a board with the corres-
ponding number, and this may be seen only by
those who are in a line with it down a rather
wide avenue. Here the number remains in sight
till the next hour is indicated by the float; in the
mean time, unless one has closely followed up
these sign-boards, there is no way of determining
whether the time is one minute past nine, for
example, or one minute to ten. To know the
time within an hour seems to be quite enough
for these peculiar people. I did not learn that a
gong was beaten or a trumpet blown or a bell
struck to announce the hours. Nothing, it
seemed to me, could better illustrate the stolid
and disastrous conservatism, the mental apathy,
or, better, the atrophy of all adaptive and inven-
tive faculty, in the nation, than this crude and
primitive device. Thousands of Chinese have

170

TOBACCO PIPES, ETC.

been abroad, and while abroad have all had
watches and clocks ; in the poorest laundry place
in America a clock may be found ; in the Chinese
theatre, in San Francisco, a
large Connecticut clock is
hung against the wall over
the stage in full view of the
audience, and yet, here in
Canton, a wealthy city of a
million of inhabitants, the
hours of the day have been
rudely indicated by this ri-
diculous device, with only
a small number of this
vast population getting
the benefit of it.

I was naturally curious
to see the prison in Can-
ton, having seen the one
in Shanghai. That was
so vile that, in the more refined city of Can-
ton, I was led to believe that there might be
some advance in prison management. If any-
thing, it was even worse than the northern
horror. The prisoners looked starved, and were

171

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

in the most ragged and most haggard condition.
Many of them were loafing in the prison-yard;
others were in low coops, hardly high enough to
accommodate a dog; some had their heads thrust
through square, plank-like affairs, unable to reach
their faces, over which flies crawled at will. They
could not, of course, feed themselves, but had to
depend upon relatives or humane friends to per-
form this service. Nearby was a simple enclos-
ure surrounded by high walls, known as the
execution-grounds. At the time of my visit, the
ground was covered with pottery in the form of
little kitchen braziers ; apparently some one had
hired the place for the temporary storage of his
pottery stock. Near the walls were larger jars,
in which the heads of the executed were placed.
Judging from the description of the Spanish
prisons in Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Philippines,
Spain is the only European country which must
be placed on a level with China in this respect.

Another of the many interesting features in
Canton was the examination-hall, as it is called,
though there was no trace of a hall on the
grounds according to our meaning of the word.
This famous place consisted of rows of long,

TOBACCO PIPES, ETC.

narrow sheds running at right angles to a broad
area which might be called a yard or avenue.
These low sheds were divided by partitions open
in front ; if they had been furnished with doors
they would have resembled the bathing-houses
along our seaside resorts. These structures
were built of brick, with brick partitions, and the
individual cells were not over four feet wide.

Examination hall, Catiton

The number of them has been variously stated
to be seven thousand five hundred and ten thou-
sand. The candidates who compete for examina-
tion come from all parts of the Empire. These
include young men and old men, some of whom
have reached the age of eighty or ninety years,
who have been competing since they were boys,
and appear again and again to win the coveted
prize of recognition and, if successful, to get some
office under Government with a modest stipend,

173

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

the balance of their salary being squeezed out of
the inhabitants by fraud and persecution. Early
in the morning a single text from Confucius or
some other ancient classical writer is issued to
all, each one receiving the same text. On this,
they are all to write an essay and deliver it the
next morning. An ignoramus on everything but
Chinese classics may beat other numskulls in
writing the best composition on the text given,
and attain some office dealing with matters per-
taining to the nineteenth century. As an illus-
tration, a competitor has secured a position in
the army by passing a literary examination on
the art of war, not as understood to-day, but
with the art as set forth by authorities three
thousand years ago. One of these authorities,
held in highest repute, Sun-Tse by name, sol-
emnly recommends such a manoeuvre as this:
“ Spread in the camp of the enemy voluptuous
musical airs, so as to soften his heart.” No won-
der, in the recent war with Japan, Chinese gen-
erals were found with singing-birds in cages, and
a retinue of concubines, while every soldier car-
ried a fan, and every third one a banner. How
inferior to the Japanese in these matters! Un-

174

TOBACCO PIPES, ETC.

daunted by the slurs of English writers, who
have repeatedly stigmatized the Japanese as a
nation of copyists, they sent their students to
military academies abroad ; their men graduated
at our Naval Academy ; then they established a
naval college of their own, and to-day their army
and navy, in effectiveness and morale, are fully
abreast of the armies and navies of Europe, and,
according to an English military critic, superior
to many of them.

The matter of literary examination for public
office has been repeatedly dwelt upon, yet no one
can realize the overpowering absurdity of it until
he comes to examine the conditions minutely.
China is supposed to have an army and navy,
arsenals and departments of telegraph, customs,
etc. Now, let one open a page of Confucius, the
“ Doctrine of the Mean,” or the “ Analects,” for
example, or any ancient classic, and find if he can
a single line which would enable him to perform
any of the duties involved in the above depart-
ments. Everywhere he would find admonitions
to be just, good, and honest. References to an
honest judge and upright ruler, .etc., frequently
occur in these venerable pages, but of telegraphy,

175

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

railroads, medical and surgical practice, or any-
thing else pertaining to nineteenth-century civili-
zation, not a word. These moral admonitions
of Confucius are evidently taken in the usual
Chinese reverse sense ; for, outside of the munic-
ipal affairs of New York and Philadelphia, no
greater corruption or dishonesty exists than can
be found in China. Despite the fact that their
armies have been repeatedly beaten by small
bodies of European soldiers, and, within recent
years, suffered an ignominious and crushing de-
feat at the hands of Japan, in each case pay-
ing enormous indemnities, the Chinese still go
through these antiquated examinations in order
to secure positions in these modern departments.
It is said the appointments in the British Army
are nearly as absurd as the Chinese practice,
though based on a different method.

176

A SOLDIERS’ DRILL-ROOM

VERY near my hotel was a school for
archery and other military exercises.
My Portuguese landlord offered to
guide me to the place. There were a number of
Manchu soldiers practising at the time, and they
looked up frowningly as we came in. In this
place were not only implements for archery prac-
tice, but evidently for bow and spear exercises on
horseback, as there was a saddle mounted on a
big wooden support, and numerous appliances
were at hand for these .exercises. Heavy blocks
of stone were on the floor, upon which the sol-
diers developed their lifting muscles. Huge iron
implements with short cutting swords at the end
rested against a heavy framework of wood; these
had an iron shaft seven feet long and at least two
inches in diameter, with the additional weight of
what appeared to be a small grindstone at one
end and massive ribs of iron at the other. They

179

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

were so heavy that I could not lift one from the
floor, yet I was told the Manchu would twirl one
of these ponderous affairs over his head and
thrust and parry and fence and go through a
variety of evolutions with great celerity. There
were bows of immense size and stiffness, and I

got permission to try one. In my archery days
I used to shoot with what is technically known
as a forty-eight-pound bow, that is, a bow which
requires a weight of forty-eight pounds to draw
the bow down the length of a twenty-eight-inch
arrow. With all my strength, and hands clutched
to the bow and cord, I could not pull it more

i8o

A SOLDIERS^ DRILL-ROOM

than an inch. It was like stringing a telegraph-
pole. A Manchu then took it, and not only drew

it up to his ear, but back of his head, and held it
quivering in this position for several seconds.
The bow was so heavy that an assistant immedi-

i8i

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

ately placed props under the archer’s arms to sup-
port the weight while he drew it in this way. It

Drawing heavy bow. Canton

would almost seem that an arrow shot from such
a bow by such a giant in strength would have
pierced a dozen elephants in line.

182

A SOLDIERS’ DRILL-ROOM

The men who were drilling were Manchu Tar-
tars on their way to fight the French in Tonkin,
and as I made rapid sketches of them they
seemed ugly and suspicious. Suddenly, and
without a word, my Portuguese guide grabbed
me by the arm and hurried me out of the room
in a very unceremonious fashion, nor did he
explain this urgency until we had got some way
from the building, when he told me that what
they had said made it very dangerous to remain
there. Certainly by no act had they displayed
any hostile intention, though they were chatter-
ing continually, and were not very gracious in
their actions. I had evidently been taken for a
spy, or an emissary of the French, as it was be-
yond the comprehension of a Chinese mind that
any one should have the slightest interest as to
the stiffness of a bow, or precisely how an archer
held his hands in the act of drawing the string.

183

XII

A POTTERS’ TOWN

XII

. A POTTERS’ TOWN

WHILE in Japan I had been greatly
interested in the potters’ art, and made
a study of their furnaces and the va-
rious devices used in their work. I looked for-
ward with interest to the chances of comparing
Chinese methods with those of the Japanese.
Shanghai did not offer the opportunity, though
the jars and flower-pots seen there in such profu-
sion must have been made in the immediate
vicinity. I was told that to see the art in its
fullest development one would have to go inland
four hundred miles. At Canton my guide in-
formed me that he knew of no potters’ works
near by, though bricks, tiles, and earthen braziers
were made in Canton and its neighborhood.
There was a place up the river, about thirty
miles, famous as a pottery centre, but to go there
safely, my landlord said, would require a pass-
port, and this was only to be procured at Pekin.
Of course there was no time to secure one, so to

187

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

the American consul I went, hoping that he
might get a letter from some high official in
Canton, or from the Governor of the Province,
in which might be set forth the innocent object
of my visit. But this could not be obtained ; the
consul, however, informed me that only a few
weeks before two Americans had gone up the
river in a covered boat, and, on landing at the
place, had been mobbed, stoned, and driven to
their boat, the sides of which had been smashed
in ; and even the Chinese magistrate, who had en-
deavored to protect them, came in for a share of
the mobbing ; and yet these men were not only
provided with a passport from the Government,
but with a letter from the American Minister.
It is true these men were missionaries, and so I
accounted for the rough treatment they had re-
ceived. Not wishing to go alone, I tried to
induce the consul to accompany me, but official
duties prevented; it was impossible to give up
the trip, and with a feeling that if one behaved
himself with becoming humility one might travel
anywhere, I got my landlord to engage a boat
with a crew of six men for the journey. A little
Chinese boy who had waited upon me at the

1 88

A POTTERS^ TOWN

table, and who knew a few words of English, was
allowed to go with me as guide, as he said he
knew all about the place. For the first and last
time in the East I put a revolver in my pocket.
The crew were a sturdy set of fellows, the boat
was quite broad and flat-bottomed, and the men
stood at their work facing the bow and pushing
rather than pulling. The oars were very long
and spliced, as one sees them in Japan. I sat in
the bow with just room enough to avoid being
struck in the face by the forward man ; indeed, I
had to be very careful in moving about, as the
handle of the oar came within six inches of my
head. We were five hours and a half going up
the river, and this against a hardly perceptible
current. During the entire time of the journey
the men never stopped for a single moment in
their work, but kept it up with the greatest
energy, at the rate of thirty-two strokes a minute.
It was a somewhat dubious adventure, going into
the country even this short distance, at a time
when the region was in a ferment over the
French aggressions in the south.

In going up the river we passed one little set-
tlement, and then a village. The banks were low,

189

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

and here and there a solitary tree was seen ; but
the land on both sides was probably under culti-
vation, and the people were too busy at work to
saunter on the banks, and so a native was rarely
seen. It was quite different on the river, for a
large boat-traffic was in evidence, both in the
vessels we overtook and passed, and the vessels

we met. Everywhere along the banks the earth
seemed to be charged with old bricks, fragments
of roofing tiles, broken pottery, and white por-
celain, and this was certainly an indication that
the river was bordered by dikes. There were no
traces of river jetties, such as one so often sees in
the rivers of Japan. It was curious to observe
beyond the banks on either side of the river
large sails slowly gliding along apparently as if

190

A POTTERS* TOWN

the boats were sailing on the land. Our boat
was so low, and the dikes were so high, it was im-
possible to see the land beyond, yet these large
sails indicated, what every one is familiar with,
the remarkable extent of the canal system in
China. I was informed that a boat could go by
canal from Canton to Pekin, a distance of twelve
hundred miles, with only one obstruction in the
course, — a mountain-chain.

My experience on the river was anything but
encouraging, for in every boat that passed us, and
there were many, the occupants showed their hos-
tile attitude by shouting “ Fanquai ” (foreign devil)
and other vile epithets, and, what was more in-
teresting, the men often making up the most
hideous faces at me. To see a toothless, dirty,
old, wrinkled Chinese thrust out his tongue, con-
tort his features, and gesticulate in a threatening
way was a new experience and a very unpleasant
one. We finally arrived at the town at which
the pottery was made. It stretched a long way
on the river, and before we reached its southern
border the banks were marked by huge dumps
of broken pottery and porcelain, in some cases
these accumulations forming conspicuous prom-

191

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

ontories jutting out from the shore. The banks
also seemed filled with pottery, and here and
there were tall cylindrical piles of wood, in-
terspersed with piles of pottery such as have
been already described at the city gateways in
Shanghai. Here, indeed, was a pottery town,
but imagine my apprehension as to the treat-
ment that might be accorded me after running
a gauntlet of insults and hostile gestures for
some twenty-four miles. If the boat’s crew had
only returned the epithets, it would have been
some assurance that I had at least six men as
allies, but their cold and forbidding attitude
showed very clearly that they indorsed the senti-
ments of the river population.

192

XIII

A CHINESE MOB

XIII

A CHINESE MOB

The place where we landed was covered
with stacks of jars and pots of various
kinds, and I hoped that a pottery was
in the immediate vicinity, but, on inquiry, my
guide found that the pottery was at the upper
end of the town, a place we might easily have
reached in the boat. I then discovered that the
guide had never been to the town, and really knew
nothing about it. However, there was no back-
ing out now. The boat’s crew had pulled out
into the river, and the guide started ahead, and
I after him. I certainly did not relish going
through the narrow streets with a hooting mob
as an escort, — a mob, that had begun to collect
the moment I landed. A troop of the dirtiest
and raggedest hoodlums one could imagine
started after us, and ran ahead yelling “ Fanquai ”
at the top of their lungs. Men joined this mob,
some of them insolently thrusting their heads

195

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

under the broad brim of my sun-hat and grind-
ing their teeth at me ; indeed, I believe that the
looks of withering scorn and hatred can be better
portrayed by a Chinese face than by that of any
other race in the world. It was useless to make
any friendly advances, and so I did not attempt it,
but looked as firm and defiant as possible under
the circumstances, and kept one hand in my
pocket holding on to a cocked revolver. I had
already got one scare when I was so unceremo-
niously hustled out of a Manchu drill-room the
night before, and, somewhat depressed by the
treatment I had received on the river since early
morning, this stern appearance I was assuming
did not at all comport with my feelings. My
little guide was in a complete funk, and I feared
he would sneak off into the crowd and leave me
alone. The boat’s crew had pulled off into the
middle of the river, for even they, though Chinese,
came in for rough treatment, probably for being
in the employ of a foreigner. I went into a shop
to buy a piece of pottery, and the man looked
deeply insulted by the intrusion. The extrav-
agant sum I offered for a modelled bird, fresh
from the oven, could not be resisted, and I

196

A CHINESE MOB

brought back with me a single trophy of my ad-
ventures. We had gone over a mile and passed
large shops of pottery, but no sign of its manu-
facture. The guide frequently and timidly in-
quired, and was told to go on. Mr. Drew, at
Shanghai, had informed me that the potters were
a rough class compared to others, and my land-
lord had told me that I was to visit a region from
which most of the Chinese came who landed at
San Francisco, and to which region they returned
with stories of the heartless cruelties and indig-
nities they had received in a Christian country,
the persecutions coming from a class whose re-
ligion is most widely presented by missionaries
in China, the Catholics. I could not wonder,
then, at my reception. The streets were very
narrow and literally stinking ; the crowd in-
creased in number and turbulence ; boys ran
far ahead to tell their people that a foreign devil
was coming up the street. It reminded me of
the way boys run ahead of a circus, and a circus
it was, and I would gladly have been out of it.

Finally, and to my great relief, we turned up
a narrow alley, followed by the howling mob of
roughs. The alley led directly into a pottery.

197

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

The potters left their work as they heard the
racket, and so when I entered the place work
had ceased, and a number of rough and savage-
looking potters surrounded me with angry and
inquiring looks. I made my way through the
crowd, found a potter’s wheel, and made gestures

to a man, evidently the boss, that I wanted to see
how they turned a pot, and the sight of a fee that
was probably equal to a month’s wages induced
him, without an expression of thanks, to shout to
a fellow to go to work. I was at last to see the
working of a Chinese potter’s wheel. I crowded
back the mob, stepped on a naked toe now and
then, and fairly bluffed myself into a place where

198

A CHINESE MOB

I was enabled to make a hasty sketch of a potter
at work. The wheel rests on the ground, and the
potter squats beside the wheel. A helper stands
near by, steadying himself with a rope that hangs
down from a frame above ; holding on to this
and resting on one foot, he kicks the wheel
around with the other foot. The potter first
puts sand on the wheel, so that the clay adheres
slightly. He does not separate the pot from the
wheel by means of a string, as is usual with most
potters the world over, but lifts it from the wheel,
the separation being easy on account of the sand
previously applied. The pot is somewhat de-
formed by this act, but is straightened afterwards
with a spatula and the hand, as was the practice
of a Hindoo potter whom I saw at Singapore.
The ovens were like those of the Japanese; they
were built in a much more substantial manner,
however. The roof above them was well made and
supported by brick columns. In this pottery
there was not a sign of a green leaf or flower;
it was as barren as a brickyard. What vivid
memories came back of the Japanese potter with
his charming surroundings, the offering of tea
and cake, the children in the neighborhood bow-

199

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

ing as one passed, the potter himself, a cour-
teous soul with a love and knowledge of his
craft and the work of the generations preced-
ing him. In contrast, this Chinese pottery in
a desolate yard, the ground strewn with pottery
fragments, a number of workmen shouting to
each other or at me, a horde of ragged men
and boys howling vile names, and I thought
of my long walk back through the city, followed
by this venomous mob of thoughtless brutes. I
no longer wondered that magistrates could or-
der these people to be beheaded by hundreds
without a quiver of feeling, and, at the moment,
I should have enjoyed the ordering of such a
performance, and might have witnessed it with
equanimity. By their disputes and gestures it
was evident that they could not understand the
reason of my visit. That a barbarian and for-
eign devil should hire a boat’s crew of six men
and a guide, and come all the way from Canton
just to see a pot turned, was simply preposterous,
and I must be a spy. A shout of contempt
went up when I turned my back on the pottery
and started down the narrow lane. The crowd
kept up such a yelling that my approach was

200

A CHINESE MOB

signalized far ahead, so that I passed through a
serried array of frowning and angry faces. It
was a relief to find that my boat’s crew had not
deserted me, but, hearing the uproar, had pulled
in to the landing and was ready to row out the
moment I got aboard. As we pulled into the
stream, a salute of contemptuous shouts and a
few stones followed us. Why they had not as-
sailed me and smashed the boat, I could not un-
derstand, unless they had noticed that one hand
had been in my pocket all the time, through
which the outline of a rather heavy revolver
might have been detected. We pulled across
and down the river some distance, and running
the bow ashore I prepared to eat my lunch, feel-
ing a great relief in having left the Chinese devils
behind, when a number of shadows fell across
me and, looking up, I found the high embank-
ment fringed with a lot of peasants, men and
boys, who began jeering at me. These twenty
or thirty seemed so harmless compared to the
hordes in the city that I felt bold, took out my
sketch-book, and began to set them down. This
act instantly frightened most of them away, evi-
dently disturbed by some superstition in having

201

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

their pictures taken. A few men remained and
defiantly made up faces at me, and jerked their
arms in a peculiar gesture which the guide said
meant to choke me.

If one soberly considers the manner in which
the Chinese have been treated by Christian na-
tions, he cannot be surprised at the attitude of
the Chinese towards him. In the plainest way,
it may be stated that the “ Foreign Devils,” un-
der the guise of a diplomatic phrase known as
“ spheres of influence,” have stolen thousands

202

A CHINESE MOB

upon thousands of square miles of territory, have
robbed them of nearly every open port, and have
extorted untold millions in indemnities.

It was a relief to start for Canton, and leave
these justifiable ruffians to their filth and super-
stitions. On our way down the river, we landed
at a village which my guide said was the home
of his family. He did not find a relative even,
and it is probable that some ancestor lived there
many hundreds of years ago, for such is their
way of inaccurate statement that it is often im-
possible to find out what they do mean. (This
is stated on the authority of Dr. Smith, in Chi-
nese Characteristic si) We entered the village

by one gate, passed through the place, and out
by another gate. The village being an agricul-
tural one, the men, women, and children were in
the rice-fields at work, so there were few to greet
me, hostile or otherwise. It was curious to see
at this city gate conveniences for burning incense
to propitiate the evil spirits, and bring good luck
to the community.

The single trophy I brought back (see title-
page) from the pottery town shows fine taste and
skill in modelling. In this town I discovered the

203

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

origin of the common brown and green glazed
pottery figures that one finds for sale in our coun-

Gateway of village

try, — figures that are more curious than beautiful,
and sell for a few cents. I secured one of these
in Canton, and also have in my possession a figure

204

A CHINESE MOB

which had been handed down in an old Salem
family, and is known to have been brought from
Canton over one hundred years ago. It is made
of precisely the same clay and glaze as the mod-
ern one just alluded to, and must have been made
in the same place. The fragments of pottery jut-
ting out from the river-dikes were also of the same
material, so that from time immemorial a succes-
sion of generations have continued making the
same pottery, — an illustration of the fixed and
unchangeable character of these people. The
interesting fact about these figures is that the
modern one shows a marked deterioration in the
art, — a change that is seen in Japan as well as in
other regions of the world.

I got back to Canton late at night, wearied
with the strain and anxiety of the day’s adven-
ture. In my brief experience in Canton I could
not recall a single friendly or approving look, not
a sympathetic return of a smile that even the
lowest savage will respond to; on the contrary,
a contempt and hate of me was everywhere man-
ifest. In a Japanese town in a single day’s so-
journ I would establish kindly relations with a
number of men and children, who would come to

205

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

the borders of the village to bid me good-bye. At
one place milk was sent to me every morning by
some one who knew that the foreigner drank
milk; at another place some little souvenir was
given me by the servant of some one just as I
was about riding away.

I wanted to see the good points of the Chinese,
but utterly failed to get in touch with any one
save my companions at Shanghai, who had lived
in Hartford for a few years, and had, doubtless,
been slightly affected by this foreign contact.
Artificial as the politeness of the Japanese is said
to be by some English writers, I recall the ex-
pression of one who said that politeness was like
an air-cushion : there was nothing in it, but it
eased the jolts wonderfully. In my short expe-
rience with the Chinese I do not recall the faint-
est indications of kindliness, politeness, or urban-
ity; whether high or low in station, their attitude
was always the same. Now, I know there must
be kindness, gentleness, and politeness among
them. In the higher classes etiquette is devel-
oped to a degree unknown with us.

The reception a foreigner encounters in China
is due to an intense dislike of us, coupled with an

206

A CHINESE MOB

absolute contempt for all we do and for all we
have accomplished. It seems strange that the
cheap crowd of Chinese who come from the
poorest regions around Canton, and follow the
menial occupation of washing clothes, despise us
and all that our civilization has acquired. They
burn our gas and kerosene, ride in our cars, profit
by our medical practice, appear in our public
courts for justice, follow time with a Connec-
ticut clock, use our mails, yet look on their own
ways as infinitely superior to ours in every re-
spect. They are, undoubtedly, deeply impressed
and flattered by the fact that in some matters we
imitate them. If they are taught history in our
mission-schools, they know that many of our arts
originated in their own country. The art of
making paper, printing, the mariner’s compass,
the manufacture of gunpowder, white porcelain,
and silk, are all due to the Chinese. They fur-
ther note the use of raised beds, tables, and
chairs, and probably laugh at our limited use of
the wheel-barrow, which, with them, conveys pas-
sengers as well as merchandise. They notice the
same activity and bustle on the streets, our food
is in many respects not unlike theirs, and they go

207

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

to our markets and without trouble find articles
of food to their means and taste, and they ob-
serve their national drink dividing the honors
with coffee. They further notice that, like their
own people, we love noise, and in this matter they
probably regard us as superior, in that our bar-
barous factory whistles wake up invalids in the
next county, while their racket may reach only a
few squares. The factory whistle and the grind-
ing trolley car with its clanging bell they delight
in, and we make no effort to suppress. Their
pride must be flattered, too, when they discover
that we celebrate our great national birthday pre-
cisely as they celebrate their great days, and, what
is more, we send to their country for the fire-
crackers with which to do it. If our people die
in any part of the world, the body is transported
across continents and oceans to be interred in
home burial-places. The Chinese transport their
remains in the same way to their native country.

In recognizing these similarities, they see an
approach to their own people, but beyond these
matters they are totally blind. Cleanliness,
sanitation, good roads and schools, coinage,
postal-system, fire-apparatus, and all the wonder-

208

A CHINESE MOB

ful development of steam and electricity and the
thousand instrumentalities of life that we have
acquired through the persistent study of the be-
havior of nature’s laws make no more impression
on their brains than it would on the brain of an
ox. In these respects they represent a savage
race, and for these reasons the Chinese Exclusion
Act is justified.

The Chinese must certainly lament that they
are not strong enough to issue an edict exclud-
ing the foreigners from their country, for the for-
eigners have already wrought untold calamities
for their people, just as the free admission of the
Chinese to our country would, in the end, work
untold miseries for us.

209

INDEX

Archery, 131-133, 179-183.

Architecture in Shanghai, 8, 9, ii,
I7» 32, 47. 76, 95-97 ; in Canton,
125, 143, 152, 153, 162, 167, 168.

Artistic taste, absence of, among
the masses, 17.

Baby’s cage, 100; chair, 47 ; cradle,
105 ; high chair, 105.

Backyard, 75, 76.

Barber, 27.

Baskets, for paper to burn at graves,
54-

Bedrooms in Canton, 128.

Bedsteads, 30, 107, 128.

Beggar, 79.

Blacksmith, 30.

Boats on Y angtse, 5, 7 ; on river
at Canton, 113-116.

Books, 40.

Bookshelves, 39, 40.

Bow, 131, 132, 133.

Bowed cotton, 104.

Buddhist temples, 28, 135, 143-148.

Buddhistic worship, 37.

Burial places, 5, 6, 76, 137.

Canal system in China, 191.

Canton, arrival at, 113; buildings
in, 1 18; chairs in, 117 ; gates of,
134; walls of, 133; crowds on
streets, 118, 137, 139; filth of.

doorways in, 167, 168 ; drill-
room in, 179-183; fuel in, 123,
137; Government School, 116,
120; hostility to foreigners in,
1 19; house in, 122; inscriptions
in, 126, 127 ; kitchen in, 123-
126; kitchen shrine, 125; lan-
guage of, 122, 123; prison in,
171, 172; roofing tiles in, 162;
sanitary arrangements in, 128;
shop signs in, 118; temples in,
135. 143-148 ; view of, 135 ; water
conductors, 162 ; window sash,
125.

Carpenters’ tools, 29.

Catholic church in China, 37.

Catholic doctrine, progress of the,
108.

Children, 20, 41, 58.

Chimneys, 50, 76.

Chinese Exclusion Act, 209.

Chopping-block, 52.

Chopsticks, 67.

Cleanliness, contempt for, 7 ; slight
evidence of, 60.

Clothing, cost of, 44, 45.

Coffins, 29,

Cold houses, 38, 44, 45.

Costumes, 42 ; price of, 49.

Cotton, 101-104; gin, loi, 102;
primitive means for manufacture
of, 100.

Court-yard, 32,33, 58.

114, 125, 143-148,155, 158, 160;

213

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

Cradle, 105.

Cummings, Miss Gordon, 167.
Currency, 16.

Customs, unmodifiable, 35.

Debris from fire, 75.

Dining-room, 45-47.

Dinner, 65-72.

Dirtiness of the people, 7-10, 14,
17, 21, 28, 44, 47, 50, 52, 54, 68-
70, 80, 84, 85, 90, 128, 129.
Doorways, 8, 9, 167, 168.

Dress, of child, 2, 4; of men, 42,
44; at theatre, 89.

Drew, Mr. Edward B., 9.

Drug stores, 28.

Dwarf trees, 143-145.

Energy of the people, 25, 26.
Entrance to house, 32, 95.

Etiquette, 206.

Examination hall, 172, 173.
Examination for public office, 175,
176.

Execution grounds, 172.

Feeling, absence of, in Chinese,
78.

Feet, compression of, 34, 37, 42,
129-131.

Fishing boats, 5.

Flatiron, 28.

Flower-garden, 58.

Food, 17, 18, 21, 28, 66-68, 80, 84.
Foot- warmer, 38.

Foreign population, 22.

Foreigners, contempt for, 50, 206,
207.

Fuel, 98, 123.

Furniture, 30, 105, 107, 128, 207.
Gambling, 14.

Gateways, 77, 95, 96, 152.

Ginger sprouts, 18, 72.

Goose’s egg, 67, 70.

Government appointments, 173-
176.

Government School, Canton, 116,
120.

Guests, seating of, at table, 65, 66.

Gymnastic performances, 89.

Hair-dressing, 42.

Hartford students, 18, 19, 206.

Hogs at temple, 146, 147.

Hong Kong, in, 112.

House, in Canton, 122; cold, 38;
entrance to, 32, 95 ; interiors of,
19, 20, 38, 72; Howqua’s, 151-
162; of peasant, 95; roof of, 76,
77-

Howqua’s mansion, 151-162.

Incense, burning of, 203.

Inland Sea, 3.

Inscriptions in Canton, 126, 127.

Jail, 78.

Japanese and Chinese contrasted,
105, 107, 120, 121, 137, 143, 147,
148, 154, 174, 175. 199. 200.

Joss-paper, burning of, 148.

Juggler, street, 14, 15.

Kaempfer, 37.

Kitchen, 47-54; in Canton, 123-
126; in Howqua’s house, 155-
159; shrine, 125.

Language, 86; of Canton, 122, 123.

Library, 21, 32, 38, 39.

Li Hung Chang, 44.

Loom, 104.

Lucky-boxes, 56.

INDEX

Manchus, 30.

Mandarins, 18, 19.

Markets, 28.

Menu, at dinner, 67.

Missionaries, 36, 37, 108.
Missionary, female, 35, 36.

Mob, 188, 195-197, 200, 201
Music, in theatre, 87.

“ Nimble lads,” 67.

Noise, 10, 87-89, 1 17, 1 19, 208.

Opium war, 119, 135, 151.
Orchestra at theatre, 87.

Order, contempt for, 7.

Palanquins, 117, 133.

Peasant’s house, 95.

Pipes, 165-167.

Politeness, 206; absence of, 206.
Population of, 21, 22,

Potters’ wheel, 198, 199.

Pottery, 33, 172, 187, 191, 192, 195,
197, 199, 203-205 ; deterioration
of, 205 ; pedler of, 113, 114 ; piles
of, 12, 25.

Prison, in Canton, 17 1, 172.
Prisoners, 171, 172.

Protestants, 37.

Punishment, modes of, 78, 79.

Repairs, no attention paid to, 29,
40.

Roofing tiles, 9, 47, 76, 77, 98 ; in
Canton, 162.

Roofs of houses, 76.

Sake, 66.

Sampson, Mr., 116, 117, 120, 122,
124, 126, 133.

Sanitary arrangements, 20, 90; in
Canton, 128.

Schlegel, Dr. Gustave, translation
of inscription, 26.

Shanghai, 7-108 ; crowds in streets
of, 13, 25, 26; foreign city, 7-10,
21; native city, 7, 9-21, 25;
temples in, 107 ; Walls of Native
City, 10, II, 25.

Shanghai River, 7.

Shell of large snail, 137.

Shells for window lights, 49, 50.

Shoe, 98.

Shop signs, 26; in Canton, 118.

Slave, 60-62.

Small-pox, 15.

Soldiers’ drill-room, 179.

Spinning wheel, 103.

Statements, inaccuracy of, in Chin-
ese, 203.

Store, 50.

Straits of Shimonoseki, 3.

Street juggler, 14, 15; sights, ii,
13, 14, 26, 29, 56, 79, 80, 90.

Streets, narrow and crooked, 19.

Study, 21, 32, 38, 39.

Superstitions, 6, 37, 56-58, 69, 70,
201, 203.

Sword-swallowing, 15.

Tailor, 27.

Tea, 17, 18, 28; house, 16-18.

Temples, 28 ; in Canton, 135, 143-
148 ; in Shanghai, 107.

Tiles, for roofing, 9, 71, 76, 77 ;
for floors, 21.

Time-keeping, primitive methods
of, 168.

Theatre, 83, 90.

Tobacco, 165-167

Tombs, 5, 6, 76.

Vessels, on river, 5, 7, 113-116.

215

GLIMPSES OF CHINA

Walls, of Native City of Shanghai,
lo, II, 25; of Canton, 133.
Water clock, 168-171.

Water pipe, 40, 165, 166.
Window-glass of China, 50.
Windows and window frames, 47,
49> 52.

Wine, 66.

Woman’s bedroom, 105, 107.
Women, condition of, 33, 35, 42.
Writing characters, 123 ; table, 40.

Yangtse, 4, 5.

Yellow Sea, 4.

216

The Town of the Conqueror

BY ANNA BOWMAN DODD

Author of ** The American Husband in Paris/'

** Three Normandy Inns/' "Cathedral Days," etc*

WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS

)2mo. Decorated Cloth, $2.00.

The book is one to read through with delight, and to return to with re-
newed delight. — Philadelphia Telegraph.

The famous but well-nigh forgotten town furnishes Mrs. Dodd with an
admirable subject. . . . We have the same vivacious and humorous sallies, the
same sympathy, appreciation, and insight, which so charmed us in << Cathedral
Days” and ‘‘Three Normandy Inns.” — Commercial Ad<vertiser, N. Y.

The chief charm of Mrs. Dodd’s books is that quite unexpectedly, while
you are reading about some quaint corner of a quaint old Norman village, she
will lead you off on the trail of a pretty little love story or other romance of
delightful consequence, and so before you realize it you feel saturated with
local atmosphere and personally interested in the most trivial affairs of the
quaint people you meet in her pages. — Rochester Herald.

Mrs. Dodd has eyes, sentiment, humor, and a facile pen, all of which
are stimulated by Normandy and things Norman until not one line she writes
is dull. — Chicago Tribune.

The Illustrations alone are sufficient to make a fascinating volume, and
they reproduce the present-day quaintness of an ever-quaint country with
fidelity. Seldom have the attractions of a country fair been more vividly por-
trayed than in the bright and chatty rehearsal of the doings at the Falaise
“Eleventh-Century” fair. — Living Age, Boston.

LITTLE, BROWN, & COMPANY, Publishers

254 Washingion Sired, Boston, Mass.

?n anti #ut of ■»

'C^rec i^ormantig Jfnno

BY ANNA BOWMAN DODD

Nem) edition, <TvUh numerous full-page plate and other iltusirations*

t2mo* Cloth, extra. Price, $2 MO

t2mo, Papepf <wHh frontispiece, 50 cents

The reader who lays down this book without wishing there were more of it
is to be pitied. ... It is rarely that so thoroughly delightful a bit of travel and
study is discovered. These sketches of Normandy coast scenes, people, and
inns, are really quite ideally good. The author has done good work before, but
nothing so good as this. . . . The inns so capitally treated are at Villerville,
Dives, and Mont St. Michel, and it is hard to say which of them is the most
fascinating. — New York Tribune.

Charming alike in matter and literary style. She has the eye of an artist
for the picturesque, and the art of presenting her impressions in pure and grace-
ful English. Nothing could be more charming than the description of Villerville
in the opening chapters. It literally “ breathes of the sea ” and of the fisher-folk
who have their homes within the quaint old village. — San Francisco Call.

No one, we fancy, will be able to close this enticing volume without a desire
to cross the sea and follow in the footsteps of its author, from Villerville to
Dives, from Dives to Caen, thence to Coutance, and finally to the summit of the
cathedral-crowned Mont St. Michel. . . . She has the art of making pictures
for her readers which pulsate with real atmosphere and glow with veritable
color. There is quick apprehension, close observation, a keen sense of the
comical — and there is also, here and there, a delicate touch of feeling.—
Literary World.

LITTLE, BROWN, & COMPANY, Publishers

254 Washington Street, Boston, Mass*

CatfiEtiral Bayg

BY ANNA BOWMAN DODD

Nem) edition. Illustrated nvith Sketches and
Photographs by E. ELDON DEANE. 12mo
Goth, extra. Price, $1.50

A real addition to the brief list of books that give zest to a tourist. . . . Mrs.
Dodd’s recital of her carriage tour through the lanes and by-paths of Southern
England is in fact unique. It has nothing in common with those hackneyed
way-books which direct us to haunts whose beauty they do not in the least cap-
ture and convey. . . . They hire a T-cart ; a horse, christened “ Ballad,” with
whom they and we are soon on terms of choice acquaintanceship ; and proceed
with light belongings over an ideal route, stopping at ivied country inns, when
and where they choose, subject to nothing but the weather and their own will.
Their tour begins at Arundel in Sussex, and ends at Exeter in Devon, a journey
of six enchanted weeks, — a blended succession of rural villages, towns, heaths
(Stonehenge and Bath taken in by the way), manor-house, castles, and beyond
and over all the sacred and inspiring Cathedrals of Chichester, Winchester,
Salisbury, Wells, and Exeter. . . . Mrs. Dodd’s wholesome and winning English
style, thoroughly individual, lightened with humor, and marked with rare beauty
in descriptive passages, is the unflagging attraction of the book. — Edmund C.
Stedman, in the Book Buyer.

A very pleasant narrative of travel. — London Spectator.

How one can imprison so much English sunshine and fragrance, and trans-
mute it into style, and spread it out on the printed page, as our American
saunterer in England has done, is one of the secrets of authorship. — The Critic.

A Tour in Southern

LITTLE, BROWN, & COMPANY, Publishers

2S4 Washington Street, Boston, Mass*

J6oinel$ooitii of ®rai)tl

GLIMPSES OF CALIFORNIA AND THE MISSIONS. By Helen
Jackson, author of “ Ramona,” etc. Nenv Edition. With 37 pictures
by Henry Sandham, including numerous full-page plates, iimo. Dec-
orated cloth. $1.50.

Mrs. Jackson’s delightful California articles, hitherto printed with her European travel
sketches, are now published in a separate volume with the addition of a series of pictures by
Henry Sandham, who accompanied Mrs. Jackson in the California trip which gave sugges-
tions for her famous romance, “Ramona.”

JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS. THE SPERONARA. Translated from
the French of Alexandre Dumas by Katharine Prescott Wormeley.
i6mo. Cloth.

In 1834 the great French novelist set forth upon a series of journeys which furnished
material for some delightful sketches and stories. The great writer’s tales and anecdotes
are as fresh and entertaining as ever, and from this feast Miss Wormeley, the translator of
Balzac, has gathered a series of volumes, the first of which is now offered. It describes a
Mediterranean trip, taking the reader through Sicily.

IN AND AROUND THE GRAND CANYON. The Grand Canyon
of the Colorado River in Arizona. By George Wharton James.
With thirty full-page plates and seventy illustrations in the text. 8vo.
$3.00.

An illustrated work of which too much can scarcely be said in praise. *‘The Grand
Canyon” is one of the world’s wonders, and this volume is the most thorough and satis-
fying presentation of its many rugged attractions thus far offered. — San Francisco CbronicU.

THE ISLES AND SHRINES OF GREECE. By Samuel J. Barrows.
With 19 full-page plates. 8vo. $^.oo.

The volume abounds in interest for the general reader; it contains much information
of value for students of Greek life, language^ religion, and art ; it is an engaging book on
an inspiring theme. The illustrations are beautiful reproductions of Greek monuments,
life, and scenery. — Tbe Christian Register.

TO ROME ON A TRICYCLE. Two Pilgrims’ Progress from Fair
Florence to the Eternal City of Rome. By Joseph Pennell and
Elizabeth Robins, authors of “A Canterbury Pilgrimage,” etc. With
pen drawings by Joseph Pennell. Nenu edition, izmo. $1.50.

LAZY TOURS IN SPAIN AND ELSEWHERE. By Louise Chand-
ler Moulton, izmo. $1.50.

The book is one to enchain the reader in his lazy hours, or beguile a journey, with
its charm and color of foreign scenes. — Lilian Whiting.

RANDOM RAMBLES. By Louise Chandler Moulton. i8mo.

LITTLE, BROWN, & COMPANY, Publishers

254 Washington Street, Boston, Mass.

- i I".

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