Part 9

About a century ago opium was rarely used in China except as medicine. To-day it enters through the openings made by English cannon, at the rate of six thousand tons a year, and at an annual profit to the Indian treasury of from thirty to forty million dollars. But this is not the worst: the vice of opium-smoking has spread with such rapidity that in one Chinese city alone, where thirty years ago only five opium dens existed, there are now five thousand. In the minds of many Chinamen, therefore, Christianity is principally associated with the gift of opium and its attendant evils. China has now begun to cultivate the poppy for herself, and in some provinces six-tenths of the land is given over to producing opium, to the great detriment of agriculture. For the Chinese argue that if they must have it anyway, they may as well profit by it themselves, and let their own crop vie with that which England sends from India. It should be said that earnest protests have often been made by conscientious Englishmen against this conduct of their Government, but all remonstrances have failed to change its policy. Hence, when our British cousins sometimes humorously say that we Americans worship only the almighty dollar, it may be well to ask if any deity under the sun is more devoutly reverenced than the omnipotent pounds, shillings, and pence.

When we had steamed about five hours from Hong-Kong, we came in sight of our first Chinese pagoda. It is a hollow tower of brick about three hundred feet in height, and resembles, on an enormous scale, one of those tapering sticks which jewelers use for sizing rings. At first, I thought that the nine circular terraces which mark its different stories were adorned with flags or tapestry, but closer scrutiny revealed the melancholy fact that weeds and bushes are now growing here. Indeed, like most of the sacred buildings that I saw in China, it looked both dirty and dilapidated.

Soon after leaving this neglected edifice, we found ourselves amid a constantly increasing throng of Chinese boats, and I began to realize that these were specimens of that "floating population" of Canton of which we have all read, but of which nothing but a visit to it can give an adequate idea.

Hardly was our steamer anchored in the stream before the city, when hundreds of these boats closed in upon us on all sides, like cakes of floating ice around a vessel in the Arctic sea. Wedging and pushing frantically, the boatmen almost swamped themselves. They fought for places near the ship like men and women in a panic. The din of voices sounded like the barking of five hundred canines at a dog-show; and Chinese gutturals flew through the air like bullets from a _mitrailleuse_. It seemed impossible to disembark in such a mob.

But suddenly I felt a pressure on my arm. I turned and saw apparently three laundrymen from the United States. A glance assured me they were father and sons. "Good morning, sir," said one of them in excellent English, "do you know Carter Harrison, of Chicago?"

This question, coming in such a place and at such a time, rendered me speechless with astonishment.

"He mentioned us in his book, 'A Race With the Sun,'" continued the young Chinaman. "This is my father, the famous guide, Ah Cum. This is my brother, and I am Ah Cum, Jr. The others are engaged for to-morrow, but I can serve you. Will you take me?"

"So you are Ah Cum?" I rejoined; "I have heard much of you. Your reference book must be a valuable autograph album of distinguished travelers. Yes, we will take you; and, first of all, can you get us safely into one of those boats? And if so, who will guarantee that we shall not be murdered?"

"Ah Cum."

Accordingly we "came," and presently found ourselves in a boat. I cannot relate how we got there. I do not know, myself. I think of it now as one recalls the pulling of a tooth when under the influence of laughing-gas. I have a dim remembrance of jumping from one reeling skiff to another, of stumbling over slippery seats, of holding on to Ah Cum, Sr., and being pushed by Ah Cum, Jr., and now and then grabbing frantically at a Chinese queue, as a drowning man catches at a rope. The only reason that I did not fall into the water is that there was not space enough between the boats. At last, however, bruised and breathless, we reached a place of refuge, and watched our boatmen fight their way out through the crowd, until we landed on the neighboring island of Shameen. After the pandemonium around the steamer, this seemed a perfect paradise of beauty and repose. It is about a mile and a quarter in circumference, and is reserved exclusively for foreigners.

Shaded by drooping banyan trees, stand many handsome houses inhabited by Englishmen, Germans, and Americans whom the necessities of business keep in banishment here. Their social life is said to be very pleasant, and I should think, indeed, that in so small a settlement the members of this little colony (if they did not hate) would love each other cordially. This pretty place, before the capture of Canton, in 1857, was nothing but a hideous mud-bank. But foreigners have transformed it almost as completely as they have Hong-Kong, and have built around it broad embankments made of solid granite, which form an agreeable promenade.

Unfortunately, however, Shameen boasts of only one hotel, and of this such dismal stories had been told us that we had half made up our minds to eat and sleep on the American steamers, changing from one to another every morning as they came and went. This seemed, however, so difficult, that we resolved to try the accommodations here. We did so, and discovered that in this case "the devil is not so black as he is painted." At all events, clean, comfortable rooms made some amends for a meager bill of fare.

I cherish no delightful recollections of our meals on the island of Shameen. In fact, when a "globe-trotter" has reached India or China, the time has come for him to eat what he can get, and be devoutly thankful that he can get anything. Misguided souls who live to eat should never make a journey around the world. Of course, the foreign residents here live better than travelers at hotels; but a gentleman who entertained us apologized for his poor table, and said that it was especially difficult to get good beef, since Chinamen consider it extravagant to kill such useful animals as cows and oxen. "Accordingly," he added, "we classify the so-called beef that we consume as 'donkey beef,' 'camel beef,' and 'precipice beef.'

"Precipice beef!" I exclaimed, "what in the world do you mean by 'precipice beef?'"

"That," he replied, "is nearest to the genuine article, for it is the product of a cow that has killed herself by falling over a precipice."

On one side of this island flows the Canton river, and on the other is a small canal which separates it from the city. Two bridges span this narrow stream, each having iron gates which are invariably closed at night and guarded by sentinels. No Chinese, save employees of the foreigners, may come within this reservation. In 1883, however, a Chinese mob attacked it fiercely, and swarmed across the bridges, as the legendary mice invaded Bishop Hatto's tower on the Rhine. The English, French, and German families escaped to steamers in the river, leaving their houses to be plundered or burned. During my stay here, every evening when this bridge was closed, and every morning when it was reopened, I heard a hideous din of drums and horns, concluding with the firing of a blunderbuss. Our consul told me that the object of all this was to inspire fear. "Tremble and obey!" are the words which close all Government proclamations in the Chinese empire.

The morning after our arrival, we found awaiting us outside the hotel door some coolies with the sedan-chairs in which we were to make our first excursion through Canton. Another party also was about to start, including several ladies, each of whom held in her hand either a flask of smelling-salts or a piece of camphor wrapped in a handkerchief. In fact, the druggists of Hong-Kong do quite a business in furnishing visitors to Canton with disinfectants and restoratives. Some of these ladies feared being insulted by the Canton populace, and told exciting stories of an English lady who had been recently spat upon, and of American ladies who had been followed by a hooting crowd. Ah Cum, however, smiled complacently.

"There is no danger," he assured us; "my father will take care of you ladies, as I will of these gentlemen. Every one here knows us. Our people are always safe."

Accordingly we started, crossed the bridge, and two minutes later found ourselves engulfed, like atoms in a sewer, in the fetid labyrinth of Canton. One should not be surprised that illustrations of its streets are not clearer. The marvel is that they are visible at all! "Streets," as we understand the word, they cannot be truthfully called. They are dark, tortuous alleys, destitute of sidewalks, and from four to eight feet wide, winding snake-like between long lines of gloomy shops. Comparatively little daylight filters through them to the pavement, not only by reason of their narrow limits, but from the fact that all these passageways are largely filled up, just above the people's heads, with strips of wood, which serve as advertising placards. Many of them are colored blue, red, white, or green, and bear strange characters, gilded or painted on their surfaces. These in the dark perspective of a crowded alley look like the banners of some long procession.

These letters do not give the merchants' names, but serve as trade-marks, like the dedicatory words above the doors of shops in France. How any one can read them is a mystery; not merely on account of the twilight gloom, but from the fact that here at every step one comes in contact with a multitude of repulsive Chinamen, many of them naked to the waist, who seem compressed within this narrow space like a wild torrent in a gorge. To stop in such a place and read a sign appeared to me as difficult as studying the leaves of the trees while riding through a forest on a Texas broncho.

As our bearers pushed their way through these dark, narrow lanes, the people squeezed themselves against the walls to let us pass; then closed about us instantly again, like sharks around the stern of a boat. At any moment I could have touched a dozen naked shoulders with my hand, and twice as many with my cane. Meanwhile, to the noise of the loquacious multitude were added the vociferations of our bearers, who shouted constantly for people to make way, ascribing to us, we were told, distinguished titles that evidently excited curiosity even among the stolid Chinamen. Occasionally we met a sedan-chair coming in the opposite direction. Both sets of bearers then began to yell like maniacs, and we would finally pass each other with the utmost difficulty, our coolies having frequently to back the chair-poles into one shop, and then run them forward into a doorway on the opposite corner, thereby blocking the noisy, surly crowd until the passage could be cleared.

The faces packed about us, while not positively hostile, were as a rule unfriendly. An insolent stare was characteristic of most of them. Some disagreeable criticisms were pronounced, but Ah Cum's expression never changed, and we, of course, could not understand them. Once a banana-skin, thrown probably by a mischievous boy, flew by my head; and I was told that China's favorite exclamation, "foreign devils," was often heard. But I dare say that if a Chinese mandarin, in full regalia, were to walk through some of our streets, he would not fare as well as we did in Canton; and that if he ever went to the Bowery, "he'd never go there any more."

As we kept passing on through other alleys teeming with half-clad specimens of the great unwashed, I called to mind the fact that this low class in China has been deliberately taught to hate, despise, and thoroughly distrust all foreigners. The unjust opium war with England, the recent territorial war with France, the stories told them of the treatment of their countrymen in the United States,--all these would, of themselves, be enough to make them hostile; but they are as nothing to the effect produced upon an ignorant, superstitious populace by the placards posted on the walls of many Chinese cities. I read translations of a few of these, and I believe they cannot be surpassed in literature for the vulgarity and infamy of their accusations. They are in one sense perfectly absurd; but when we recollect the riotous acts to which they have frequently incited their deluded victims, they challenge serious consideration.

On entering some of the shops that line these passageways, I was astonished at the contrast they presented to the streets themselves. The latter are at times no more than four feet wide. Not so the shops. Many of them have a depth of eighty feet, and in the centre are entirely open to the roof. In the corner of each is placed a little shrine. A gallery extends around the second story, and on that floor, or in the rear of the building, the owners live. Some of these shops are handsomely adorned with fine wood-carving and bronze lamps, and on the shelves is stored a great variety of goods, frequently including articles as dissimilar as silk and cotton fabrics, fans, jewelry, umbrellas, Waterbury clocks, and Chinese shoes.

Among these shops we saw a building used partly as a temple and partly as the Guild Hall for the Canton silk merchants. Guilds, or trade-unions, have existed here for centuries. They permeate every branch of Chinese industry, legal and illegal. Even the thieves form themselves into a guild, and I suppose there is "honor" among them. The origin of these unions is partly due to unjust taxation. Canton contains a vast amount of wealth, but those possessing it are careful to conceal all trace of any superabundance. On this account disputes between the various guilds are settled by arbitration. To allow their affairs to go into court would show too plainly to the tax-collectors their financial status. Accordingly litigation is almost unknown. Moreover, when a case is settled by arbitration, the losing party not only pays the disputed sum, but is obliged to give a supper to the victor.

In another building that we passed I saw a curious ceremony, which Ah Cum explained as that of three Buddhist priests who were clearing a house of evil spirits. It appears that, two weeks before, a man had committed suicide on the premises, in order to avenge himself on the proprietor. For in China a man, instead of killing his enemy, sometimes kills himself, the motive being a desire that the hated one shall be regarded as responsible for his death, and be pursued by evil spirits here and in the world to come. To be annoyed by ghosts must be exceedingly unpleasant, but, on the whole, I hope that all my enemies will try the Chinese method.

Occasionally we discovered in these streets an itinerant barber. These Chinese Figaros carry their outfits with them. First in importance comes a bamboo pole, which is the immemorial badge of their profession. To this is usually attached one solitary towel,--free to every customer. From one extremity of this pole hangs a small brass basin, together with a charcoal stove for heating water; the other end is balanced by a wooden cabinet, which serves the patient as a seat during the operation, and contains razors, lancets, tweezers, files, and other surgical instruments.

It matters not where one of these tonsorial artists practises his surgery. A temple court, a flight of steps, a street, or a back-yard, are quite the same to him. He takes his queue where he can find it. One of his commonest duties is to braid that customary appendage to a Chinaman's head, without which he would be despised. It is comical to estimate the thousands of miles of Chinese queues which even one barber twists in the course of his career--enough, if tied together, end to end, to form a cable between Europe and America. Yet this singular style of hair-dressing (now so universal) was introduced into China only two hundred and fifty years ago. Before that time the Chinese wore full heads of hair, and the present fashion of shaved crowns and twisted queues is of Tartar origin, and was imposed by a conquering dynasty as a badge of servitude. The wearing of a mustache in China is an indication that he whose face it adorns is a grandfather. In fact, until he is forty-five years old, a Chinaman usually shaves his face completely; but this fact does not prove that after that time he can dispense with the services of a barber. For the tonsorial art in China is exceedingly varied; and Chinese barbers not only braid the queue; they also shave the eyebrows, clean the ears, pull teeth, and massage. Moreover, they scrape the inside of their victim's eye-lids--a custom which is believed by foreigners to be the cause of much of the ophthalmia in China.

Chinese fortune-tellers had for me a singular fascination. I found them everywhere--in temple courts, at gateways and beside the roads--invariably wearing spectacles, and usually seated at a table decorated with huge Chinese characters. Their services seemed to be in great demand. In every case the ceremony was the same. Each applicant in turn approached, and stated what he wished to know; for example, whether a certain day would be a lucky time for him to buy some real estate, or which of several girls his son would better marry. Upon the table stood a tin box full of bamboo sticks. One of these slips the customer drew at random, and from the sentence written on it the fortune-teller gave his answer in oracular words--which could, as usual, be interpreted in various ways.

At length, however, leaving for a time the shops and dimly-lighted alleys, we found ourselves approaching a huge gate. For Canton, like most other Chinese cities, is divided into certain districts, each of which is separated from the adjoining one by a wall. The gateways in these walls are always closed at night, and are of special use in case of fires or insurrections, since they are strong enough to hold in check a surging crowd till the police or soldiers can arrive.

Passing through this portal, we made our way along the wall until we arrived at a prominent point of observation, known as the Five-storied Pagoda. Whatever this may once have been, it is to-day a shabby, barn-like structure, marked here and there with traces of red paint, like daubs of rouge on a clown's face. All visitors to Canton, however, will recollect the building, with a certain amount of pleasure, as being the resting-place in which one eats the lunch brought from the steamer or hotel. Not that there is not food of certain kinds obtainable in Canton itself, but somehow what one sees of Chinese delicacies here does not inspire him with a desire to partake of them. In one of Canton's streets, for example, I entered a cat-restaurant. Before the door was a notice which Ah Cum translated thus: "Two fine black cats to-day, ready soon." On stepping inside, I heard some pussies mewing piteously in bamboo cages. Hardly had I entered when a poor old woman brought the proprietor some kittens for sale. He felt of them to test their plumpness, as we might weigh spring chickens. Only a small price was offered, as they were very thin, but the bargain was soon concluded, the woman took her money, and the cadaverous kittens went to swell the chorus in the cages. Black cats, by the way, cost more in China than cats of any other color, for the Chinese believe that the flesh of dark-coated felines makes good blood.

To some Chinamen, dogs fried in oil are also irresistible. In one untidy street, swarming with yellow-skinned humanity, we saw a kind of gipsy kettle hung over a wood fire. Within it was a stew of dog-meat. Upon a pole close by was hung a rump of uncooked dog, with the tail left on, to show the patrons of this open-air restaurant to what particular breed the animal had belonged. For it is said there is a great difference in the flesh of dogs. Bull-terriers, for example, would probably be considered tough. Around this kettle stood a group of coolies, each with a plate and spoon, devouring the canine stew as eagerly as travelers eat sandwiches at a railway restaurant after the warning bell has rung. Some hungry ones were looking on as wistfully as boys outside a bun-shop. One man had such a famished look that, through the medium of Ah Cum, I treated him at once. Moreover, hundreds of rats, dried and hung up by the tails, are exposed for sale in Canton streets, and shark's fins, antique duck eggs, and sea-slugs are considered delicacies.

We tried to bring back photographic proofs of all these horrors, but it was impossible. Whenever we halted in the narrow lanes, in fifteen seconds we would be encircled by a moving wall of hideous faces, whose foremost rank kept closing in on us until the atmosphere grew so oppressive that we gasped for breath and told our bearers to move on. Nor is this all. These crowds were sometimes positively hostile. A superstitious fear of being photographed by "foreign devils" made them dangerous. This fact was several times made disagreeably evident. Thus, in a garden adjoining a Chinese temple, I wished to photograph some sacred hogs which were attached to the sanctuary in some unknown capacity. But scarcely had the exposure been made, when a priest gave the alarm, and in three minutes a mob of men and boys were rushing toward us, uttering yells and throwing stones. Ah Cum himself turned pale. He sprang in front of us, and swore (may heaven forgive him!) that not a picture had been taken. Of course we offered money as indemnity, but the priests rejected it with scorn, claiming that by the pointing of the camera we had stopped the growth of the hogs. I do not think I exaggerate the situation when I say that if the politic Ah Cum had not been there to defend us, we should have suffered personal injury.