Through China with a camera/Chapter 5

CHAPTER V.

CANTON (Continued)

Its general Appearance—Its Population—Streets—Mode of Transacting Business—Signboards—Work and Wages—The Willow-pattern Bridge—Juilin, Governor-General of the Two Kwang—Clan Fights—Hak-kas—The Mystic Pills—Dwellings of the Poor—The Lohang-tang—Buddhist Monastic Life—On Board a Junk.

Canton is by no means the densely packed London in China which some have made it out to be. The circuit of the city wall very little exceeds six miles, and if we stand upon the heights to the north of the city, and turn our faces southward, we can trace the outline of these fortifications along a considerable portion of their course. This, then, is the entire area strictly included in the limits of the town; but there are large straggling suburbs outside the walls which spread for no little distance over the plain. In these suburbs there are many open spaces; some, shaded by trees and orchards, form the parks and gardens of the officials; others, again, display the carefully tended produce of the market-gardener; while military parade grounds, rice-fields, and ponds where fish are bred, are scattered at intervals between more thickly populated ground. There is,

_{FEMALE COIFFURE, CANTON.}

indeed, nothing in the whole picture of this southern metropolis

suggestive of a teeming land population, save the centre of the city itself. But to the south of the wall there is the broad Pearl river, and communicating with this stream a network of canals and creeks, the whole more densely populated perhaps than the city. In the boats which crowd these water- ways a vast number of families pass their lives, and subsist by carrying merchandise or conveying passengers to different parts of the province. The population of Canton is computed at about a million souls, although the official census returns it at a figure considerable higher.

As in Peking, so at Canton, the space within the walls is divided into two unequal parts, the one occupied nominally by the Tartar garrison and official residences only, and the other containing the abodes of the trading Chinese population. But the descendants of the old Tartar soldiers, too proud to labour, and too haughty to stoop themselves to the mean artifices of trade, have become impoverished in process of time, and have disposed of their lands and dwellings to their more industrious Chinese neighbours. As to the houses themselves, they every- where preserve one uniform low level, but the monotonous appear- ance thus produced is at rare intervals broken by some tall temple, which rears its carved and gilded roof from amid a grove of venerable trees, or by the nine-storied pagoda, or lofty quadrangular towers that mark the pawnshop sites. The pawnshops in this strange city rear their heads heavenwards as proudly as church steeples, and indeed at first we mistook them for temples. What was our surprise then, to discover in them the Chinese reproduction of that money-lending establishment which is found in the shady corners of our own bye-streets, beneath a modest trinity of gilded balls, and whose private side entrance stands invitingly open. In Canton they are square bold-looking edifices, lifting their benevolent grey-brick heads to a height which positively, in Chinese eyes, invests them with sanctity.

Ah-sin and Ah-lok, indeed, look up with something akin to veneration at their plastered walls, narrow stanchioned win- dows, and at the huge rock boulders poised on the edge of the roof above, ready to drop down upon any robber who might dare to scale the treasure-sheltering sides. I recollect visiting one of these places for the purpose of seeing within, and to obtain a view of the city. Armed with an introduction from a leading Chinese merchant, I presented myself one morn- ing before an outer gate in the high prison-looking wall, which encircled the tower. My summons was answered by a portly gate-keeper, who at once admitted me inside. Here I found a number of military candidates going through a course of drill; the porter was himself an old soldier, a sort of drill- sergeant, and was now instructing pupils in the use of the bow and how to lift up heavy weights. After exhibiting one or two specimens of their powers, we were taken to a narrow barred gate at the base of the tower. The office for transacting busi- ness was on the ground-floor, and above this, a square wooden scaffolding, standing free of the walls, ran right up to the roof. This scaffolding was divided into a series of flats, having ladders which lead from one to the other; the bottom flat was used for stowing pledges of the greatest bulk, such as furniture or produce; smaller and lighter articles occupied the upper flats, while the one nearest the roof was devoted to bullion and jewellery. Every pledge from floor to ceiling was catalogued, and bore a ticket denoting the number of the article and the

date when it was deposited. Thus anything could be found

_{Garden, British Consular Yamen, Canton.}

and redeemed at a moment's notice. Such towers are places

for the safe custody of the costly gems and robes of the wealthy classes of the community, and are really indispensable insti- tutions in a country where bridgandage and misgovernment expose property to constant risks. Besides this, a licensed pawnbroking establishment makes temporary advances to needy persons who may have security to lodge ; the charge being three per cent per month on sums under ten taels, save in the last month of the year, when the interest is reduced to two per cent. If the amount of the loan exceeds ten taels, the rate is uniformly two per cent per month. The pledges are kept for three years in the better class of pawnshops ; it is customary for the poor to pawn their winter and summer clothing alternately, redeeming each suit as it may be required.

Not far below the Heights in the Tartar quarter of the city, is the British Consulate, or Yamen. This edifice stands in the grounds of what was once a palace, and is made up of diverse picturesque Chinese buildings, environed by a tastefully laid out garden and deer park. Hard by is the ancient nine-storied pagoda ascribed to the reign of Emperor Wu-Ti, in the middle of the sixth century of our era; it is octagonal in shape and 1 70 feet high. In 1859 some British sailors, weary of shore Ufe and longing to go aloft, managed, at the risk of their necks, to scale this crazy-looking monument — an event which greatly disgusted the Chinese, for they hate to have their dwellings overlooked from a height, more especially by a pack of foreign fire-eating sailors. Descending from the height, and passing southwards down to the main street of the town, we are struck by the appearance of the closely-packed shops, which differ from anything we have ever seen before. We observe that the folks who lounge about, even in the meanest-looking dwellings, are, most of them, good-looking—the men of average height and shapely, and the women seldom disfigured by small bandaged feet. There are also a number of soldiers, not far from the parade-ground—fellows who, erect and muscular, carry themselves with a dauntless military air. These are the remnants of the once powerful Tartar camp. They have been instructed in foreign drill, and are said to make good soldiers; they certainly contrast favourably with many of the troops I saw in other quarters of the Empire. As to the shopkeepers, they are all Chinese, but their small-footed consorts are nowhere to be seen; the fact is, they keep them strictly secluded. Some of these handsome Tartar matrons have their children seated in bamboo cages at their doors, and pretty little birds they make, too.

One is almost bewildered by the diversity of shops and the attractive wares they display. Then the shopkeepers are so very fascinating in their manners. Have a good look at them; they are about the best class of men in China—industrious, contented and refined-looking, some of them. A short time back a curious, though not uncommon, sort of lottery was got up among the shopkeepers of Canton. Wang-leang-chai of the Juy-Chang boot shop in Ma-an street, seized with a passion for poetry, organised a sort of literary lottery, and offered the stakes as prizes to the successful composer of the best lines on five selected subjects.^[1]

Frequently, on entering a Canton shop, you will find its owner with a book in one hand and a pipe or fan in the other, and wholly absorbed in his studies. You will be doomed to disappointment if you expect the smoker to start up at once, all smiles and blandness, rubbing his hands together as he makes a shrewd guess of what he is likely to take out of you, and receiving you obsequiously or with rudeness accordingly. Quite the reverse. Your presence is apparently unnoticed, unless you happen to lift anything; then you hear that the fan has been arrested, and feel that a keen eye is bent on your movements all the while. But it is not till you enquire for some article that the gentleman, now certain that you mean to trade, will rise without bustle from his seat, show you his goods, or state the price he means to sell at — with a polite yet careless air, which plainly says, "If it suits you, we make an exchange." After all, by adhering to this independent style I believe they sell more, and make better profits, than if they were perpetually soliciting patronage by word and gesture. On our way home- wards we pass through Physic Street, or Tsiang-Lan-Kiai. Here nearly all the shops are uniform in size, a brick party-wall dividing each building from its neighbour. All have one front apartment open to the street, with a granite or brick counter for the display of their wares. A granite base also supports the tall upright signboard, the indispensable characteristic of every shop in China. Opposite the signboard stands a small altar or shrine, dedicated to the god who presides over the tradesman and his craft. This deity is honoured regularly when the shop is opened, and a small incense-stick is lighted, and kept burning in a bronze cup of ashes placed in front of the shrine.

The shops within are frequently fitted with a counter of polished wood and carved shelves, while at the back is an accountant's room, screened off with an open-work wooden partition, so carved as to resemble a climbing plant. In some conspicuous place stand the brazen scales and weights, ever polished and adorned with red cloth. These scales are used for weighing the silver-coin bars and fragments of the precious metal, which form part of the currency of the place. When goods are sold by weight, the customer invariably brings his own balance, so as to secure his fair and just portion of the article he has come to buy. This balance is not unlike an ordinary yard measuring- rod, furnished with a sliding weight. It is a simple appli- cation of the lever. But the tendency of this mechanical con- trivance is not calculated to elevate the Chinese in our estima- tion; it proves a universal lack of confidence, which finds its way down to the lowest details of petty trade, for which the governing classes may take to themselves credit. The people are in this, as in many other matters, a law unto themselves. A ceaseless struggle against unfair dealing has therefore, like other native institutions, become a stereotyped necessity.

It is by no means pleasant to be caught in one of these narrow streets during a shower, as the water pours down in torrents from the roofs and floods the pavement, until it subsides through the soil beneath. The broadest streets are narrow, and shaded above in some places with screens of matting to keep out the sun. So close indeed, are the roofs to each other in the Chinese city, that, viewed from a distance, they look like one uninterrupted covering — a space entirely tiled over, beneath which the citizens sedulously conceal themselves until the cool of the evening, when weary of the darkness and of the trade and strife of the day, they swarm on the housetops to gamble, or smoke, or sip their tea until the shades of night fall, then they retire again to the lower regions to sleep on the cool benches of their shops. Canton boasts no system of drainage, no water supply save the river, no gas works, and no system of street lighting.

_{Opium Smoking 1.}

The signboards of Cantonese shops are not only the pride of

their owners, but they are a delight to students of Chinese. In the high-flown classical, or poetical phrases by which public attention is drawn to the various shops, one fails to see in most instances the faintest reference to the contents of the establishment. Thus, a tradesman who sells swallows' nests for making soup, has on his board simply characters signifying Yun-Ki, sign of the Eternal. But here is a list :

Kien Ki Hao — the sign of the symbol Kien (Heaven) Hwei- chow, ink, pencils and writing materials. This is indeed a very high compliment to literature.

Chang Tsi Tang (Chang of the family branch designated Tsi). Wax-cased pills of select manufacture, Chang is evidently proud of his family connection and probably offers it as a sufficient guarantee for the quality of his pills.

Tien Yih (Celestial advantage). Table-covers, cushions for chairs and divans for sale. Now what "Celestial advantage" can a customer be supposed to derive from table-covers or cushions, unless, indeed, one supposes that the downy ease conferred by the use of these cushions is almost beyond the sphere of terrestial enjoyment. There must be some notion of this sort associated with upholsterers' shops, as we have here another sign embodying a high-flown phrase flavoured with a little common sense.

Tien Yih Shen (Celestial advantage combined with attention). Shop for the sale of cushions and ratan mats.

Yung Ki (sign of the Eternal). Swallows' nests. Money-schroffing taught here.

K'ing Wen T'a'ng (the hall of delight in scholarship). Seals artisticly engraved.

Notwithstanding the narrowness of the streets of Canton, they are extremely picturesque; more especially those in which we find the old curiosity-shops, the silversmiths and the silk-mercers, where the signboards present a most attractive display of brilliant and varied colours, as indeed, in the one through which we have just been passing.

Striking thence by a narrow alley into a back lane, we find ourselves in a very poor neighbourhood with dingy, dirty hovels filled with operatives, who are busily at work ; some weaving silk; others embroidering satin robes; others again, carving and turning the ivory balls and curios which are the admiration of foreigners. Entering one shop we were shown an elaborately carved series of nine ivory balls, one within the other. It is commonly believed that these balls are first carved in halves and then joined together so perfectly as to look solid. But as we watch a man working on one of them the mystery is grad- ually solved. The rough piece of solid ivory is first cut into a ball ; it is then fixed into a primitive-looking lathe and turned with a sharp tool in various positions until it becomes perfectly round. It is then set again in the lathe and drilled with the requisite number of holes all round. After this one hole is centred, a tool bent at the end is passed in, and with this a groove is produced near the heart of the sphere ; another hole is then centred, and after that another, the same operation being carried out with all the holes until all the grooves meet and a small ball drops into the centre. In this way all the balls, one within the other, are ultimately released. The next operation is carving the innermost ball; this is accomplished by means of long drills and other delicate tools, and in the same way all the rest of the balls are carved in succession, the carving gradually becoming more easy and elaborate until the outside ball is reached, and this is then finished with a delicate beauty that resembles the finer sorts of lace. Close by these ivory-turners are men designing patterns of birds, butterflies and flowers on satin robes. The wages of the people who do this lovely work are very small indeed. The artist who furnishes the designs receives about ^i 5s a month, and the following table gives the average at which skilled labourers are paid.

£ s d

Shoemaker 150 a month with food

Blacksmith 100 ,,

First-class ivory carver .280 ,,

Skilled embroiderer. . . 15 o ,,

Silversmith i 12 o ,,

Painter 18 o ,,

It takes about ten days to complete the embroidery of a pair of shoes; and these, when soled and finished, fetch fifteen shil- lings a pair. The wages of the embroiderer, according to this calculation, would amount to six shillings or thereabouts, and the balance, to cover cost of material and making, would leave but a modest profit to the master; but then embroidered shoes are in constant demand, and a lady of rank will require some thirty pairs for her marriage trousseau alone. Some ladies em- broider their own shoes, but the practice is by no means a common one. The dress shoes of the men are embroidered too, and are used by all except the poorest class. It will be seen from the foregoing notes that skilled labour is so cheap in China as to give artisans a great advantage in all those various branches of native industry which find a market abroad; and this will one day render the clever, careful and patient China- man a formidable rival to European manufacturers, when he has learned to use machinery in weaving fabrics of cotton or silk. Many of the beautifully embroidered stuffs we see in our shops at home are made by hand in China, and yet they can be sold in London at prices that defy competition. The oppo- sition to the introduction of the machines used in Bradford and Manchester comes mostly from the operatives themselves. It is noteworthy that the Chinese in this province have adopted Pasteur's method of detecting and eradicating disease in the silkworms. Machinery is also being introduced in reeling the silk, notwithstanding the native dread of innovation. It is per- fectly astonishing to see what these Cantonese can accomplish on their own inferior looms. Give them almost any pattern or design, and they will contrive to weave it, imitating its imper- fections with as much exactness as its beauties. I like to linger over these shops, and to meditate on these scenes of ceaseless industry, where all goes on with a quiet harmony that has a strange fascination for the observer. Amid all the evidences of toil, the poorest has some leisure at his command ; then, seated on a bench, or squatting tranquilly on the ground, he will smoke or chat with a neighbour, untroubled by the presence of his em- ployer, who seems to grow fatter and wealthier on the smiles and happy temperament of his workmen. Here, too, one can see how the nucleus of this great city is more closely populated than at first sight one would suppose. Most of the workshops are kitchen, dining-room and bed-room too ; here the workpeople breakfast on their benches ; here at nightfall they stretch them- selves, out to sleep. Their whole worldly wealth is stored here too. An extra jacket, a pipe, a few ornaments which are used in common, and a pair of chopsticks — these make up each man's total worldly pelf ; and indeed his greatest treasure he carries with him — a stock of health and a contented mind. The Chi- nese operative is completely content if he escape the pangs of

_{REELING SILK.}

hunger, endowed with health sufficient to enable him simply

to enjoy the sense of living, and of living too in a land so perfect, that a human being ought to be happy in the privilege of residing there at all. It is a land, so they seem to suppose, wherein everything is settled and ordered by men who know exactly what they ought to know, and who are paid to keep people from rising, or ambitiously seeking to quit the groove in which Providence placed them at their birth. Many will say that the Chinaman is not without ambition, and in a sense they will be right. Parents are ambitious to educate their children, and to qualify them for candidature at the Government exam- inations; and there are probably no men who lust more after power, wealth and place than the successful Chinese graduates, simply because they know that there is no limit to their pros- pects. If they have interest and genius, the poorest of them may fairly aspire to become a member of the Imperial Cabinet ; but then these are the men of letters, and not the poor labour- ing classes, the populace whom I have just described.

Before I quit Canton I must give some account of a spot there, which I visited more than once, and which was commonly known as the garden of Pun-ting-qua. Pun-ting-qua, or Pun-shi-cheng, the original owner, had been a wealthy merchant at Canton, but his Government ultimately drained him of his wealth, by compelling him to pay a certain fixed sum for the monopoly of trade in salt. Falling into heavy arrears, and being unable to raise the amount, his property was sequestrated, and his splendid garden raffled in a public lottery. A notable instance, this, of the danger of becoming too rich in China. His house, a singularly beautiful place, was sold to the anti-foreign, anti- missionary society of Canton; and at the time of my visit to this quaint pleasure-ground, traces of decay had already set their stamp upon the curious structures that adorned it. I first made my way up Sulphur Creek, which sweeps round to the west of the city, and passed many a strange-looking edifice rising above the dull water and bending over a frail wooden jetty which divided it from the stream. Women are washing and children sit upon the steps and jetties in a way that makes one tremble for their safety. Dogs bark and snarl at the door- ways, domesticated pigs or fowls look out upon the throng of boats, while the men are busy dipping dark blue cotton fabrics into the stream. A three-storied pagoda marks the site of Pun-ting-qua's garden, which we enter through a gateway in the outer wall. Once arrived inside, we seem for the first time to realise the China pictured to us in our schoolboy days. Here we see model Chinese gardening; drooping willows, shady walks and sunny lotus-pools, on which gilded barges float. Here, too, spanning a lake, stands the well-known willow-pat- tern bridge, with a pavilion hard by. But we miss the two love-birds; there is no dutiful parent, with the fish-tail feet, leisurely and with lamp in hand pursuing his unfilial daughter as she, with equal leisure, makes her way after the shepherd with the crook. I photographed this willow-pattern bridge, but when I look at my picture, I find it falls far short of the scene on our soup-plates. Where, for example, is the pavilion which is all ornaments, the tree above it which grows nothing but foot-balls, and that other tree, too, on which only feathers bloom .?^ Where is the fence that meanders across the platform in the fore-ground? And yet these gardens have a quaintness all their own. Their winding paths conduct to cleverly con- trived retreats ; and tunnels cut through mossy fern-covered rocks, land us in some pavilion or theatre, on the edge of a glassy

pool, where gold-fish sport in the sunshine, and glistening

_{Pun-shi-Cheng's Garden, Canton.}

frogs sit gravely on broad dew-spangled lotus-leaves ; or else

where we discover some spacious open saloon, where a party of native gentlemen, seated on square, cool, marble-bottomed, ebony chairs, enjoy a repast of tea or cake, or listen to the strumming of a lute, and to the shrill song of some lady in attendance.

Juilin, who was governor of the province and of Kwangsi as well, was an officer who had seen distinguished service. A man of marked ability, who did much to promote the prosperity of the two provinces. It was he vv^ho organised a steam gunboat service, which made its presence felt among the pirates on the coast, and was also instrumental in suppressing the village clans in Cha-chow-fu, which had for many years set all authority at defiance. These villages were each inhabited by one family, or clan, and were at feud with all the other surrounding villages and clans.

When in Chao-chow-fu, in the Kwang-tung province, I visited several of these villages and got some notion of their style of fighting. Those unfortunates who were carried off as prisoners of war were frequently detained in slavery, or met with a fate even worse than this, for their captors would dispose of them to be sent, as involuntary emigrants, to foreign shores. At harvest-time one village would make a midnight raid upon its neighbour and carry off all the crops ; and at Sinchew I found an old feud existing between that village and a number of smaller hamlets. One Aching and his brother, tired at last of fighting, and of being constantly interrupted in more peaceful and profitable pursuits, resolved to go into the Fukien Province, and there to seek for work. With their bundles on their backs they started from their native place, but halted when not far on their journey to fish in a neighbouring stream. While thus engaged, a boat full of their enemies carefully disguised, made its approach, and one of the crew offered to buy their stock of fish. The two brothers falling into the snare, were thus carried off to the hostile village, and there killed and mutilated in an open space in front of the settlement. Aching's heart was cut out, boiled and eaten by his savage captors, under the notion that they would become more daring and bloodthirsty in conse- quence of this revolting deed. — Another example of native treachery and cunning will suffice. Two men of opposite clans had made up their minds to quit the province with the loot they had gained in war; they, both of them, went to Cheng-lin at the same time, in search of the same object, viz., a boat. The one, hearing of the other's presence, hired a number of ruffians to slay him, promising them six pounds for his enemy's head and heart. The gang, tempted to the crime by the pro- spect of this liberal reward, soon caught their man ; but he, enquiring how much they were to receive for his head, at once offered them, on better security, double terms for the capture of his crafty foe. They had no hesitation in accepting the proposal, and it was their first employer, therefore who fell a victim to their guile. In the end a small army was sent into the provinces, and all who refused to come to terms, and obey the law, were mercilessly put to the sword. So it came about that at the time I visited the place a well-dressed man might walk abroad, and no longer fear lest he should be stripped and sent adrift without a rag to cover him, or else be sold into slavery or even killed.

There is a hardy race of people found in this and several other districts. These are known as Hak-kas, and some are of opinion that they are a people distinct from the Chinese, as

they speak a language of their own, and resemble Indians in

_{BUDDHIST MONK.}

physical appearance, rather than the Chinese type. Others,

again, hold that the Hak-kas emigrated some eight hundred years ago from the Ning-hwa district in the Fukien province; and a writer in the "China Review" undertakes to prove from the Hak-kas family records that Ning-hwa was really their original home. Be their origin what it may, they have carved out an important place for themselves in the rich province of Kwang-tung. 1 also met them increasing, multiplying and spread- ing their industry in the island of Formosa. It was they who, having no sympathies in common with the Puntis of Canton, formed the Coolie corps to the allied troops, and won a high reputation for perseverance and bravery. They have even been known to rescue British soldiers, when wounded and drowning, amid a perfect storm of bullets. Dr. Eitel, who laboured among them for many years, and who kindly furnished me with some of his experiences, described them as the hardest workers and the most industrious men in Kwang-tung;—and when the interests of Hak-kas and Puntis, or natives of the province, clashed, the former have always distinguished themselves by their readiness to fight. For more than two centuries a stream of Hak-ka emigration has been flowing into the Ka-ying-chow department, taking its course more especially through the mountainous and thinly populated parts. This movement is still going on.

The process, in individual cases, is more or less as follows. A couple of Hak-kas come to a Punti village, and there they hire themselves out to labour on the farm. In process of time, when they have laid up a little money, they rent a few acres of mountain land, or unredeemed bog. The insecurity caused by robbers and banditti makes it difficult in sparsely populated districts to cultivate land far from a village. The Hak-kas, therefore, easily find landowners willing to rent their outlying acres at a merely nominal rate. All further difficulties are gradually overcome, and at last the persevering Hak-kas send for their families and friends, and settle down in mud huts, which they build like forts, surrounding them with ditches, with thorny thickets and impenetrable bamboo. Success in most cases follows, the hamlet grows rapidly, and a flock of immi- grants from their native province crowd in to plant a settlement in the neighbourhood. Those scattered settlements form a confederation among themselves, and forthwith demand a reduc- tion of the ground-rent. If this be not acceded to, things will progress pleasantly for a short time longer, until the confed- eration feels itself strong enough to wage war with the original owners and refuse to pay any rent. But, lest the Government should interfere, they are careful to inform the mandarins before- hand that they will pay lawful ground-rent to them. Besides, in many public offices in the Kwang-tung province, the subor- dinate employes are Hak-kas. This always enables them to judge of their own strength, to meet intrigue with intrigue, and to keep their quarrels outside the limits of Government intervention. As this class of village wars is looked upon as harmless by the authorities, they only interfere to squeeze both parties. The Punti employ bravos to fight for them, while the Hak-kas fight their battles for themselves, and that is why the latter always win.

I will now glance at a quarter of the town which has under- gone improvements. Not far from the old factory site, and close to the river, there stands a row of well-built brick houses. In 1869 these houses had not been built, and the ground was occupied by a strange mixed population of the poorest classes. Too poor to live in boats, or in the houses of the city, they squatted on this waste land between the river and the wall, HOVELS. 79

existing, most of them, nobody knew how. Some of the hovels in which they dwelt would not have made decent dog-kennels; and yet, amid all their poverty, they seemed a tolerably con- tented lot. I remember one hut which had been pieced to- gether out of the fragments of an old boat, bits of foreign packing-cases inscribed with trade-marks that betrayed their chequered history, patches of decayed matting, clay, mud and straw; a covering of odd tiles and broken pottery made all snug within. In the small space thus enclosed, accommodation was found for a lean pig that lived on garbage, two old women, one old man, the old man's daughter and the daughter's child. A small space in front was arranged as the kitchen, while part of the roof and one or two pots were taken up with vegetables or flowers. I have seen the inmates, in the morning sunshine, breakfasting off a savoury meal of mixed scraps that they had picked up in their perambulations about the city. There were many such dwellings in this neighbourhood, and the district physician lived not far off. The doctor had a very aged look, as if, at some distant period, he had been embalmed and pre- served in a dried-up state, though still alive. He might be consulted at all hours, and would be . found at his doorway among his herbs and simples, dressed in a pair of slippers and cotton breeches, and with ponderous spectacles across his shrivelled nose. But the door and walls of this public benefac- tor's abode were covered with an array of black plasters, to which the old man pointed with great pride as incontestable evidences of his professional skill. These plasters had a wide celebrity among his poor patients, and many a man, as a token of deep gratitude for some signal cure, had brought his plaster back as a certificate to adorn the residence where his deliverer dwelt. Leaving this quarter, and striking for the suburbs north of of the foreign settlements, we come upon a temple, perhaps the most interesting in Canton. This is the Temple of 500 Gods ; said, in Mr. Bowra's translation of the native history of the pro- vince, to have been founded by Bodhidharama, a Buddhist monk from India, about the year 520 A.D. It is Bodhidharama whom we frequently see pictured on Chinese tea-cups, as he ascends the Yangtsze river on his bamboo raft. The temple was rebuilt in 1755, under the auspices of the Emperor Kien-lung. It contains the Lo-hang-tang, or hall of saints, and with its temple buildings, its houses for priests, its lakes and its gardens, covers altogether a very large space. Colonel Yule, in his last edition of Marco Polo, says that one of the statues in this temple is an image of the Venetian traveller ; but careful inquiry proves this statement incorrect, for none of the images present the Euro- pean type of face, and all the records connected with them are of an antiquity which runs back beyond Marco Polo's age. The abbot, who is the centre figure in the illustration of a group of chess-players, received us with great cordiality, and showed us into his private apartments, where we enjoyed a repast of tea and cake, and spent some time in examining a collection of dwarf trees and flowering shrubs, which he had arranged in a court in front of his sitting-room. In the centre of this court stood a tank containing fish, and a group of sacred lotus flowers in full bloom. The old gentleman had spent many years of his life in seclusion and seemed to be devoted to his garden, ex- pressing his delight to find a foreigner who could share in his love of flowers. The apartments of this prelate impressed me with a sense of cold squareness and rigid uniformity. The flooring was marble, and the tables and chairs were either wholly of marble, or

ebony, or ebony and marble combined. If the chairs sent too

_{Buddhist Monks at Chess.}

rheumatic a chill through your blood, you could test the comfort of a block of polished rock in the corner, or try one or two cold glazed porcelain stools. Sundry texts from the sacred classics were hung about the dim walls ; everything was in order and everything scrupulously clean. But at length we discovered, when a number of the monks had joined our party, that the shaven, silent, thoughtful-looking inmates of the cloister could unbend if they chose, and take a natural and ardent interest in the current gossip of Canton. Nay, they conducted us to a snuggery in an inner court, where a table was sumptuously spread, embowered beneath plantain-trees and shaded by their huge waving leaves. Round a lotus-pool, in the centre of this court, ran a paved pathway, and an ornamental railing, draped with the green leaves of a creeping plant. Here we left the monks engaging their venerable abbot in a game at chess, while I took my way to the interior of the shrine to obtain a photo- graph of the central altar. I found a number of people at worship within, making votive offerings to the idols whose aid they sought. Some ladies were there, decked in their finest silks ; and my entrance so startled these fair devotees, that they would have fled but for the intervention of the priests, who gave me a high character, as one in search of knowledge, who had wisely come from an obscure island to view the greatest temple in all Cathay, and to carry pictures of its wonders home. Wending our way back to the river through narrow tortuous streets, and passing third-rate tea establishments, where men mix the fragrant leaves and toss them about with their naked feet, on mats spread out in the sun, we at length embark in one of the many small boats which ply for hire at the jetties. The crew of the little craft consists of three young girls, and these boatwomen are the prettiest and most attractive-looking of their 6

82 THROUGH CHINA WITH A CAMERA.

sex to be met with out of doors in this part of China. They never paint, and are therefore set down by their countrywomen as of doubtful respectabiUty. This is really true of some of them, although in the presence of Europeans who may hire their boats, they behave with uniform modesty and decorum. Their boats are the perfection of neatness, and their dress as simple as it is picturesque. They scull or row with great dexterity, skimming in and out among the crowd of shipping, or along the narrow ways that form the thoroughfares in the floating town of boats, where natives in tens of thousands pursue their various avocations, quite apart from the dwellers on shore. A brisk trade is carried on in many of these narrow avenues, and the small merchants who engage in it have their shops in the bows of their boat and their residences at the stern. If business happens to be dull at one end of the town they move to the other, or else take a tour in the provinces, carrying their whole establishment to a region where the family can enjoy balmy air, and where they will delight the. hearts of the rustics with their display of city wares.

Steering clear of a floating market in one of the main alleys of this aquatic Babel, we come in front of a row of flower- boats, the floating music-saloons of this quarter of the stream. It is growing dark, and the numerous lamps which hang round these boats produce a very striking effect. Each saloon rears its head high above the water, and is carved into the most elaborate representations of the animal and vegetable world, of the beauties on earth or the wonders in the heavens above. Through the interstices of the carving we can make out some pretty female faces, and suddenly a crowd of fine young dam- sels rise above the woodwork, looking like a continuation of

the ornaments. Suddenly they again disappear, as a gay group

_{Chinese Pagoda, Kwangtung Province.}

of youths in silken robes step out of a boat and pass into the

nearest saloon. Then we hear the warble of the lute and the damsels piping in shrill treble tones; for these maidens have descended from their perch above and are entertaining the city youths, who have come to dine in the saloon, to enjoy a whiff of opium and to bask in smiles so sweet, that they seem like to crack the enamel off the faces of the fair damsels.

Pulling back is hard work for the crew, but they redouble their efforts, for as they say, "Plenty piecee bad man hab got this side, too muchee likee cut throat pidjin," and soon we are once more in mid-stream. Here we pass close under the dark frowning hulks of a fleet of old weather-beaten junks that he moored in a long double line. As everyone already knows all about these junks — what they look like, with their big eyes set in front to scare off the demons of the deep — I need not at- tempt to describe them here; but I may inform the reader that the accompanying picture of the deck of a junk was one which cost me some trouble to obtain. I got it under the following circumstances. Two artistic friends and myself were one day pulling about Hongkong harbour, in quest of a good subject for a picture, and after having scrambled by the aid of a convenient rope, on to the deck of a junk at anchor there, we found the crew busy with a complex machinery of ropes, poles and wind- lasses, and indeed on the point of making sail. Suddenly they forsook their work, confronted us with angry gestures and threat- ened to bar our advance. We enquired for the captains, of whom there are not uncommonly half a dozen on board ; for these junks are built in water-tight compartments, and each owner of cargo is a captain so far as concerns that compart- ment where his own goods have been separately stored. Thus if the compartments be six, the captains are six, and each captain has a sixth part of the vessel under his own command. The result of this equitable arrangement is that the craft is sometimes required to travel in six different directions simultaneously, and to stand for six different points at a time; and in the end the crew take the steering into their own hands, or else consult Joss, who stands in his shrine in the cabin unmoved, though tempests rage. As it happened in our case there were but two captains on board, the one anxious to be civil and the other ready to pitch us into the sea. At length they requested us to remain, while they referred the case to Joss. The idol, it appeared, gave us a hearty welcome, for captains and crew returned from the interior to unite in helping me to get up a successful picture.

1. See China Review, 1873, p. 249.