Chapter 44

Various causes have contributed to the populousness of China. Since the Tartar conquest it may be said to have enjoyed a profound peace; for in the different wars and skirmishes that have taken place with the neighbouring nations on the side of India, and with the Russians on the confines of Siberia, a few Tartar soldiers only have been employed. The Chinese army is parcelled out as guards for the towns, cities, and villages; and stationed at the numberless posts on the roads and canals. Being seldom relieved from the several guards, they all marry and have families. A certain portion of land is allotted for their use, which they have sufficient time to cultivate. As the nation has little foreign commerce there are few seamen; such as belong to the inland navigations are mostly married. Although there be no direct penalty levied against such as remain batchelors, as was the case among the Romans when they wished to repair the desolation that their civil wars had occasioned, yet public opinion considers celibacy as disgraceful, and a sort of infamy is attached to a man who continues unmarried beyond a certain time of life. And although in China the public law be not established of the _Jus trium liberorum_, by which every Roman citizen having three children was entitled to certain privileges and immunities, yet every male child may be provided for, and receive a stipend from the moment of his birth, by his name being enrolled on the military list. By the equal division of the country into small farms, every peasant has the means of bringing up his family, if drought and inundation do not frustrate his labour; and the pursuits of agriculture are more favourable to health, and consequently to population, than mechanical employments in crowded cities, and large manufactories, where those who are doomed to toil are more liable to become the victims of disease and debauchery, than such as are exposed to the free and open air, and to active and wholesome labour. In China there are few of such manufacturing cities. No great capitals are here employed in any one branch of the arts. In general each labours for himself in his own profession. From the general poverty that prevails among the lower orders of people, the vice of drunkenness is little practised among them. The multitude, from necessity, are temperate in their diet to the last degree. The climate is moderate and, except in the northern provinces where the cold is severe, remarkably uniform, not liable to those sudden and great changes in temperature, which the human constitution is less able to resist, than the extremes of heat or cold when steady and invariable, and from which the inconveniences are perhaps nowhere so severely felt as on our own island. Except the small-pox and contagious diseases that occasionally break out in their confined and crowded cities, they are liable to few epidemical disorders. The still and inanimate kind of life which is led by the women, at the same time that it is supposed to render them prolific, preserves them from accidents that might cause untimely births. Every woman suckles and nurses her own child.

The operation of these and other favourable causes that might be assigned, in a country that has existed under the same form of government, and preserved the same laws and customs for so many ages, must necessarily have created an excess of population unknown in most other parts of the world, where the ravages of war, several times repeated in the course of a century, or internal commotions, or pestilential disease, or the effects of overgrown wealth, sometimes sweep away one half of a nation within the usual period allotted to the life of man.

"What a grand and curious spectacle," as Sir George Staunton observes, "is here exhibited to the mind of so large a proportion of the whole human race, connected together in one great system of polity, submitting quietly and through so considerable an extent of country to one great sovereign; and uniform in their laws, their manners, and their language; but differing essentially in each of these respects from every other portion of mankind; and neither desirous of communicating with, nor forming any designs against, the rest of the world." How strong an instance does China afford of the truth of the observation, that men are more easily governed by opinion than by power.

CHAP. X.

Journey through the Province of Canton.--Situation of Foreigners trading to this Port.--Conclusion.

_Visible change in the Character of the People.--Rugged Mountains.--Collieries.--Temple in a Cavern.--Stone Quarries--Various Plants for Use and Ornament.--Arrive at Canton--Expence of the Embassy to the Chinese Government.--To the British Nation--Nature and Inconveniences of the Trade to Canton--The Armenian and his Pearl.--Impression of the Officers of Government instanced.--Principal Cause of them is the Ignorance of the Language.--Case of Chinese trading to London.--A Chinese killed by a Seaman of His Majesty's Ship Madras.--Delinquent saved from an ignominious Death, by a proper Mode of Communication with the Government_--Conclusion.

We had no sooner passed the summit of the high mountain _Me-lin_, and entered the province of _Quan-tung_, or Canton, than a very sensible difference was perceived in the conduct of the inhabitants. Hitherto the Embassy had met with the greatest respect and civility from all classes of the natives, but now even the peasantry ran out of their houses, as we passed, and bawled after us _Queitze-fan-quei_, which, in their language, are opprobrious and contemptuous expressions, signifying _foreign devils_, _imps_; epithets that are bestowed by the enlightened Chinese on all foreigners. It was obvious, that the haughty and insolent manner in which all Europeans residing at, or trading to, the port of Canton are treated, had extended itself to the northern frontier of the province, but it had not crossed the mountain _Me-lin_; the natives of _Kiang-see_ being a quiet, civil, and inoffensive people. In _Quan-tung_ the farther we advanced, the more rude and insolent they became. A timely rebuke, however, given to the governor of _Nau-sheun-foo_ by _Van-ta-gin_, for applying the above mentioned opprobrious epithets to the British Embassy, had a good effect on the Canton officers, who were now to be our conductors through their province.

This contempt of foreigners is not confined to the upper ranks, or men in office, but pervades the very lowest class who, whilst they make no scruple of entering into the service of foreign merchants residing in the country, and accepting the most menial employments under them, performing the duties of their several offices with diligence, punctuality, and fidelity, affect, at the same time, to despise their employers, and to consider them as placed, in the scale of human beings, many degrees below them. Having one day observed my Chinese servant busily employed in drying a quantity of tea-leaves, that had already been used for breakfast, and of which he had collected several pounds, I inquired what he meant to do with them: he replied, to mix them with other tea and sell them. "And is that the way," said I, "in which you cheat your own countrymen?" "No," replied he, "my own countrymen are too wise to be so easily cheated, but your's are stupid enough to let serve you such like tricks; and indeed," continued he, with the greatest _sang froid_ imaginable, "anything you get from us is quite good enough for you." Affecting to be angry with him, he said, "he meant for the _second sort_ of Englishmen," which is a distinction they give to the Americans[68].

[68] In the Canton jargon, _second chop Englishmen_; and even this distinction the Americans, I understand, have nearly forfeited in the minds of the Chinese.

The city of _Nan-sheun-foo_ was pleasantly situated on the high bank of the river _Pei-kiang-ho_. The houses appeared to be very old, the streets narrow, large tracts of ground within the walls unbuilt, others covered with ruins. While the barges were preparing to receive on board the baggage, we took up our lodgings in the public temple, that was dedicated to the memory of Confucius, being, at the same time, the college where the students are examined for their different degrees. It consisted of a long dark room, divided by two rows of red pillars into a middle and two side aisles, without furniture, paintings, statues, or ornaments of any kind, except a few paper lanterns suspended between the pillars; the floor was of earth, and entirely broken up: to us it had more the appearance of a large passage or gang-way to some manufactory, as a brewhouse or iron foundery, than of the hall of Confucius. On each side, and at the farther extremity, were several small apartments, in which we contrived to pass the night.

The barges in which we now embarked were very small, owning to the shallowness of the river. The officers, assembled here from different parts of the country, detained us a whole day in order to have an opportunity of laying their several complaints before our physician, at the recommendation of _Van-ta-gin_, who had felt the good effects of his practice. Here, for once, we had an instance of Chinese pride giving way to self-interest, and usurped superiority condescending to ask advice of barbarians. We sailed for two days in our little barges, through one of the most wild, mountainous, and barren tracts of country that I ever beheld, abounding more in the sublime and horrible, than in the picturesque or the beautiful. The lofty summits of the mountains seemed to touch each other across the river and, at a distance, it appeared as if we had to sail through an arched cavern. The massy fragments that had fallen down from time to time, and impeded the navigation, were indications that the passage was not altogether free from danger. Five remarkable points of sand-stone rock, rising in succession above each other with perpendicular faces, seemed as if they had been hewn out of one solid mountain: they were called _ou-ma-too_, or the five horses' heads. The mountains at a distance on each side of the river were covered with pines, the nearer hills with coppice wood, in which the Camellia prevailed; and in the little glens were clusters of fishermen's huts, surrounded by small plantations of tobacco.

Within the defile of these wild mountains, we observed several extensive collieries, which were advantageously worked by driving levels from the river into their sides. The coals brought out of the horizontal _adits_ were immediately lowered from a pier into vessels that were ready to receive and transport them to the potteries of this province, and of _Kiang-see_. Coal is little used in its raw state, but is first charred in large pits that are dug in the ground. Coal dust, mixed with earth, and formed into square blocks, is frequently used to heat their little stoves, on which they boil their rice.

At the city of _Tchao-tchoo-foo_, where we arrived on the 13th, we exchanged our flat-bottomed boats for large and commodious yachts, the river being here much increased by the confluence of another stream. The boats before this city were mostly managed by young girls, whose dress consisted of a neat white jacket and petticoat and a gipsey straw hat. Having for so great a length of time scarcely ever set our eyes upon a female, except the heads of some at a distance, peeping from behind the mud walls that surround the houses, or labouring in the grounds of _Kiang-see_, the ferry girls, though in reality very plain and coarse-featured, were considered as the most beautiful objects that had occurred in the whole journey. To the occupation of ferrying passengers over the river it seemed they added another, not quite so honourable, for which, however, they had not only the consent and approbation of their parents, but also the sanction of the government, or perhaps, to speak more correctly, of the governing magistrates, given in consideration of their receiving a portion of the wages of prostitution.

In this mountainous district a few fishermen's huts and those of the colliers were the only habitations that occurred; but the defect of population was abundantly supplied by the number of wooden dwellings that were floating on the river. Small huts, to the number of thirty or forty, were sometimes erected upon a single floating raft of fir baulks, lashed together by the ends and the sides. On these rafts the people carry on their trade or occupation, particularly such as work in wood.

Our conductors directed the yachts to halt before a detached rock, rising with a perpendicular front from the margin of the river to the height of seven hundred feet. In this front we observed a cavern, before which was a terrace that had been cut out of the rock, accessible by a flight of steps from the river. Proceeding from the terrace into the cavity of the rock, we ascended another flight of stairs, also cut out of solid stone, which led into a very spacious apartment. In the centre of this apartment sat the goddess _Poo-sa_ upon a kind of altar, constituting a part of the rock, and hewn into the shape of the _Lien-wha_ or Nelumbium. A small opening, next the river, admitted a "dim religious light," suitable to the solemnity of the place, which we were told was a temple consecrated to _Poo-sa_, and a monastery for the residence of a few superannuated priests. On the smooth sides of the apartment was inscribed a multitude of Chinese verses, some cut into the rock, and others painted upon it. The lodgings of the priests were small caves branching out of the large temple. A third flight of steps led from this to a second story, which was also lighted by a small aperture in front, that was nearly choaked up by an immense mass of stalectite that had been formed, and was still increasing, by the constant oozing of water holding in solution calcareous matter, and suspended from a projection of the upper part of the rock. But the light was sufficient to discover a gigantic image with a Saracen face, who "grinn'd horrible a ghastly smile." On his head was a sort of crown; in one hand he held a naked scymeter, and a firebrand in the other; but the history of this colossal divinity seemed to be imperfectly known, even to the votaries of _Poo-sa_ themselves. He had in all probability been a warrior in his day, the Theseus or the Hercules of China. The cave of the Cumæan Sibyl could not be better suited for dealing out the mysterious decrees of fate to the superstitious multitude, than that of the _Quan-gin-shan_, from whence the oracle of future destiny, in like manner,

"Horrendas canit ambages, antroque remugit, Obscuris vera involvens."

"The wond'rous truths, involv'd in riddles, gave, And furious bellow'd round the gloomy cave."

Lord Macartney observed that this singular temple brought to his recollection a Franciscan monastery he had seen in Portugal, near Cape Roxent, usually called the _Cork Convent_, "which is an excavation of considerable extent under a hill, divided into a great number of cells, and fitted up with a church, sacristy, refectory, and every requisite apartment for the accommodation of the miserable Cordeliers who burrow in it. The inside is entirely lined with cork: the walls, the roofs, the floors, are covered with cork; the tables, seats, chairs, beds, couches, the furniture of the chapel, the crucifixes, and every other implement, are all made of cork. The place was certainly dismal and comfortless to a great degree, but it wanted the gigantic form, the grim features, the terrific aspect which distinguish the temple of _Poo-sa_, in the rock of _Quan-gin-shan_." Dismal as this gloomy den appeared to be, where a few miserable beings had voluntarily chained themselves to a rock, to be gnawed by the vultures of superstition and fanaticism, it is still less so than an apartment of the Franciscan convent in Madeira, the walls of which are entirely covered with human skulls, and the bones of legs and arms, placed alternately in horizontal rows. A dirty lamp suspended from the ceiling, and constantly attended by an old bald-headed friar of the order, to keep the feeble light just glimmering in the socket, serves to shew indistinctly to strangers this disgusting _memento mori_. It would be difficult to determine which of the three were the most useless members of society, the monks of _Poo-sa_, the monks of the Cork convent, or the monks of Golgotha.

In several places among the wild and romantic mountains through which we were carried on this river, we noticed quarries of great extent, out of which huge stones had been cut for sepulchral monuments, for the arches of bridges, for architraves, for paving the streets, and for various other uses. To obtain these large masses, the saw is applied at the upper surface, and they work down vertically to the length required. Each stone is shaped and fashioned to the size that may be wanted, before it is removed from the parent rock, by which much difficulty is avoided and less power required in conveying it to its destination. Rude misshapen blocks, requiring additional labour for their removal, are never detached from the rock in such a state. In this respect they are more provident than the late Empress of Russia who, at an immense expense and with the aid of complicated machinery, caused a block of stone to be brought to her capital, to serve as a pedestal for the statue of the Czar Peter, where it was found expedient to reduce it to two-thirds of its original dimensions.

Between the city of Canton and the first pagoda on the bank of the river, there is a continued series of similar quarries, which appear not to have been worked for many years. The regular and formal manner in which the stones have been cut away, exhibiting lengthened streets of houses with quadrangular chambers, in the sides of which are square holes at equal distances, as if intended for the reception of beams; the smoothness and perfect perpendicularity of the sides, and the number of detached pillars that are scattered over the plain, would justify a similar mistake to that of Mr. Addison's Doctor of one of the German universities, whom he found at Chateau d'Un in France, carefully measuring the free-stone quarries at that place, which he had conceived to be the venerable remains of vast subterranean palaces of great antiquity.

Almost all the mountains that occurred in our passage through China were of primæval granite, some few of sand-stone, and the inferior hills were generally of lime-stone, or coarse grey marble. Except the Ladrone islands on the south, and some of the _Chu-san_ islands on the east, we observed no appearances in the whole country of volcanic productions. The high mountains, indeed, that form great continental chains are seldom, if ever, of volcanic formation. The presence of a vast volume of water seems to be indispensably necessary to carry on this operation of nature and, accordingly, we find that volcanic mountains are generally close to the sea coast, or entirely insulated. Thus, although a great part of the islands on the coast of China are volcanic, we met with no trace of subterranean heat, either in volcanic products or thermal springs, on the whole continent. Yet earthquakes are said to have been frequently felt in all the provinces, but slight and of short duration.

About seven miles to the southward of the temple in the rock, the mountains abruptly ceased, and we entered on a wide extended plain which, to the southward and on each side, was terminated only by the horizon. This sudden transition from barrenness to fertility, from the sublime to the beautiful, from irregularity to uniformity, could not fail to please, as all strong contrasts usually do. The country was now in a high state of tillage; the chief products were rice, sugar-canes, and tobacco; and the river was so much augmented by the tributary streams of the mountains, which we had just left behind, that it was nearly half a mile in width. Canals branched from its two banks in every direction. At the city of _San-shwee shien_, we observed the current of the river receding, being driven back by the flux of the tide.

On the 10th, we halted before a village which was just within sight of the suburbs of Canton. Here the Embassador was met by the Commissioners of the East India Company, whom the Chinese had allowed to proceed thus far from the factory, and to which place the servants of the Company are occasionally permitted to make their parties of pleasure. In the neighbourhood of this village are extensive gardens for the supply of the city with vegetables. In some we observed nurseries for propagating the rare, the beautiful, the curious, or the useful plants of the country; which are sent to Canton for sale. On this account we were not sorry to be obliged to spend the remainder of the day at this place. Among the choice plants we noticed the large _Peonia_ before mentioned, white, red, and variegated; the elegant _Limodorum Tankervilliæ_, and that singular plant the _Epidendrum flos aeris_ so called from its vegetating without the assistance of earth or water; the _Hybiscus mutabilis_, the _Abelmoschus_, and other species of this genus; the double variegated _Camellia Japonica_; the great holly-hock; the scarlet _amaranthus_ and another species of the same genus, and a very elegant _Celosia_ or cock's comb; the _Nerium Oleander_, sometimes called the Ceylon rose, and the _Yu-lan_, a species of magnolia, the flowers of which appear before the leaves burst from the buds. Of the scented plants the _plumeria_ and a double flowering jasmine were the most esteemed. We observed also in pots the _Ocymum_ or sweet Basil, _Cloranthus inconspicuous_, called _Chu-lan_, whose leaves are sometimes mixed with those of tea to give them a peculiar flavour; the _Olea fragrans_, or sweet scented olive, said also to be used for the same purpose; a species of myrtle; the much esteemed _Rosa Sinica_; the _Tuberose_; the strong scented _Gardenia florida_, improperly called the Cape Jasmine; the China pink and several others, to enumerate which would exceed the limits of this work.

Of fruits we noticed a variety of figs, and three species of mulberries; peaches and almonds; the _Annona_ or custard-apple; the _Eugenia Jambos_, or rose-apple; the much-esteemed _Lee-tchee_ or _Sapindus-edulis_; and the _Kœlreuteria_, another species of the same genus; the _Averhoa Carambola_, an excellent fruit for tarts; and the _Ou-long-shoo_, the _Sterculia platanifolia_. Besides these were abundance of oranges and bananas.

As vegetables for the table, was a great variety of beans and calavances, among which was the _Dolichos Soja_ or soy plant, and the _polystachios_, with its large clusters of beautiful scarlet flowers; the _Cytisus Cadjan_, whole seed yields the famous bean-milk, which it is the custom of the Emperor to offer to Embassadors on their presentation; large mild radishes, onions, garlic, _Capsicum_ or Cayenne-pepper; _convolvulus batatas_, or sweet potatoes; two species of tobacco; _Amomum_, or ginger, in great quantities, the root of which they preserve in syrup; _Sinapis_, or mustard, and the _Brassica orientalis_, from which an oil is expressed for the table.

Of plants that were useful in the arts, we observed the _Rhus vernix_, or varnish-tree, and two other species of the same genus; _Curcuma_, or turmeric; _Carthamus_ used as a dye, and the _polygonum Chinense_ for the same purpose; the _Rhapis flabelliformis_, the dried leaves of which are used for fans among the common people, and particularly by those who live in vessels; _Corchorus_ whose bark, in India, is used as flax; but not, I believe, to any extent in China, the white nettle being here preferred. The only medicinal plants were the _Rheum palmatum_, _Artemisia_, and the _Smilax_ or China root.