Peking Dust Part 3

By this time we are much attached to them, and our days usually end up at the bazaar out on Morrison Street, that marvelous bazaar where everything made in North China is for sale--furs, silks, jade, jewels, sweetmeats, everything. But it is to the sweet-stalls that we always go, where wonderful Chinese candies and sugared fruits are for sale. We first change a dollar into pennies, and then all four of us eat our way from stall to stall--sesame candy, sugared walnuts, sugary plums on straws. It's wonderful. Germs? Maybe, but we don't care. I am sick of germs, of the emphasis that every one at home places on them. It's restful to get into a country where there aren't any, or at least people don't know about them. The trouble with America is that every one is so busy thinking of clean streets, clean garbage-cans, the possibilities of disease contained in impure food, that much of the beauty and comfort of life is lost. Life is not all in length.

Well, as I say, with our visit to the bazaar reserved for the end of the afternoon, we went into the Chinese City in search of camel's-hair blankets. Soon we turned aside from the big high-street, and dived into one of the narrow, winding, unpaved lanes of the native city, which only the rickshaw-boys can negotiate. Presently, in this maze of narrow streets, we met the usual block; a dozen rickshaws from opposite directions encountered one another, and each claimed the right of way.

When an alley is six feet wide, there is neither right nor way, and voluble conversation ensued, mounting rapidly into screams and curses.

Coolies and pa.s.sengers alike took part in the discussion, and as we were the only foreigners, we felt handicapped by our lack of language. The storm of yells mounted higher and higher, when suddenly the crowd gave way a little, and E----'s boy managed to slide through, while Kwong, pulling me, slipped close behind.

Indignity! It seems the pa.s.sage had been cleared for a young Chinese gentleman, clad in gorgeous brocade, an official, perhaps, since he had all the marks of wealth and position. As we ran past, into the s.p.a.ce opened for him, the young official leaned forward and shouted some insult into Kwong's ear, and Kwong made some furious retort.

Instantly the young official jumped from his rickshaw, dashed up to Kwong, and struck him between the eyes. Poor little Kwong staggered, and dropped the shafts, and I leaped out and caught the wrists of the young gentleman just as he was aiming another blow at my unhappy boy. What happened? While I held firmly pinioned the hands of the young gentleman, Kwong recovered, and proceeded to deal the official a series of stunning blows! He would have fallen except for my hold on his wrists.

"Kwong, stop it! Behave yourself!" I shouted, and released the official in order to seize Kwong. Whereupon the young gentleman pounded Kwong anew. I was unable to hold the hands of both; could seize only one at a time, and my part soon resolved itself into pinioning one belligerent while the other struck him! A silly role, I must say. Impartially holding up first one, then the other, for punishment! At a modest estimate, I should say that one half the population of Peking swarmed out of adjacent lanes and burrows to see the excitement, and amidst the pandemonium of yells I heard some one shouting in English: "Police house! Police house!" The finish came when E----'s boy came to the rescue with a hearty kick to the young man, after which the fighters broke away, and every one took to their rickshaws and made off with all speed.

It was too much. To go out on a peaceful shopping expedition, and become involved in a free-for-all fight! Some one of us lost face by that episode, whether the official, Kwong, or myself, I'm not sure.

There wasn't much prestige to the whole thing. Just one fact stands out clearly amidst that maze of swift events. At the end of the street, about fifty feet beyond that wild mob, stood a Chinese policeman. One hasty look he gave to the affair, and seeing that some foreign ladies were involved, he decided to keep out of it. He kept his back turned the entire time, with his hands tight in the pockets of his padded trousers.

VII

DONKEYS GENERALLY

It's all delightful here every moment of the day. The excitement begins every morning at breakfast with the unfolding of "The Peking Gazette." I come down-stairs early, when the corridors are being swept and dusted by the China-boys in their long blue coats, and receive a series of "Morning, Missy's" on my way to the breakfast-room, the nice, warm breakfast-room, with oilcloth-covered floor, and everything else simple accordingly. There is gilding in the big dining-room, but the breakfast-room is as simple as a New England boarding-house. One boy pulls out my chair, another opens my napkin,--they look after you well here,--and a third boy, the regular waiter, leans over and says, "Pollidge, Missy?" and a moment later brings a big bowl of porridge and a can of cream. There is nothing but tinned milk and cream in China, for there are no cows. There is no room to pasture cows or to feed them, for one cow can eat as much food as twenty people, so no land can be devoted to such superfluities as that. One of the legations has a cow, however, and people who stand in well with the legation can have such milk as there may be over and above the legation's needs. But the Wagons-Lits Hotel is not on that list, and, as I say, tinned cream is all that I get for my "pollidge." But it is very good indeed, these chilly October mornings. After all, what does food matter? Peking is so rich in other things!

To-day at breakfast, with the "Gazette" propped against the coffee-pot, I began my usual search for news. Found it, too, in a moment, in the editorial column. A fairly long leader, ent.i.tled, "The Shanghai Opium Combine: Frantic Efforts to Secure Further Privileges in China," caused me to forget "pollidge" and everything else, and to read hastily to the end. As I told you the other day, the opium traffic in China is to come to an end in six months. Well, this article says that the Shanghai Opium Combine, the combination of a dozen British firms with headquarters in Shanghai, is making frantic efforts to prolong the time limit for the sale of opium, to extend it for another nine months. The excuse offered is that the combine has not sufficient time between this and April 1, 1917, to sell off its remaining stocks of opium, and in consequence it is appealing to the British authorities to bring pressure upon the Chinese Government to extend the time by nine months.

According to the "Gazette," the combine has "worked hard to induce the local British consul-general once more to enlist his sympathies for the Opium combine; but, happily, the latter has peremptorily declined to do anything of the sort. It is reliably reported that the British Minister at Peking, Sir John Jordan, was similarly approached, and the latter has equally refused to recognize the combine any longer. As a last resort, they telegraphed to the London Foreign Office for support, in their desire to compel either the Chinese Government or the local Munic.i.p.al Council [at Shanghai] to aid them to secure their nine-months' privilege. The decision of the London Foreign Office is awaited with feverish interest, although it is considered doubtful whether any good result can be achieved."

Think of China's position--having to await with "feverish interest" the decision of the British Government as to whether or not it will be possible for China to suppress the opium traffic at the end of the ten-years' agreement! The sale and manufacture of opium is a monopoly of the British Government, just as vodka was a monopoly of the Russian Government at the beginning of the war. The Shanghai Opium Combine is the distributing agent of this British opium, and until the beginning of this ten-years' struggle China was an important customer. The loss of revenue to the British Government through the closure of the Chinese market is a very serious item. And these rumblings, these hints of pressure being brought to bear upon China, are pretty ugly. Anyway, the "Gazette" is aroused to the danger, and the "Gazette" is nothing if not outspoken, and will give the matter full publicity if anything goes wrong. Only it makes one uneasy. Poor old China!

We went on such a pleasant expedition to-day. It was arranged last night on receipt of an informal note from Dr. Reinsch, our minister, asking if we would go with him on a donkey-trip to a temple in the hills outside Peking. Out came our khaki clothes, bought for just such an emergency, for nothing is more appropriate for a donkey-ride than our khaki skirts and breeches and leggings.

There are two railway stations in Peking, usually spoken of as "the station" and "the other station." From "the station" trains run down to Shanghai or up into Manchuria and Mukden, and connect with the Trans-Siberian and other far-away, thrilling places. The "other station"

takes one out into the country somewhere, to various outlying spots in the hills, and it was to one of these places that we were bound. When we arrived we found the other members of the party waiting for us. We were all early, ahead of time, for Chinese trains have certain idiosyncrasies that must be reckoned with. Scheduled to start at a certain hour, they frequently leave five or ten minutes ahead of time, or whenever the guard thinks that no more people are coming. All six of our party found ourselves at the station well ahead of time, having been warned of this peculiarity of Chinese railways. Dr. Reinsch's two servants were on hand to buy the tickets and to carry large and imposing lunch-baskets. Soon we were all installed in an antiquated railway-carriage, first cla.s.s by courtesy only, with half an hour's ride before us.

Pandemonium greeted us when we alighted on the platform of a dusty little station--a small house solitary upon the vast plain. Pandemonium came from the donkey-drivers who were expecting us, thirty or forty at least, each one dragging forward a reluctant donkey, praising its merits and himself as donkey-driver, and disparaging all the other donkeys and drivers and battling for our helpless persons. What can you do when a towering coolie takes a firm clutch on your arm, and, with an equally firm grip on his donkey's bridle, drags you and the donkey together and is about to lift you on the animal's back, when you are suddenly jerked in an opposite direction by an equally firm hand and confront another stubborn and reluctant donkey and are about to be boosted upon that, when you are clutched from the rear and meet a third possibility!

Mercifully, our khaki clothes were new and strong and stood the jerking and hauling without giving way at a single seam. Out of the melee peace was finally restored. Some one got me, and the others also were captured, the yells finally died down, and we set off over the plains, all mounted on donkeys much too small. Saddles? Not at all. A square seat, about as wide and unyielding as a table-top, was strapped securely to each donkey, and to this seat we clung, with no secureness at all. An exceedingly wide seat it was, with stirrups dangling somewhere out of reach, and which could not be reached even by the widest effort to straddle that square wide pad. Behind each donkey ran its owner, flicking its heels with a long-lashed whip, urging it to a speed likely to pitch one off at any minute.

Do you think donkeys are sure-footed? I had thought so up to this time.

By no means. These little beasts stumbled constantly, their little ankles having been so strained by the heavy burdens they ordinarily carry that they seemed to give way at every step. We had eleven miles of this, over a rough, uneven road, across the dusty plain, mounting gradually toward the hills through loose and rolling stones. It was a gray day, with rain threatening, and when we finally reached our temple, Je Tai Ssu, the rain began in a steady drizzle, and steadily continued.

The temple was most interesting. We stiffly rolled off our donkeys, and wandered through the mult.i.tude of courtyards, in and out of the many buildings, filled with fine carving and beautiful color. A few priests were at hand, deferential but un.o.btrusive, and when we finally sat down to lunch at a big table placed in the courtyard before the main temple, they surrounded us silently, filled with curiosity. The boys had placed our table under a tree, which did something, but not much, to shelter us from the rain that fell during the meal, dripping through the bare branches. Below us spread a magnificent vista of more hills, a great, far-reaching panorama, with the old Summer Palace in the distance. In all directions we could see temples perching on the distant hills--temples which are no longer used as such but are the summer homes of the foreign residents of Peking. They were all pointed out to us.

Over yonder was Mr. So-and-So's temple; beyond, on that hilltop, was Mrs. So-and-So's, all occupied during the summer months by foreigners who escape from Peking in the hot weather. At once we became fired with a desire to rent one, too. Thirty Mexican dollars a season, a hundred Mexican dollars a year; not exorbitant, surely!

Besides the priests, the pariah dogs, or "wonks," watched our meal with intense interest. They stood by in a silent circle, monks and wonks, and our gay tiffin proceeded undisturbed except by the pattering rain.

But the rain was increasing in violence, so we left soon after the meal, and it was far from easy to straddle our donkeys again and retrace our way across the stones and sand. From time to time we dismounted and tried to walk, but it was difficult to keep pace with our galloping animals, eager to return home. Time was pressing, so we were finally obliged to ride, becoming stiffer and sorer every minute. In single file as we had come, we made our way back. Presently I heard a sort of flumping sound behind me, and I turned, to see E---- and her donkey lying side by side in the road, motionless. Dr. Reinsch jumped off his animal, I rolled off mine, and we both ran back to the bundles of khaki and fur lying together at full length.

"Are you hurt?" I asked anxiously.

"Mercy no!" replied E----, contentedly. "Leave me alone! Most comfortable position I've been in all day!"

VIII

ADVISERS AND ADVICE

There is another quaint custom here, which, its far as I know, is unique in the history of international relations. That is the custom of giving advice to China. Any country can do it, apparently. Any country that thinks China would be benefited by a little disinterested and helpful counsel can see that she gets it--and that she pays for it, too. Any person who wishes a lucrative position can get his government to appoint him as an "adviser" to China, and his government will see to it that China pays him a salary. As far as I know, China does not ask for this advice; it is thrust upon her unsought. But she must pay for the privilege, whether she likes it or not. So over they come, these various "advisers" from various foreign nations, and settle down here in Peking as the official adviser of this and that, and draw their salaries from this bankrupt old government. The China Year Book for 1916 gives a list of twenty-five such advisers, British, American, French, Russian, Dutch, German, Italian, j.a.panese, Danish, Belgian, and Swedish. There is the political adviser to the President; to the ministry of finance; in connection with the five-power loan; to the ministry of war; on police matters; to the ministry of communications; legal advice; advice on the preparation of the const.i.tution; advice to the bureau of forestry, and to the mining department of the ministry of agriculture and commerce. In addition to all this paid "advice," there is of course the unpaid, voluntary "advice," equally disinterested and helpful, of the various foreign legations in Peking. No wonder the poor old Chinese Government is distraught and, as some one said last evening, in a state of anarchy.

Who wouldn't be in the circ.u.mstances? I wonder how long Was.h.i.+ngton would tolerate such a string of "advisers," all appointed w.i.l.l.y-nilly, and paid for by the American Government. They say that some one once wrote a book ent.i.tled, "Advising China to Death," but it was never published.

Some one advised against it, probably.

Another thing that China is not allowed to do is to regulate her customs duties. This poor old country, rich as she is or as she might become, has virtually no revenue, for she is allowed to have but a nominal tariff. There is no use in developing her industries, she can't protect them, or hedge them in with any sort of protective tariff. It is not allowed. She must first consult with some seventeen different powers if she wishes to raise the duty on a single item. And if one power that does not import a certain article into China is willing to have a duty laid on that article, this decision will not be agreeable to another power that imports a lot of it. So it goes. It is pretty hard to find seventeen powers all in accord. The great nations allow old China just enough revenue to return to them in the shape of Boxer indemnities; nothing more.

Oh, disabuse your mind of the fact that China is a sovereign state! She is bound hand and foot, helpless, mortgaged up to the hilt. Every foreigner in China knows it, and the Chinese know it themselves only too well. It seems such a farce to give them the courtesy t.i.tle of sovereignty. I don't think you realize, never having been in this country, what a farce it really is. I am not able to write you a learned book. All I can do is to write you these letters, which are surely devoid of all legal verbiage, because I don't know any. If I were a scholar, a student of international politics, I would wrap all my statements in fine, well-chosen language, quoting treaties and acts and agreements and all the rest of it, and you wouldn't know what it all meant. I can only give you the facts as they disclose themselves to me from day to day. I can also tell you that every one over here--all the foreigners I mean--laugh at China and ridicule her and make fun of her weak, corrupt government, of her inertia and helplessness, and think what she gets is good enough for her.

I grow so tired of all this talk about the corruptness of the Chinese!

They are corrupt, all the officials, or the greater part of them. But you don't hear much about those who corrupt them. Why? Because it suits the great Western nations to keep this government in a state of weakness, of indecision, of susceptibility to bribes and threats; it makes China easier to control. The one ray of hope for China lies in the fact that there are so many foreign nations trying to gain control of her. One could do it, two could do it, three could do it, but a dozen!

China plays off one greedy predatory power against another. One "adviser" arranges everything nicely in the interests of his country, and then what does the "corrupt" Chinese official do? Runs off and tattles it all to some other "adviser," whose interests will be damaged if the advice of Number One goes through. It is a tremendous game, each foreign power striving to cut the ground from under the next foreign power and to gain the ascendency for itself. Diplomatic Peking is a great, silent battle-ground; on the surface Oriental politeness and suave political courtesies but underneath a seething sea of strife.

The Chinese att.i.tude toward all this reminds me of a story I heard long ago. Two negroes were discussing a negro girl.

"Trus' dat n.i.g.g.ah?" said one; "trus' dat n.i.g.g.ah? I wouldn't trus' her 'hind a cornstalk!"

Yes, many of the Chinese are corrupt. They have their price. For example, the old palace in the Forbidden City is now a museum, holding one of the most superb collections of Chinese treasures in the world, all that remains from the imperial go-downs. This collection is not catalogued, however, and every few months the exhibits are changed and others subst.i.tuted; for the collection is too large, they say, for everything to be kept on view at one time. At such times as the exhibits are changed, current Peking gossip has it, certain of the finest treasures disappear. They are said to find their way into the currents of trade, to enrich the museums of Europe and America. Put this down as you like, however, the conventional explanation for this is that the Chinese are so corrupt!

IX

CHINESE HOUSES

We are really, seriously looking for a house in Peking, in which to set up a Peking cart, a white mule, a camel, and a Mongolian dog! That shows what the Orient does to one in a few short weeks, how it changes one's whole point of view. A month ago neither of us had any idea of staying in Peking for more than two or three weeks; we had intended to stop long enough to see the obvious things, temples and such, and then go down to the tropics for the winter. Now we are on the verge of giving up our trip to Angkor and of settling right here--I was almost going to say for life! And all in a few short weeks!

There is so much beauty and style in a Chinese house, and most of the people we know have them, and we are becoming tired of being "tourists."

Let me describe these Chinese houses. Each "house" consists of anywhere from two to a hundred little separate one-story buildings, the whole collection inclosed by a stone wall, ten feet high, with broken gla.s.s on top. Within this compound, or surrounding and protecting wall, the various houses are arranged symmetrically in squares, built around courtyards that open into one another. They are laid off with beautiful balance, and the courtyards, large or small, are usually paved with stone. Sometimes trees are planted in them, or bridges and rock gardens and peony mountains are made. The finer and more numerous the houses, the more beautiful and elaborate the architecture of these separate, single buildings, the larger and more elaborate the courtyards, the more filled they are with trees, lilac-bushes, stone bridges, and other charming details. As one enters the compound, the building facing one is the residence of the mandarin himself. Back of it lies the house of his "number-one" wife, and back of that, each surrounded by its own courtyard, are the houses of his other wives and of the various members of his family. All are quite separate one from the other, yet all are connected by pa.s.sages leading through moon-gates in the dividing walls, one courtyard opening into another in orderly, yet rather confusing, profusion. However, we are not looking for anything grand and imposing--a palace or the abode of some old mandarin. We know several people who live in such stately homes, but we shall be satisfied with a simpler house, consisting of fewer buildings and fewer courtyards.

Inside the compounds, these various separate buildings are divided by invisible part.i.tions into "rooms." In the ceiling one sees arrangements by which a wall can be built in, a screen adjusted,--a big carved screen,--or some sort of part.i.tion erected by which the house can be further subdivided. These possibilities for subdivision, whether by elaborately carved woodwork or by simple paper screens, are described as rooms, whether part.i.tioned off as such or left open as one big one.

Therefore one rents one's house according to the number of rooms it may be divided into, whether the division is made or not. We find we cannot possibly live in a house of less than twelve rooms, or four by ordinary reckoning. One house (three rooms) for E----, one for me, one for a salon, one for the dining-room. This makes four rooms, European calculation, twelve according to Chinese, and leaves nothing for guest-rooms, trunk-rooms, a study, or anything of the kind. Therefore, all joking aside, a house of a hundred rooms might do for us nicely!

How lovely they are, these one-story stone houses, with their tiled roofs, red lacquered doors, fine, delicate carvings on the window-lattices, and all the rest of it! The floors are of stone, but foreigners have wooden floors laid down. The winters are bitter here, and before these Chinese houses can be made comfortable according to Western ideas, much must be done to them. Some foreigners put in gla.s.s windows in place of the thick, cottony paper windows of the Chinese. The paper windows shut out the cold, it is true, but, being opaque, they also shut out the sunlight. And how gorgeously they are furnished! Such ebony chairs, such wonderful carved tables! Now and then we meet some one who has picked up an old opium divan, a magnificent, huge bench of carved ebony, with marble seat and marble back, very deep, capable of holding two people lying crosswise at full length, with room for the smoker's table between them. Only, the opium tables have been dispensed with, and their place is taken by cus.h.i.+ons of beautiful brocade, of rich embroidery, which add something of warmth and comfort to the enormous couch. Mind you, all this furniture can be bought very cheap. To live Chinese fas.h.i.+on is not expensive at all, despite the impression of magnificence and luxury, which is rather overwhelming. When one considers that the most ordinary Chinese things are sold in America at a profit of three or four hundred per cent., the outlay for Chinese furniture in Peking is not great.

As to heating, stoves do it. Every room--I mean every one of these separate buildings--is heated by its stove; a good big one, too.

Russian stoves are found here and there, and any one who possesses a Russian stove is well equipped to withstand the bitterest winter. Now and then open fireplaces are introduced, but the big stoves go on functioning just the same.

These Chinese houses are charming from the outside. You wind your way along a narrow, unpaved street, or _hutung_,--a street full of little open-air shops, cook-shops, stalls of various kinds, and then come upon a high, blank wall, with a pair of stone lions at the gateway and an enormous red lacquer gate, heavily barred, and that's your house. The gateman opens to your ring, and as the big doors swing back you see nothing of the courtyard or of the houses within the inclosure; you are confronted by the devil screen, a high stone wall about fifteen feet long and ten feet high. This devil screen blocks the evil spirits that fly in when the compound gates are opened--the blind evil spirits, that can fly only in straight paths, and hence crash against the devil screen when they enter. As to yourself, the gateman leads you round the screen, and across the compound to the master's house. Along the compound wall that gives on the street are the servants' quarters, the house for the rickshaws, the stables for the big mules and the Peking carts, and the house of the gateman. Life is none too secure in these compounds. Robbers abound, and scale the walls, and slip from the roofs of adjacent buildings into the compounds. Every household is in a constant state of alertness, of defense. Broken gla.s.s covers the tops of the walls, and in the courtyards Mongolian watch-dogs guard the premises, huge, fierce, long-haired creatures, like a woolly mastiff.

Through the day they are chained, but at night they are unloosed. Oh, there is not only style but excitement in living in a native house in Peking! We have looked at a good many Chinese houses, but can't quite make up our minds about renting one. If we decide to stay, it will mean that we must give up our trip to Angkor, and it was to make that trip that we came out to the Orient!