Part 8

As soon as possible after landing, we started to explore this British settlement. I was delighted with its streets and buildings. The former are broad, smooth and clean; the latter, three or four stories high, are built of granite, and even on a curve have sidewalks shielded from the sun or rain by the projection of the roof above. Truly, the touch of England has wrought astounding changes in the fifty-five years that she has held this island as her own. Before she came it was the resort of poverty-stricken fishermen and pirates. But now the city of Victoria alone contains two hundred thousand souls, while the grand aqueducts and roads which cross the mountains of Hong-Kong are worthy to be compared with some of the monumental works of ancient Rome.

Along the principal thoroughfare in Victoria, the banks, shops, hotels, and club-houses, which succeed each other rapidly, are built of the fine gray granite of the adjacent mountains, and show handsome architectural designs. Everything looks as trim and spotless as the appointments of a man-of-war. Even the district of the town inhabited by Chinamen is kept by constant watchfulness immeasurably cleaner than a Chinese city; although if one desires to see the world-wide difference that exists between the British and Mongolian races, he merely needs to take a short walk through the Chinese quarter of Victoria. But such comparisons may well be deferred until one reaches Canton. There one beholds the genuine native article.

The police who guard the lives and property of the residents of Hong-Kong, are for the most part picked men of English birth, and are considered as trustworthy as regular troops. But several hundred of these guardians of the peace are Sikhs--a race imported hither from India--renowned for bravery, loyal to the British government, and having no sympathy with the Chinese. These Sikhs have handsome faces, brilliant eyes, and dark complexions, the effect of which is wonderfully enhanced by their immense red turbans, conspicuous two or three blocks away, not only by their startling color, but because their wearers exceed in stature all other races in Hong-Kong.

Strolling one morning through the outskirts of the city, I came upon some troops engaged in military manoeuvres, and attired in white from head to foot, to shield them from the sun. What traveler in the East can forget the ever-present soldiers of Great Britain, of whom there are nearly three thousand in the garrison of Hong-Kong? I know it is frequently the fashion to sneer at them and to question their efficiency in case of war. I know, too, that in certain ways the vast extent of England's empire constitutes her weakness.

But I must say that in a tour around our planet I was impressed as never before with what the British had accomplished in the way of conquest, and with the number of strategic points they hold in every quarter of the globe. We had but recently left the western terminus of England's North American possessions, yet in a few days we discerned the flag of England flying at Hong-Kong. Next we beheld the Union Jack at Singapore, then at Penang, then at Ceylon, and after that throughout the length and breadth of the vast empire of India, as well as the enormous area of Burma. Leaving Rangoon, if we sail southward, we are reminded that the southernmost portion of Africa is entirely in English hands, as well as the huge continent of Australia.

Returning northward, we find the same great colonizing power stationed at the mouth of the Red Sea, in the British citadel of Aden. Again a trifling journey, and we reach Egypt, via the Suez Canal, both virtually controlled to-day by England. Then, like the three stars in Orion's belt, across the Mediterranean lie Cyprus, Malta, and Gibraltar; in fact, we find one mighty girdle of imposing strongholds all the way, bristling with cannon, guarded by leviathans in armor, and garrisoned by thousands of such soldiers as were drilling at Hong-Kong.

One of the first desires of the visitor to Hong-Kong is to explore the mountain which towers above the city of Victoria to a height of nearly two thousand feet. To do this with the least exertion, each of our party took a canvas-covered bamboo chair, supported by long poles, which Chinese coolies carry on their shoulders. On level ground, two of these bearers were enough, but on the mountain roads three or four men were usually needed. To my surprise, I found the motion of these chairs agreeable. The poles possess such elasticity that, leaning back, I was rocked lightly up and down without the least unpleasant jar. In fact, at times the rhythm of that oscillation gave me a sense of drowsiness difficult to resist.

But, alas! we had not here for carriers the cleanly natives of Japan. It may be, as some residents of Hong-Kong assert, that Chinamen are more trustworthy and honest than the Japanese, but certainly in point of personal attractiveness the contrast between these races is remarkable. The bodies of the lower classes of Chinese reveal no evidence of that care so characteristic of the natives of Japan. Their teeth are often yellow tusks; their nails resemble eagle's claws; and their unbecoming clothes seem glazed by perspiration. Nor is there usually anything in their manner to redeem all this. Where the light-hearted Japs enjoy their work, and laugh and talk, the Chinese coolies labor painfully, and rarely smile, regarding you meantime with a supercilious air, as if despising you for being what they call "a foreign devil."

Nevertheless, despite the repulsive appearance of our bearers, we thoroughly enjoyed our excursion up the mountain. At every step our admiration was increased for the magnificent roads which wind about the cliffs in massive terraces, arched over by majestic trees, bordered by parapets of stone, lighted with gas, and lined with broad, deep aqueducts, through which at times the copious rainfall rushes like a mountain stream. It will be seen that such a comparison is not an exaggeration, when I add that not many years ago, thirty-two inches of rain fell here in thirty hours. This mountain is the favorite abode of wealthy foreigners, and hence these curving avenues present on either side, almost to the summit, a series of attractive villas commanding lovely views. On account of their situation, the gardens of these hillside homes are necessarily small; but in the midst of them, about five hundred feet above the town, a charming botanical park has been laid out.

Forgetful of our coolies at the gate, we lingered in this garden for an hour or two, delighted with its fine display of semitropical foliage. It is marvelous what skillful gardeners have accomplished here, in transforming what was fifty years ago a barren rock into an open-air conservatory. Palms, banyans, india-rubber trees, mimosas with their tufts of gold, camellias with their snowy blossoms--all these are here, with roses, mignonette, and jessamine, surrounded with innumerable ferns. Occasionally we encountered in this fragrant area a Chinese gentleman, indulging leisurely his love of flowers; for this delightful park is open to all without regard to race or creed, although the population of the island is extremely cosmopolitan. Englishmen, Americans, Germans, Frenchmen, Spaniards, Portuguese, Italians, Parsees, Mohammedans, Jews, Hindus, and fully one hundred and fifty thousand Chinamen, are residents of the city of Victoria alone.

In this retired park one does not realize that Hong-Kong is such a rendezvous for different nationalities; but frequently, while we were walking here, the sharp report of a cannon forced a discordant echo from the neighboring hills and told us that some foreign man-of-war had just appeared within the bay; for here some ship or steamer is continually arriving or departing, and many times a day there comes a deafening interchange of salutes that sends a thrill through every window-pane upon the mountain.

One can well understand, therefore, that with so mixed a population and in such close proximity to China, the officers sent out here by the British government must be men of courage, the garrison of the island strong, and its administration prompt and resolute. A single incident revealed to me the crimes which would undoubtedly creep forth, like vipers from a loathsome cave, were they not kept in check by vigorous justice and incessant vigilance. In one of the residences on the height above Victoria, I met one day at dinner the captain of a steamer anchored in the bay. He asked me to come out some evening and pay a visit to his ship. The following night, soon after dark, I walked down to the pier, intending to embark on one of the many boats along the shore. I was about to enter one, when a policeman rapidly approached. "Give me your name and number," he said roughly to the Chinese boatman. Then turning to me, he politely asked my name, address, and destination, and when I intended to return, "I am obliged to do this," he explained, "for your protection. There is a population of twenty thousand Chinese living in this harbor upon boats alone, besides the usual criminals who drift to such a place. Before we adopted this precaution, a foreigner would sometimes embark on one of these craft and never be seen again. In such a case search was useless. He had disappeared as quietly and thoroughly as a piece of silver dropped into the bay."

When I stood on the apex of Victoria Peak, I thought that I had never seen a finer prospect. Nearly two thousand feet below us lay the renowned metropolis of the East which bears the name of England's queen. From this great elevation, its miles of granite blocks resembled a stupendous landslide, which, sweeping downward from this rocky height, had forced its cracked and creviced mass far out into the bay. Between this and the mainland opposite, curved a portion of that ocean-girdle which surrounds the island, and on its surface countless boats and steamers seemed, in the long perspective, like ornaments of bead-work on a lady's belt.

Around the summit of the mountain are several handsome villas and hotels, whither the residents of Victoria come in summer to escape the heat; but, as a rule, in riding over the island I saw outside of the city very few houses, and little agriculture. The soil of Hong-Kong is not fertile; but politically and commercially the island is immensely valuable, for England has now made of it the great emporium of the Far East, and, garrisoned by British troops, it guards completely the approaches to that river, upon which, ninety-two miles inland from the ocean, lies the city of Canton.

One of the pleasantest excursions in Hong-Kong may be made in sedan-chairs, some six miles over the hills, to the great reservoir which supplies the city with water. The aqueduct which comes from it is solidly constructed, and on its summit is a granite path protected by iron railings. This winds along the cliffs for miles, and is in many places cut through solid rock. It is an illustration of the handsome, yet substantial character of everything accomplished here. One feels that such works are not only artistic, but enduring. Here are no wooden trestles, no hastily constructed bridges and no half-made roads to be destroyed by mountain-torrents, but everywhere the best of masonry, cyclopean in massiveness and perfect in detail.

On reaching the terminus of this granite pathway we saw before us the principal reservoir of Hong-Kong. Though largely artificial, it looks precisely like a natural lake hidden away among the mountains. Before it was constructed the island's water-supply was lamentably insufficient, and the notorious "Hong-Kong fever" gave the place an evil name. But now, in spite of its large native population, Victoria has as low a death-rate as most European cities. The foreign residents are very proud of these magnificent water-works; yet, after ten days' sojourn here, when I took leave of several gentlemen by whom I had been entertained in private houses and at clubs, candor compelled me to confess that, so far as I had been able to observe, the foreign population makes very little use of this water for drinking purposes.

On starting to descend the mountain, we found a shorter route than the circuitous path by which we had come--an admirably managed cable-road. In viewing this, the question naturally arises how the Chinese can look on such conveniences as England has here introduced, and still remain content to have in their enormous empire scarcely a decent road, and only a few miles of railway, built to transport coal. Canals and rivers are still the usual arteries of travel through the most of China. In the northern provinces, where carts are used, the roads are often worn below the surface of the adjacent land, and hence become, in the rainy season, mere water-courses. Travelers are occasionally obliged to swim across them; and cases have been known of people drowning in a Chinese roadway. Moreover, the characteristic carts of China are of the most primitive description, having no seats except the floor, and no springs save the involuntary ones contributed by their luckless passengers. Yet, in many districts, even such vehicles can find no path, and people travel about in wheel-barrows propelled by coolies who are sometimes aided by a sail. The Bishop of North China, for example, makes many of his parochial visits in a wheelbarrow.

There is now in China a small progressive party which favors building railroads, as the Japanese have done, but the immense majority are against it. Some years ago a foreign company built a railroad near Shanghai, but the Chinese speedily bought it up at a great cost, transported the rails and locomotives to the sea, and left them to rust upon the beach. This opposition to railways is principally due to the belief that the use of them would deprive millions of people of their means of gaining a livelihood, and that they would, moreover, disturb the graveyards of the country. This latter objection seems at first incredible; but it must be remembered that Chinese cemeteries are strewn broadcast over the land,

"Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks In Vallombrosa."

One sees them everywhere, usurping valuable tracts of territory needed for the living. Outside the city of Canton, for example, there is a graveyard thirty miles in length, in which are buried fully one hundred generations. Yet the Chinese insist that not one grave shall be disturbed, lest multitudes of avenging ghosts should be let loose upon them for such sacrilege. In fact, the permanence and inviolability of graves lie at the very foundation of Chinese life and customs, which is ancestor-worship. From childhood to old age the principal duty of all Chinamen is to propitiate the spirits of their ancestors, and to make offerings to them regularly at their tombs. This custom cripples the colossal empire of China as paralysis would a giant, and fear of doing violence to their dead holds China's millions in an iron grasp.

The discussion of this theme, as we were descending the mountain, suggested to us the idea of visiting the foreign cemetery in Hong-Kong. In this, as in the public garden, charming results have been obtained by care and irrigation. We were accompanied by a gentleman who had resided on the island nearly thirty years. "In spite of the beauty of this place," he said, "I dread to think that I shall probably be buried here--unable to escape from China even after death. For notwithstanding many pleasant friends, my life, like that of many here, has been at best a dreary banishment from all that makes your Occidental life so stimulating to the intellect and so rich in pleasures. The world at home," he added, "sometimes blames us for faults, the cause of which is often only an intense desire to counteract the loneliness of our existence; and foreigners in the East deserve some sympathy, if only from the fact that in these cemeteries, kept with so much care, the graves of those we love increase so rapidly." After a few days at Hong-Kong we embarked on one of the American steamers which ply between Victoria and Canton. These boats are modest imitations of the Fall River steamers on Long Island Sound. We found the one that we took clean and comfortable and its American captain cordial and communicative. During the trip he related to us many incidents of his life in China. This he could easily do, for there were only two other foreign passengers on board, and hence, so long as we remained upon the promenade deck, the spacious vessel seemed to be our private yacht.

On passing, however, to the deck below, we found a number of Chinamen, likewise going to Canton. Most of them were smoking, lying on their backs, their heads supported by a bale of cloth. At first we thought these constituted all the passengers; but presently we learned, to our astonishment, that farther down, packed in the hold like sardines in a box, and barricaded from us by an iron grating, were more than a thousand Chinese coolies. A sentry, heavily armed, stood by the padlocked grating constantly; while in the wheel-house and saloon were stands of loaded muskets ready for emergencies. The danger is that Chinese pirates will come on board in the disguise of coolies, and at a favorable moment take possession of the ship. One naturally thinks this an impossible occurrence; but only a few years ago this actually took place on one of these boats. A well-armed band of desperadoes swarmed up from the hold, shot down the captain in cold blood, and also some of the passengers who tried to interfere. Then, taking command of the ship, they forced the engineer and crew to do their bidding, steered to a lonely point where their confederates awaited them, unloaded the valuable cargo into their boats, disabled the engine so that the survivors could not give the alarm, and finally made their escape. Such are the indisputable facts. Yet, sailing up this peaceful river, reclining in our easy chairs, and soothed by the soft, balmy air, the tragedy seemed so incredible that we were obliged to put our hands upon the guns, in order to realize that precautions were still needed.

As an additional proof, the captain showed us a photograph of the sequel to that act of piracy. For, as a matter of course, the British Government demanded satisfaction for this outrage, and in compliance nineteen criminals were beheaded. Whether they were the actual pirates, however, has been doubted. China always has scores of men awaiting execution--a dozen here, a dozen there. What matters it if those who merit death are said to have committed one crime or another? England had no way of identifying them. Accordingly she shut her eyes, accepted what the Chinese said of them, and took it for granted that the decapitated men were the real culprits. At all events, as an eye-witness told us, the deed itself was quickly done. In each case there was only one swing of the executioner's arm, and one flash of the two-edged sword; then, like a row of flowers clipped from their stems, the heads of all the kneeling criminals were lying in the sand, with staring eyes turned upward toward the sky.

On leaving this repulsive picture in the captain's cabin, we found that we were approaching the once important settlement of Whampoa. Its glory is gone now, but formerly it played a prominent part in Eastern politics and commerce; for previous to the Opium War of 1841 and the establishment of the Treaty Ports, this was as far as foreign ships were permitted to come, and Whampoa was then a kind of counter across which Cantonese and Europeans traded. We now began to observe along the shore strange-looking boats protected by a roof and filled with fruits and vegetables for the Canton market. Moreover, on both sides of the river for many miles we looked on countless little patches of rice, bananas, oranges, and sugar-cane. At one point our attention was called to an island on which are some old fortifications used by China fifty years ago in her attempt to exclude opium from her territory. I suppose that no intelligent student of the subject doubts that the real cause of the war of 1841 was the attempt of England to force upon the Chinese a drug which no one dares to sell in London, even now, unless it bears the label "poison." In 1840, the Commissioner of Canton thus addressed the Queen of England:

"How can your country seek to acquire wealth by selling us an article so injurious to mankind? I have heard that you have a generous heart; you must be willing, therefore, to obey the motto of Confucius, and refuse to do to others what you would not have others do to you."

In an address to foreign traders, issued in 1840, the Chinese also said: "Reflect that if you did not bring opium here, where could our people obtain it? Shall, then, our people die, and your lives not be required? You are destroying human life for the sake of gain. You should surrender your opium out of regard for the natural feelings of mankind. If not, it is right for us to drive every ship of your nation from our shores."

Finding that these appeals were of no avail, the Chinese finally compelled the British merchants in Canton to give up all the opium in their possession. It amounted to twenty-one thousand chests, or about three million pounds. This mass of poison the Chinese threw into the river, chest after chest, much as Americans treated English tea in Boston harbor. As it dissolved, it is said that a large number of fish died. England retaliated by broadsides from her men-of-war, and in 1842, after an unequal struggle, China was forced to pay her victorious enemy twenty-one million dollars--six millions for the opium destroyed, and fifteen millions as a war indemnity, besides giving to England as her property forever, the island of Hong-Kong, and opening five new ports to foreign trade.