Four Young Explorers; Or, Sight-Seeing in the Tropics

by Oliver Optic

  CHAPTER XXXIV

  SIGHT-SEEING IN HONG-KONG AND CANTON

  After the conclusion of the lecture in the afternoon, the passengers ofthe two ships had another frolic, as Captain Ringgold called it, andthen dined in the cabin; after which those from the Blanche "went home,"as the ladies termed it.

  Towards the close of the following day, while the passengers of theGuardian-Mother were seated on the promenade, the lookout forwardshouted, "Land, ho!" The announcement caused a sensation, as usual,though it was an old story. It was reported off the port bow; and thecaptain said it was Lema Island, a considerable distance from Hong-Kong.

  "The Chinese name of Hong-Kong is Hiang-Kiang, which means 'sweetwaters,'" said the commander. "It is a ridge of rocks, the highest pointof which is over eighteen hundred feet above the water. It is ninetymiles south by east of Canton. The island has an area of twenty-ninesquare miles, and is not more than half a mile from the main shore. Itis a barren rock, and you will hardly see a speck of vegetation on thewhole of it. In the south-west corner of the island is the city ofVictoria, with a population of two hundred and twenty-one thousand; andit is one of the great centres of trade with Western nations. Theprincipal import is opium, and the principal exports are tea and silk.We shall anchor soon in its splendid harbor."

  An English pilot was taken; and at sunset the ship was at anchor, andthe party had abundant occupation in observing the rugged shores, theshipping that filled the harbor, and especially the Chinese boats, incharge of boat-women generally. A few junks were in sight; and they hadseen several of them among the islands which form an archipelago at themouth of Canton River, extending some distance up the stream.

  "There are a number of hotels here with English names," said the captainat dinner; "but I shall not trouble you to take a vote on the questionof going to one of them, for we shall not remain here long, not morethan one day. Our steamers can go up to Canton; but I think we hadbetter go up in one of the regular steamers, not Chinese."

  After breakfast the next morning, the first thing in order was to ascendthe promontory for the view it would afford. But they could not walk up,it was so difficult and tiresome. Before they left the ship the Americanconsul visited her, and proffered his assistance to the tourists; for hehad read about the ships in the papers of some of the ports they hadvisited.

  This gentleman was very kind and very polite, and while he was on boardthe party from the Blanche came to the ship in the steam-launch. He wasintroduced to everybody, and advised the travellers to take Chinesesampans for their visit to the shore, for the novelty of the thing. Thewater around the ship was covered with them, and a sufficient number ofthem were taken to accommodate the party. "The colonel," as the consulwas generally called, talked "pidgin" English, which is practically adialect in itself, to the boat-women.

  The captain, Mrs. Belgrave, the colonel, and a few others went in thefirst sampan, and the lady was pleased with the women in charge of thecraft; and several children were in a coop at the stern. The price ofthe craft was ten cents for half an hour. In a few minutes they werelanded at the town; and then a crowd of coolies, as the laborers arecalled here, surrounded the party with sedans and rickshaws, and allwere anxious for a job. The passengers waited till all the company hadlanded, and then took sedans or rickshaws for the Hong-Kong Hotel.

  It required twenty of them to accommodate the party. The commander andthe consul went into the hotel; and a lunch, or tiffin as it is calledhere as in India, was ordered for the tourists at one o'clock. Then thecolonel instructed the coolies where to go, and the procession startedfor a round in the city. The buildings are constructed of granite, whichis the material of the surrounding heights, the dwellings withverandas.

  "How is the weather here, Colonel?" asked the captain, when they stoppedto examine a locality.

  "The average temperature is seventy-five; and that, of course, gives ussome hot days in summer, which is a rainy season. Thunder-storms comeoften; and once in a while a typhoon breaks in upon us, sometimes doingan immense amount of damage," replied the consul. "But the climate isnot unhealthy. If the town had been built around the corner of theisland, it would have been cooler, though we could not have had thismagnificent harbor."

  The company had all descended when a stop was made; and most of theminsisted upon walking along Queen's Road in order to have a betteropportunity to look into the stores, and see the street traders, formost of the Chinese pursue their business in the open air. The storeswere filled with the curious goods peculiar to the East, such as Chinacrapes, porcelain vases, and other wares, and camphor-wood boxes, proofagainst moths. The shop people were well dressed and extremely polite.Several stores were visited, those indicated by the colonel.

  One man, who appeared to be the "boss," sat at a desk with a littlebrush, or camel's-hair pencil, for the natives do not write with pens,and made a tea-chest character in a kind of book for every article sold.The salesmen were very skilful in handling the goods, and showing themin the most tempting manner. Mrs. Belgrave bought some things that shefancied; and then came up the question as to how to pay for them, forthey had no Chinese money. The colonel helped them out by giving cards,like bank-checks, payable by the steward of the Hong merchants.

  Continuing the walk, they came to a money-changer. The commander putdown two English sovereigns, for which he received a bag full of thecurrent coins, which were not the native _cash_, but the pieces made forHong-Kong, as they are made for the island of Jamaica, where an Englishpenny will not pass. The smallest was of the value of a cash, or onemill. A cent was about the size of our old copper one, and a ten-centpiece was a little larger than our dime. The value was given in Chineseas well as English for the benefit of the natives; and the cash piecehad a square hole in the centre, for the natives keep them on strings orwires.

  The captain gave about a half a dollar's worth of this money to eachperson, so that none need be bothered about paying for small articles.The boys invested a portion of their wealth for a quantity of Swatoworanges, about the size of heavy bullets. They could not understand thenative seller, and permitted him to take his pay out of a handful ofcoins; but he took next to nothing, and they were confident they werenot cheated, for he took the same coins from the hands of all.

  Among the pedlers all sorts of vegetables were for sale, and thegroper-fish, shark-fin soup, meats minced with herbs and onions, poultrycut up and sold in pieces, stewed goose, bird's-nest soup, rose-leafsoup with garlic--heaven with the other place, Scott called it--andscores of other eatables for native palates, and some of them would suitthe taste of Americans.

  Taking their places in the vehicles, the tourists were borne through theprincipal streets. There are only five or six thousand English in thecity, and Hong-Kong is substantially Chinese. At about eleven, thecoolies toted the sedans to the top of the peak, where an observatory islocated, following a zigzag path. The approach of every vessel of anyconsequence is signalled from this elevation by flags. The ascent isdifficult, it is so steep; and the bearers of the sedans had to stop andrest occasionally. The view is magnificent, and the consul pointed outthe objects of interest.

  It was easier to get down the steep than to get up, and the partyreached the hotel at the appointed time. The lunch was ready, though itwas hardly first-class. When the captain asked about the expense ofliving for Europeans in China, the colonel said that the price per dayat the best hotels was from four to six dollars, and that one could notkeep house for less than four thousand dollars a year. In summer thepeople live in bungalows on the peaks, where quite a town has grown up.The captain paid the bill in English gold. In the afternoon the companymade an excursion by a regular steamer to Macao, on the other side ofthe river, forty miles distant. It has been a Portuguese settlementsince 1557; but it had little interest for the tourists, and theyreturned by the same steamer, and went on board of the ship.

  The colonel dined on board, and the captain announced his intention togo to Canton the following day. The next morning the t
ourists were onboard of the steamer for that city. The colonel could not go with them;but he procured a couple of English guides to attend them, one of whomwas Mr. Inch and the other Mr. Larch.

  "Kwang-tung is the native name of the city to which we are going, andfrom this the English had made Canton," said Mr. Larch, as the boat leftthe shore; and he proceeded to name the islands in sight, and point outall objects of interest, as he did all the way up the river.

  The city is on the north side of the Choo-Chiang, or Pearl River, ninetymiles from Hong-Kong. They saw nothing of especial interest except atemple on the shore, and a fort with a three-story pagoda rising fromthe centre of it. On the arrival of the steamer off the city, she wassurrounded by boats as at Hong-Kong. The captain of the boat recommendedone he called Tommy, though it was a woman; and her craft was engaged,with as many more as were needed, indicated by her.

  At the landing-place Mr. Seymour, the American consul, to whom thecolonel had telegraphed, was waiting for them. He introduced himself,and was soon on the best of terms with all the tourists. He advisedthem to go to the International Hotel, and they went there. A score ofsedans and rickshaws were at once engaged; and Tommy and the other womencarried the valises and bags for them, each attended by the owner. Theywere to remain three days in Canton. Dinner was the first ceremony theyperformed after they went to the hotel, and the consul joined the partyby invitation.

  "Canton is a city with a population estimated at a million and a half,including the people that live in boats from one year's end to theother, and doubtless you noticed their aquatic dwellings as you came upthe river," said the consul, who had been invited to tell the companysomething about the place. "It is surrounded by a wall nine miles inlength, built of brick and sandstone, twenty-five to forty feet high,and twenty feet thick, and divided by a partition wall into two unequalparts. There are twelve outer gates, and also gates in the partitionwall. The names of these are curious, as Great Peace Gate, Eternal RestGate, and others like them. There are more than six hundred streets,lanes you will call them; for they are not often more than eight feetwide, very crooked, and very dirty. This is the general idea of thecity, and the details you will see for yourselves."

  TEMPLE AND GARDEN IN CHINA.

  _Page 329._]

  After breakfast the next morning the party was organized forsight-seeing, and the sedans they had used the day before were ready forthem. The two guides insisted upon going on foot, the better todischarge their duties. They rode through some of the principal streets,looked into the shops, and observed the pedlers; but all was about thesame as in Hong-Kong, except that the streets were wider in the latter.The same goods were for sale. They looked into a tea saloon; and thegentlemen entered an opium den, which nearly made some of them sick.

  "This is called the Plain pagoda," said Mr. Inch, when they came to it."It was built a thousand years ago, and is one hundred and sixty feethigh."

  They were taken to a couple of Joss-houses, or temples. A sort of towerattracted their attention; and they were told that the one before them,and hundreds of others, were occupied each by a watchman at night tocall out the hours of the night, and give the alarm in case of fire.They halted before the nine-story pagoda, the most interesting structurethey had seen, and the most peculiarly Chinese.

  "It is one hundred and seventy feet high, and was built thirteen hundredyears ago," Mr. Larch explained. "Brick, covered with marble or glazedtile, is the material used. Each story is smaller than the one below it,and each has a balcony around it."

  "Now we come to the Temple of Honam, which is one of the largest inChina," said Mr. Inch, as they halted before its gates, after the partygot out of the sedans. "With its grounds it covers seven acres, and onehundred and seventy-five priests are employed in it."

  "What is the religion of these people?" asked Mrs. Woolridge.

  "The priests and nuns of Canton number more than two thousand, andnine-tenths of them are Buddhists. The Temple of Five Hundred Geniicontains that number of statues, various in size, and was erected inhonor of Buddha and his disciples."

  At the usual hour the party went to lunch, and were tired, though theyhad done but little walking. The sedans were dismissed till the nextmorning; the afternoon was devoted to an excursion on the river, andTommy had been directed to provide the boats. They moved through thewilderness of floating dwelling-places, and looked them over with wonderand surprise. Many of the sampans were made of three planks; and thepeople on board of them, mostly women, were exceedingly amusing.

  Large junks, some of them from five hundred to sixteen hundred tonsburden, were to be seen, and long, broad, flat Chinese men-of-war, withtwenty to forty guns; but the latter are out of fashion now, andmodern-built vessels take their places. They have two great painted eyeson the bow to enable them, as the Chinese say, to find their way overthe sea. But the most beautiful sight was the flower-boats, havinggalleries decorated with flowers, and arranged in most fantasticdesigns. Each of these floating gardens contains one large apartment anda number of cabinets. The walls are hung with mirrors and gracefuldraperies of silk, and glass chandeliers and colored lanterns aresuspended from the ceiling. Elegant little baskets of flowers are hungin various places. It seems very like fairy-land on these boats. Theyare stationary, and dinners are given on board to the Chinese who canafford them. They are also places of amusement by day and night, andplays, ballets, and conjuring take place at them; but no respectablefemales frequent them.

  During the next two days the tourists continued to wander on foot and insedans over the city with the guides. One day they went to the greatexamination hall, 1330 feet long by 583 wide, covering sixteen acres,and containing 8653 cells, in which students are placed so that thereshall be no stealing others' work.

  When a member of the party asked the meaning of certain tall buildings,he was told that they were pawnbrokers' offices; for the Chinese have amania for pawning their clothes, or whatever they have, even if not inneed of the money, to save the trouble of taking care of the articles.Before the third day of the stay in Canton was over, some of the partyhad seen enough, and preferred to remain at the hotel while others wereout with the guides. The next day they returned to Hong-Kong, and wereglad to be once more on board the ships, for sight-seeing is the mosttiresome work in the world.