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China and the Chinese

<h2>CHAPTER V</h2> My voyage to Macao—General appearance of the port—Gambling propensities of the Chinese—Compulsory emigration—Cruel treatment of coolies on board ship—Disaster on the Paracelses reefs—The Baracouns—The grotto of Camoens—The Lusiads—Contrast between Chinese and Japanese—Origin of the yellow races: their appearance and language—Relation of the dwellers in the Arctic regions to the people of China—Russian and Dutch intercourse with the Celestials—East India Company's monopoly of trade—Disputes on the opium question—Expiration of charter—Death of Lord Napier of a broken heart—Lin-Tseh-Hsu as Governor of the Kwang provinces—The result of his measures to suppress trade in opium—Treaty of Nanking—War of 1856-1858—Treaty of Tien-tsin and Convention of Pekin—Immense increase in exports and imports resulting from them. I had confided to M. Vaucher, that most amiable of cicerones whom I had been fortunate enough to meet at Canton, my great wish to go to Macao and make a pilgrimage to the grotto where it is said Camoens, the great Portuguese poet, wrote a portion of his most important work, the Lusiads. M. Vaucher at once made arrangements for me to go to the celebrated Portuguese settlement by river [98] and sea, and placed one of his own decked boats at my disposal. He even went so far as to choose a crew for me, and to arm that crew with six rifles. Before I started he warned me to keep in my cabin so as not to arouse the cupidity of the banditti, who abound on the river, by appearing on deck. "If," he said to me, "my men point out to you a suspicious-looking craft, be on your guard against it. You may easily," he added, "recognize pirate boats for yourself, for this reason, they always prowl about in groups of three, so that each may help the others in case of bad weather or any difficulty; a clever arrangement greatly facilitating their evil designs, for the crews are rapidly transformed from harmless fishermen to fierce pirates should occasion serve for doing a stroke of business." In spite of these ominous warnings, however, my voyage passed over without incident, and I arrived safely at the port of Macao, situated on the southern extremity of a small peninsula of the island of Hiang-shang and separated from the Chinese province of Canton merely by a wall, which is in as ruinous a condition as is the more celebrated Great Wall of Tartary. As we approached Macao a beautiful scene was spread out before us, wooded hills dotted with charming villas, in which the wealthy English of Hong-Kong spend much of the summer, and groups of picturesque rocks rising from the curving shores of the lovely bay with its [99] stretch of gleaming white sand, to which the Portuguese, to whom Macao was ceded by the Chinese, have given the appropriate name of the Porto de Praya grande. Here swarms the teeming amphibious fishing population of Macao, and from this perfect bow with its picturesque surroundings were shipped, alas! for all too many years, thousands of coolies for the labour market of Havana and Peru, who were many of them embarked under terribly tragic circumstances. <div class="sidenote">EMIGRATION AGENTS</div> A true Celestial is in fact a born gambler, and indulges his instincts to such an extent that when he has lost fortune, wife, and daughters he finally stakes himself! This fact is well known to the emigration agents not only of Macao, but of the other Chinese ports, where numbers were formerly enrolled for service in Peru, Chili, the Philippine Islands, and various places in Oceania with very little, if any, volition on their own part. Emigration agents used to lie in wait for Chinese loungers, and accost those who looked fairly robust politely, take them to the flower-boats and other public resorts where opium was smoked, and if their luckless victims still had any money left, their insinuating tempters would entice them into some low gambling hell, where, after a few throws of the dice, the ruin of the simple, confiding fellows was complete. Then when the unfortunate Celestials had emptied their purses, and their brains were muddled with opium or from the effects of [100] debauchery, their dim eyes were dazzled by the offer of a few piastres, and in exchange for a trifling sum they signed away their liberty. When they came to their senses they found they had bound themselves to leave their country. The agents were careful when they got the poor fellows' signatures not to let out how far from China were the sugar-cane plantations of the Antilles or the guano isles of Peru. Their victims had only learnt one fact thoroughly, and that was that their country is the centre of the universe, the foreign nations surrounding it being looked upon as its tributaries. If the emigrants asked where they were going, they were told to some place very near the port of embarkation. This wicked deception was really the cause of the terrible massacres of coolies to which many captains of emigrant vessels were driven to save their ships and crews. When after a few days' voyage a vessel had to touch at some port for any reason, and the poor coolies packed away below the hatchways saw above the barriers or through the portholes, the bright verdure of an island of Oceania, or the distant blue mountains of the American continent, they at once jumped to the conclusion that their journey was at an end, and were wild to leave the vessel, no matter at what cost. Some even in mid-ocean, out of sight of land, became so heart-broken from home-sickness that they quietly packed up the few things belonging to them and jumped into the sea with them. Now and then [101] a few of these would-be suicides were fished out again by order of the captain, and would calmly explain their action by some such speech as this: "We want to go back to our own country." Truly those who believe in metempsychosis cherish wonderful delusions! On one occasion in the roadstead of Manila a swarm of coolies who thought they had arrived at Havana mutinied because the captain would not allow them to land. The crew of the vessel drove them back between decks at the point of the sword, and they all perished from suffocation in a few hours for want of air. <div class="sidenote">A TERRIBLE CATASTROPHE</div> Mutiny on their part was not, however, the only reason which sometimes led to the sacrifice of a whole cargo of Asiatics. It was all too often a case of might makes right, and when some convulsion of the elements rendered it imperative to lighten a vessel, many a captain easily persuaded himself that he had no choice but to save his crew by the sacrifice of his human freight. This was the cause of the awful catastrophe off the Paracelses reefs in the China Sea, which have as sinister a reputation as the Goodwin Sands of the English coast, or the Baie des Trépassés of that of Brittany. An unskilful captain had run his vessel on to the far-famed reefs during the night, and seeing that it was hopeless to attempt to save the five hundred coolies he was to have taken to Peru, he called his crew together and told them to lower all the boats as quietly as possible. This was done, and the [102] captain saved himself and his sailors, leaving the five hundred Celestials to their fate. The unfortunate coolies, roused from their sleep by the bumping of the vessel against the rocks, uttered piercing screams for help from the narrow space in which they were confined, but we need scarcely add that the cautious captain had most likely had the hatchways securely nailed down by his carpenter before he left the ship. When there is not much sea on, the Paracelses reefs can be clearly seen, certain flat portions emerging here and there for a few inches above the surface of the water. If there were never such a thing as a storm, and no danger of the islets being swept by the waves, it would be possible to live on them and even to support life by feeding on the turtles and shell-fish abounding there; so that if the poor abandoned coolies had been able to get out of their prison, who can tell but what they might have saved themselves by clinging to the rocks till help arrived? As it was, however, not a single emigrant was ever seen again. On the arrival safe and sound at Hong-Kong of the captain and his crew, the English authorities at once sent the fleetest steamer in the port to the scene of the shipwreck, but those on that steamer saw nothing of the lost vessel, which must have been quickly dashed to pieces. The Paracelses reefs were completely under water, masses of surging foam hiding all trace of them, so that had any of the coolies landed it would only have been to be swept quickly away to the open sea by the force of the current. [103] Perhaps the saddest part of the tragedy was that the fate of so many human creatures who had disappeared for ever in the depths of that blind and reckless destroyer, the Ocean, should have raised so little regret, either amongst the white-skinned traders in human flesh or the yellow-faced Celestials of Macao and Hong-Kong. Maybe the latter themselves realize that they really are too prolific, and are not sorry when their numbers are lessened, no matter by what means. <div class="sidenote">THE BARACOUNS</div> When I was at Macao, I saw some of the so-called baracouns, where the emigrants used to be shut up whilst awaiting their embarcation. These baracouns are the disused vaults of old convents, damp cellars of vast extent, which were closed with strong bars when in use as pens for human cattle. I am thankful to say these barracks are empty now, and are no longer hot-beds of disease, for the European powers have interfered to put a stop to the infamous traffic. It is a great gratification to me to know, on the authority of the Quai d'Orsay officials, that an indignant article on the subject, which I contributed to the Revue des Deux Mondes, had something to do with this most desirable step. Emigration still goes on, on a very large scale, but it is conducted in a less barbarous manner. No Chinese can now be made to embark against his will, and his signature to a contract no longer compels him to leave his native land if he has any means of support. As time goes on, it is to be [104] hoped that something like true liberty will really be the heritage of the Chinese people, and already, where European ideas are gaining ground, there are glimmerings of the dawn of a better state of things. In China, as elsewhere, the glory of the Portuguese colonies is departed, and the settlement at Macao is no exception to the rule. For many years the name of that port was synonymous with decay and degradation. The native population was more debased; the foreign traders were more grasping, more greedy of gain, and more reckless of the means employed to secure it than anywhere else, and one tri-colour flag, floating above a hospital for invalid sailors, was the only note of true civilization to redeem a deplorable state of things. The Sisters of Charity, who had come all the way from France to soothe the sufferings of European mariners in a strange land, taught the people of Macao that there was another love than that of the piastre, another intoxication than that produced by the fumes of opium: the love of helping others, the intoxication of zeal for humanity. The much-abused and hated Macao is now the seat of a bishop and the head-quarters of French missionary effort in China, whilst the export trade has passed from the hands of the Portuguese into that of the British, a truly beneficent change for all concerned. My visit to the horrible baracouns made me quite miserable, so vividly did they bring before me all the horrors of the but recently-changed system of compulsory emigration. I did my best to forget [105] them; and on the eve of my departure from Macao I went to see the grotto associated with the name of Camoens. It will be remembered that the poet was banished to Macao in 1556 on account of his quarrel with the authorities at Goa, whither he had been sent after the fracas in the streets of Lisbon, in which he wounded a royal equerry. He seems on the whole to have enjoyed his exile, for he obtained a post with a large salary, and in two years made quite a fortune. This so-called grotto is not really a cave now, whatever it may originally have been, but is a picturesque little building perched on a site commanding a beautiful view of the bay and its shipping. Truly a fitting scene to inspire the rhapsody in which Camoens celebrated the glory of his fellow-countryman, Vasco da Gama, and bemoaned the sad fate of the beautiful Iñez de Castro, who, the story goes, after being for some ten years the mistress of the Infante of Portugal, Dom Pedro, was secretly married to him in 1354, and murdered by order of her father-in-law in 1355. When the bereaved husband came to the throne he put two of the murderers of his bride to death by torture; and, according to Camoens, had the dead body of Iñez exhumed, dressed in royal robes, and placed upon the throne she would have occupied had she lived, to receive homage from the court. <div class="sidenote">THE LUSIADS</div> In the Lusiads, which has been called the "Epos of Commerce," and is to the Portuguese what Chaucer's Canterbury Tales is to the English, a [106] vivid picture is given of the grandeur of the poet's native country in the fifteenth century, when it was the rival of Spain, and a leader in the colonization of distant lands. Perhaps one of the finest passages of this remarkable poem, or series of poems, is that in which its author invokes the mighty spirit of the storm, Adamastor, the fierce guardian of the Cape of Good Hope, over whom Vasco da Gama and Magellan, also of Portuguese birth, both triumphed. Now that time has proved how fatal to the real welfare of both Spain and Portugal was the wealth of India and of Mexico, one cannot help feeling that the poet may perhaps have had something of a prophetic intuition of the future decadence of the peninsular kingdoms, when he placed a giant in the pathway of the Conquistadores, to bar the way against them. It has only been for the last forty years that either China or Japan can be said to have been open to Europeans. The history of the latter nation is a proof of what an active, brave, and intelligent people may achieve in the course of a few years; whilst that of the former illustrates all that may remain undone where the natives of a country are convinced that they have for forty centuries had an ideal government, the best possible religion, and that the products of their industries are quite incapable of improvement. In passing judgment on the Chinese it must, however, be borne in mind that their country is, by its natural boundaries, so completely isolated from [107] the rest of the world as to justify to some extent their intense reluctance to open relations with the Red Devils of the West, as they call all Europeans, whether fair or dark, though it was evidently the bright auburn hair and rosy complexions of so many of the English visitors to China which originated the name. The giving of this title is the only vengeance the poor yellow skins have been able to take on those who invaded their capital, pillaged their palaces and burnt their arsenals and vessels, not to speak of the importation of the pernicious drug, opium, which is responsible for the death of thousands every year. <div class="sidenote">THE BOUNDARIES OF CHINA</div> Independently of the Great Wall which once, though not very successfully, defended China from the incursions of the Mongols and Manchus, the Celestial Empire is bounded on the north by the great Gobi desert and the grass steppes of Southern Mongolia; on the east by the sea of China, the Eastern and the Yellow Seas; whilst on the west rise many a lofty chain of mountains, their summits almost always crowned with snow. These latter have not yet been all fully explored, though the name of many a hero of discovery is connected with them, including that of Prince Henry of Orleans, Margary and Marcel Monnier of quite recent fame. In the vast circle enclosed within these boundaries of desert, mountain, and sea, nearly every kind of vegetation can be successfully cultivated in one district or another, whilst a considerable variety [108] of types of the great human family is met with, including members belonging to the same groups as the people who have poured into Corea, Japan, Formosa, the Philippine Islands, Indo-China, Siam, Kulja, and even a country so far away as Persia. As is well known, anthropologists are divided into two absolutely distinct camps: the Polygenists, who claim that differences of species evidenced by differences in height, in features, and in complexion, are the result of the springing of the human race from different progenitors; and the Monogenists, who believe in one primæval pair of parents only, and look upon all differences between human creatures as caused by accidental conditions modifying the primitive type. The latter assert that it was within the boundaries mentioned above, on the central plateau of the present Celestial Empire, that the first men appeared, and as they multiplied, became diversified into yellow, black, white, and red, remaining in their primitive home until, like a cup filled too full, they overflowed in every direction to people other lands. <div class="sidenote">THE MONGOLIANS</div> It is not for me to decide the vexed question of whether the polygenists or monogenists are in the right; those curious on the subject may refer to the learned and deeply interesting works of Quatrefages, Haeckel, Darwin, Huxley, Wallace and others, who have brought their critical acumen to bear on the subject of the origin and antiquity of man. I merely wish to emphasize here the fact that all agree in believing China to have been [109] occupied at an extremely remote date, and in admitting that, however the changes may have come about, the human family is now undoubtedly divided into five distinct groups: the brown, the black, the red, the white, and the yellow. To the last belong the Mongolians, with whom alone we have now to do, and which numbers, whatever its peculiarities, more representatives than any other at the present day. The skin of this prolific race is always yellow, sometimes pale, and sometimes of a brownish tinge. The stiff straight hair of the Mongol is as black as ebony, and the skull is of the so-called bracycephalic type, that is to say, short as compared to its breadth, whilst that of the Chinese and Tartars is mesaticephalic, or of medium length and breadth. The face is round, the eyes are mere narrow slits, often decidedly oblique, the nose is large, the cheek-bones are very prominent, and the lips are thick. At first sight it would appear that the Mongolian dialects all spring from one primitive speech, but examination of evidence proves that this is not the case, for they really belong to two very ancient branches of human speech: the monosyllabic language of the Indo-Chinese races, and the polysyllabic of the other Mongolians. The Tibetans, Burmans, Siamese, and Chinese dialects are all monosyllabic, whilst those in use by the Coreans, Japanese, Tartars, Kirghizes, Kalmucks, Buriats, Samoyedes, and Finns are polysyllabic. [110] All the inhabitants of the continent of Asia, with the exception of a few tribes of the extreme north, certain groups of Malays and Dravidians in India, with some of the dwellers in the Mediterranean districts of the south-west, belong to the so-called Homo mongolicus, or Mongolian branch of the great human family, whilst in Europe it claims the Finns and Lapps of the north, the Osmanlis of Turkey, and the Magyars of Hungary. Homo articus, or the Polar group, is considered by the best authorities to have originally formed part of the Mongolian branch, including the Esquimaux, the Greenlanders, the Kamtchatkans, etc., all of whom, however, as pointed out by Haeckel, the great German naturalist, have in the course of centuries become so modified by the conditions of life in the Arctic regions, that they may now be looked upon as forming a separate species. The inhabitants of the extreme north are short and squat, their skulls are of the mesaticephalic, or even in some cases of the dolichocephalic type, that is to say, they are long in proportion to their breadth; their eyes are narrow and oblique, as are those of the Mongols; they have high cheek-bones and large mouths. Their hair is coarse and black, and their skin of a more or less clear brown colour, sometimes approaching to white, and sometimes to yellow, as amongst the Mongols, whilst now and then it is reddish, as is that of the native Americans. The dialects spoken by these remote tribes differ as much from those of other Mongols [111] as they do from the American forms of speech, and the probability is that these inhabitants of the Arctic regions are really a degenerate branch of the Mongol race, whose progenitors passed over into the north of America from the north-east of Asia. <div class="sidenote">CHINESE ISOLATION</div> In spite of the fact that emigrants did occasionally drift across the formidable northern and western boundaries of the vast Celestial Empire, the one leading idea for many centuries, alike of rulers and ruled, was to keep their land sacred from intruders, and discourage all intercourse with other nations, whom the Chinese were trained from infancy to look upon as utter barbarians. There is no more thrilling or more interesting story in literature than that of how this cherished isolation was in the end broken in upon and the delusion finally dispelled, that Europe was but a small, sparsely populated district, whose inhabitants were eager to trade with the yellow men because of the poverty of their own land. The Russians and the Dutch, as well as the Portuguese, were eager in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to trade with China, and plant permanent colonies within its boundaries, but self-interest alone prompted their efforts, and they did nothing to open the eyes of the natives to the true character of western civilization. The French, however, to their honour be it spoken, were the pioneers of missionary effort, and as has been well pointed out by Archibald Colquhoun in his China in [112] Transformation, page 43, "the earlier knowledge of the West acquired by China, and that of China acquired by the West, were mainly achieved by French missionaries; no French Government ever sent a mission to Pekin to seek merely advantages of trade," and it was not until 1869 that a different policy was inaugurated. Far different was it with the English who obtained a footing in China, for from the very first their one aim was to trade upon the ignorance of the natives, and to make the largest possible fortunes. British trade with China began later than that of the other great Western powers, but it rapidly grew to far greater importance than that of Russia or Portugal, chiefly because it was mainly carried on by that great and powerful commercial body, the East India Company, on whom rests the responsibility of the first introduction to the Celestial Empire of opium, now consumed in such immense quantities and cultivated in China itself, but which was totally unknown there before the eighteenth century. For over two centuries the East India Company enjoyed a monopoly of trade, and in their eagerness for gain its members swallowed many an affront to their own and their country's dignity, for their relations to the Chinese Government resembled those of humble suppliants to the "Son of Heaven." [113] <div class="sidenote">THE EAST INDIA COMPANY</div> There is something deeply pathetic in the gradual realization by that "Son of Heaven" that the sons of earth from over the sea were really more powerful than himself, and that he was the one to be defeated in any real conflict with them. How touching, for instance, was the edict issued in 1800, the first year of the century, so fatal to China as a nation, prohibiting the importation of opium, an edict utterly powerless to check the evil, which was spreading like a fatal blight throughout the length and breadth of the doomed land. The traffic went on unchecked, and between 1821 and 1831 the amount landed at the various ports increased from 4628 chests to 23,670. In 1832 the monopoly of the Company came to an end, and the heads of the factories were succeeded by a representative of the Sovereign of Great Britain, whom the Chinese authorities hoped to coerce more easily than they could the many-headed hydra the Company had seemed to be. "On the one side," says Professor Legge, "was a resistless force determined to prosecute its enterprise for the enlargement of its trade, and the conduct of it as with an equal nation; on the other side, was the old Empire seeming to be unconscious of its weakness, determined not to acknowledge the claim of equality, and confident of its power to suppress the import of opium." For a brief space it seemed as if the latter would gain the day, for England made the fatal mistake of associating with her first representative, Lord Napier, two men who had been in the hated East India Company. The policy pursued was weak and vacillating; Lord Napier was disowned by his Government, and after suffering much indignity at the hands of the Chinese, died at Macao of a broken [114] heart. He was succeeded by Sir J. F. Davis, during whose term of office the relations between the two countries became more and more strained, until in 1839 the Chinese Government made its last final effort to oust out alike the foreigners and the abuses they had introduced, which were to it as an ever-present canker eating into the life of the nation. The able politician, Lin-Tseh-Hsu, was appointed Governor-General of the Kwang provinces with orders to bring the foreign devils to reason. It so happened when the new ruler, who was "a thoroughly orthodox Chinaman," arrived at Canton, there were British ships in port with some twenty thousand chests of opium on board. Lin at once ordered these to be given up for destruction, and as no notice was taken of his demand, he commanded all the Chinese in the service of the foreigners to leave them at once. They dared not disobey, and when they were gone a cordon of troops was posted round the British quarters, and a manifesto was issued to the effect that unless the opium was surrendered all the merchants would be slain. Captain Eliot, who was Secretary to Sir J. F. Davis, seeing no hope of rescue, gave up the opium, which was flung with quantities of quick-lime, salt and water into deep trenches at Chunhow, near the mouth of the river, "where it quickly became decomposed, and the mixture ran into the sea." This and other high-handed measures of the energetic Governor of Kwang led to the war which resulted in the ceding of Hong-Kong to the English [115] and the opening to British trade of Canton, Amoy, Fuchan, Ningpo, and Shanghai. The spell was in fact finally broken, Chinese isolation was at an end for ever, and the first chapter was written of the history of modern China. China is a land doomed to partition amongst the hated "foreign devils," who are eager to divide the spoil, and are preparing to intersect the once sacred interior of the flowery land with the relentless iron roads, before the advance of which all privacy and seclusion disappear. <div class="sidenote">THE PEKIN CONVENTION</div> The Treaty of Nanking, signed in 1842, was succeeded after another war, which began in 1856 and ended in 1858, by the Treaty of Tien-tsin, making yet further concessions to England; but it was not until after the Anglo-French Expedition had crossed the Pei-Ho river, and encamped beneath the very walls of the capital itself, that the Chinese realized how futile was further resistance. The Convention of Pekin, signed in 1860, ratified the Treaty of Tien-tsin, and formed the foundation of the present relations between China and Great Britain. The Emperor, Hsien-Fung, died the next year, and his last hours must indeed have been embittered by the knowledge that the flood-gates were opened, and that he could only leave the semblance of power to his successor, an infant of five years old. Nothing could now check the introduction of European civilization, which in the eyes of the Chinese was synonymous with all that was most detrimental to their true interests. [116] Fortunately, however, the advantages were not really so entirely on the side of the foreigners as is generally supposed; for the people will in the end, it is hoped, lead better and nobler lives than before. Missionaries of many nationalities are doing their best against terrible odds to introduce the religion of the Redeemer, and even in material matters some good has resulted to the much-oppressed natives. Numerous steamers have long plied unmolested to and fro between the chief European ports and Shanghai, and a system of custom-house control has been established in that important town of Central China, greatly to the advantage of native trade. The taxes imposed on foreign goods are now one of the most important sources of the revenues of the Empire, and the driving away of the "foreign devils" would mean an incalculable loss to the Chinese themselves. The total value of the exports from Shanghai alone is more than £22,715,000, of which some £8,746,000 represents native produce from the immediate neighbourhood of the port, whilst the imports, including Chinese goods from other districts, reaches a considerably higher figure. <div class="sidenote">HOPE FOR THE FUTURE</div> All this means prosperity to the millions, who before the throwing open of the inland provinces to foreign commerce, lived from hand to mouth, and were ground down by the ceaseless exactions of the native officials. This truth is not unfortunately even now really understood by the populace, for political knowledge filters very slowly from the palace to [117] the hovels of China; but we may yet hope to see the day when really cordial relations will be established between the white and yellow races. The defeat of China by Japan, with the huge indemnity exacted by the latter, was of course a terrible blow to commerce; but already there are signs of recovery, for the wealth and numbers of the people of the vast Empire are really alike inexhaustible. <hr class="chap" /> [118] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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