During the days of Old Canton, the Middle Kingdom deigned to suffer the presence of a small number of 'foreign barbarians' on the banks of the Choo, or Pearl River. Their residences consisted of Factories built expressly for them, and originally destined one for each nationality. They were contiguous, except where separated by three streets of narrow dimensions which led from the suburbs of the city to the river which ran in front of them.
No other port than that of Canton was open, nor had there been one since 1745, and no foreigner was permitted on any pretext to enter the country or even the city outside of which he lived. The actual relations of the Chinese Government with Western nations consequent upon the treaties have caused such an entire change from the old mode of transacting business, as well as in the life then led by the few foreign residents at Canton, that a narration of the peculiar conditions of both (as they were) is now, as a Chinese official would say, placed 'on record.'
Paris: March 31, 1882.
Even the departure of a vessel from New York for Canton in 1824 was a rare occurrence. Neither had it yet become fashionable to place the accent on the last syllable in the name of that distant port. It would have appeared pedantic. Years after, only, did it become ton! As the ship cast off, the neighbouring wharves were crowded with lookers-on, national and private flags were run up to the mastheads of sea-going craft lying near.
Cheers were heard as she glided into the river, and the ship 'Citizen,' Captain E. L. Keen, passed Sandy Hook in the evening of October 9 of the above year, bound to the Central Flowery Land. Friends and relations who had accompanied us thus far now took leave, and returned to the city in the pilot boat, steam tugs not having yet come into existence.
The 'Citizen,' of 498 tons was one of seven ships[1] owned by Mr. Thomas H. Smith, of New York, who had been for many years engaged in the China trade. She had already made two voyages to Canton, and before leaving on her present one, had been newly coppered and 'thoroughly' overhauled, the better to withstand the westerly gales she was likely to encounter on her return passage off the Cape of Good Hope in the winter season. The crew consisted of thirty-two men and boys, with two officers. One of the latter, the second officer, as well as Captain Keen and ten or twelve of the men, had served on board privateers in our last war with Great Britain, while eight sailors had just returned from a three years' cruise in the Pacific, on board the U.S. 74 'Franklin,' Commodore Stewart. As usual at this time with vessels bound on Eastern voyages, the 'Citizen' was well provided with arms and ammunition—not only for the risk of pirates in the Atlantic, to whom her valuable cargo offered great temptation, but from possible mishaps while passing through the Eastern Straits.
The cargo consisted of 350,000 Spanish dollars in kegs (no letters of credit on London bankers then existing), furs, lead, bar and scrap iron, and quicksilver. Passengers were not taken except under peculiar circumstances. I should have been the only one, in virtue of being destined for Mr. Smith's Factory at Canton, but just before sailing a Scotch gentleman presented himself at the office, and sought for a passage on board. The letters he bore were of a high character, among them being one from the celebrated Mr. Hume. His name was Fullerton, and his vocation that of surgeon in the English East India Company's service. He was allowed to go in the ship, and proved to be a most intelligent and amiable person.
He had made several voyages to India and China, was full of anecdote and pleasant conversation, thereby relieving the weariness of the journey. The medical advice he most cheerfully gave rendered him a valuable addition to us, particularly on the occasion of the ship taking fire just before making Sandalwood Island, when one of the men was so seriously injured that his life was despaired of for a time; but although he managed to get back in the ship to New York, he never did a day's work after the accident. My fellow-passenger was only known on board as Doctor Smyth. He had come to New York expressly to get to China in an 'out of season' vessel, which ours was. We had no idea of the object he had in view, and he volunteered no information. There was, however, a little mystery in the matter.
On our arrival at 'Lintin' we had scarcely anchored when my fellow-passenger took a fast[2] boat and went to Macao. Soon after, we heard that he had there engaged two young Chinese small-footed women to accompany him to Calcutta, from whence he took passage with them for England as a 'speculation.' Subsequently we learnt that he was associated in the enterprise with Captain C——, also of the Honourable East India Company's service, on board whose vessel he had filled the office of surgeon. While in England, these 'Golden Lilies'[3] had the honour of a presentation to H.M. George IV. The enterprise, however, was not successful. It met with great opposition in certain quarters, and finally it ended by those young daughters of 'Han'[4] being returned to their own country.
Some years after, in the winter of 1832, I last had the pleasure of shaking hands with my old shipmate at Canton. He was then surgeon of the Honourable Company's ship 'Lady Melville.'
We had the misfortune to lose the ship's cook about five o'clock on the morning of the twenty-fifth day out, when he sprung into the sea. We had rushed on deck at the cry of the 'cook overboard,' and heard him shout as he passed the ship's quarter, 'You are all going to—(a most uncomfortable place of one syllable, beginning with the letter H), I'm going to Guadaloupe.' The ship was instantly brought to the wind, a man sent aloft to keep the poor fellow in sight, and a boat lowered in a trice, but suddenly he disappeared. We resumed our course. The crew had often been amused while about the galley to find its 'monarch' with an open Bible in one hand, and reading aloud from it, while prodding the salt junk in the boiler with a 'tormentor' in the other! They thought him a 'queer fellow,' particularly as he would caution them as to their wickedness in blaspheming, and their utter disregard of the future! We had heard through the officers of those erratic ways and strange conduct for a 'ship's cook,' but no one imagined that his head was turned.
The next morning the chief officer discovered on our starboard beam a three-masted felucca, under small sail, standing as ourselves. It was nearly calm; presently the 'little stranger' steered for us, manned a certain number of sweeps, and seemed to have a great number of men on board. She was about 140 or 150 tons burthen. While examining her with our glasses, a sail was set on her jigger mast. There seemed to be a general wish that she would 'come on,' in spite of what was unmistakably a heavy swivel gun amidships. We showed our colours, to which no reply was made. At last we seemed to have fallen in with the traditional 'long, low, black schooner,' metamorphosed into a felucca for the nonce. Suddenly the man at the wheel directed the attention of the mate to another sail just appearing on our larboard beam; she was steering to the southward, with a light air and under a crowd of sail. As she approached, she proved to be a schooner of the size of our revenue cutters. A barque also hove in sight, bringing up a stiff squall, with heavy rain. The felucca was next observed standing on the same course as ourselves. We trimmed sail to the wind, and hauled up to the eastward; presently, the wind increasing, the schooner crossed our bows, almost within hailing distance—a beautiful object to look at. She set all studding sails as she went by us, with a fore skysail, and that other unusual sail, now, perhaps, never heard of, and then not common, called a 'ring tail.'
We crossed the equator on the thirty-first day out, with a good easterly wind, which hauled to the south-east and blew stiffly. A few days after we discovered a good-sized barque standing in for the coast of South America. She hoisted Brazilian colours. Her decks, forward of the mainmast, were crowded with negroes, while abaft we observed several dark-brown gentlemen, the captain, officers, and supercargoes, perhaps. She was evidently a slaver returning from the West Coast of Africa, with a full cargo of ebony. She crossed our bows within a few hundred yards, and on gaining our starboard side, our dark-brown friends raised their panamas, and waving them, wished us 'Bon voyage.' This vessel proved to be the last 'living thing' we saw for a period of nearly fifty days, except albatross, whales, and Mother Carey's chickens.
Passing within a short distance of Tristan d'Acuna to correct our time, we then began the long tedious running down 'easting.' The weather was generally fine, with a bright sun; it was in the summer season. Our course between 43° and 45° south latitude. The sea ran 'mountains high,' the crest of each wave breaking in masses of sparkling diamonds, then losing itself in this wilderness of waters, an indescribably magnificent sight. The ship rolled gunwale under, receiving on board vast quantities of water, which swashed fore and aft and from side to side, at times two or three feet deep. Gradually this frightful chaos of warring winds and furious seas became a matter of course, while Captain Keen gave way to his delight in exclaiming, 'How splendidly she behaves,' or, 'She rides the seas like a bird;' and thus we went on, with little change, until we made the island of Amsterdam.
We then steered direct for Sandalwood Island, across a pleasant south-east trade, with nothing material occurring until two days before sighting it.
After the cook had left us so abruptly for Guadaloupe, it was arranged that the chief steward should fill his place for the cabin, while some of the crew offered their services for the forecastle and steerage; thus everything went on well in this respect. Before we now made the land, taking advantage of the fine weather and smooth sea which prevailed, all hands were occupied in caulking the bends and the deck, while, as had before happened, the leak decreased. The 'officer of the kitchen' for the day referred to was a fine young sailor about twenty-five years of age. Being in the galley in the afternoon, about seven bells, watching a pot of pitch being boiled, it overflowed, and the contents fell among the burning coals. Instead of immediately clapping on the lid, he seems to have lost his head, and in attempting to unship the pot from the hook it capsized, and in a moment everything was in a blaze, burning the poor fellow so fearfully that he had to be carried to his bunk. His lower limbs were almost peeled, and had it not been for the presence of the 'doctor,' he would inevitably have died.
We passed close to the harbour and town of 'Dilly,' which displayed the Portuguese flag.
Two years before, the ship 'Ontario,' Captain Depeyster, belonging to the owner of the 'Citizen,' called in at Dilly for supplies on her way to Canton, and was totally lost in coming out of the harbour.
The loss of the 'Ontario' gave rise to the longest passage ever made between Whampoa and New York. Captain Depeyster left Dilly, with the treasure saved from the wreck of his ship, for Batavia, and there chartered the American brig 'Pocahontas,' to carry it to Canton. Mr. Smith's agent there rechartered her to take as much of the proceeds of the treasure as she could carry in teas and silks to New York, where she safely arrived in charge of the first officer, Mr. Teel (Captain Snow having died on the passage), close upon ten months from Whampoa.
'A good full,' cries out the second mate to the man at the wheel as a breeze springs up. A first-rate 'old salt,' and as odd a fish, our second mate, as need be. I have been time and again amused with the yarns he has spun during his first watches. Of the war of 1812 he is full of anecdotes. He is always on the dolphin-striker when porpoises are around us, and usually strikes successfully. Anything not done in a sailor-like fashion excites him, and we hear him cry out, 'You'll never be a sailor. You were not shaped for a sailor. You were cut out to handle a musket, not a marlin-spike.' 'Sailors,' said he to me one evening, 'have their prejudices like others; they have always a run upon soldiers, more perhaps in joke than in earnest. A sailor will say, "Give me a messmate before a watchmate, a watchmate before a shipmate, a shipmate before a dog, a dog before a marine, a marine before a soldier, a soldier before—the devil." If you ask why a marine in preference to a soldier, the answer is, because he knows the difference between the best bower anchor and—a "chaw of baccy!"'
We now steered for Dampier Straits. Having left Booro astern, we were struck with a sudden and violent squall, resembling more a tornado. The rain poured down like a deluge, the rattling of the thunder and the vividness of the lightning were frightful. Our maintopsail-yard was snapped asunder in the slings, the fore and mizen topsails flew into ribbons; the jib disappeared from the bolt ropes. Each flash of lightning was succeeded by the darkness of Erebus, while in the midst of all, the loud voices of the officers and the replies of the men created a turmoil such as I had never witnessed.
The squall was luckily of short duration; it came upon us during the dog watch, but so intelligently did all hands do their duty, that by midnight another maintopsail-yard was crossed, the sail bent, the other topsails and the jib replaced, and we were making good way with all sail set, 'low and aloft,' including royals and flying jib. The stars shone out with increased brilliancy, all things had returned to a condition of perfect quiet, so had one watch to their hammocks, and no sound fell upon the ear save the ripple of the water under the bows. We had noticed before, and this night particularly after the squall, a strong spicy odour, the air seemed 'breathing an aromatic redolence.'
As we neared Pigeon Island, the vast and imposing one of New Guinea being to our right, numerous canoes came alongside. The appearance of their inmates was singularly repulsive; the wool on the heads of these Papuans was of so fertile a growth, that it reached a diameter of over two feet, while from the application of chunam, it becomes a dirty, uncertain red, hideous to behold. By means of baskets attached to ropes, we carried on a trade, giving in exchange for shells, plantains, papayas, stuffed birds of paradise, and ingeniously made baskets, everything in the shape of cast-off garments that we could muster. It was thought a mockery when I offered an old straw hat for a bird of paradise, but everything seemed fish that came to their net, and to my surprise the bucket returned with the coveted prize. On the return of the ship to New York I sent it home, and it proved a rare and most acceptable gift. We anchored near Pigeon Island during the night, and the next day entered the Pacific Ocean.
We hove to close to the Pelew Islands, to allow a crowd of canoes to come alongside, that we might obtain further supplies of fruit, shells, and yams, and thereby get rid of the remainder of our old clothes. The natives were considered as unoffensive, but this was not justified by an attack made by them, just before we passed, on a schooner from Java to Lintin. Her deck was crowded with natives, who had been permitted to come on board, and while bartering, suddenly the crew was fallen upon and several killed, all who could taking to the rigging. Plundering then commenced. The 'boarders' were having it their own way, but had overlooked the cook, who had shut himself in his galley. Bolting one door, he suddenly commenced a liberal distribution of hot water on the assailants, who, being entirely naked, plunged overboard with astounding shrieks and yells. The men aloft quickly descended. Seizing handspikes, they were in time to cut off the retreat of many who had been inspecting the cabin lockers, the bodies of these were thrown overboard, a few musket shots hastened the departure of the canoes, and the schooner continued on her journey.
Our course was north-westerly, the crew employed in putting the ship in order. After passing through the Bashees, one of the men being over the side, to reeve the lower studding sail tack, he tumbled overboard. The second officer, to whose watch he belonged, threw him a rope, which he just caught and was soon hauled up on deck. 'You must have been asleep,' said Mr. Hughes, who then asked him if the water felt warm or cold. When the officer came in the cabin later, he exclaimed, 'That fellow wouldn't have fallen had he not been fast asleep; but it is lucky for him he "awoke in time" to get hold of the rope, or he would have gone down.' This is a specimen of what 'Jack' calls 'sojer's comfort.' They had what they called 'sailor's comfort' every Saturday afternoon in the middle watch. It consisted in overhauling their chests and bags, or mending their clothes, on the system, as they said, of putting a patch next to a patch, as being neighbourly, but never a patch upon a patch, as that was beggarly. Many of the men remembered, as boys, the wearing of 'pig tails,' and their being mutually dressed, preceded by the calling out in the 'foksle' of 'Tie for tie,' or, 'Tie me, I'll tie you, and damn all favour.'
No happier crew were ever 'rocked upon the cradle of the deep' than the one of which the 'Citizen' was composed. This was the result of uniformly taut but considerate treatment, the best of food, good grog, and no needless botheration, while the utmost harmony prevailed between Captain Keen and his officers. On the return of the ship to Canton, on her second voyage after, in 1827, Captain Keen related the homeward passage of 1825, which was an unusually hard one. The ship was forty days from point Natal to the Cape, knocked about in the teeth of westerly gales and frightful seas, and referring to his crew he remarked, 'No better men ever manned a ship.'
We made the coast of China at 5 A.M. on February 11, 1825. A pilot came on board off the Lema Islands, took us through the channel of the same name, having to starboard the then 'terra incognita,' 'Hong Kong,' and anchored the ship under the island of 'Lintin,' at 2 o'clock P.M., 125 days from New York.
The island of 'Ling Ting,' or the 'Solitary Nail,' commonly called 'Lin Tin,' was at this time the anchorage of the 'opium store ships,' and temporarily of vessels whose destination was Whampoa (with some exceptions). On the arrival of an American ship, she communicated with her agent at Canton by means of a 'fast boat,' meanwhile despatching another one to Macao for a pilot to take her inside the river. The exceptions were the ships of the English East India Company, and country ships from India having no opium on board (those which had anchoring at Lintin to deliver it); these then took pilots off Macao and sailed directly to the 'inner anchorage,' as Whampoa was called. The Lintin anchorage was not, however, only an opium station. All vessels bound to Whampoa were loaded with general cargo, or with rice only, and were subject to what were called Cumsha and Measurement charges. These were very heavy in the case of the former, but moderate in the latter. It was therefore an object for a vessel entering the river with only part of a general cargo to fill up with any freight that might offer, and thus reduce the heavy charges referred to, or to send up what she had on board, if of moderate quantity, in another ship, then load with rice and go on to Whampoa, if she was to load with tea for her return voyage. It almost always happened that these arrangements could be made, as arrivals were continually taking place with rice cargoes or general cargoes.
After a week's detention at Lintin, the 'Citizen' was directed to receive any river freight that might offer, and proceed to Whampoa. In passing the Bogue[5] Forts, the main topsail was backed while the pilot went on shore to exhibit his pass to the Mandarin, with whom he returned to the ship, ostensibly to verify description with fact; but it is unnecessary to say this had become a mere matter of form. After a glass of wine, and presenting the old gentleman with a few sheets of writing paper, which, I found out afterwards, were considered a great treat, I offered him a box of a then recent invention, viz., friction matches; they astonished him mightily, and he left us with numerous 'Chin-chin's' and best wishes for 'good wind and good water,' equivalent to a quick passage. We anchored abreast of French Island on the 20th.
It was in the year 1745 that Yung Ching, the third Emperor of the present dynasty, ordered all foreign trade to be confined to the port of Canton, universally known as Whampoa. Separated by a branch of the river from French Island stands Dane's Island. These were so named from the privilege that those nationalities originally enjoyed of occupying bankshalls or storehouses upon them, wherein to shelter the crews while smoking ship and overhauling after the desperately long passages they must have made from Europe. All vestiges of those buildings have long since disappeared, but numerous decaying tombstones, half buried beneath earth and weeds, still tell the tale. The regular tea season being over, we found few vessels at Whampoa, and these, as with the 'Citizen,' were designated, 'out of season ships.' The northern side of the anchorage is formed by the important island of Wang-Po; the river is named the Wang-Po, and the same is applied to the anchorage. The words mean the 'Yellow Anchorage.' On the island is a large town of many thousand inhabitants, almost all of whom are directly or indirectly connected with the foreign shipping, as compradores, stevedores, blacksmiths, &c.
The Choo, or Pearl River, commonly called the Canton River, presented a vastly different appearance on the 21st February, 1825, from what it did twenty years later. It was then crowded with native vessels, including those immense coasting junks which have now almost entirely disappeared. They then made voyages to the northern and southern ports of China, to the Celebes, Borneo and Java, and to Singapore, as well as to Manila. Long tiers of salt junks lined the shore of the island of Honam; these brought cargoes from Teenpak and places on the coast south-westward of Macao. They were owned by a corporation of salt merchants, who enjoyed a monopoly of the trade, and, to prevent smuggling, a special fleet of cruisers was organised by the local government. The penalties against a clandestine introduction of salt were as severe and more rigorously carried out than even against opium. The merchants were an influential body, as much considered as the Hong merchants, whom they rivalled in wealth. The number of cargo boats from the interior, of passenger boats, floating residences and up-country craft, with Government cruisers and flower boats, was prodigious. To these must be added sampans,[6] ferry boats plying to and from Honam, and quantities of barbers' boats, vendors of every description of food, of clothes, of toys, and what would be called household requirements if in shops on shore; besides boats of fortune-tellers and of theatrical performers—in short, imagine a city afloat, and it conveys a very correct idea of the incessant movement, the subdued noises, the life and gaiety of the river.
But now, an additional interest was added to this floating scene, from its being the first days of the Chinese new year. The noise of gongs, as a compliment to the meeting of mutual acquaintances or when one boat or junk arrived or set sail, was startling; and finally, the red and gilt patches of paper, on which words or sentences were written in large black characters, appropriate to the opening of the new year, formed another conspicuous feature on every kind of craft. Ships' boats were usually furnished with paddles, which were always brought into use from below the Dutch Folly to the landing place in front of the factories. The oars of our boat being therefore replaced by them, with skill and patience, after two hours from Whampoa, we landed at 'Jackass Point,' so memorable in the days of old Canton. Crossing the Square, under the guidance of Captain Keen, we entered the Suy-Hong, and met with the kindest reception from Mr. Jacob Covert and Oliver H. Gordon, the special agents of Mr. Smith, and from the two younger members of the office, John H. Grosvenor and Thomas Bloodgood.
Having been sent by Mr. Smith to Canton expressly to study the Chinese language preparatory to entering his office there, as the difficulties to be overcome in providing a teacher for me proved insuperable, Mr. Covert decided to send me at once to Singapore, where a college had been commenced in which foreign students could be received, and which might be ready for the purpose. I went, therefore, to the Straits in the Bombay ship 'Good Success,' Captain Poynton, and arrived at my destination in the month of April, after seventeen days' passage. I took letters to the Resident, Mr. Crawford, and others, and was consigned to Messrs. A. L. Johnston and Co. The college, however, had not only not been finished, but there was no prospect of its being. My friends, therefore, after taking information from Malacca, where the Anglo-Chinese College was in full operation, sent me there in a small native brig. We arrived after four days' passage from Singapore. During the two months that I passed at Singapore I was the guest of Mr. and Mrs. Christopher Read in their bungalow on the ascent of Government Hill. I shall never forget the parental care of my host and hostess. They soon caused me to forget that I was the youngest of strangers in, to me, a most strange land. To this day I recall their quiet and unaffected efforts to make me at home, and the drives they took me in their palkee gharrie. The novelty of everything interested me; it was as if I had landed on another planet. At that time the site occupied by the present town of Singapore was being cleared of its primitive jungle.
au grand complet