Inside Canton/Chapter 4
CHAPTER IV.
Honest travellers, who have visited Canton, have related twenty times the endeavours they have made to enter the walled city, the dangers they have encountered and the semi-success they have met with. Semi-success is an expression which disguises a poor falsehood; it replies beforehand to the indirect question:
"Well, what did you see?"
"Upon my honour!" says, emphatically, the boaster, who has his answer ready; "I had passed the great gate of Chin-se-Mun, the only one which gives access to the Tartar city, when"
I spare you the remainder of this common-place, tiresome, and absurd story. Poor people! the sterility of their imagination is a eulogy on their credulity! I own that, if I had felt the want of persuading my readers I had penetrated into the walled city, I should have adopted a completely different course. My experience of things human taught me, a very long time ago, that the Unknown usually conceals a deception, and I should simply have expressed my surprise at having seen nothing surprising! But, instead of the impressions I might have described, had I penetrated into the Tartar city, I will relate how it happened that I did not go there, and, I will answer for it, the reader will have lost nothing through my not having done so.
After all, the Chinese who have immured the Europeans in a ghetto, have shut themselves up in a similar prison, and the vast enclosure inside which they have retired differs from the other only by the melancholy originality of certain official residences. To speak the truth, there exists only one joyous, poetical, noisy, and laborious Canton; this is the Canton of pleasure, of industry, and of business—that is to say, the suburbs and the floating city. This is not enclosed in gray, creviced walls; it extends freely along the banks of the river; the brick and granite houses follow, to the south and the east, the peaceful circumvolutions of the Tchou-kiang; they line canals more animated than the canals of Venice, and the hundred residences at anchor rock to and fro incessantly on the liquid ground which supports them. This is the Canton we are now about to traverse in palanquin, on foot, and in a boat, beginning at that portion which is established on the main land.
The day after our installation in the street of the Noise-of-the-Tide—Tchao-in-kiaï—Callery entered my room at seven o'clock in the morning.
"We will traverse," he said, "Old China Street, go down Chap-tam-hong-kiaï, or the street of the Thirteen Factories, and, thence, visit some of the shops in Ta-teong-kiaï, or Physic Street, as the English say; so prepare to set out."
On the previous evening we had merely gone through the hongs and the two passages I have described. We embarked at the foot of the stairs of our charming house of Thè-ki-Han, the last step of which is constantly washed by the Tchou-kiang. Two charming tanka girls, A-Moun and A-Fay, made their egg-shell glide over the calm water, and put us out at the landing-place which precedes Old China Street. While going along this silent passage, I said to Callery:—
"Canton is decidedly mournful; the bazaar of Macao is dirty, stinking, and filthy, but there is life about it. This passage, so straight and so correct, is enough to give any one the horrors. I believe the Chinese people is an amphibious people; it only lives well on the water. What a charming view I enjoy, from my room, over the Tchou-kiang!"
"That is, indeed, the effect Canton produces upon me," said Callery, with indifference.
We continued our journey.
We came out on a sort of market, the aspect of which agreeably surprised me; it was a very little fish market. In large tubs were swimming enormous round-headed chub-fish, resembling large tadpoles, and succulent gouramiers, which Creole sensuality has already naturalised at Bourbon. Beside these swimming gentry, then unknown to me, I again beheld the vigorous frogs and long-necked turtles of the bazaar at Macao.
Callery scarcely allowed me to cast a single glance at these denizens of the Tchou-kiang, but dragged me off to the street of the Thirteen Factories. This street is so named, because, as I have already said, it runs along the quarter of the hongs. My guide did not allow me to stop, but pushed me, so to speak, into Physic Street. On falling into this gulf, I lost all consciousness; I experienced something analogous to what a drowning man feels. Without reflecting, without uttering a word, I allowed myself to be carried along by the human current, which flowed between the two banks of houses. Lost in the midst of this stream of shaven heads, hanging queues, long and short robes, and yellow faces, the owners of which were fanning themselves, I felt nothing, I saw nothing, and I allowed myself to be rolled along by the current, as a corpse or the trunk of a tree, is carried down a river!
When I arrived at Macao, I had been eight months at sea; during the various periods we had been in port, we had passed over deserted roads much more frequently than we had walked in the streets of large cities. My eyes and ears, accustomed to the noise of the waves, and the solitudes of the ocean, were no longer used to the tumults of crowds, and the sight of large multitudes of men, and, on passing from the Portuguese into the Chinese city, I was struck with astonishment. At Canton, my surprise amounted to stupefaction. Besides, at Macao, the crowd which blocked up the bazaar was noisy, but almost motionless—that is to say, it moved about on the same spot; it was a lake traversed by currents; in the present instance, however, the lake had overflowed its banks, and ran between two sinuous and irregular rocks. And yet, in these waves of population, among this compact crowd, we did not see a single woman, a single child, a single carriage, a single wagon, a single horse, a single dog, or a single cat; we beheld only men; everywhere men: men in silk robes, men in pointed hats, men fanning themselves, men loaded with goods, or chair-porters. If we were to stop, for a few instants, the current of women, children, and of rolling and creaking machines, which incessantly traverse the principal streets of Paris, the latter would suddenly be silent and deserted. Let the reader imagine, from this, the enormous population of Canton.
The first thing which struck my attention in the midst of this confusion was the good appearance of the houses, generally only of one storey; the luxury of the shops, and the magnificent signboards, arranged laterally or transversely at the entrance of the stores, and displaying, upon a black, red, or blue ground, admirable characters, gilt and carved in relief. Whichever way you turned your eyes, to the right or to the left, you always beheld the captious signboards of the traders, which are really charming ornaments, encircling their doors. In no country, not even at Paris, have people ever invented such ingenious means of puffing goods by exhibiting them, and of speaking to the eyes. Twenty times, on catching a glimpse of the strange objects which flitted past me as in a dream, I was tempted to stop; but, under the influence of the irresistible impulse of the crowd, I kept going on and on, obeying, without accounting for it, the magnetism exerted by large assemblies of men. Much more than the poetic lake of Monsieur de Lamartine, was this human river the image of the ocean of ages, on which we sail without ever putting into port!
For more than an hour I had been in the state of Ahasuerus, when the sound of an enormous box on the ear, which re-echoed behind me, caused me to start from my slumber. I turned round suddenly: the crowd had stopt; a Chinaman, with bare feet, and dressed in a pair of trousers not coming further than half-way down his legs, and a cham of dirty cloth, with his head badly shaven, and his queue in disorder, was rubbing his cheek, without saying anything, while Callery was explaining to the spectators, in the coolest manner possible, that he had surprised the individual in question faisant le mouchoir.[1] The Chinese applauded the explanation, and the column resumed its course. Thus, at the very first steps I took in a large Chinese city, I was able to vouch for the presence of that representative of a very advanced stage of civilisation, the pickpocket; that decent thief who despises violence, and exercises his calling prudently, without noise, without disturbance, and without ever employing brute force.
This was not, however, the first time I had been in the presence of these professionals of the Celestial Empire; and before proceeding further I will relate a little story for the benefit of those among my readers who may make a voyage to China at some future period.
One day, at Macao, I was walking back with Callery to his residence. While going along, he was speaking in an animated manner, and had got a magnificent parasol under his arm. Passing the corner of a street, near the bazaar, my friend stopped to indulge in a demonstration, after the fashion of the natives of southern climates, who paint at the same time that they describe a subject. He had scarcely commenced his explanation, however, before a Chinaman snatched his parasol from him, and flew off like a bird. Thank Heaven, Callery is a good runner, and darted off after the thief; but the latter had the start, and disappeared before my friend could come up with him. This comical scene set me off laughing furiously, and I was still so engaged when Callery came back to me. I must mention that he was in a very bad humour, but that could not calm my hilarity. We continued on our road, he cursing, and I laughing. We had not proceeded ten paces before I felt my hat fly off. I turned round suddenly and saw the Chinaman, who was running away with it, take the same road as Callery's robber had done. I did not pursue him; not I! I stood still, so as to laugh at leisure, and admire the blackguard's velocity. In this way we returned to Callery's, he without his parasol, and I without my hat.
After the incident of the handkerchief we at last stopped. Callery gave two or three small coins to his poor devil of a thief to console him for having made a failure, and we entered a shop. While my friend was talking to the proprietor, I stationed myself at the door to watch the interminable procession, which traverses incessantly the streets of Canton, as it filed passed me. The passengers were little citizens, wearing the long blue robe, the violet camail, and the black silk cap; members of the lower classes, dressed in blue nankeen; beggars covered with rags, or dressed in rattan mats; hawkers, itinerant barbers, dentists, restaurateurs and dealers in sweetmeats. In the midst of these plebeians moved mandarins carried in their massive chairs by four robust young fellows; rich merchants and young literary men, comfortably installed in their chairs of light bamboo. At times certain portable cells strongly excited my curiosity; they were veiled from all eyes, and presented so discreet a physiognomy that I presumed they contained the joys of the interior apartments. I was not mistaken. They were young women going out to pay visits. They were usually accompanied by one or two duennas, who walked between the shafts of the palanquin, hiding their faces with their fans.
Everyone went on peaceably and in good order, without too much jostling; but something came to throw the crowd into confusion, and that was long files of porters, who, covered only by a broad hat and a pair of trousers, carried, balanced at the two extremities of a pole, bales of goods, and traversed the compact mass at a trot, holloaing out for the way to be cleared, and resolutely knocking over whoever did not promptly get on one side on hearing the "Lay! lay! lay!" which is the "look out" of the country. Though I particularly mention the "lay, lay" of the porters, it must not be concluded that the other supernumeraries of this scene were dumb; every trader, on the contrary, utters his own particular cry, and each one has his own manner of attracting attention. From all these combinations of voices there results an infernal hubbub, in the midst of which the barbers are distinguished by the originality of their instrumentation. They pinch a little iron rod, the metallic sonorousness of which resembles the vibrations of a gigantic double-bass, and thus fufil the duties of accompanyists in this horrible concert.
Before the shops, at every street-corner, and along the houses, were to be seen groups of beggars, blind men keeping close to the walls and guiding themselves by a pole, jobbing tailoresses patching up and mending old clothes, and barbers shaving some decrepit old man, or curling the hair of some street fashionable. The beggars enjoy a singular privilege at Canton: they may station themselves at the door of any shop, singing and striking their pieces of bamboo against each other for hours together, while the proprietor has not the right to drive them away! These poor devils are not obliged to move off until they have received alms! A person must have undergone the torture of this singing and this discordant noise to understand the exorbitant nature of the custom; a concert of Auvergnats, and the noise of saucepans and coppers, are harmonious compared to these performers in rags. I have often, very often, seen the obstinacy of these tatterdemalions pitted against the avarice of the shopkeepers, but the latter always finished where they ought to have begun—that is to say, by parting with a few sapecs.
In a country where everyone wears a queue—not a villanous little wretched slender queue like that which used to grease the collars of our fathers' coats, but a good thick plait descending from the sinciput to the calf—the reader will perceive what importance, practical and social, the barbers must have achieved! They take a man in his cradle, and do not leave him till the day he enters the tomb; if they only chose to employ the influence at their command they might revolutionise China. The Figaros of the Central Empire constitute a most considerable corporation. A Protestant clergyman, who indulges in statistics after the fashion of M. Charles Dupin, assured me that there were more than 20,000 at Canton! There are itinerant barbers, barbers in their own room, barbers with shops, and barbers who stand at the corners of the streets, like the Paris commissionnaires. I have very often sent for the barber from the corner, and never had any reason to regret it.
This artist employs no soap; he simply moistens the skin several times; he then scrapes his customer with a razor resembling a clasp-knife without a spring, broken in half. This wretched blade, two inches long and one broad, is fitted into a piece of wood as a handle; but, however pitiable their appearance, these instruments are excellent; you scarcely feel them run over your skin. When the itinerant barbers pass through a street, they cause the long pincers of which I have previously spoken, and the branches of which do the duty of a tuning-fork, to vibrate; this is their manner of announcing their presence. The penetrating sound passes through every fissure, and the customer, having thus received notice, sends for the artist if his services are needed. But the lower classes are not so particular; they entrust their heads simply to the street barbers. The only stock in trade which the latter possess is a stool, a tub, a case containing two or three razors, a strop, a pair of pincers, and a little instrument made of bamboo, the use of which I will state presently.
It is no rare occurrence to see, in the bye-streets of Canton, thirty or forty Chinamen, one after the other, as motionless as the old wig blocks, and on whom the barbers of the Celestial Empire are performing all the operations of their trade. The following is the mode of proceeding: They begin by washing the head and shaving that portion of the body: having done this, they untie the queue, which they carefully comb and plait; armed with long pincers, they then clear the ears and the nose from the parasitical hairs that encroach upon them. Moreover, they indulge in a most delicate practice: with the aid of the little bamboo rod of which I have spoken, and which terminates in a tuft of carded cotton, extremely fine, they sweep, so to say, the eyeball—that is to say, they pass this light feather-broom under the eyelids, all round the eye, and inside the ear.
Such is the care bestowed by the Chinese barbers on the heads of their customers, taken in their entirety; but their solicitude does not stop here. They examine the feet, to see whether the nails are properly cut, and that none of those horrible indurations, corns, invade them; after this examination is over, they shampoo the person shaved. The mode of shampooing in the Celestial Empire differs essentially from that practised in Arabian baths. The individual operated on is seated on a chair with a back. He is naked to the hips, and his body is leaning forward. The barber begins by drumming with the flat of his hand from the lower part of the loins up as far as the shoulders; he then kneads the same parts, and once more begins drumming. When this is done, the customer squares himself conveniently on his seat, with his own back resting firmly against that of the chair, and the operator repeats the same manœuvres on the parts near the sternum. During this last phase of the operation, the Chinaman closes his eyes, while his whole physiognomy expresses a sentiment of comfort and satisfaction which it is impossible to contemplate without being seized with a fit of hilarity.
I was, one day, going through the streets of Tin-hay with an English officer. As we were passing a barber's shop, we stopped to see an individual shampooed: he was a burly tradesman, whose face, breast, and neck, resembled the plump, yellow rump of a fat goose. The sybarite had his eyes closed; he was smiling, and breathing loudly, and had a face as resplendent as that of one of the elect. While contemplating him, my companion was seized with a mad idea. These soldiers are so coarse! Without the barber perceiving what he was doing, he seized a pail of water with both hands, and threw the contents, from a distance of three paces, over the torso of the beatified tradesman. On receiving this inundation, hurled with a steady hand, the sensual child of the Central Empire bounded up to his feet. It was the first and only time I ever saw a Chinaman really in a rage. He foamed at the mouth; he stamped his feet; he skipped about; he bellowed! But the good Chinese have no idea of giving an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, and the Chinaman in question did not even think of throwing the empty pail at the head of the practical joker.
The barbers' shops are, in China, what they formerly were in Europe, a place of meeting for idlers and scandalmongers; it is there that tittle-tattle and ill-natured stories are bandied about; for China, too, has its slanderous chronicle! Thus we see, that their civilisation, which is considered so eccentric, after all greatly resembles our own. The poor people, however, whom we accuse of being deficient in delicacy, would not permit those "artists in hair" to glide into houses, for the purpose of executing diplomatic missions, which French Figaros eagerly undertake. The barbers never approach the interior apartments, and the women have their hair dressed by their female servants, their mothers, their sisters, and friends of their own sex. In acting thus, I think this people give us a lesson of propriety and good taste. The Chinese, by employing barbers to take care of their nails, have been scientifically logical. The man who cuts the hair ought necessarily to devote his attention to all the horny expansions of the body, and tend even the eyes; for, if you ask naturalists of the school of M. de Blainville, you will learn that the nails are agglomerated hair, and that even an eye is nothing more than a pilous organ, greatly expanded.
There is still another point of resemblance existing between French and Chinese barbers: the latter are perruquiers as well. When the queue has undergone the irreparable injuries of time, the barber steps in, and fits an artificial prolongation to the rare white hairs time has not shaved off. Moreover, in this nation of extra-oriental civilisation, these petulant and babbling artists occupy a position analogous to that which they hold among ourselves; they are ranked a little above servants. Hair is, in China, an object of considerable trade. In a charming little work, entitled La Coiffure, les Yeux et les petits Pieds, Natalis Rondot informs us, that a false queue costs, at Shanghai, only two hundred and sixty sapecs, or, in other words, ninety centimes. It is really not worth while to be without one!
The street Ta-teong-kiaï has been called Physic Street by the English, on account of the multitude of druggists' shops it contains; but the laboratories are not more numerous there than the shops of the dealers in lanterns, curiosities, and stuffs. It traverses the whole length of the suburbs, from east to west, and, on account of its immense extent, is one of the most frequented thoroughfares in Canton. In the description I have just given of it, I have endeavoured to convey an idea of the noise; the movement and the activity which always reign there, and, since I have taken it as a type of the business streets, I will now describe one of the houses in it. This specimen will be sufficient to enable the reader to understand the internal and external arrangement of all the little edifices devoted to retail trade.
- ↑ Equivalent to the English slang phrase, faking a cly.