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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Peeps Into China, by E. C. Phillips
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Peeps Into China
+       Or: The Missionary's Children
+
+Author: E. C. Phillips
+
+Release Date: November 3, 2010 [EBook #34199]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PEEPS INTO CHINA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Emmy, Charlene Taylor and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: A STREET SHOWMAN.]
+
+
+
+
+
+PEEPS INTO CHINA; OR, The Missionary's Children.
+
+BY E. C. PHILLIPS,
+
+          AUTHOR OF "TROPICAL READING-BOOKS," "THE ORPHANS," "BUNCHY,"
+          "HILDA AND HER DOLL," ETC.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+          CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED:
+          _LONDON, PARIS, NEW YORK & MELBOURNE._
+
+          [ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.]
+
+
+
+
+          To
+
+          MY DEAR PARENTS,
+
+          IN
+
+          LOVING MEMORY.
+
+          "Can I forget thy cares, from helpless years
+          Thy tenderness for me?"
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Contents.]
+
+
+    CHAPTER                            PAGE
+       I. THE COUNTRY RECTORY             9
+
+      II. THE FIRST PEEP                 21
+
+     III. THE RELIGIONS OF CHINA         44
+
+      IV. CHINESE CHILDHOOD              69
+
+       V. THE MERCHANT SHOWMAN           89
+
+      VI. LITTLE CHU AND WOO-URH        100
+
+     VII. LEONARD'S EXPLOIT IN FORMOSA  114
+
+    VIII. THE BOAT POPULATION           134
+
+      IX. AT CANTON                     153
+
+       X. A BRIDE AND BRIDEGROOM        179
+
+      XI. PROCESSIONS                   197
+
+     XII. THE LAST PEEP                 208
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE COUNTRY RECTORY.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"NOT really; you can't mean it really!"
+
+"As true as possible. Mother told me her _very own_ self," was the
+emphatic reply.
+
+Two children, brother and sister, the boy aged ten, the girl three years
+older, were carrying on this conversation in the garden of a country
+rectory.
+
+"But really and truly, on your word of honour," repeated Leonard, as
+though he could not believe what his sister had just related to him.
+
+"I hope my word is always a word of honour; I thought everybody's word
+ought to be that," Sybil Graham replied a little proudly, for when she
+had run quickly to bring such important news to her brother, she could
+not help feeling hurt that he should refuse to believe what she said.
+
+"And we are really going there, and shall actually see the 'pig-tails'
+in their own country, and the splendid kites they fly, and all the
+wonderful things that father used to tell us about? Oh! it seems too
+good to be true."
+
+"But it is true," Sybil repeated with emphasis. "And I dare say we might
+even see tea growing, as it does grow there, you know, and I suppose we
+shall be carried about in sedan-chairs ourselves." She was really as
+happy as her brother, only not so excitable.
+
+At this moment their mother joined them. "Oh, mother!" the boy then
+exclaimed, "how beautiful! Sybil has just told me, but I could not
+believe her."
+
+"I thought the news would delight you both very much," Mrs. Graham
+answered. "Your father and I have been thinking about going to China for
+some time, but we would not tell you anything about it until matters
+were quite settled, and now everything seems to be satisfactorily
+arranged for us to start in three months' time."
+
+"That will be in August, then," they both said at once.
+
+"Oh, how very beautiful!" Sybil exclaimed. "_I like my father to be a
+missionary very much._ He must be glad too; isn't he, mother?"
+
+"Very glad indeed, although the joy will entail some sadness also. I
+expect your father will grieve a good deal to leave this dear little
+country parish of ours, and the duties he has so loved to perform here,
+but a wider field of usefulness having opened out for him, he is very
+thankful to obey the call."
+
+[Illustration: THE CHURCH.]
+
+"And father will do it so well, mother," answered Sybil. "I wonder
+whether I shall be able to do anything to help him there?"
+
+"I think you have long since found out, Sybil," was her mother's loving
+answer, "that you can always be doing something to help us."
+
+Sybil and Leonard had as yet only learnt a part of the story. They had
+still to learn the rest. This going to China would not be all beautiful,
+all joy for them, especially for Sybil, with her very affectionate
+nature and dread of saying "Good-byes," for she and Leonard were only to
+be taken out on a trip--a pleasure tour--to see something of China, and
+to return to England to go on with their education at the end of six
+months.
+
+Mr. Graham then calling his wife, the children were again left alone.
+
+It was no easy matter to go as a missionary to China. This Mr. Graham
+well knew, for his father, although only for a short time, had been one
+over there before him, and had discovered--what so many other later
+brother missionaries have found out also--that to obtain even a hearing
+on the subject of religion from a Chinaman, who has been trained and
+brought up to be a superstitious idolater, very vain of his wisdom and
+antiquity as a nation, and to look upon Europeans as barbarians, is
+often a most difficult matter.
+
+Eighteen years before Mr. Graham the elder went out to Peking as one of
+the first missionaries to China, and his only son, who had then just
+qualified for the medical profession, accompanied him. A year later, the
+father dying, his son returned at once to England, but with a changed
+mind, determined now to seek holy orders and enter the ministry, instead
+of following his profession, so as by thus doing to add one more to the
+number of earnest clergy that his short stay in China had shown him were
+so much needed. To carry out his resolution, he went to Oxford to
+prepare, and soon after his ordination he married, and settled down, in
+the little country village, where we find him, surrounded by his little
+family.
+
+Often since then had he contemplated leaving England for missionary
+work, but until now he had been prevented from carrying his wishes into
+effect.
+
+His knowledge of medicine had not been lost to him, for many a sufferer
+in the little, yet wide-spreading country parish, who lived at too great
+a distance to send for the doctor for a slight ailment, had been very
+thankful, when the clergyman came in to read and pray with him, to learn
+from him what his slight ailment was, and how he could prevent its
+becoming a great one.
+
+And this knowledge would be most helpful and invaluable in China, where
+Mr. Graham knew that the science of medicine was held in veneration by
+the inhabitants, and gained a ready admission to those who were glad to
+be cured of bodily ailments, but knew not how sick their souls were.
+
+The missionary's slight acquaintance with the Chinese dialect, which,
+when time permitted, he had endeavoured to keep up, would also be of
+service to him when he arrived in China; for although the dialects of
+the south, where he was going, were very different from those of the
+north, the Mandarin, or Court language, spoken by the officials, was
+understood in every part.
+
+"That's why father's been reading all those books lately with the
+pig-tail pictures in, and wonderful kites, and why he has been studying
+the language without an alphabet," Leonard said, when he and his sister
+were again alone. "If I hadn't been at school so much, I expect I should
+have found out what was going to happen."
+
+"I don't believe we should ever find out anything that father did not
+wish us to know, however much we wanted to do so," answered Sybil. "But
+isn't it splendid?--all but one thing, and that is having to leave
+everybody, and my best friend Lily Keith. I shan't like doing that at
+all."
+
+"And I shall miss my friends too, of course," said Leonard; "but then I
+expect we shall make some new ones; and I thought you were so fond of
+writing letters. Why, you could write splendid ones from China, and tell
+Lily what we see, and perhaps mother would draw you some pictures for
+them, for she can draw anything, you know."
+
+Sybil was comforted, for she was very fond of writing letters, and her
+friend, she knew, would be very glad to have some from China.
+
+Directly after the six o'clock dinner was the children's hour with
+father, who, being a very busy man, had to regulate all his time; but
+this one hour a day belonged entirely to his family, and unless anything
+unforeseen happened, they had and claimed every moment of it.
+
+Sybil came down-stairs first, and going up to her father, who was
+sitting by a large bow window, gazing out of it, with a very serious
+look on his face, she said with surprise as she kissed him: "You look
+sad, dear father. Aren't you glad to go to China?"
+
+He drew her on to his knee.
+
+"Very glad, my darling," was the answer; "but I was just picturing to
+myself some farewells that will have to be taken. I shall be very
+sorry, too, to say 'Good-bye' here, where our lives have been so blessed
+and our prayers so abundantly answered. We cannot help feeling sorry to
+leave our old friends, can we?"
+
+"But you don't look, father," she continued, "as if that were all that
+you had been thinking."
+
+"I dare say it was also about the work in which I am so soon to engage,
+for that, Sybil, is full of grave responsibility; but now I think it is
+my turn to ask what your thoughts are," he went on, for at that moment
+Sybil was looking quite as grave as, just before, her father could have
+looked.
+
+"I was remembering two verses of a piece of poetry that I learnt last
+term at school, which I think must have been written for missionaries,"
+she replied.
+
+[Illustration: MAP OF CHINA.]
+
+Her father then asking her to repeat them to him, Sybil said:--
+
+          "Sow ye beside all waters,
+           Where the dew of heaven may fall;
+           Ye shall reap, if ye be not weary,
+           For the Spirit breathes o'er all.
+           Sow, though the thorns may wound thee;
+           One wore the thorns for thee;
+           And, though the cold world scorn thee,
+           Patient and hopeful be.
+           Sow ye beside all waters,
+           With a blessing and a prayer,
+           Name Him whose hand upholds thee,
+           And sow thou everywhere.
+
+          "Work! in the wild waste places,
+           Though none thy love may own;
+           God guides the down of the thistle
+           The wandering wind hath sown.
+           Will Jesus chide thy weakness,
+           Or call thy labour vain?
+           The Word that for Him thou bearest
+           Shall return to Him again.
+           On!--with thine heart in heaven,
+           Thy strength--thy Master's might,
+           Till the wild waste places blossom
+           In the warmth of a Saviour's light."
+
+"Thank you, Sybil," said her father. "I am sure you will make a capital
+little missionary's daughter some day."
+
+"To what part of China are we going, father?" she then asked; "to the
+same place where you were before?"
+
+"No; quite in another direction. You know when I was last in China I was
+at Peking, in the north, and now I am to be in Hong-Kong, an island in
+the south; but we shall not go there direct, as I wish to take you to
+see several places before finally landing."
+
+"Wait a minute, please, father," Sybil then exclaimed, "while I just
+fetch my map to look them out as you tell them to me." And as she spoke
+she ran off, to return the next minute with an atlas, in which she found
+these places as her father mentioned them: Shanghai, Amoy, the Island of
+Formosa, Swatow, Hong-Kong, Macao, and Canton.
+
+"I wish, father, you would tell us some day all you can remember about
+Peking," then said Leonard, as he ran in and joined his father and
+sister, having till now been very busy, first coaxing his good friend
+the gardener to help him cut and put up some roosts in the fowl-house,
+and then showing his handiwork to his mother. "You know what I mean:
+something like what you used to tell us."
+
+[Illustration: LEONARD IN THE GARDEN.]
+
+"I will try to arouse up my memory, and tell you what I can on board
+ship, when we shall have, I suppose, seven or eight weeks with very
+little to do, and when you will, no doubt, be glad of some true stories
+to while away the time."
+
+"I wish we were going to start to-morrow," rejoined Leonard, who was, I
+am afraid, a boy without a particle of that virtue which we call
+"patience." He wanted his mother now to go into the poultry-yard with
+him to see the roosts he had, and as she liked to enter into all his
+pleasures and useful occupations, she was very pleased to go.
+
+Before either of them came in again, Sybil had heard "the rest" from her
+father; that she and Leonard were, after a six months' long holiday in
+China, to return to England to continue their education. It was a
+terrible blow to her, to whom a long separation from her parents seemed
+almost like an impossibility. Her bright eyes filled with tears.
+
+"Oh, father!" she said; "and leave you and mother?"
+
+"It must be for a time, my darling, till your education is completed, as
+your mother and I both wish you to remain at the school where you are,
+but when school-days are over, about four years hence, I hope to be able
+to have you out with us. It will be longer for poor old Leonard, won't
+it?"
+
+"I don't think I care to go to China now, father," Sybil then said.
+
+"Oh yes you do, Sybil," was the answer; "you like your father to be a
+missionary very much, you know, do you not?" Her mother had repeated
+this saying. "And, my child," he continued, "you know that it must be a
+dreadful trial for so very good and loving a mother as yours to part
+from her children; but now that a call has come to me to do my Master's
+work in a foreign land, and she is helping me to obey it, you would not
+make her trial greater, would you, by letting her see you sad? Oh no! I
+know you would not; but you would help us to do our duty more bravely.
+Is it not so, my child?"
+
+Sybil buried her face on her father's shoulder, and sobbed, but on
+seeing her mother coming up the garden towards them, she quickly wiped
+her tears away, and tried to look cheerful. Her father had gone wisely
+to work in giving her such a reason for trying to overcome her sorrow,
+and he knew that now she would set herself bravely to work to help, and
+not to hinder, her parents' undertaking.
+
+And they were not to be parted for nearly another year, she said to
+herself, and meanwhile they were to have all sorts of enjoyments with
+their parents.
+
+Mrs. Graham brought a message from Leonard for Sybil to go and see his
+roosts, which she at once obeyed, affectionately kissing her mother as
+she passed her. That was to say that she knew, and a great deal more.
+
+Another piece of news Sybil now conveyed to Leonard, and as she told it,
+even he could not tell that it made her very unhappy. I wonder if he
+believed at once this time!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE FIRST PEEP.
+
+
+THE missionary's family party had set sail, and the steamship, in which
+they were passengers, was now fairly out at sea.
+
+As far as money was concerned, Mr. Graham had no anxieties, for being
+the only son of a very wealthy man, who had lost his wife some time
+before he died himself, Mr. Graham had, at his father's death, inherited
+the whole of his large fortune.
+
+"Now, father, don't you think it's high time you began to tell us about
+old Peking?" Leonard said, a few days after they had sailed. "I did not
+ask you at first, because we had plenty to do to look about us, but now
+that there's nothing in the world but water to see anywhere, we should
+so like to hear some stories; so please begin, if it won't trouble you
+too much."
+
+And sitting on deck, with Sybil on his right and Leonard on his left,
+Mr. Graham did as he was requested, and gave his children what they
+considered a very interesting description of a portion of that vast
+empire which they were so soon to visit. "The Chinese," he began, "are a
+very ancient race, so ancient, indeed, that the origin of their monarchy
+is not known."
+
+"Do you mind waiting one minute, father, just to tell me a thing I have
+forgotten, and you told me once?" Leonard asked. "What does the word
+China mean?"
+
+"The ancient name for China, Tien-sha, means 'inferior only to heaven.'
+Chinese history begins with the fabulous ages, two or three million
+years ago, when the Chinese say that no land but theirs was inhabited,
+and gods reigned upon the earth, which was made for them. After the
+gods, they tell us, came mythical kings, who were giants, had the power
+of working miracles, and lived for thousands of years; but it is really
+supposed that the first people who passed beyond the deserts of Central
+Asia settled in the province of Shen-si, which borders on Tartary, and
+here laid the foundation of the present monarchy of China.
+
+"Some Chinese historians think that their first mortal Emperor was
+Fuh-hi, whose date of coming to the throne is fixed as early as 2,852
+years B.C. He is described as possessing great virtues, and was called
+by his subjects the 'Son of heaven'--a title which is still given to
+Emperors of China, who are foolishly supposed, by some of their
+subjects, to be of celestial origin. He is said to have taught them how
+to keep laws and to live peaceably, also to have invented the arts of
+music and numbers. Certainly the Chinese have understood music from very
+early ages, and class it among the chief of the sciences.
+
+[Illustration: MUSICIANS.]
+
+"They have at least fifty different kinds of wind and string musical
+instruments, made of wood, stone, or metal, and they play a great
+deal, but especially upon their fiddle instruments. They do not like our
+music at all.
+
+"But now we must go back to a little more Chinese history. There is
+nothing to prove that the Chinese existed as a nation before the time of
+Yu the Great, whose date of accession is said to be 2,285 years B.C.,
+and he is also included in the Legendary Period to which Fuh-hi belongs.
+After the Legendary Period came the Semi-Historical Period in Chinese
+history; the really Historical Period dating from the early part of the
+eighth century before Christ.
+
+"Different dynasties succeeded each other, till from the years 500 to
+200 B.C. many petty kings, reigning over various provinces, waged war
+against one another. At length a fierce warrior, named Ching-wang, went
+to war with, and conquered, all of them, and made himself master of the
+whole empire, about 200 years B.C., his government comprising about the
+northern half of modern China. He was the first monarch of the dynasty
+called Tsin, or Chin. Next he turned his arms against the Tartars, who
+were a portion of those people whom we read of in history by the name of
+Huns, and who were now making constant inroads into China. They were
+capital soldiers--I believe every Tartar has now to be a soldier--and as
+the Chinese dreaded them very much, the Emperor thought out a way to
+keep them off. He erected a great wall along the whole extent of the
+northern frontier of China, of very great height, thickness, and
+strength, made of two walls of brick many feet apart, the space between
+them being, for half the length of the wall, filled up with earth, and
+the other half with gravel and rubbish. On it were square towers, which
+were erected at about a hundred yards' distance from one another. Some
+say this wall extended 1,500 miles from the sea to the most western
+provinces of Shen-si; McCulloch says it is 1,250 miles in length. It was
+carried over mountains and across rivers. Six horsemen could ride
+abreast upon it. But there was great cruelty practised in its
+construction, for the Emperor obliged every third labouring man in the
+kingdom to work at this wall without payment.
+
+[Illustration: GREAT WALL OF CHINA, GULF OF PE-CHI-LI.]
+
+"It took five years to finish, and has now existed for more than two
+thousand years. It is called Wan-li-chang, or Myriad-mile Wall."
+
+"And did it keep out the Tartars?" Leonard asked.
+
+"No; the little Emperor Tsai-tien, born in 1871, and now on the throne,
+is, I believe, a descendant of theirs. He is called Kwang-su, which
+means 'Continuation of glory.'"
+
+"Does the Emperor's eldest son always reign?"
+
+"No; the ablest or best son is generally chosen. Ching-wang seemed to
+think that he was master of the whole universe, and called himself
+Che-Hwang-ti, or First Emperor; and then to try to show that he was the
+founder of the monarchy, he had, as he thought, all the historical
+documents burnt that could prove otherwise, but did not succeed, for
+some that had been hidden behind the walls of houses were found after
+his death."
+
+"What a quantity of stuff it must have taken to build the wall!" said
+Leonard.
+
+"Yes; the material in the Great Wall, including the earth in the middle
+of it, is said to be more than enough to surround the circumference of
+the earth, on two of its great circles, with two walls of six feet high
+and two feet thick. Guards are stationed in the strong towers by which
+the wall is fortified; every important pass having a strong fortress."
+
+"And what is the height of the wall, father?" asked Leonard.
+
+"About twenty feet; and there are steps of brick and stone for men on
+foot to ascend, and slanting places for the cavalry."
+
+"I shall like to see Chinese soldiers," Leonard said. "Did you ever see
+them at drill, father?"
+
+[Illustration: CHINESE ARTILLERY-MEN, PEKING.]
+
+"I remember very well seeing a regiment of artillery at gun-drill one
+day, but I believe there has been a new armament of Chinese artillery
+since my time. I suppose you know, children," then said Mr. Graham,
+"that Peking ranks----"
+
+"For the number of its inhabitants," Sybil said quickly, "as the second
+city in the world, only London having more inhabitants, Paris about the
+same number."
+
+"Yes; and it has----"
+
+"About two million inhabitants."
+
+"Yes; and as Peking was built many centuries before the Christian era,
+it is a very old city. The name Peking means Court of the North. After
+the conquest by the Tartars of the kingdom of Yen, of which Peking was
+the capital, it became only a provincial town, when, at the beginning of
+the fifteenth century, it was again made the capital of China. The
+Chinese sovereigns used to live at Nanking, but when the Tartars had so
+often invaded the country, they removed to the northern province, to
+enable them the more easily to keep out the invaders."
+
+"On our Chinese umbrella that we had in the dining-room fireplace at
+home," said Sybil, "there was, I remember, a picture of Peking, and some
+water was close by it, but I cannot remember what river Peking is on."
+
+"It is situated in a large sandy plain on the Tunghui, a small tributary
+of the Peiho. This city is again divided into the Chinese and Tartar
+cities, the Imperial city, in which live the Emperor and his retainers,
+and another in which the court officials have their residence.
+
+"Like all other Chinese cities, they are surrounded by high walls. At
+the north, south, east, and west sides of towns are large folding-gates,
+which are often further secured by three inner gates. The one in the
+south is that of honour, through which the Emperor passes, but which is
+usually kept closed at other times.
+
+[Illustration: CIEAN-MUN, OR CHEAN-GATE AT PEKING.]
+
+"The wall of Peking, which is sixteen miles round, has two gates on
+three sides and three on the other, of which the principal is Chean-Mun,
+at the south of the Tartar city. Over the gate is a building occupied by
+soldiers, who are there for purposes of defence.
+
+[Illustration: CHINESE SOLDIER.]
+
+[Illustration: STREET OF HATA-MENE-TA-KIE, PEKING.]
+
+"The streets in Peking are very broad; we shall find them much narrower
+in the south of China. They are raised in the centre, and covered with a
+kind of stone, to form a smooth, hard surface. In summer they are often,
+I remember, very dusty, and during the rainy seasons very dirty. At the
+end of each street is a wooden barrier, which is guarded day and night
+by soldiers. The barrier is closed at nine o'clock at night, after which
+time the Chinese are only allowed to pass through if they have a very
+good reason to give for being out so late.
+
+"Order is well kept in the streets of Peking by the soldiers and police,
+who may use their whips on troublesome customers whenever they think it
+necessary to do so.
+
+"The principal streets, or main thoroughfares, extending from one end of
+the city to the other, are its only outlets. Trees grow in several of
+these streets. Houses, in which the inhabitants live, are in smaller
+streets or lanes, the houses themselves being often shut in by walls.
+
+"Pagodas (which, you know, are temples to heathen gods, built in the
+form of towers), monasteries, and churchyards, are all outside the
+walls, and the city itself is principally kept for purposes of
+commerce."
+
+"We know what pagodas are like," Leonard said, "because we had two at
+home for ornaments. I think we know many things through being so
+fortunate as to have a father who has travelled."
+
+[Illustration: CHINESE BARBER.]
+
+"There is a great noise in some of the streets," Mr. Graham went on:
+"for instance, in the Hata-mene-ta-kie, where many people are to be seen
+bustling about and talking very loudly to one another. Tents are here
+put up in which rice, fruit, and other things are sold, and any one
+wishing for a pretty substantial meal can be supplied with it in the
+Hata-mene-ta-kie, for before stoves stand the vendors of such meals, who
+have cooked them ready for purchasers. Other tradesmen carry hampers,
+slung across their shoulders, in which they keep their goods, whilst
+they call out, from time to time, to let people know what these hampers
+contain. Carts, horses, mules, wheel-barrows, and sedan-chairs pass
+along, the whole place seeming to be alive with buyers and sellers. The
+cobbler is sure to be somewhere close at hand in his movable workshop,
+and first here and then there, as may best suit himself and employers,
+the blacksmith pitches his tent, which sometimes consists of a large
+umbrella; whilst, again, people can refresh themselves, if they do not
+care for a heavier meal, with some soup or a patty at a soup stall.
+
+"And the barber does not forget that he is a very useful person. There,
+in the open streets, he communicates, by the tinkling of a little bell,
+the fact that he is ready to shave the heads and arrange the cues or
+pig-tails of those who may require his services; and as one man after
+another takes the seat that has been put ready for him, the barber not
+only shaves and plaits, but also frequently paints his customer's
+eyebrows and gives his clothes a brush."
+
+"Father, why do Chinamen wear pig-tails?" here broke in Leonard, who,
+with Sybil, was very much interested in what he heard.
+
+"After they were conquered by the Tartars they were obliged to wear
+them, to show that they were in subjection to their conquerors; but now
+the pig-tail is held in honour, and the longer it will grow the better
+pleased is the Chinese gentleman who wears it. Some very bad criminals
+have their tails cut off as a great punishment and disgrace.
+
+"Well, what should you like to hear now?" Mr. Graham asked, after a
+little pause.
+
+"What Chinese shops are like, I think," said Sybil.
+
+[Illustration: A SHOP IN PEKING.]
+
+"Most of those in China are quite open in front; where we are going I
+suppose we shall see very few, if any, shop-windows at all, but in
+Peking many of the shops have glass windows. In China there are
+certain streets for certain shops, where the different branches of
+trade have generally their own sides of the road. A shop is called a
+hong. Sometimes the master sits outside, waiting for his customers to
+arrive.
+
+[Illustration: SIGN-BOARD OF A CUSHION AND MATTING MANUFACTORY.]
+
+"At the door of each hong are sign-boards, upon which are painted in
+gold, or coloured letters, a motto instead of a name, and what the shop
+offers for sale.
+
+"I do not think," Mr. Graham then said, drawing, as he spoke, a little
+representation of a sign-board out of his pocket-book, "that I ever
+showed you this."
+
+"Oh no!" both the children answered. "And what do those characters
+mean?"
+
+On another piece of paper Mr. Graham pointed out to them the following
+interpretation:
+
+               =Teen=
+               =Yee=
+               =Shun=
+          Fung        Poo
+          Seih        Tian
+              =Teen=
+
+[Illustration: A TWO-WHEELED CART.]
+
+"The three first large characters, which form the motto, may be taken to
+signify that 'Heaven favours the prudent.' The other smaller characters
+designate the nature of the business, a cushion and matting
+manufactory; the last character, without which no sign-board is
+complete, meaning shop or factory."
+
+"I shall like to see these sign-boards very much when we get to China,"
+Sybil said. "I should think they must make the streets look very
+pretty."
+
+Mr. Graham had illustrated several things which he had told the children
+by some pictures which he had brought on board with him.
+
+[Illustration: A YOUNG FARMER AND HIS PARENTS.]
+
+Leonard was now looking again at that of Chean Mun, or Chean Gate, for
+Mun means gate.
+
+"I have been noticing, father," he then said, "that all the carts in
+this picture have only two wheels."
+
+"I never saw any in China with more," was the answer. "Both shut and
+open carts (the latter being used as carriages) have all two wheels.
+Those in common use are made of wood, the body of the cart resting on
+an axle-tree, supported by the wheels. Horses and mules are very little
+used in China, except for travelling and for conveying luggage long
+distances. I remember also noticing that horses and ponies require very
+little guiding in China. Sometimes they go without reins, when their
+masters will perhaps walk beside them, carrying a whip. I have also seen
+very polite drivers, who, whenever they met a friend, jumped off their
+carts and walked on foot to pass one another.
+
+[Illustration: A CHINESE JUNK.]
+
+[Illustration: FLYING KITES.]
+
+"Government servants generally use ponies, but as China is so densely
+populated--having, it has been estimated, about four hundred million
+inhabitants, and people find it so hard to obtain enough to support
+themselves and families--they keep as few beasts of burden as possible.
+The farmer employs the bullock a great deal, and in the north of China
+the camel is also much used.
+
+"Much trade is carried on by boats, and where there is no water, and
+farmers are without other conveyances, they will sometimes push their
+wives along the roads in wheel-barrows, sons giving their parents
+similar drives. There are but few carriage-roads in many parts of
+China."
+
+"I wonder the Chinese do not make more, then," said Leonard.
+
+"They cannot afford to do so, because to make them bread-producing land
+would have to be done away with."
+
+"What a number of rivers and bays there are in China!" said Sybil, who
+was again examining her map. "And I see the Great Wall crosses the
+Hwang-ho."
+
+"And that's the fifth largest river in the world," Leonard answered.
+"Only the Amazon, Mississippi, Nile, and Yantze-kiang are larger; and
+the Grand Canal in China is the very largest canal in the world."
+
+"I learnt once, too, that Hwang-ho meant 'Chinese sorrow.' Why is it
+called that?"
+
+"Because it has altered its course, which has caused great loss and
+inconvenience to the Chinese."
+
+"And what does 'Yantze-kiang' mean?"
+
+"The son that spreads; this is their favourite river."
+
+Geography was one of Leonard's favourite studies.
+
+"Why do so many Chinese rivers end in ho and kiang?" he then asked,
+looking over Sybil's map.
+
+"Both words mean river--the Yantze and the Hwang rivers. And the Chinese
+have all kinds of boats for use on their rivers. Here, my boy, is a
+picture of a Chinese junk. Look at it well, and see if you can discover
+anything peculiar about it."
+
+Leonard looked for some time. "It has sails," he answered, "like
+butterflies' wings."
+
+"Yes; that is how the Chinese make many of their sails."
+
+"But the kites are what I want to see so much," said Leonard, as though
+the sails had reminded him of them again. "What are the most peculiar of
+them like?"
+
+"Like birds, insects, animals, clusters of birds, gods on clouds: all
+kinds of things, in fact, are represented by these kites, which the
+Chinese are most clever in making, and also in flying. I have seen old
+men, of about seventy years of age, thoroughly enjoying flying their
+kites. The Chinese do not care much for your, and my, favourite games,
+Leonard: cricket and football."
+
+"What games do they like?"
+
+"They are very fond of battledore and shuttlecock, but instead of using
+a battledore they hit the shuttlecock with their heads, elbows, or feet.
+Seven or eight children play together, and nearly always aim the
+shuttlecock rightly. Girls play at this game too, in spite of their
+small feet. Tops, balls, see-saws, and quoits are also favourite toys
+and games amongst the Chinese."
+
+"I remember," Sybil said, "a girl at school having a Chinese
+shuttlecock, and that was like a bird."
+
+"Well, father, go on, please. What other amusements have they?" asked
+Leonard.
+
+"Puppet-shows for one thing I remember, which they exhibit in the
+streets, as we do 'Punch and Judy.' The pictures in these shows are
+exhibited by means of strings, which are either worked from behind or
+from above the stand, and as the people look through a glass, the views
+are displayed to them. A man standing at the side calls out loudly, and
+beats a little gong to summon people to attend the show. And now I
+think, as I am rather tired for to-day, I shall beat a little gong to
+dismiss you from the show," Mr. Graham said, smiling, as he turned
+towards his children, who never seemed to grow tired of listening.
+
+"Very well, father; we will go now, and let you rest," Sybil replied,
+standing up. "Thank you so much. To-morrow, you know, we shall come to
+the show again, so please remember to sound the gong in good time." And
+off they bounded, leaving Mr. Graham at liberty to go and seek his wife,
+who was then lying down in her cabin.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE RELIGIONS OF CHINA.
+
+
+[Illustration: LI-HUNG.]
+
+"WILL you please tell us to-day, father, something about the religion of
+the Chinese? I know they worship idols, but how do they believe in
+them?" Sybil asked, as soon as their "Peep-show," as the children
+continued to call their father's stories, began the next afternoon.
+During the morning she had sat and read to her mother, who still felt
+the motion of the vessel very much, and had therefore to lie down part
+of the day.
+
+"I will try to do so," was the answer; "but I think what you hear may
+puzzle you a good deal, for they have very strange creeds."
+
+"Did grandfather make many converts?"
+
+"Very few indeed; but then he was one of our very first missionaries to
+Peking, so was most thankful for the very little which he was enabled to
+do.
+
+[Illustration: A CITIZEN OF TIENT-SIN.]
+
+"I remember two men for whose conversion from Buddhism he often gave
+thanks. One was a citizen of Tientsin, where we landed on our way to the
+capital.
+
+"This good fellow, who was then a very questionable character, was
+smoking his pipe in a most indifferent manner, when my father, through
+his teacher, first addressed him. Missionaries in China, you know, have
+teachers of the dialects."
+
+"Shall you have one?"
+
+"Of course. Well, this man would not listen at all at first, and was
+very angry at my father's interference; but after a while we met him
+again at Peking, and in time both he and his wife learnt to believe, and
+to long for Christian baptism, before receiving which they not only left
+off worshipping their family idols, but even destroyed them. A short
+time ago I heard that this man had become a native lay teacher, and was
+a great help to the mission, as he could, of course, always make himself
+understood to his own countrymen, who were also not unlikely to be won
+by his example."
+
+"What was his name?" asked Leonard.
+
+"Tung-Sean."
+
+"And that of the other convert?"
+
+"Li-Hung. He was a much older man, and was sitting, I remember, the day
+we first saw him, in a field, resting from his work, and as he caught
+sight of my father he began to call him all sorts of names, amongst
+which was to be heard very often that of 'foreign devil.' I believe he
+even looked for stones to throw at us. Your grandfather--always a very
+quiet, self-possessed man--just dropped some tracts at his side,
+translated into Chinese. We often saw Li-Hung again, and though he gave
+us much trouble, a month before my father died he had the happiness also
+of witnessing this man's conversion to the true faith."
+
+"Grandfather must have been very pleased," Sybil said.
+
+"He was; but I think now I have something rather interesting to tell you
+of our journey from Tientsin to Peking. We went in carts drawn by two
+mules, one in front of the other, and at night we slept at inns, where,
+I think, you would like to hear about our sleeping accommodation. It was
+winter, and as the Peking winter is cold, people there, to make
+themselves warm at night, sleep on kangs. As these were different at
+both inns to which we went, I will tell you about both.
+
+[Illustration: A KANG.]
+
+"In one the kang consisted of a platform built of brick, so much larger
+than a bed that several people could sleep on it at once. A kind of
+tunnel passed through the platform, which had a chimney at one end,
+whilst at the other end, a little while before bed-time, a small
+quantity of dry fuel was set on fire, when the flame passed through the
+tunnel and out of the chimney. In this way the kang was warmed, when
+felt matting was put upon it. Here we lay down, and were covered over
+with a kind of cotton-wool counterpane.
+
+[Illustration: BOATS ON THE RIVER PEI-HO AT TIENT-SIN.]
+
+"The kang in the other inn was warmed by a little stove from underneath,
+which also served in the day-time for cooking purposes, when the
+bed-clothes were removed from the kang, on which mats, and even little
+tables, were also sometimes put, until it became a sofa; so it was very
+useful."
+
+The children laughed.
+
+"We are not hearing about the religion yet, though," Sybil said.
+
+"Oh, do let us hear just a little more about Peking and Tientsin first,"
+Leonard answered. "How far is Tientsin from the capital?"
+
+"Eighty miles. And do you know what river it is on?"
+
+Leonard considered. "It must be an important one, I should think, as it
+carries things, doesn't it, from the sea-coast to near to Peking?"
+
+"It is only a river of secondary importance, but the principal one of
+the province of Pe-chili. Now for its name." Sybil referred to her map.
+
+"The Pei-ho, of course," they exclaimed together. "And I suppose there
+is ever so much traffic on it?" Leonard said; "with no end of ships to
+be seen?"
+
+"Yes, a good many may be seen there. I have a picture of boats on the
+River Pei-ho."
+
+"What sort of flags do Chinese boats have, father? I do not see any
+hoisted here."
+
+"The Imperial Navy is divided into river and sea-going vessels, the
+former consisting of 1,900 ships, the latter of 918; and there are
+188,000 sailors. Ships in the Imperial Navy generally fly a flag at the
+main, on which red lines are drawn, or sometimes a tri-colour is hoisted
+there instead. Red would, I suppose, be for safety, as this is the
+'lucky' colour of the Chinese. At the stern of the vessel I remember
+seeing the name of the official who directs and superintends the ship."
+
+"Isn't Tientsin noted for something?" Sybil then asked.
+
+[Illustration: MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS.]
+
+"Yes; for the treaty of June 26th, 1858, between the Chinese and
+British, some of the terms of which were that the Christian religion
+should be protected by Chinese authorities, that British subjects should
+be allowed to travel in the country for pleasure or business, under
+passports issued by their consul, and that the Queen might acquire a
+building site at Peking."
+
+"But now the religion, please, father," she said again.
+
+"Very well; but you must pay great attention to what I say, or you will
+not understand. Most of the Chinese are either Confucianists, Buddhists,
+or Taouists, although there are also Jews and Mahometans amongst them.
+At one time it is supposed that the people of China had really a
+knowledge of the true God, and that when they worshipped, in much the
+same sort of manner as did the patriarchs, Him whom they call Wang-teen,
+or Shang-ti, which means Supreme Ruler, they worshipped God.
+
+"But mixing with this an idolatrous worship of departed ancestors, they
+nearly lost sight of the Supreme Ruler, the jealous God, Who, we know,
+claims all our worship.
+
+"About the latter half of the sixth century before Christ, Confucius, a
+great and clever philosopher of China, who was born 551 B.C., wrote and
+put together books that held very moral and good maxims, afterwards
+called 'The Classics.'
+
+"He taught that men must always be obedient to those to whom they are in
+subjection: people to prince, child to parent, filial piety being
+enforced before every other duty. He was very anxious to improve the
+manners of the people; but women he ranked very low. Confucianism
+is--but perhaps you will not understand this--more a philosophy than a
+religion. Its followers have no particular form of worship, and no
+priesthood. The Pearly Emperor, Supreme Ruler, is their deity, but
+worship is seldom offered to him, and then only by a few.
+
+"Although Confucius disapproved very much of idols, after he was dead
+many of his followers worshipped him.
+
+[Illustration: A MANDARIN.]
+
+"Confucianists do not believe in a future state of rewards and
+punishments, but think that their good and bad deeds will be rewarded
+here by riches or poverty, long or short life, good or bad health.
+Conscience is to lead people aright, and tell them when they do wrong.
+
+"The high mandarins and literary people are generally Confucianists;
+school-boys also worship an idol or tablet of the sage, in which his
+spirit is supposed to dwell.
+
+"There is a temple to the honour of 'The Great Teacher' in every large
+town; and on great occasions, and always in spring-time and autumn,
+sacrifices are here offered, the Emperor himself, as high priest,
+presiding at these two ceremonies in Peking, the chief mandarins of his
+court giving him assistance. In temples of Confucius idols are very
+seldom to be seen.
+
+"The Confucianists are taught that man was originally good, his nature
+being given by heaven, and that sin came through union of the soul with
+matter."
+
+"What are mandarins, please, father?" asked Leonard.
+
+"Chinese officials, of which there are many grades, and many in each
+grade, all of whom are paid by Government. To every province there is a
+viceroy, to every city a governor, and to the village a mandarin, who is
+elected to rule over it for three years; and all these, again, have many
+officers under them. There are also a great many military mandarins. A
+great mark of imperial favour is to allow mandarins, civil or military,
+to wear a peacock's feather in their caps, which hangs down over the
+back, and the ball placed on the top shows, by its colour and material,
+the rank of the wearer. Soldiers fighting very bravely are often buoyed
+up with the hope of receiving one of these feathers.
+
+"Mandarins, who stand in a sort of fatherly relationship towards their
+people, although they do not always behave like fathers towards them,
+look for implicit obedience from them."
+
+"Can a mandarin be punished when he does wrong?" Leonard asked. "And
+what sort of dress does he wear?"
+
+[Illustration: A MANDARIN WITH PEACOCK'S FEATHER.]
+
+"He can be punished when he does wrong; and as well as I can remember,
+those mandarins that I saw, who were in high office, wore a long, loose
+robe of blue silk, embroidered with gold threads. This reached to their
+ankles, being fastened round their waists with a belt. Over this was a
+violet tunic, coming just below the knees, which had very wide, long
+sleeves, usually worn turned back, but if not, hanging over the hands."
+
+"Will you please go on about the religion now, father?" Sybil then said.
+"You had just told us that the Confucianists were taught that man was
+made good."
+
+"Yes; and their worship is paid almost entirely to their ancestors,
+which worship they look upon as a continuation of the reverence they had
+been taught to show them while on earth. I will tell you more about
+ancestral worship presently.
+
+"Many people, as you can well understand, were not satisfied with
+Confucianism as a religion, as it could not satisfy their spiritual
+wants, especially as the Pearly Emperor, or Supreme Ruler, generally
+looked upon as the highest divinity worshipped by the Chinese, might
+only be approached by the Emperor and his court; so another sect sprang
+up, having a philosopher named La-outze, who was born 604 B.C., for its
+founder. He thought that to grow perfect he must seclude himself from
+other people, and in his retirement was always looking for the Taou-le,
+the meaning of which you will hardly understand--the cause or the end of
+all things. His followers are called Taouists. This philosopher says in
+his book that 'it is by stillness, and contemplation, and union with
+Taou, that virtue is to be achieved'--Taou here meaning a principle and
+a way. He said that virtue consisted in losing sight of oneself, and
+that man should love even his enemies, and go through life as if none of
+his possessions belonged to himself. The Taouists say that 'Taou is
+without substance, and eternal, and the universe coming from him exists
+in the silent presence of Taou everywhere,' and that only those who
+become very virtuous are happy.
+
+"La-outze is now worshipped by the Taouists as the third of a trinity
+of persons, called 'The Three Pure Ones.'
+
+"He is said, when born, to have had long white hair, and is therefore
+represented as an old man, and called 'old boy.' The Chinese assert that
+his mother was fed with food from heaven, and that when he was born he
+jumped up into the air, and said, as he pointed with his left hand to
+heaven and his right hand to the earth, 'Heaven above, earth beneath:
+only Taou is honourable.' The Taouist trinity are supposed to live in
+the highest heaven; and Taouists used to spend a great deal of time in
+seeking for a drink that they thought would make them live for ever.
+Subduing evil is by some of them supposed to secure immortality to the
+soul.
+
+"Their priests are often very ignorant men, but they are believed in by
+the people, and are employed by them to perform superstitious rites."
+
+"Oh, father! Isn't it a dreadful pity that they should believe so many
+things like Christians, even in a trinity, and the duty of loving one's
+enemies, and only be heathens after all?"
+
+"It is indeed; but the more we see of heathens, Sybil, the more we shall
+notice how they cannot help feeling after truth and grasping some parts
+of it, which seem as though they were a very necessity to religion.
+These Taouist priests are often called in by the people to exorcise, or
+drive away, evil spirits, to cure sick people and commune with the
+dead."
+
+"Oh, father! I do so like this Peep-show. Please tell us now about the
+people of the other sect."
+
+[Illustration: A BUDDHIST PRIEST.]
+
+"They are the Buddhists, who also worship a trinity; indeed, Taouists
+are thought to have taken that idea from them. As early as 250 B.C.
+Buddhist missionaries came over from India to China, but the religion
+did not really take root until an emperor named Hing, of the Han
+dynasty, introduced it, in the first century of the Christian era, about
+66 A.D. This emperor is said to have seen in a dream, in the year of our
+Lord 61, an image of a foreign god coming into his palace, and in
+consequence he was advised to adopt the religion of Buddha, when he sent
+to India for an idol and some priests. Towards the end of the thirteenth
+century there were more than 4,200 Buddhist temples in China, and more
+than 213,000 monks. The Buddhist trinity is called Pihte, or the Three
+Precious Ones: Buddha Past, Buddha Present, and Buddha Future, and
+dreadfully ugly idols they are. The Buddhist's idea of heaven is
+Nirvana, or rest, or more properly speaking, extinction. The Chinese
+Buddhist thinks that a man possesses three souls or spirits, one of
+which accompanies the body to the grave, another passes into his
+ancestral tablet to be worshipped, and the third enters into one, or
+all, of the ten kingdoms of the Buddhistic hell, into which people pass
+after death, there to receive punishments according to the lives they
+have led upon earth. From the tenth kingdom they pass back to earth, to
+inhabit the form of a man, beast, bird, or insect, as they may have
+deserved, unless during life a man has attained to a certain state of
+perfection, when he mounts to the highest heaven, and perhaps becomes a
+god or buddha. But even from the Western Paradise a spirit has sometimes
+to return to earth. Should a man have been good in all the various lives
+that he has lived, he is supposed to attain, I believe, to this Nirvana,
+or extinction."
+
+"What a wonderful belief!" Sybil said. "So they cannot believe at all in
+the immortality of the soul?"
+
+"No, they do not."
+
+"I should like to see a Buddhist priest very much," Leonard said.
+
+[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO A BUDDHIST MONASTERY.]
+
+"I dare say you will see a good many when you get to China. They live
+together in monasteries, sometimes in great numbers, and these
+monasteries are prettily situated, surrounded by lakes and gardens. They
+consist of a number of small buildings, to the principal of which is a
+large entrance, that has inscriptions on either side of the gateway."
+
+[Illustration: A MONASTERY.]
+
+"Are the priests very good men?" asked Leonard.
+
+[Illustration: A GONG.]
+
+"Very often, I am afraid, just the reverse; but this is not to be
+wondered at, for criminals in China, to escape from justice, will
+sometimes shave their heads, and seek refuge by becoming Buddhist
+priests. When they take their vows--some taking nine, some twelve--for
+each one a cut is made in their arms to help them to remember it. Some
+of the vows resemble the commandments setting forth our duty towards our
+neighbour. A Buddhist priest, in China, wears a wide turn-over collar;
+when he officiates he often dresses in a yellow robe made of silk or
+cotton, but he is only allowed to wear silk when he does officiate. At
+other times his garments are of white or ash colour, or he wears a long,
+grey cowl with flowing sleeves. Buddhist priests shave all their hair
+two or three times a month. They think it is of great use to repeat
+their classics very often to the gods, and keep an account of the number
+of times they say them on their beads. I fancy they use brooms wherewith
+to sprinkle holy water. There are four special commandments for
+Buddhists, both priests and people: not to destroy animal life, not to
+steal, not to speak falsely, and not to drink wine. In monasteries the
+refectories of the priests are very large, and they have all to sit at
+dinner, so that the abbot, who is at their head, can see their faces.
+They are called to breakfast and dinner by a gong, where they have to
+appear in their cowls. Gongs are very much used in China, and are to be
+seen at all the temples. When the priest, who presides, comes in, they
+all rise, and putting their hands together, say grace. After the food
+has been so blessed, some is put outside as an offering to the fowls of
+the air. During dinner the priests may not speak, and on the walls of
+the refectory are boards, on which are written warnings, such as not to
+eat too quickly; also the rules of the monastery."
+
+"That would not have done for you, Leonard, when you thought you would
+be late for school, and gobbled your dinner anyhow," said Sybil.
+
+"How many gods have the Chinese?" asked Leonard.
+
+[Illustration: WORSHIP IN A LAMASARY, BUDDHIST TEMPLE.]
+
+"So many that it would be impossible to say, and the Celestials (as the
+Chinese are often called, from naming their country the Celestial Land)
+are not particular how they worship them; Taouists, for instance,
+worshipping those who are peculiarly Buddhist divinities, and Buddhists
+invoking, in return, their gods. Indeed, the three religions have so
+borrowed from one another, and people have believed so much as they
+liked, that the Chinese themselves often do not know to which religion
+they belong, and are either all or none, pretty well as they choose. The
+Buddhism of China is not at all the pure Buddhism, and has been much
+corrupted by its professors."
+
+"Who was the founder of Buddhism?"
+
+"An Indian prince, of beautiful character, born 620 B.C., and called
+Shakyamuni Buddha, who left wealth and luxury to go about relieving
+suffering wherever he found it. After he died his followers believed
+that he was transformed into a god, having three different forms."
+
+"Tell us some of the gods, please."
+
+"A god of rain; a god of wind; a god of thunder; a god of wealth, the
+latter worshipped very much by tradesmen; a god of thieves; a goddess of
+thunder; a guardian goddess of women and little children, called Kum-fa,
+whose ten attendants watch over children, helping them to eat, and
+teaching them to smile and walk; a god of wine; a god of fire; a goddess
+of mercy; a goddess of sailors; a goddess of children, called 'Mother';
+a god of the kitchen; a god of measles, a god of small-pox. Then the
+Confucianists worship two stars, who are supposed to look after
+literature and drawing, the former called the god of literature. And
+besides household gods belonging to every family, there are a god of the
+passing year, and numerous others. Many of the gods are deified persons
+who once lived on earth."
+
+[Illustration: TEMPLE OF THE MOON, PEKING.]
+
+"What a number!" Sybil said. "But who, then, is the great Lama? You have
+not told us anything about him yet, and I heard you speaking about him
+the other day."
+
+"There is another form of Buddhism, called Lamaism, and this, though it
+prevails principally in Thibet and Mongolia, has also its followers in
+Peking. The Great Lama, or Living Buddha, is the head of this."
+
+"And he is a living man?"
+
+"Yes; but his soul is said never to die; therefore, when he dies it is
+supposed to pass into an infant whom the priests select by a likeness
+that they trace to the late Lama. I one day saw worship going on in a
+Lama temple."
+
+"Have you a picture of it, father?" Leonard asked, who was getting a
+little tired of these descriptions, which Sybil liked so much.
+
+"Yes, and I think it a very good one. In the centre, facing the
+worshippers, is a very large idol indeed of Buddha. To the right and
+left of the temple are smaller idols. Some gods in temples do not
+receive worship, but guard the doors. Incense is burning in front; the
+high priest, to the right, is lifting up his hands in adoration, whilst
+the people offer scented rods and tapers to Buddha. As they light their
+offerings they kow-tow, or hit their heads upon the floor. This is the
+Chinese way of reverent, respectful salutation. The devotees are grouped
+in squares.
+
+"Then I forgot to tell you that the Sun and Moon are also worshipped.
+Whilst in Peking, I went to a temple of the Moon. It was on the day of
+the autumnal equinox, when, at six o'clock in the evening, a very solemn
+sacrifice is offered, and the great ladies of the capital meet to burn
+their tapers. I approached this temple by a long avenue of beautiful
+trees. The temple was large; but I noticed that more women than men had
+come to attend the ceremonies."
+
+"I thought the Chinese were clever people," Sybil said; "if so, how can
+they believe in so many gods?"
+
+"They have been trained to do so. They feel, I suppose, that they must
+offer worship, and until a real knowledge of the true God can be planted
+in their midst, they will remain slaves to idolatry. Many of the more
+enlightened heathen, I believe, only regard their idols as
+representations of the Deity they are feeling after, and not really as
+the Deity Himself; although I fear many of the simpler sort, in
+different degrees, regard their idols with great religious awe. Then,
+many a Chinaman, again, will so often seem to have no religion at all!"
+
+"Is it very difficult to teach the Chinese, father?"
+
+"It is very difficult to find words, in their language, clearly to bring
+home to them the great truths of the Bible; and Confucius having for
+nearly twenty centuries held such a sway over their minds, they do not
+care to listen to new teachers."
+
+"I am so glad the Bible is now translated into Chinese, and that you are
+taking some copies out with you. But how old these people must be!"
+
+"The Chinese are a very ancient race, and had a literature 700 years
+before Christ. They are very fond and proud of their country."
+
+"Do Taouists and Buddhists believe in, and read, the writings of
+Confucius?"
+
+"To a great extent."
+
+"And are there many Christians in China now?"
+
+"The Church Missionary Society, at her six chief stations of Hong-Kong,
+Foo-Chow, Ningpo, Hang-Chow, Shaou-hing, and Shanghai, now numbers 4,667
+native followers, and 1,702 communicants, of whom nine are native
+clergymen and 174 native Christian teachers. In China altogether there
+are 40,000 Christian adherents. But what are these, when we think that
+this vast empire alone contains 400,000,000 people, one-third of the
+human race?"
+
+"They will listen to you, father," Sybil said, looking up very brightly.
+Sybil was a child who thought that there was nobody, except her own
+mother, in the whole world to compare with her father.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+CHINESE CHILDHOOD.
+
+
+"I FORGOT to ask you, father," Leonard said, about a week later--for
+during that time he and his sister had been otherwise engaged, and had
+therefore not come to hear anything more about the Chinese and their
+strange doings--"I forgot to ask you if Celestial boys wore pig-tails
+too. I have never, I believe, seen a picture of a Chinese boy."
+
+"Some have pig-tails, but some parents allow just a tuft of hair to grow
+on a boy's head until he is eight or ten years old, and shave the rest.
+Sometimes he wears the tuft longer; and I have also seen girls wearing
+it on one or both sides of their heads."
+
+"Father, will you tell us something now about the children?" Sybil then
+asked.
+
+"I know little babies of three days old often have their wrists tied
+with red cotton cord, to which a charm is hung, which is, I suppose, to
+bring it prosperity or drive away from it evil spirits. At a month old
+its head is shaved for the first time, when, if its mother does not
+shave it, a hair-dresser has to wear red in which to do it. A boy is
+shaved before the ancestral tablet, but a girl before an image of the
+goddess of children called 'Mother,' and thank-offerings are on this day
+presented to the goddess."
+
+"What does the ancestral tablet mean?"
+
+"It consists of a piece of wood or stone, which is meant to represent
+the dead. As I told you, one of the spirits of a dead man is supposed to
+enter the tablet, and the more this is worshipped the happier the spirit
+is supposed to be. On this tablet are names and inscriptions, which
+sometimes represent several ancestors. After a certain time (I think the
+fifth generation) the tablet is no longer worshipped, as by that time
+the spirit is supposed to have passed into another body."
+
+"Thank you. I understand that now," Sybil said. "Does anything else
+happen on the grand shaving day?"
+
+"Presents of painted ducks' eggs, cakes, and other things are sent to
+the baby, and when it is four months old 'Mother' is thanked again, and
+prayed to make the child grow fast, sleep well, and be good-tempered."
+Sybil and Leonard laughed. "On this day the child also sits for the
+first time in a chair, when his grandmother, his mother's mother, who
+has to give him a great many presents, sends him some soft kind of
+sugar-candy, which is put upon the chair, and when this has stuck the
+baby is put upon it, and I suppose his clothes then stick to it also."
+
+"What a fashion to learn to sit in a chair!" Leonard said. "And what's
+done on his first birthday?"
+
+"Another thank-offering is presented to 'Mother,' more presents come,
+and the baby has to sit in front of a number of things, such as ink,
+pens, scales, pencils, tools, books, fruit, gold, or anything the
+parents like to arrange before him, and whatever he catches hold of
+first will show them what his future character or occupation is likely
+to be.
+
+[Illustration: YUEN-SHUH, A LITTLE STUDENT.]
+
+"But the worst part has now to come. As soon as the poor little fellow
+can learn anything, he is taught to worship 'Mother' and other idols,
+before which he has to bow down, and raise up his little hands, whilst
+candles and incense are burnt in their honour. So it is no wonder that
+as he grows older he learns his lesson thoroughly. At sixteen children
+are supposed to leave childhood behind them, and there is a ceremony for
+this."
+
+"Do Chinese girls learn lessons? or is it only the boys?"
+
+"In some parts of China there are, I believe, a few schools for young
+ladies, and instruction is given to them by tutors at home; but although
+two or three Chinese ladies have been celebrated for great literary
+attainments, these are quite the exceptions, and there are only a very
+few schools for any girls in China, except the mission schools. Those
+for boys abound all over the country."
+
+"Did you ever go into a boy's school, father?"
+
+"Yes, into several, where I saw many a little intelligent-looking boy
+working very hard at his lessons. One little boy, named Yuen-Shuh, told
+me that he meant to get all the literary honours that he could. Chinese
+boys are not allowed to talk at all in school-hours. Each boy has a desk
+at which to sit, which is so arranged that he cannot speak to the boy
+next to him. Little Yuen-Shuh had been to school since he was six years
+old.
+
+"Another boy was saying a lesson when I went in, and therefore standing
+with his back to his teacher. Boys always say their lessons like this,
+and it is called 'backing the book.' The teacher, as they repeat their
+lessons, puts down their marks. When learning their lessons they repeat
+them aloud. There are higher schools into which older boys pass, and the
+great aim of the Chinese is to take literary honours, as nothing else
+can give them a position of high rank; but even a peasant taking these
+honours would rank as a gentleman."
+
+"Will you take me to see a school in China?" Leonard then asked.
+
+[Illustration: A CHINESE SCHOOL.]
+
+His father, having promised to do so, went on to say to Leonard:
+"Parents are very particular as to their choice of a schoolmaster, who
+must be considered good, as well as able to teach; and to qualify
+himself the master must, of course, know the doctrines of the ancient
+sages. After all has been settled for a boy to go to school, the parents
+always invite the schoolmaster to a dinner, given expressly for him.
+Then a fortune-teller is asked to decide upon a 'lucky' day for the boy
+to make his first appearance at school, when he takes the tutor a
+present. No boy ever goes to school first on the anniversary of the day
+on which Confucius died or was buried. On entering school, he turns to
+the shrine of Confucius--an altar erected to his honour in every
+school--and worships him, after which he salutes his teacher very
+respectfully, hears what he has to do, and goes to his desk."
+
+"And are there many holidays at Chinese schools?"
+
+"At the new year and in the autumn there are always holidays, but
+children also go home to keep all religious festivals, to celebrate the
+birthdays of parents and grandparents, to worship their tablets, and at
+the tombs of ancestors. Very often schoolmasters are men who have toiled
+very hard at their books, and yet have not succeeded in taking a very
+high degree, but sometimes having done so, they choose teaching for
+their profession. Children are very much punished in China when they
+break school-rules. Perhaps the punishment they fear most is to be
+beaten with a broom, because they think that this may make them unlucky
+for the rest of their lives."
+
+"And they can never have an alphabet to learn," Sybil said, "when they
+first go to school, as there is not one."
+
+[Illustration: A VILLAGE SCHOOLMASTER.]
+
+"No; instead of letters and words, they have to learn, and master,
+characters. In some schools children learn names first; in others they
+have reading lessons, where all the sentences consist of three
+characters. As soon as possible they are set to learn the classic on
+'Filial Piety.'"
+
+"Now, father, will you please describe a Chinese house to us?"
+
+"Those of the richer classes are surrounded by a high wall, and composed
+of a number of rooms, generally on one floor. In large cities some
+houses have another storey; but the Chinese think it 'unlucky' to live
+above ground."
+
+"The Chinese seem to think everything either lucky or unlucky," Sybil
+said; "it does seem silly. I do not wonder that you always told me not
+to say that word. I don't think I shall ever want to say it again now;
+and I used to say it rather often, usen't I? But I did not mean to
+interrupt you, so please go on now."
+
+"Some houses are very large, which they have to be, in order to
+accommodate several branches of the same family, who often live together
+in different parts of them.
+
+"There are generally three doors of entrance to a house, of which the
+principal, in the centre, leads to the reception hall, into which
+visitors are shown. I have seen the walls of rooms hung with white silk
+or satin, on which sentences of good advice were written. All sorts of
+beautiful lanterns hang from the sitting-room ceilings, sometimes by
+silk cords. The furniture consists principally of chairs, tables, pretty
+screens and cabinets, with many porcelain ornaments, and fans are very
+numerous in a Chinese household. Most houses have very beautiful
+gardens; even the poor try to have their houses surrounded by as much
+ground as possible. Many houses also have verandahs, where the Chinaman
+likes to smoke his evening pipe. Indeed, women, even ladies, smoke pipes
+in China. I have a picture of a verandah scene in the south of China."
+
+"Are these people rich or poor?" Sybil asked.
+
+"Certainly not rich, but also not very poor."
+
+"You were saying the other day, father, that Chinese people smoke
+something else besides tobacco?" Leonard then asked.
+
+"Opium."
+
+"What is opium?"
+
+"The juice of the poppy, which, after being made into a solid form, is
+boiled down with water."
+
+"Why did you say that opium-smoking was so dreadful?"
+
+"You shall hear all about it, and then judge for yourself. The
+opium-smoker, whilst engaged with his pipe, thinks of, and cares for,
+nothing else in the whole world besides, and generally lies down to give
+himself up to its more full enjoyment. Holding his pipe over the flame
+of a small oil-lamp beside him, he lights the opium, and then gently
+draws in the vapour which proceeds from it. Sometimes people smoke in
+their own houses, and sometimes they resort to horrid places regularly
+set apart for opium-smoking. In Hong-Kong, where we are going, there
+will be many an opium-smoker who will buy this drug in quantities when
+he cannot even afford to purchase clothing.
+
+[Illustration: FAMILY SCENE--AFTER DINNER]
+
+"If a man make a practice of smoking opium at stated times, even should
+these times not be very frequent, he so acquires the habit of smoking,
+that if, when the pipe be due it is not forthcoming, he is quite
+unable to do his work, and wastes all his time thinking of and longing
+for his pipe. The habit is sometimes acquired in less than a fortnight.
+Opium may first be taken in a small quantity to cure toothache; the
+small quantity leads to large quantities; the large quantities, or even
+small ones taken regularly, lead at last to the man becoming an habitual
+opium-smoker: and this means that the victim's health becomes injured,
+and that he is unfit for any work. If he then leave off his opium, he
+becomes ill, has dreadful pain, which sometimes lasts till he smokes
+again; he has no appetite for food, cannot sleep at night, and looks
+haggard and miserable. Sometimes if opium cannot be procured by him he
+dies.
+
+"And these men make themselves slaves for life to this horrid drug,
+knowing before they touch it what it will do for them.
+
+"Opium-smoking makes rich men poor, honest men thieves, and poor people
+even sell their children to obtain the drug."
+
+"And can't they be cured, father?" Sybil asked.
+
+"Medical aid has been brought in to help them, but it generally fails;
+and every now and then we hear of an opium-smoker becoming a Christian
+and then overcoming the vice, but this is also very rare indeed. And
+what does this teach us, children?"
+
+They thought. "Never to acquire bad habits, I suppose," said Sybil, "for
+fear they should grow upon us."
+
+[Illustration: HABITUAL OPIUM-SMOKERS.]
+
+"Yes; and because they do grow upon us. Everything to which we very much
+accustom ourselves grows into a habit; therefore it is so very important
+for both Chinese and English, for both grown-up and little people, to
+cultivate good habits. And more especially is this important in the case
+of young people, because so many of our habits, which remain with us and
+influence our whole after-life, are formed in our childish days."
+
+"And do people really sell their children?"
+
+"They do, indeed; and some children are so filial that they will even
+sell themselves for the good of their parents. There is very little that
+a Chinaman will not do for a parent. One of their superstitions is that
+if a father or mother be ill, and the child should cut away some of its
+own flesh to mix in the parent's medicine, a cure would be effected; and
+children have been known to cut pieces, for this purpose, out of their
+own arms."
+
+"What would happen," Sybil asked, "if a child were to do anything very
+dreadful to a parent in China?"
+
+"If a son kill a parent, he is put to death, his house is torn down, his
+nearest neighbours are punished, and his schoolmaster is put to death;
+the magistrate of the district would also suffer, and the governor of
+the province would go down in rank."
+
+"How unfair!" Leonard exclaimed, "when only one person did it."
+
+"Why does all that happen?" Sybil asked.
+
+"To show how great the man's sin is. The schoolmaster is punished
+because it is thought that he did not bring up his pupil properly. Of
+course, it is very unfair, but the Chinese are often very cruel in their
+chastisments, and many criminals prefer death to some of the other
+punishments. A great many also suffer capital punishment; sometimes as
+many as ten thousand people in a year."
+
+"Then, when children do wrong, their parents and schoolmasters are
+blamed?"
+
+"Very often their faults are attributed to their bringing-up."
+
+"Oh! oughtn't we to be careful, then, Leonard? Fancy when we do wrong
+people blaming father or mother!"
+
+Leonard was then very anxious to hear more about Chinese punishments, so
+his father told him an occurrence that he had once witnessed.
+
+"A very usual way of punishing small offences," he began, "is by beating
+with a bamboo; and whenever a mandarin finds that any one, under his
+jurisdiction, has transgressed, he can use the bamboo. Parents use it on
+their children even when they are thirty years of age. The poor Chinese
+culprits used to be subject to very horrible tortures, such as having
+their fingers or ankles squeezed until they made confession; but I
+believe a good many of the worst tortures have now been done away with.
+One in common use is the canque, which is a collar made of heavy wood,
+with a hole in the centre for the head to come through. It is fastened
+round the neck, and is worn from one to three months, preventing its
+prisoner from lying down day or night. The captive remains in the street
+instead of in prison, and is dependent upon his friends to feed him."
+
+"What a shame!" Leonard said. "I'd like to be a magistrate in China, to
+put that sort of cruelty down."
+
+[Illustration: A CHINESE COURT OF LAW.]
+
+[Illustration: CHINESE PUNISHMENT.]
+
+"But now I am coming to a trial that I witnessed myself. I remember, as
+I went into the Provincial Criminal Court, one day, seeing the judge
+sitting behind a large table, covered with a red cloth. Secretaries,
+interpreters, and turnkeys stood at each end of the table, only the
+judge having a right to sit down. Soon after I arrived the prisoner was
+led in by a chain who immediately threw himself down on the ground
+before the judge. The crime brought against him was robbing an official
+of high rank. It was thought that he could not have committed the
+robbery alone, and was asked how it was effected, and who were his
+accomplices. He would not say. Then he was beaten; but still this
+brought no answer. Both an arm and a leg were then put into a board,
+which made it almost impossible for him either to walk, or sit, or
+stand. His poor back must have ached terribly; and while one man dragged
+him along by a chain, another held a whip to urge him forward.
+
+"And he had never committed the robbery after all, but gave himself up
+in place of his father, a man named Wang-Yangsui, who was really the
+culprit."
+
+Tears were in Sybil's eyes as she listened.
+
+[Illustration: POOR OLD WANG-YANGSUI IN THE CAGE.]
+
+"And he suffered all that?" she said.
+
+"Sons have been known to allow themselves to be transported to save
+their parents, and then only to have felt that they did their duty."
+
+"And in this case was the real culprit ever found out?"
+
+"Yes; the father, moved with compassion for his boy, gave himself up."
+
+"And did they not let him off," Leonard asked, "as the son had suffered
+so much for him?"
+
+"No; they put him into a cage in which were holes for his head and feet,
+but in which he could neither sit down nor stand upright. Round the cage
+was an inscription relating the nature of his crime."
+
+"How long was he left there?"
+
+"That I was not able to hear, but the day he was incarcerated I saw his
+daughter feeding him with chop-sticks. These, which consist of two
+sticks that people hold in the same hand wherewith to feed themselves,
+instead of knives and forks, the Chinese always use when they eat. She
+must have found it difficult to get to him, as she was carrying a
+basket, as well as a baby on her back, for she had small feet, and women
+with small feet cannot walk any distance, even without a load at all. It
+is not the rule for lower class girls to have their feet made small,
+though in some cases it is done. This woman had once been better off."
+
+"Why do Chinese ladies have small feet?" Leonard asked.
+
+"But, father," Sybil put in, "please tell us first what became of that
+poor old man. I am so sorry he stole."
+
+"I heard that great poverty had tempted him to do so, but that he
+afterwards bitterly repented of the crime which he had committed. How
+long he remained in the cage I was never able to ascertain; but I really
+think now that we must close our 'Peep-show' for to-day."
+
+"After we've heard about the small feet ladies, father. I think you have
+just time for that."
+
+"The feet of Chinese women would be no smaller than, perhaps not as
+small as, other women's feet, were they not compressed."
+
+"What does that mean?"
+
+"Made smaller by being pressed."
+
+"How painful it must be!"
+
+"So it is. When very young, a little girl's foot is tightly bandaged
+round, the end of the bandage being first laid on the inside of the
+foot, then carried round the toes, under the foot, and round the heel
+till the toes are drawn over the sole, in which an indentation becomes
+made and the instep swells out. After a time the foot is soaked in hot
+water, when some of the toes will occasionally drop off. Every time the
+bandage is taken away another is put on, and tied more tightly. For the
+first year there is, as we can imagine, dreadful pain, but after two
+years the foot will become dead and cease to ache. You can therefore
+understand that it is very uncomfortable for Chinese ladies to walk, and
+if they go any distance they are carried on the backs of their female
+slaves."
+
+"Are all Chinese parents so silly as to have their little girls' feet
+bandaged?"
+
+"A few are strong-minded enough to break through the rule, and all the
+Tartar ladies have natural feet. Anti-foot-binding societies have now
+been formed by the Chinese gentry in Canton and Amoy."
+
+"I wonder what made people first think of doing this?" Sybil said.
+
+"Some people think that it was first done to help husbands to keep their
+wives at home; others say that it was to copy an Empress who had a
+deformed foot which she bandaged; but whatever the reason may have
+been, we cannot but wish very, very strongly, that the cruel custom
+might be soon completely done away with!"
+
+"I shall like to see the ladies being carried on their slaves' backs,"
+Leonard said. "That will be fun!"
+
+"You will soon see it now," was his father's answer, "for we have been
+six weeks at sea, and the captain says we may expect to be at Shanghai
+in another ten days' time, so I think I had better not tell you any
+more, and let you find out the rest for yourselves."
+
+"I think we might have just one more 'Peep-show,'" Sybil replied, "and
+hear how we get our tea-leaves. I think we ought to know about that
+before we arrive."
+
+The missionary smiled, and the next time his children wanted a
+"Peep-show" very much, only a very little persuasion was required to
+make him sit down between them and let them have it.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE MERCHANT SHOWMAN.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"WELL, so it is to be about tea to-day," Mr. Graham at once began.
+"Supposing I do not know anything about it, though; what are we to do
+then? I know tea comes from an evergreen plant, something like a myrtle,
+but that isn't much information, is it? Wait a minute, though,
+children," he then went on, "and you shall have a proper lesson to-day."
+And as he spoke Mr. Graham disappeared, soon to return with a fellow
+passenger, a tea merchant, who would be the kind "show-man" for to-day.
+
+"How far did you get?" he asked, as he sat amongst the group of father,
+mother, and children, for Mrs. Graham had also come to "the show"
+to-day.
+
+"That tea was an evergreen plant, something like the myrtle," Sybil
+said, laughing; and all laughed with her.
+
+[Illustration: GATHERING TEA-LEAVES.]
+
+[Illustration: SIFTING TEA.]
+
+"Then I have it all to do, it seems. Well, the tea-plant yields a crop
+after it has been planted three years, and there are three gatherings
+during the year: one in the middle of April, the second at midsummer,
+and the third in August and September. I suppose it will do if we begin
+here. The plant requires very careful plucking, only one leaf being
+allowed to be gathered at a time; and then a tree must never be plucked
+too bare. Women and children, who are generally, though not always, the
+tea gatherers, are obliged to wash their hands before they begin their
+work, and have to understand that it is the medium-sized leaves which
+they have to pick, leaving the larger ones to gather the dew. When the
+baskets are full, into which the leaves have been dropped, they are
+carried away hanging to a bamboo slung across the shoulders, which is a
+very usual way of carrying things in China. The tea-plant is the most
+important vegetable production of the 'Flowery Land.' But as there are,
+you know, several kinds of tea, I think I had better tell you how that
+called Congou, which, I suppose, you generally drink yourselves, is
+prepared. The leaves are first spread out in the air to dry, after which
+they are trodden by labourers, so that any moisture remaining in them,
+after they have been exposed to the air or sun, may be pressed out;
+after this they are again heaped together, and covered for the night
+with cloths. In this state they remain all night, when a strange thing
+happens to them, spontaneous heating changing the green leaves to black
+or brown. They are now more fragrant and the taste has changed.
+
+"The next process is to twist and crumple the leaves, by rubbing them
+between the palms of the hands. In this crumpled state they are again
+put in the sun, or if the day be wet, or the sky threatening, they are
+baked over a charcoal fire.
+
+"Leaves, arranged in a sieve, are placed in the middle of a
+basket-frame, over a grate in which are hot embers of charcoal. After
+some one has so stirred the leaves that they have all become heated
+alike, they are ready to be sold to proprietors of tea-hongs in the
+towns, when the proprietor has the leaves again put over the fire and
+sifted.
+
+"After this, women and girls separate all the bad leaves and stems from
+the good ones; sitting, in order to do so, with baskets of leaves before
+them, and very carefully picking out with both their hands all the bad
+leaves and stems that the sieve has not got rid of. The light and
+useless leaves are then divided from those that are heavy and good, when
+the good are put into boxes lined with paper."
+
+"What is scented Caper Tea?" Mr Graham asked.
+
+"Oh, father! I am so glad that there's something you have to ask,"
+Leonard said, "as you seemed to know _everything_."
+
+[Illustration: SORTING TEA.]
+
+"The leaves of scented Orange Pekoe," the merchant answered, "obtain
+their fragrance by being mixed with the flowers of the Arabian
+jessamine, and when scented enough, they are separated from the flowers
+by sieves. Scented Caper Tea is made from some of the leaves of this
+Orange Pekoe.
+
+[Illustration: PRESSING BAGS OF TEA.]
+
+[Illustration: TEA-TASTING.]
+
+"Those leaves which are prepared at Canton are black or brown, with a
+slight tinge of yellow or green. The tea-leaves growing on an extensive
+range of hills in the district of Hokshan are often forwarded to
+Canton, where they are made into caper in the following manner. But I
+wonder if Leonard knows what 'shan' means?" the merchant interrupted. He
+did, for he had seen in his geography that "shan" meant mountain. "A
+tea-hong," the merchant continued, "is furnished with many pans, into
+which seventeen or eighteen handfuls of leaves are put. These are
+moistened with water, and stirred up by the hand. As soon as they are
+soft they are put into coarse bags, which, tightly fastened, look like
+large balls.
+
+[Illustration: WEIGHING TEA.]
+
+"These bags are moved backwards and forwards on the floor by men holding
+on to wooden poles, and standing upon them. In each bag the leaves take
+the form of pellets, or capers.
+
+"The coarse leaves, gathered from finer ones, thus made into Caper,
+after being well fired, are put into wooden troughs, and chopped into
+several pieces, and it is these pieces which become the tea which we
+call Caper."
+
+"Thank you very much," said Mr. Graham. "I did not know anything of
+this."
+
+"Tea-merchants are most particular, before buying and selling tea, to
+taste it and to test its quality.
+
+"And before it is shipped away it is also very carefully weighed, when I
+myself, I know, for instance, sit by, watching the process, and taking
+account of the result."
+
+"I suppose tea isn't ever sent about in wheel-barrows?" then said
+Leonard, who liked very much indeed the idea of wheel-barrows with sails
+up, such as he had heard about.
+
+[Illustration: GOING TO MARKET.]
+
+"I never saw it," was the merchant's reply; "but if you are interested
+in wheel-barrows, you might like to hear about one that I once saw in
+China. It was conveying not only goods, and the scales wherewith to
+weigh them, to market, but the family also to whom the goods belonged.
+The family party made a great impression upon me. The master of the
+barrow was pushing it from behind, a donkey was pulling it in front, and
+on the donkey rode a boy; a woman and two children were driven in the
+wheel-barrow, besides the goods for market. I thought the man and donkey
+must have a heavy load between them, but both seemed to work most
+cheerfully and willingly; and a sail in the centre of the wheel-barrow,
+gathering the full force of the wind, must have been a great help to
+them.
+
+"The donkey was guided by no reins, only by the voice of the boy on his
+back, who carried a stick, but had no occasion to use it, although every
+now and then he just raised it in the air. Sometimes the boy ran beside
+the donkey. Anyhow suited the willing little beast, who was as anxious
+as his master to do his best. A dog completed the number of the party.
+
+"The man told me that he was truly fond of this dog, and gave him
+'plenty chow-chow' (plenty to eat), and that he considered he owed all
+his wealth to him, as he had once come to the house, and had since then
+remained with the family.
+
+"A strange dog coming to, and remaining at, a house is looked upon by
+the Chinese as bringing good luck to the family, but a strange cat
+coming is a bad omen."
+
+The children laughed.
+
+"This man certainly treated his dog very well, as do some few of his
+countrymen; but, alas! alas! so many poor little faithful dogs in China,
+as in other countries, lead anything but happy lives!"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+LITTLE CHU AND WOO-URH.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+NO more story Peep-shows of what might be seen in China, no more
+wondering what the Celestials would be like, for Sybil and Leonard had
+now landed on Chinese soil, and were themselves at Shanghai, face to
+face with its inhabitants.
+
+Shanghai seemed, and was, a very busy place, but not a town of very
+great importance in itself, owing, really, its recent prosperity to
+having opened its port to foreign commerce. The custom-house, through
+which the Grahams' boxes had to be passed, struck the children as a
+very strange and beautiful building, quite different from anything that
+they had seen before; and there was a great noise of chattering going on
+outside, which sounded most unintelligible. Coolies were carrying bales
+of silk and tea to and fro; there were also, ready at hand, some of the
+sedan-chairs that Sybil had longed to see, and everywhere "pig-tails,"
+or cues, as they were called, seemed to meet Leonard's gaze.
+
+But the ships! Watching them was what he enjoyed better than anything
+else. The town of Shanghai is situated on the River Woosung, a tributary
+of the Yangtse-kiang, just at that point where it joins the great river,
+and about one hundred ships were anchored before this busy, commercial
+city. Many families resident there have their junks and a little home on
+the river. There were some very pretty buildings to be seen at Shanghai,
+and at one of these our little party stayed--on a visit to another
+missionary from the Church of England--for the three days that they
+remained there.
+
+At some cities and towns, on the banks of rivers, floating hotels are to
+be seen; and as people generally have to travel by water, and the
+Chinese are not allowed to keep open their city-gates after nine o'clock
+at night, these hotels prove very useful to those arriving too late to
+enter the city. Lighted with lanterns, they look very pretty floating on
+the water, and both Sybil and Leonard were very pleased to be taken over
+a large floating hotel before they left Shanghai. Leonard was very
+anxious to know how long this town had been open to foreign commerce,
+and was told since the Opium War, which lasted from 1840 to 1842, when
+the British, having occupied several Chinese cities, and having
+captured Chinkiang in Hoopeh, were advancing to Nanking, and the Chinese
+suing for peace, a treaty was concluded which opened the ports of Amoy,
+Foochow, Shanghai, and Ningpo, in addition to Canton, to the British,
+who were henceforward to appoint consuls to live in these towns.
+
+The Chinese are very polite to foreigners in Shanghai; and as the kind
+missionary who bade the Grahams welcome to his home endeavoured, during
+their short stay, to interest and show them sights, they enjoyed
+themselves very much. Sybil and Leonard could not help noticing how very
+many people they met in spectacles, but they were told that the Chinese
+suffer very much from ophthalmia, and that when they wear spectacles,
+some of which are very large, they often have sore eyes.
+
+"There is one thing I cannot understand the Chinese doing," Leonard said
+one day to Sybil: "and that is, everybody that we have seen, as yet,
+spoiling their tea by not taking any milk or sugar in it; and father
+says all the Chinese drink tea like that, and call milk white blood, and
+only use it in medicine."
+
+"Tea like that would not suit us," Sybil answered, "as we like plenty of
+both milk and sugar; but I dare say they think we spoil our tea by
+putting such things into it."
+
+A visit to some rice-fields, a little sight-seeing, a little more
+watching of ships carrying rice and other products away, and then it was
+time for the Grahams once more to take their seats on board.
+
+[Illustration: THE CUSTOM-HOUSE, SHANGHAI.]
+
+We can imagine how both children strained their eyes, as they steamed
+farther and farther away from Shanghai, to see what that port looked
+like in the distance, and how Sybil examined her map as they left the
+province of Kiang-su, to see at what port, and in what province, they
+would next touch.
+
+This was Ningpo, in Che-kiang, but they did not land here; neither did
+they go on shore at their next halting-place, Foochow, in the province
+of Fu-kien. It was at Amoy, in the same province, where their father had
+a missionary friend, who had invited them to pay him a few days' or a
+week's visit, as would suit them best, that they next purposed landing,
+and this they did about four days after they left Shanghai.
+
+"Whoever thought," Sybil said one day on board, "that we should actually
+be on the Yellow Sea ourselves? It seems almost too good to be true
+now."
+
+"I never knew people like to stare more at anybody than they seem to
+like to stare at us here," Leonard thought to himself when first at
+Amoy.
+
+He and Sybil were then being very carefully observed by a group of
+natives of that place, but Leonard had yet to become accustomed to being
+stared at in China.
+
+"And, father," he said later, "I wonder why so many of them wear
+turbans? I did not notice people doing this at Shanghai."
+
+[Illustration: A FLOATING HOTEL AT SHANGHAI.]
+
+Mr. Graham did not know the reason of this either; but he and Leonard
+were later informed that the men of Amoy adopted the turban to hide the
+tail when they were made to wear it by their conquerors, and that they
+never gave it up. Leonard was also told that they were good soldiers,
+which, he said, he thought they looked. One thing remarkable about the
+people of Amoy was that the different families seemed to consist
+almost entirely of boys. A great many of the inhabitants were very poor,
+living crowded together in dirty houses very barely furnished. Mrs.
+Graham had not to be long in China to discover that cleanliness is not a
+Chinese virtue. Sybil bought some very pretty artificial flowers of some
+of the inhabitants of Amoy, which they had themselves made. They
+manufactured them principally, she heard, to be placed on graves.
+
+[Illustration: THE PORT OF SHANGHAI.]
+
+Like other Chinese, these people were very superstitious. Here and there
+large blocks of granite were to be met with, which were regarded by them
+with reverence, and looked upon as good divinities. On one the Grahams
+saw inscriptions, which related some history of the place.
+
+Granite seemed to abound here, for the temples and monasteries were, for
+the most part, erected on the heights between rocks of this description.
+
+Two days after reaching Amoy, Sybil was dreadfully distressed, and
+shocked, to see a little girl named Chu, of eleven years old, put up for
+sale by her own parents. At ten dollars (L1) only was she valued; and
+for this paltry sum the parents were ready to sell her to any one who
+would bid it for her. They were very poor, and could not afford to keep
+her any longer. She had four sisters and only two brothers; the youngest
+of all, the baby, was to be drowned by her father, later on in the day,
+in a tub of water. They had never done anything like this before: this
+man and woman had never killed a child, although they had had five
+girls, and many of their neighbours had thought nothing of destroying
+most of their daughters so soon as they were born; but now, as the man
+was ill, and able to earn so little, they had resolved to rid themselves
+of two of them that day. If the baby lived, the mother comforted herself
+by saying, she must be sold later, or grow up in poverty and misery.
+
+Parents think it very necessary that their children should marry, and
+sometimes sell, or give them away, to their friends, when they are quite
+little, to be the future wives of the sons of their new owners.
+
+If sold, they will then fetch about two dollars for every year that they
+have lived; so a child of five years old would fetch ten dollars; and
+this little girl, put up for sale, was now eleven years old; therefore
+she was being offered, poor little thing, below half price. And some
+little girls of Amoy have been even offered for sale for a few pence!
+
+[Illustration: A FAMILY OF AMOY.]
+
+It seemed incomprehensible to Sybil, as it must to us, that a mother
+could wish either to kill or to sell her little child, but neither the
+one nor the other event is uncommon in some parts of China, where the
+parent is poor; and even amongst the well-to-do classes little girls are
+sometimes put to death, if the parents have more daughters than they
+care to rear, not only at Amoy, but at other places in the
+neighbourhood; and even Chinese ladies will sometimes have their poor
+little daughters put to death.
+
+"Why do people not kill their boys too?" Sybil asked, when she heard all
+about this.
+
+[Illustration: THE MISSIONARY'S TEACHER.]
+
+"Because when they grow up they can earn money that girls could not
+earn; and not only can they help to support their parents when old, but
+they can worship their ancestral tablets and keep up the family name."
+
+"I am sure a girl would do this too."
+
+"Her doing so would be considered of little use."
+
+[Illustration: A VIEW OF AMOY, WITH A BLOCK OF GRANITE IN THE
+FOREGROUND.]
+
+It seemed that the very day before Mr. Graham arrived in Amoy, a widow
+lady there had had her little baby girl destroyed, and then, in her
+widow's dress, had sat down quietly to talk matters over with her
+sister-in-law, who thought that she had acted very wisely. Killing a
+daughter, in China, is hardly looked upon as being sinful. A widow's
+mourning consists of all white and a band round the head, white being
+Chinese deepest mourning.
+
+[Illustration: LADIES OF AMOY.]
+
+[Illustration: LITTLE CHU.]
+
+Whilst Mr. Graham stood by, a purchaser for little Chu stepped forward,
+holding the ten dollars in his hand; but the missionary was before him,
+and through a teacher, whom he had already been able to engage, offered
+the father twice that sum not to sell the little girl at all, but to let
+him have her for a servant. He hesitated, as though he would rather sell
+his child right off to any Chinaman than trust her to a foreign
+"barbarian." But the sum tempted him; and although he could not
+understand how receiving it did not give Chu altogether to her
+purchaser, he seemed to be contented, especially when the teacher
+explained that she would not be a slave, but would be paid for what work
+she did. Little Chu was well off to have stepped into so happy a
+service, and the baby was rescued also. A certain sum was to be paid
+weekly to the father, towards her support, until he recovered his
+health, if he would only spare her; and both parents, who really fondly
+loved their children, were very glad to spare their baby, fifth girl
+though she was. Her name was Woo-Urh, which means fifth girl.
+
+It did not take long to have little Chu tidily dressed, with money that
+her new master supplied, and her poor mother, who had some beads stowed
+away, now looked them out and also put these on her. Chu was only eleven
+years old, but poverty and care had given the little one an old
+expression beyond her years. Chinese children of from ten to sixteen
+years of age--about which time they are supposed to marry--have a fringe
+cut over their foreheads, and Chu wore this fringe now. It has to grow
+again before they marry.
+
+That evening Chu was sent round to Mr. Graham's brother missionary's
+house, where, as Sybil's little maid, she was housed for the two or
+three days longer that they would spend at Amoy; and though Chu had come
+to live with foreigners, in the family of a "barbarian," as her father
+thought, we can well imagine that she had never been so happy in her
+life. Mr. Graham had told her parents that when they reached Hong-Kong
+he should send her to the mission school.
+
+"And the father would have killed the baby himself!" said Sybil. "How
+could he have done so?"
+
+"That is the marvel; but it is generally the fathers who commit the
+deed; other people might be punished if they interfered."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+LEONARD'S EXPLOIT IN FORMOSA.
+
+
+ABOUT the middle of November, eleven weeks after Mr. Graham and his
+family had left England, they arrived in the beautiful island of
+Formosa, whither they had crossed over from Amoy.
+
+Three more persons were now added to the travelling party--the teacher,
+a Chinese maid, and little Chu, the latter having already begun to show
+herself really useful.
+
+[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO THE PORT OF TAKOW.]
+
+There is but little fun in travelling, and one does not see half there
+is to be seen unless one climbs; and as the Grahams were all bent on
+having fun and seeing as much as they could, on reaching the port of
+Takow, in Formosa, they ascended a very high mountain, called Monkey
+Mountain, because it is the home of very many monkeys, and they were
+rewarded by having, from its height, a capital view of the entrance to
+the port. To the front of the mountain were some European houses,
+belonging to English merchants from Amoy. The port of Takow is a very
+difficult one at which to anchor, and is closed for commerce during six
+months of the year, whilst the wind is blowing in an adverse direction;
+but when the wind and tide are favourable, barks pass between some rocks
+at the entrance to the port. It is only at the north that the water is
+deep enough for merchant-ships to pass by. Here Leonard saw men fishing
+quite differently from what he had ever seen people fish before; and as
+they walked in the water behind their nets, which they seemed to manage
+very cleverly, he wished so much that he could have been there with
+them.
+
+Takow is one of the four ports in Formosa which, through treaties, have
+been thrown open to foreign trade, the others being those of Kelung,
+Tamsui, and Taiwan-fu.
+
+[Illustration: THE EXTREME NORTH OF TAKOW.]
+
+Formosa, as its name implies, is a very lovely, picturesque island, and
+the Spaniards, who first made it known to Europeans, named it "Isla
+Formosa," which, in their language, means "beautiful island." Takow
+seemed to abound in tropical vegetation, palm-trees being very
+conspicuous. The gong, used everywhere in China, was much in use here
+also; and as in other places men carried things by balancing them across
+their shoulders, so also they did here. But as Mr. Graham's special
+object in coming to this island was to visit Poahbi, the first centre of
+the population of a tribe of aborigines, whom the Chinese have named
+Pepohoans, or strangers of the plain, he moved on thither as quickly as
+he could. The country through which they now passed was very beautiful,
+palm-trees and bamboos overshadowing the way.
+
+[Illustration: FISHERMEN OF TAKOW.]
+
+Although it was the month of November, the weather was hot here, and
+women, wearing white calico dresses, were hard at work in the fields.
+Many of the women of Formosa had compressed feet, and most of the
+children wore charms round their necks.
+
+The Pepohoans used to live in fertile plains, but when greedy and
+grasping Chinese drove them from the rich and beautiful lands that were
+then theirs, and had belonged to their ancestors before them, they took
+shelter, and made themselves homes, in mountain fastnesses.
+
+Sybil and Leonard were charmed with the people of Poahbi, and thought
+both their faces and manners very pretty. Although some of the people
+stared at the foreigners, and laughed at them, many wished to make them
+welcome in their midst. One woman gave them shelter for the night--a
+very kind-hearted woman, with a dear little baby, and a very clean and
+comfortable home. She was a Christian.
+
+At Poahbi Mr. Graham saw a little Christian chapel, which the natives
+had not only built, but which they also kept up, themselves. Pepohoans
+are good builders, and do also much work in the fields. They have a most
+affectionate remembrance of the Dutch, who were once their masters, but
+who were afterwards expelled from Formosa by a Chinese pirate.
+
+[Illustration: VIEW OF TAKOW, A TOWN IN FORMOSA.]
+
+The huts, or bamboo cottages, of the Pepohoans, raised on terraces three
+or four feet high, looked very picturesque, and consisted first of a
+framework of bamboo, through which crossbars of reeds were run; the
+whole being thickly covered over with clay. The houses were afterwards
+whitened with lime. A barrier of prickly stems extended round the huts,
+throwing a shade over them, whilst these dwellings often had for roofing
+a thatch of dried leaves. Most things in Formosa were made of bamboo,
+such as tables, chairs, beds, pails, rice-measures, jars, hats, pipes,
+chop-sticks, goblets, paper, and pens. Many of the Pepohoans'
+habitations were built on three sides of a four-cornered spot, with a
+yard in the centre, where the families sometimes passed their evenings
+together. The natives assembled here, in numbers, at about nine o'clock,
+where they made a fire when it was cold. Old and young people here often
+formed a circle on the ground, sitting together with their arms crossed,
+smoking, and talking. It was not unusual for dogs also to surround them.
+These people were fond of singing, but played no musical instruments.
+Sybil said, directly she saw them, that they were just the sort of
+people she liked, but this was before she heard that they ate serpents
+and rats. The women had a quantity of hair, which they wound round their
+heads like crowns. None of them painted their faces. Some of the men
+were very badly dressed. All Pepohoans seemed to have very beautiful
+black eyes. In the different villages the inhabitants were different,
+and where they had most contact with the Chinese they dressed better,
+but were less affable. They seemed to be a very honest race.
+
+The Pepohoans are subject to the Chinese Government. Some of them, like
+the Chinese, have been ruined by opium. The aborigines, consisting of
+different tribes, talk different dialects. The people of one tribe, the
+most savage of all, are very warlike, and think nothing of killing and
+eating their Chinese neighbours when they get the chance to do so;
+therefore, they are held in great terror. Sybil and Leonard would not
+have liked to have visited this tribe, for they also hate Europeans.
+
+[Illustration: MOUNTAINEERS OF FORMOSA.]
+
+There was a grandness of beauty in this island of Formosa which could
+not fail, more and more, to charm Mrs. Graham, and many a pretty sketch
+did she here make, both for herself and for Sybil's letters. Sybil also
+liked being here very much; "but if she had only seen," Leonard said,
+what he and his father saw one day, when they went for a ramble
+through the mountains, whilst Sybil was helping her mother to sketch by
+keeping her company, and making clever little attempts at sketching
+herself, "she would want to be off that very moment."
+
+There were caverns in Formosa, and they were walking along, exploring
+some, Leonard some little way in front of Mr. Graham, the teacher, and a
+native guide, who followed a few yards behind, when the English boy
+suddenly caught sight of two huge, yellow serpents twined round the
+branch of an overhanging tree. No one but Leonard was near enough to see
+them, and as the first creature stretched its dreadful-looking head out,
+hissing towards him, the brave, self-possessed little fellow, who held a
+stick in his hand, struck his deadly foe with it with all his might, and
+hit and aimed so well that he had the satisfaction, the next moment, of
+seeing the serpent roll over and over down the rock. But then the
+further one (which, although rather smaller than the other, measured
+about six feet) wound, in a moment, its wriggling body round the branch
+of the tree, stretching its head out almost within reach of Leonard,
+when the boy-guide and Mr. Graham, the same instant, came upon the spot.
+The boy, accustomed to such encounters, at once dealt the snake a blow,
+that caused it to lose its balance, and thus all were able to pass on
+their way in thankfulness and safety.
+
+When Sybil heard of the adventure she was very proud of her little
+brother; but, as he had imagined when she heard that Formosa was
+inhabited by serpents, she was glad also to think that it was settled
+for them to leave that island for Swatow in two days' time.
+
+[Illustration: PEPOHOANS AND THEIR HUT.]
+
+That evening was spent very pleasantly comparing notes of adventure
+with an English gentleman, who had been in Formosa for some time, and
+now called upon Mr. Graham and his family, who were staying at the
+consul's. He had seen and done a good deal, he said, but he spoke very
+highly of Leonard's brave exploit.
+
+[Illustration: HUT OF ONE OF THE SAVAGE TRIBES.]
+
+In the course of his wanderings, he told them, he had visited the
+village of Lalung, which is situated on the narrowest part of a large
+river. During the rainy season the waters would here rise and cover a
+vast bed, opening out a new passage across the land, and flowing away
+towards the eastern plain. Great mountain heights surrounded the bed of
+the river, and the violence of the torrent carried away very large
+quantities of all sorts of rubbish, which the sea would collect, and
+deposit, along the eastern coast. Mr. Hardy explained to Leonard how
+this would account for the port of Thai-ouan disappearing, and that of
+Takow forming lower down.
+
+[Illustration: SERPENTS OF FORMOSA.]
+
+[Illustration: THE BED OF THE RIVER LALUNG DURING THE DRY SEASON.]
+
+"Formosa," he continued, "shows very plainly how the violence of waters
+can quite transform the physical aspect of a country."
+
+Mr. Hardy then told them that he, with a guide, had once visited the bed
+of the river of Lalung, during the dry season, as an explorer, when he
+had taken off his boots and socks, so as to be able to walk wherever he
+chose, and fathom the depth of the water in different parts.
+
+How Leonard wished he had been with him on this occasion, which seemed
+to him a regular voyage of discovery!
+
+Two days later, as arranged, the Grahams made sail for Swatow. In
+crossing the channel, which separates the island from the mainland,
+Leonard, as usual, had some questions to ask.
+
+"What made the Chinese call Formosa Tai-wan?"
+
+"Because that word means the terraced harbour."
+
+"The east coast hasn't a harbour at all, has it?"
+
+"No; mountains are on the east, and to the west are flat and fertile
+plains, and all the ports."
+
+"I suppose you know, Sybil, that there are some wild beasts in Formosa?"
+Leonard went on.
+
+"Yes, I heard Mr. Hardy say so: leopards, tigers, and wolves."
+
+"I think it's my turn to ask a question now," Mrs. Graham said. "I
+wonder if you and Sybil can tell me what grows principally in Formosa?"
+
+"Rice," Sybil began, "sugar, wheat, beans, tea, coffee, pepper."
+
+"Cotton, tobacco, silk, oranges, peaches, and plums," Leonard ended. "We
+saw most of these things growing ourselves, so we ought to know."
+
+"Yes; and flax, indigo, camphor, and many fruits that you have not
+mentioned."
+
+"The Chinese part of the island, I suppose, belongs to Fukien?" Sybil
+said, "as it is painted the same colour on my map."
+
+"Yes."
+
+What religion had the aborigines? she then wanted to know.
+
+Mr. Graham answered this question by telling her that he believed they
+had no priesthood at all.
+
+"What a pity it is," Sybil said, "that a number of missionaries could
+not be sent out there. I do so like the Pepohoans!"
+
+"How long is it now since the Dutch were driven away?" Leonard asked.
+"And how long were they in Formosa?"
+
+"About 1634 the Dutch took possession of the island, and built several
+forts, but a Chinese pirate drove them out in 1662, and made himself
+king of the western part. In 1683 his descendants submitted to the
+authority of the Chinese Emperor, to whom they are now tributary. The
+Chinese colonists, however, often rebel."
+
+"People have not known very long, have they, that the island of Formosa
+is important?"
+
+"No; only since about 1852."
+
+"About how many inhabitants has Thai-ouan, the capital?" Leonard asked.
+
+"I should think about 70,000, but it is now decreasing in population."
+
+"How much you know, father," Sybil said. "I wish I knew all you did!"
+
+"I am afraid that is not very much; but if you notice things that you
+come across, and try to remember what you hear and what you read, you
+will soon gain plenty of knowledge and useful information."
+
+[Illustration: SWATOW.]
+
+"I wonder what Swatow is like?" Leonard then said; but he had not long
+to wait to find out, for a week after leaving Formosa they landed at
+Swatow, the port of Chaou-Chou-foo, in the province of Kwang-tung, where
+once again, for a fortnight, they were made very welcome: this time by
+some friends of the missionary with whom they had stayed at Amoy.
+
+[Illustration: E-CHUNG.]
+
+Their home, for the present, was very prettily situated on a range of
+low hills. Many pieces of granite were scattered about on the summit of
+these hills, as they were about Amoy, which some people say have been
+caused to appear through volcanic irruptions. On them also were Chinese
+inscriptions. Leonard was delighted because the Chinese teacher cut his
+name on one of these pieces of granite. The houses of Swatow were built
+with a kind of mortar, made of China clay, and attached to some of them
+were very pretty gardens.
+
+In front of the Consulate, which was a very large building, was a
+flag-staff, with a flag flying.
+
+[Illustration: WOMAN OF SWATOW.]
+
+The ceilings of the house, in which the Grahams stayed, was painted with
+flowers and birds, and some of the windows were also painted so as to
+look like open fans. The Chinese are fond of decorating their rooms and
+painting their ornaments, and the people of Swatow seemed to be better
+painters than the Chinese; but they kept their pictures hidden, only a
+very few of them producing any to show our friends. The people of Swatow
+are also noted for fan-painting.
+
+Sybil thought some of the women of Swatow rather nice-looking, but, like
+other ladies of the "Flowery Land," they had a wonderful way of dressing
+their hair. One woman, Leonard declared, had hers done to represent a
+large shell. A young lady, to whom Sybil was introduced, had the
+thickest hair that she had ever seen. She and other Chinese girls wore
+it hanging down their backs in twists. She was just fifteen, and Sybil
+was told that she was going to be married in about a year's time, so she
+would soon have to begin to let her fringe grow. She was the daughter of
+a rich man, and had such pretty, dark eyes.
+
+Round a girl's and woman's head, or to fasten up her back hair,
+ornaments are generally worn. E-Chung wore rather a large one round her
+head. Sybil was allowed to spend an afternoon, and take some tea, with
+this young lady, but they could not talk much together. E-Chung knew,
+and spoke, a little of what is called pidgin, or business English,
+because many business, or shop, people and those who mix most with the
+English, speak this strange language to them; but Sybil could understand
+hardly any of it. Before E-Chung heard that Sybil had a brother, she
+said to her, "You one piecee chilo?" meaning to ask if she were the only
+child. Then she was trying to describe somebody to Sybil whose
+appearance did not please her, so she made an ugly grimace and said,
+"That number one ugly man all-same so fashion," meaning "just like
+this." Another time she meant to ask Sybil if she were not very rich, so
+she said, "You can muchee money?"
+
+The hair down Sybil's back was such a contrast to her friend's, as was
+also her rather pale complexion. E-Chung wished very much to enamel
+Sybil's face, as she did her own, and could not understand why she
+should so persistently refuse to have it done.
+
+Chinese ladies seldom do without their rouge, and often keep their
+amahs, or maids, from three to four hours at a time doing their hair.
+
+[Illustration: SYBIL.]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE BOAT POPULATION.
+
+
+MR. GRAHAM had thought of visiting Chaou-chou, a very fertile city on
+the river Han, but was advised not to do so, as foreigners are disliked
+by its inhabitants; and he was therefore told that they might have cause
+to regret going thither. It used not to be an uncommon thing for these
+people to greet an Englishman with a shower of stones. People have tried
+to establish an English consulate there, but have not succeeded,
+although the city is open to foreign commerce; and Jui Lin, the late
+viceroy of Canton, succeeded in making people in the neighbourhood much
+more orderly.
+
+A very large bridge crosses the Han River at this place, a picture of
+which the teacher had, and showed to the children. It is made of stone,
+and composed of many arches, or rather square gateways, under which
+ships pass to and fro. On the bridge, on each side of the causeway, are
+houses and shops.
+
+[Illustration: THE BRIDGE OF CHAOU CHOU.]
+
+"I should not care much to live in them," said Leonard.
+
+Nor would the teacher, he replied; for they did not look, and were not
+supposed to be, at all safe.
+
+[Illustration: ARCH OF THE BRIDGE OF CHAOU-CHOU.]
+
+Two pieces of wood are suspended between the arches, which the
+inhabitants take up in the day-time and let down at night, to prevent,
+as they say, evil spirits passing under their homes and playing them
+tricks.
+
+It was a very happy fortnight that was spent at Swatow, and Sybil was
+sorry to leave this port to go on to Hong-Kong. Somehow, although they
+were not going to settle down now, and had still Macao and Canton to
+visit, it seemed like bringing the end nearer--going much nearer to it,
+when they went to Hong-Kong even for a few days, for there her parents
+were to be left behind when she and Leonard returned to England. This
+English colony, the little island of Hong-Kong, about eight miles in
+length, is separated from the mainland by a very narrow strait, in the
+midst of a number of small islands.
+
+[Illustration: CHINESE BOAT-CHILDREN.]
+
+The Bishop of Hong-Kong had kindly invited Mr. Graham and his family to
+stay at his residence, St. Paul's College, during the few days that they
+now remained at Hong-Kong, before continuing their tour and returning to
+settle down, and the kind invitation had been gladly and gratefully
+accepted.
+
+[Illustration: CHAIR-MEN OF HONG-KONG.]
+
+The missionary's party landed in a boat, or rather, in a floating house,
+for the people to whom it belonged lived here, and it was their only
+home.
+
+The children had heard that there were so many inhabitants in China
+that for very many of them there was no house accommodation, and that
+these lived in boats, and were called the boat population; and Leonard
+was delighted to be travelling in one of these house-boats himself, and
+seeing the homes of the boat people. Their very little children were
+tied to doors, and other parts of the boat, by long ropes. Those who
+were three or four years old had floats round their backs, so that if
+they fell overboard they would not sink, and their parents could jump in
+after them. Most care seemed to be taken of the boys. Instead of being
+dedicated to "Mother," boat-children, soon after they are born, are
+dedicated to Kow-wong, or Nine Kings, and for three days and nights
+before they marry, which ceremony takes place in the middle of the
+night, Taouist priests chant prayers to the Kow-wong.
+
+The boats in which live the Taouist priests, for the boat population,
+are called Nam-Mo-Teng. These are anchored in certain parts, that the
+priests may be sent for when needed. Their boats look partly like
+temples, and have altars and idols, also incense burning within them.
+The names of the priests who live there, and the rites they perform, are
+written up in the boats. The boat people can have everything they
+require without going on shore at all. There are even river barbers and
+policemen, which latter are very necessary, considering that there are
+so many pirates.
+
+[Illustration: A PORTRAIT-PAINTER OF HONG-KONG.]
+
+It seemed strange to Sybil and Leonard to think that boat-children never
+went on shore, might never do so, and would even marry on board their
+boat homes; but it did not seem at all strange to the little children
+themselves, who played about on board quite as happily as did children
+on shore. They looked strong, and seemed to be fond of one another. One
+woman going along was very angry with one of her children, and for a
+punishment threw him into the water, but he had a float on his back,
+and was quickly brought back again. These women often carry their
+children on their backs, but this is a most usual way of carrying
+children in China, both amongst the land and water people.
+
+Sybil had already often had her wish fulfilled, of travelling in
+sedan-chairs, and as that is the regular mode of travelling in
+Hong-Kong, directly they arrived here coolies were to be seen, standing
+and sitting, on the pier beside their chairs, waiting for a fare. Very
+eager they seemed to be to secure either people or their baggage. And
+Sybil liked being borne along in these chairs even better than she had
+expected.
+
+The sedans were made of bamboo, covered with oil-cloth, and carried on
+long poles. A great many sedan-chair-bearers have no fixed homes, living
+day and night in the open air, and buying their food at stalls on the
+road. They take care to keep their chairs in very good condition, ready
+to hire out whenever they are needed. Leonard was charmed with his
+bearers. They spoke such funny pigeon English to him, and made him
+wonder why they would put "ee" to the end of so many of their words.
+When Leonard once wished to speak to his father, who was on in front,
+and succeeded in making his bearers understand this, one of them said
+"My no can catchee." They admired the boy very much, and wanted to
+persuade him to let them carry him one day to a "handsome
+face-taking-man," but he could not understand at all, at first, that
+they wanted him to let them carry him somewhere to have his portrait
+taken. "My likee," one said, pointing to Leonard's face, "welly much."
+The Chinese do not paint pictures very well, and sometimes, instead of a
+brush, will use their fingers and nails.
+
+[Illustration: VIEW OF HONG-KONG.]
+
+The chair-men called Leonard "Captain" several times, which seemed to be
+a common way of addressing strange "gentlemen."
+
+They then asked him how Mr. Turner was, but he shook his head to show
+that he knew nobody of this name. They either did not understand or
+believe him.
+
+"He hab got London-side," they explained.
+
+Thinking that if he tacked a double "e" on to all his words he would be
+speaking the language they talked so much, he said "No-ee know-ee," and
+shook his head again. I think it was the expression on his face, and the
+shake of his head, which made them understand at last what he wished to
+say to them.
+
+It seems that the natives of Hong-Kong, as well as other parts of China,
+think that every Englishman must know every other Englishman; having,
+indeed, such very small ideas of our important country, that they really
+think our wealth consists in our possessing Hong-Kong.
+
+[Illustration: THE CLOCK TOWER, HONG-KONG.]
+
+The first view that the Grahams had of this little island was a chain of
+mountains rising in the background to lofty peaks, and diminishing as
+they approached the sea into small hills and steep rocks. Not so very
+long ago, Sybil was told, Hong-Kong used to be a deserted island, though
+it now contained flower-gardens, orchards, woods, large trees, beautiful
+grass slopes, and very many buildings. The English town of Victoria was
+built along the sea-coast. As Hong-Kong belongs to Great Britain, the
+Government here was, of course, English; there were Christian temples,
+as well as Buddhist, and many European edifices were conspicuous in the
+Chinese streets. Then there were also large European club-houses, and,
+best of all, the Cathedral. The sea-shore stretched round towards a
+very beautiful port, which opened out to the west by a pass called
+Lyce-moun, and to the east by the Lama Pass.
+
+"I do think, do you know, Leonard," Sybil said, as she wished her
+brother "Good-night" the evening after they had arrived at Hong-Kong,
+"that China is rather a 'Flowery Land' after all. I do not think I shall
+ever forget Formosa, at all events."
+
+"We have seen pretty sights since we came to China," Leonard said,
+agreeing with his sister.
+
+The next day Sybil and he were taken into the Queen's Road, which
+crossed the town from west to east, to the right of which was a regular
+labyrinth of streets, some leading into very fine roads. In one part of
+Hong-Kong nothing but shops and houses of business were to be seen. One
+of its principal ornaments was the tall clock-tower, which made even
+high trees beside it look quite small.
+
+The most ancient houses of the colony are in a street that leads to the
+clock-tower, and close by it is also the hotel of Hong-Kong. Into this
+Sybil and Leonard were taken to have some tiffin, or lunch, whilst their
+sedans and bearers waited for them not far off, under some trees.
+
+Leonard took a good view afterwards of a man in a turban whom they
+passed, because, as he was so important a person as a policeman, he
+thought Sybil might like to describe him in one of her letters, and she
+might perhaps forget what he was like.
+
+Sybil had, as yet, only written one of her promised letters, but this
+had been full of news, and had told of rides in sedan-chairs, little Chu
+and Woo-urh, and all sorts of things; and before they moved on to
+Macao, she had determined to write another letter, and tell of Leonard
+saving himself from the serpent, and what they saw in Hong-Kong. This
+seemed to be a very busy place. Steamers were always either coming or
+going; and here, too, telegrams were constantly arriving. Besides
+English merchants, Chinese, American, French, German, Hindoo merchants,
+and others also traded with the little island, and shared what wealth
+she had. Hong-Kong is very English-looking, compared with other places
+in China, and the people are not only governed by English laws, but
+their crimes are tried by English judges. But even at Canton, Shanghai,
+and other ports where the English have settlements, they now claim, and
+have a voice in trials for crime. It is only because Hong-Kong belongs
+to the English that telegraph-wires are to be found there, as the
+Chinese will not have them anywhere else, because they think that they
+would offend the ghosts, or spirits, of the places through which they
+would pass. For the same reason also the Chinese have hardly any
+railroads. Even children could easily recognise here the introduction of
+English ways and manners.
+
+Lily Keith was very fond of shopping, therefore in her next letter Sybil
+not only gave an account of Leonard's bravery, of which she was really
+more proud than Leonard himself, but also described a visit that she had
+paid to some shops.
+
+          "We went to some of the best of all the shops in
+          Hong-Kong to-day," she wrote, "and as we were
+          going into the door of one, the proprietor came to
+          meet us. Father said he was a merchant. He spoke
+          English, and was very grandly dressed in silk, and
+          wore worked shoes. His shopmen also wore very
+          handsome clothes, and served us standing behind
+          beautifully polished counters. In one part of the
+          shop were all kinds of silk materials, and some
+          stuff called grass-matting. We went down-stairs to
+          see furniture and beautiful porcelain. The
+          principal curiosities had come from Canton, so I
+          suppose when we get there we shall find still
+          better things; and in Canton people paint on that
+          pretty rice paper. Across the road were meat,
+          fish, vegetable, and puppy-dog shops. Yes, the
+          Chinese do eat dogs: in some shops in Hong-Kong we
+          have seen a number for sale; and they eat cats and
+          rats too. We could tell a shop in which clothes
+          were sold some little distance off, because an
+          imitation jacket, or something of that sort, was
+          hung up outside, as well as the long sign-boards,
+          which told what kind of shops they were. Leonard
+          says I am to tell you that a policeman was
+          outside. He always knows policemen now by turbans
+          that they wear, and they often hold a little cane
+          in their hands; and on the pathway a man sat,
+          wearing a hat just like one of those funny-looking
+          things, with a point, that we wore for fun
+          sometimes in the garden. There are no windows to
+          the shops.
+
+[Illustration: TEMPLE OF KWAN-YIN.]
+
+          "Oh! but some of the Chinese do believe such
+          strange things. The other day our amah told
+          Leonard and me to chatter our teeth three times
+          and blow. We could not understand what she meant
+          us to do until she did it first. We had heard a
+          crow caw, so she thought if we did not do this
+          afterwards we should be very unlucky. The other
+          day a coolie fell down and broke a number of
+          things. He had not to replace any of them, but the
+          master had to buy all the things again because it
+          was fine weather. If it had been dirty and
+          slippery, the boy must have bought them. None of
+          us could understand the meaning of this till it
+          was explained to us. If it had been a slippery
+          day, the boy ought to have taken care, and it
+          would have been very careless of him to fall; but
+          if he did so in fine weather, some god must have
+          made him slip, they think, and therefore he could
+          not help it. The heathen Chinese have such a
+          number of gods and goddesses.
+
+[Illustration: A SHADOW-SHOW.]
+
+          "The other day we passed the Temple of Kwan-Yin,
+          the goddess of mercy. The Hong-Kong people think
+          an immense deal of her, and her temple is in such
+          a pretty place, with many trees round it. She is a
+          Buddhist divinity. A number of beggars were
+          outside begging, and they nearly always get
+          something here. Very many Chinese beggars are
+          blind, and there are also lepers in China.
+          Barriers were put up to keep visitors, who were
+          not wanted, such as evil spirits, from going in.
+          People say that evil spirits only care to go
+          through a straight way, and never trouble to go
+          anywhere in a crooked direction. Over the doorway
+          were some characters, which father's teacher has
+          written out for me. They were, being read from
+          right to left, backwards: 'Teen How Kov Meaou,'
+          and signify, 'The Ancient Temple of the Queen of
+          Heaven.' Tien-How is the goddess of sailors, and
+          often called 'The Queen of Heaven.' To the right
+          was a doctor's shop, where prescriptions were sold
+          to the priests; and to the left an old priest was
+          selling little tapers which the worshippers were
+          to burn. We looked in for a few moments, and saw
+          people kneeling down and asking the goddess to
+          cure their sick friends. She was seated at the end
+          of the temple, behind an altar, on which were
+          bronze vases, candles, and lighted sticks of
+          incense. A gong was outside, and on the walls of
+          the temple were different representations of acts
+          of mercy that the goddess was supposed to have
+          performed. On the roof were dragons. The dragon is
+          the Chinese god of rain.
+
+          "Leonard says I am to tell you that some of the
+          Celestials thought once that he was going to beat
+          them because he carried a walking-stick. Chinamen,
+          excepting policemen and mandarins, are only
+          allowed to carry them when they grow old.
+
+          "We saw a very strange sort of show the other day,
+          called a shadow-show. A man, inside a kind of
+          Punch and Judy house, made, with the help of a
+          lantern, all sorts of figures, or rather, shadows,
+          appear on the top of the Punch and Judy. It looked
+          so strange, but Leonard said he thought the people
+          looking at it were stranger still, what with the
+          hats they wore and the funny way they did their
+          hair. He declared one woman had horns. I never saw
+          such pretty lanterns as the Chinese have. Father
+          says that on the fifteenth day of their first
+          month (which is not always the same, as their New
+          Year's Day, like our Easter, is a movable feast
+          regulated by the moon) there is a feast of
+          lanterns, when all people, both on land and on the
+          water, hang up most beautiful lamps, some being
+          made to look like animals, balls of fire, or even
+          like Kwan-Yin herself holding a child.
+
+          "Is it not strange New Year's Day next year will
+          be on the twenty-ninth of January, and in 1882 on
+          February eighteenth?
+
+          "I seem to have ever so much more to tell you, but
+          I am too tired now to write it. I am glad you
+          liked mother's pictures that I sent last time. I
+          could only write that one short letter in Formosa.
+          We are going on to Macao (it is pronounced Macow)
+          the day after to-morrow, then we stay at Canton,
+          and then come back here. It will be so dreadful
+          when that time comes, but I try not to think about
+          it. Dear mother does sometimes, I can see. We all
+          went to the Cathedral on Sunday.
+
+            "I hope I shall soon have a long letter from you.
+               "Believe me, dear Lily,
+                   "Always your affectionate friend,
+                                         "SYBIL GRAHAM.
+
+          "_Hong-Kong, December, 1880._"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+AT CANTON.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+A PASSENGER-BOAT conveyed our little travellers, and their parents, in
+three days, from Hong-Kong to Macao, a pretty little sea-side place at
+the entrance of the Bocca Tigris, a little gulf, to the head of which is
+the city of Canton.
+
+Macao was not as full now as it had been during the summer months, when
+many people resort thither from Canton for change of air and to enjoy
+the fresh sea-breezes. A beautiful walk, called the Grand Parade,
+surrounds its picturesque bay.
+
+As Macao belongs to the Portuguese, a great many of the inhabitants
+speak that language.
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Graham and their children stayed, whilst at Macao, at the
+Grand Hotel, which was situated on the Parade, where was also a very
+pretty jetty, on which Sybil and Leonard liked very much to walk. Here,
+again, the houses were painted. In a pretty street close by the Grand
+Parade, protected on both sides by walls, the Grahams were shown houses
+whose windows used to have barriers of iron. These houses, they were
+told, were a kind of prison, called Emigration Agencies, but where in
+reality poor coolies were kept for sale. This traffic had, happily, now
+been done away with.
+
+Some of the houses in Macao seemed to be painted all colours, and many
+of the windows were bordered with red, the favourite colour. Most of the
+houses could boast of large rooms. Not very much commerce seemed to be
+carried on here. Leonard was one day taken to pay the European troops a
+visit in their garrison.
+
+At four o'clock in the afternoon many people walked upon the Parade.
+Most of the Christians here were Roman Catholics, which was natural,
+considering that the place belonged to the Portuguese. Bells, calling
+people to church, rang two or three times a day, and these, and the
+bugle-call from the garrison, were the principal sounds heard. It was
+interesting to visit Macao, because here, in its quiet prettiness, the
+poet Camoens, when banished, spent some of his lonely years, and wrote a
+great part of his epic poem "Lusiad;" and here also a French painter,
+named Chinnery, had produced some of his pretty paintings and sketches.
+Sybil was old enough to care about such things, and to find both
+pleasure and interest in visiting any places once made memorable by the
+footprints left there of either good or great men; and when she had
+heard the poet's story, she was very sorry for him!
+
+[Illustration: MACAO.]
+
+Camoens, who was the epic poet of Portugal, was born in Lisbon in 1524.
+An epic poet is one who writes narratives, or stories, which often
+relate heroic deeds. When banished by royal authority to Santarem,
+Camoens joined the expedition of John III. against Morocco, and lost his
+right eye in an engagement with the Moors in the Straits of Gibraltar.
+People in Lisbon, who would not admire his poetry, now thought nothing
+of his bravery. Sad and disappointed, he went to India in 1553; but
+being offended by what he saw the Portuguese authorities doing in India,
+he wrote a satire about them, called "Follies in India," and made fun of
+the Viceroy. For doing this, he was banished to Macao in 1556, where he
+lived for six years, writing "The Lusiad." On being recalled, he was
+shipwrecked, and lost everything that he had in the world but this epic
+poem, which he held in one hand above the waves, while he swam to shore
+with the other; and after suffering many misfortunes, he arrived in
+Lisbon in 1569, possessed of nothing else. He dedicated his poem to the
+young king Sebastian, who allowed him to stay at the court, and gave him
+a pension. But when Sebastian died he had nothing at all, and a faithful
+Indian servant begged for him in the streets. At last he died in the
+hospital at Lisbon, in 1579. Sixteen years later Camoens was
+appreciated, and people hunted for his grave, to erect a monument to his
+memory, but had much difficulty even in finding it.
+
+The "Lusiad" celebrates the chief events in Portugal's history, and has
+been called "a gallery of epic pictures, in which all the great
+achievements of Portuguese heroism are represented." The poem has been
+translated into English, French, Italian, Spanish, German, and Polish.
+
+After a short, but pleasant, stay at Macao, the Grahams went on to
+Canton.
+
+"The last place but one," Sybil could not help whispering to Leonard on
+board. "When we next arrive--" she went on, but tears starting into her
+eyes seemed to drown the rest of the sentence. However, as some very
+happy weeks had yet to be passed at Canton, neither she nor we must
+anticipate. A long visit of two months was to be spent here at the
+residence of a personal friend of Mr. Graham, the English consul of the
+place.
+
+A servant was stationed on the steps leading round to the Consulate, or
+Yamen, to await the arrival of Mr. and Mrs. Graham and their children.
+
+This house was situated on a height, and occupied the site of an ancient
+palace. It consisted of a suite of buildings, surrounded on one side by
+a pretty garden, and on the other by a park, in which deer grazed. Both
+Sybil and Leonard thought the deer very pretty; and quite near to the
+Yamen was a pagoda of nine storeys, which the Emperor Wong-Ti, who
+reigned about the middle of the sixteenth century, is supposed first to
+have constructed.
+
+"How little," Sybil and Leonard said to one another, "we ever thought,
+when we examined our little ornamental pagodas at home, that we should
+ever live quite near to a real one!"
+
+A story relating to this pagoda, being told to Leonard, interested him a
+good deal.
+
+[Illustration: THE ENGLISH CONSULATE AT CANTON.]
+
+In 1859 some English sailors climbed up the old building, which was then
+in so tottering a condition that it was a really perilous ascent, and
+when they reached the top the Chinese were dreadfully angry, for two
+reasons: first, because they looked upon it as sacrilege; and secondly,
+because from the height the sailors could look down upon their houses,
+and the Chinese dislike very much indeed to be overlooked, especially by
+"barbarians."
+
+The consul and Leonard were soon very good friends, and the elder friend
+very kindly did not weary of answering questions put to him by the
+little boy.
+
+"Why is your house called a yamen?"
+
+"This word means the same as does consulate, the official residence of
+the consul."
+
+"What are you here for?"
+
+The consul smiled. "To protect your interests and those, commercial and
+otherwise, of every English citizen resident here."
+
+"Who is that Jui-Lin of whom you have a picture? and is he alive now?"
+
+"He died a few years ago, and was viceroy of Canton. He made so good a
+governor that those provinces over which he ruled generally prospered
+under his administration. It is in a great measure through his influence
+that peaceable relations have, for some time, been established between
+China and foreign countries. The Emperor Tau-Kwang, who came to the
+throne in 1820, thought so well of him that he made him one of his
+ministers. Later he became general of the Tartar garrison at Canton, and
+soon after he was made viceroy. He established order in a very
+troublesome district, where he made the clan villagers at last
+acknowledge some authority, and so put the people and their property in
+much greater security."
+
+[Illustration: JUI-LIN, LATE VICEROY OF CANTON.]
+
+Leonard said Canton was the place for him, for here he saw ships and
+fishing to perfection. In Canton alone, the consul told him, it was
+estimated that 300,000 persons had their homes on the water. One
+Canton boat-woman, in whose passenger-boat they travelled, said that her
+husband went on shore during the day to work, whilst she looked after
+the passengers; but he seemed to be rather an exception, for most of the
+boat population never went on shore at all, and as people on land go to
+market to buy vegetables and other food, so everything in this line,
+that they required, was brought, by boat, to them. Then, besides boats,
+there were floating islands, on which people lived, and these consisted
+of rafts of bamboos fastened together, with a thick bed of vegetable
+soil covering the rafts. Here the owners set up houses, cultivated
+rice-fields, and kept tame cattle and hogs. Swallows and pigeons here
+built their nests in pretty surrounding gardens. Sails were put up on
+the houses, and oars were often used to propel the islands along. Women
+worked them frequently, with their babies fastened to their backs; and
+little boys and girls would here also play together, having smaller
+brothers and sisters thus attached to them. These floating islands,
+Sybil and Leonard were told, were to be seen on almost all Chinese
+lakes. Many floating houses were moored to one another.
+
+Sometimes the boat population made such a noise. They seemed a
+good-natured set of people, but every now and then they quarrelled, and
+this was done very noisily. Then if a storm came on, they would call out
+with fear. Those people who lived in river streets, where their houses
+were close against the river, often complained of the noise that they
+heard during the night. The boat population are often looked down upon
+by the Chinese who live on land, and may not go in for the literary
+examinations.
+
+There were very many fishing villages about, and nothing made Leonard
+happier than to be taken to one or another of them; he was so fond of
+boats of all kinds. Fishing-boats in China had to obtain a license from
+Government. Some of these sailed two and two abreast, at a distance,
+from one another, of about three hundred feet, when a net was stretched
+from ship to ship to enclose the fish. Names cut in the boats had
+generally reference to good fortune. The name on one, which Leonard had
+interpreted for him, was "Good Success."
+
+[Illustration: CHINESE BOAT-WOMAN.]
+
+[Illustration: A FISHING VILLAGE ON THE CANTON RIVER.]
+
+In fishing as well as in other villages men go about hawking things for
+sale, and carrying them, by ship, from one village to another. In the
+bows of fishing vessels are large pairs of shears, which can be either
+raised or lowered. A large dip-net, fastened to the shears, is drawn up
+after remaining some time in the water, when the fish it contains are
+emptied into a little hole in the middle of the ship, like a large
+cistern, into which fresh water flows. The fishermen anchor their boats,
+and then lower their dip-nets into the water by means of these shears,
+which are made of bamboo, and attached to wooden platforms, resting on
+posts. Huts are sometimes erected near the dip-nets, so that the
+fishermen can shelter themselves from the hot sun. A great deal of
+fishing with birds called cormorants is also carried on in China, when
+one man will, perhaps, take out a hundred birds to fish for him,
+fastening something to their throats to prevent them from swallowing the
+fish when caught. As they return with them, they are given a little
+piece that they can swallow.
+
+After young fish are caught, they are fed with paste in the tanks, or
+wells, into which they are put, and when they grow older little ponds
+are made for them.
+
+Sybil and Leonard were taken very often on the Canton river in all kinds
+of boats, both large and small. In the stern of very many was an altar,
+concealed generally behind a sliding door, but which, night and morning,
+was drawn aside to admit the altar to view, and display the images of
+household gods that were upon it.
+
+Here were also small ancestral tablets, which were regularly worshipped,
+and offerings of fruit and flowers were constantly offered to the
+guardian god of the boat and the tablets when they were worshipped.
+Tien-How, Queen of Heaven, also called Ma-chu, and other names, is much
+worshipped by sailors, but each boat has its special guardian god.
+Incense is burnt night and morning at the bow of the boat. The Grahams
+very often travelled in a small ship called a sampan, which had a mat
+roofing over the centre, and was driven forward, very frequently by
+women, with two oars and a scull.
+
+[Illustration: CHINESE FISHING.]
+
+"I have seen just the sort of thing for you to sketch, mother," Sybil
+said one day. Like her mother, she greatly admired what was beautiful,
+and now, with her fellow-excursionists, the consul, her father, and
+brother, returned home, from a ramble, very tired; "a dear little
+pagoda, seven storeys high, very near to the banks of the river, with
+mountains at the back and trees near to it, and a little village in the
+distance; and on the opposite side of the river we saw two men and a
+boy: the boy seemed to have a kite, but we thought it belonged to one of
+the men, and he was just carrying it for him."
+
+Mrs. Graham sometimes did not feel equal to long expeditions, of which
+her children never grew tired, so then she would remain at home, or walk
+through the pretty gardens and park.
+
+The Canton, Chu-kiang, or Pearl River, has a great many names and
+branches. The great western branch is called Kan-kiang, the northern
+branch Pe-kiang, or Pearl River, and the eastern one Tong-kiang. On the
+western branch the children found themselves surrounded by lovely
+mountain scenery. From Canton to Whampoa it was called the Pearl River;
+from Whampoa to Bocca Tigris, or Tiger's Mouth, Foo-mon; and beyond
+Shek-moon towards Canton, the Covetous River. The passage to Macao was
+the Wild Goose River. It was some time before Sybil and Leonard could
+understand anything at all about these divisions.
+
+One day, on the Pearl River, they came to a very pretty spot, where the
+water was almost entirely land-locked by high ranges of hills, and here
+they asked to be allowed to remain stationary, for a little while, to
+look about them.
+
+Another day they went very far indeed with their father and mother,
+crossing the Fatchan River, where Leonard heard, with interest, that
+Commodore Keppel engaged in a memorable battle in 1857. The river
+divides the town of Fatchan into two equal parts. Then again they went
+so far that they could not even think of returning home the same day,
+and stayed the night on the road to a village called Wong-tong, which
+was very countrified and pretty.
+
+[Illustration: PAGODA ON THE BANKS OF THE CANTON RIVER.]
+
+And once more they went--father, mother, and all--to a place quite
+different from anything that they had yet seen, which was the village of
+Polo-Hang. Here they found themselves in the midst of vast plains, on
+the outskirts of which were to be seen lovely-looking hills of limestone
+and rows of wonderfully-shaped mountains. Standing on one of these
+mountains, they had a capital view of the Temple of Polo-Hang and its
+surroundings, consisting of bare fields traversed by canals; and, at the
+foot of the mountains of thickets of bamboo, whose light, feathery
+branches swayed gently to and fro. Bamboo was very largely cultivated
+here, and Sybil thought it such a fairy-like growth. Must not this scene
+have been very lovely? Sybil was so glad that her mother had come to
+see it. Then other hills appeared, covered with trees, and dotted here
+and there with temples.
+
+"Where _did_ they all come from?" Leonard asked.
+
+Mr. Graham was looking very serious. This was a scene calculated to
+leave a deep impression upon the beholders.
+
+[Illustration: ON THE CANTON RIVER]
+
+"From the hand of God," he said very quietly.
+
+[Illustration: VILLAGE OF POLO-HANG IN CANTON.]
+
+A week later, Sybil wrote again to her friend.
+
+
+                              "_Canton, January, 1881._
+
+          "MY DEAREST LILY,--We saw such a strange sight
+          yesterday; and we could not help liking to see it,
+          although, of course, it was very dreadful. We went
+          inside a Buddhist temple at Canton. These
+          temples are often called joss-houses; this one was
+          the Temple of Five Hundred Gods. Fancy five
+          hundred gods! and these idols were all there,
+          arranged in different lines. They all seemed to
+          look different, and some were dreadfully ugly. I
+          saw beards on a few of their faces. In the part of
+          the temple where, in a church, our altar would be,
+          there was a terrible-looking thing: I suppose a
+          very special god.
+
+          "We saw one of the priests. He had his beads in
+          one hand, and a fan in the other. Some of the
+          priests are men who have committed great crimes,
+          and have escaped to a monastery and had their
+          heads shaved, so as not to be caught and punished.
+
+          "Some of the idols were as large as if they were
+          alive, and they had their arms in all sorts of
+          different positions. Some held beads, and a few
+          wore crowns; I think they were disciples of
+          Buddha. The buildings of the temple, and the
+          houses of the priests, were surrounded by lakes
+          and gardens.
+
+          "We have been able to get you a picture of part of
+          the inside of the temple, so I send it to you; but
+          Leonard says that he thinks as you'll have the
+          picture (and he considers it a very good one) that
+          you ought to know that this temple is said to have
+          been founded about 520 years A.D., and to have
+          been rebuilt in 1755. Fancy people wasting prayers
+          before these images! Isn't it a pity that they
+          don't know better? There are more than 120
+          temples, or joss-houses, in Canton.
+
+[Illustration: THE TEMPLE OF THE FIVE HUNDRED GODS, CANTON.]
+
+          "The Chinese never eat with knives and forks, but
+          with chop-sticks. These are generally small square
+          pieces of bamboo, as large as a penholder, which
+          they hold between the thumb and first finger of
+          the right hand. I can't eat with them at all,
+          nor can mother; and the other day, when she went
+          out to lunch with some Chinese ladies, they sent
+          for a knife and fork for her.
+
+          "Chinese ladies in Canton never seem to be with
+          their husbands in public, and they never walk in
+          the streets with them. Some of them think us such
+          barbarous people because we are so different from
+          what they are.
+
+          "The Chinese have such a funny way of paying
+          formal visits, that I think I must tell you about
+          it. They often go in sedan-chairs. Officers of the
+          highest rank may have eight bearers, people of
+          less rank have four, and ordinary people two. The
+          state sedan-chair of an official is covered with
+          green cloth, and the fringe on the roof and
+          window-curtains has to be green too. So much seems
+          to go by rank in China. For the first three ranks,
+          the tips of poles may be of brass, in the form of
+          a dragon's head; the fourth and fifth rank would
+          have a lion's head. On the top of these chairs is
+          a ball of tin. Leonard and I can tell the chairs
+          very well now. Private gentlemen have blue cloth,
+          and the ends of their poles are tipped with plain
+          brass.
+
+[Illustration: AN OFFICIAL'S PALANQUIN.]
+
+          "Father says when an official calls upon another
+          official in Peking, his servant sends in his
+          visiting card. The official who is being called
+          upon then sends out to know how his visitor is
+          dressed, and if he hears that it is in full
+          costume, he dresses himself in the same way, and
+          then goes to the entrance of the house, and asks
+          his visitor to get out of his carriage or chair,
+          and come in. As they pass through a door of the
+          gate, the gentleman, to whom the house belongs
+          asks the visitor to go first, but he always says
+          'No' until he has been asked three times, and
+          then he walks first to the reception-hall, when
+          the two stop again, and ask one another to go
+          first. When they have come into the hall, father
+          says, they kneel down, and knock their heads on
+          the ground six times. This is performing the
+          kow-tow. When they get up from this performance,
+          the host arranges a chair for the other, and asks
+          him to sit down, but he must not do this even till
+          he has bowed again. I am sure I should forget when
+          I had to make all these bows, and should be sure
+          to do them at the wrong times.
+
+          "After they have had a little talk, a servant is
+          told to make some tea. I suppose the host would
+          then say 'Yam-cha' to the other, for this means
+          'Drink tea.' Before either gentleman drinks, both
+          bow again, and soon afterwards the visitor gets
+          up, and says, 'I want to take my leave.' They walk
+          together to the grand entrance, but at every
+          door-way the visitor has to bow, and ask his
+          friend not to come any farther, although of course
+          he must go, or it would not be polite. And then he
+          stands at the entrance door till the carriage has
+          driven off. The Chinese do bow so often, and
+          little children have to do it too.
+
+          "The consul told Leonard that when school-boys go
+          to see their masters, they have to arrange the
+          chair-cushions for their masters and themselves.
+          The boy has to stand outside the visitor's hall
+          till his master comes, and when he has been asked
+          to go in, he gives him for a present a tael of
+          silver, about 2s. 8d., which he holds up with both
+          his hands. Then he looks towards the north,
+          kneels, and knocks his head twice upon the ground,
+          when the master bows. The boy asks how his
+          teacher's parents are, who also asks after the
+          boy's. He then invites his little guest to sit
+          down; but every time the boy is asked a question
+          by his teacher he has to stand up to answer it.
+          When he leaves, he goes to the entrance door by
+          himself. At school, the boys have to make a bow to
+          the schoolmaster whenever they go in and out of
+          the room.
+
+          "You asked me in your letter if people have very
+          many servants in China. Some have a very great
+          number. Ordinary Chinese gentlemen might have a
+          porter, two or three footmen, coolies for
+          house-work, sedan-chair bearers, and a cook. Women
+          servants are often bought by their masters. A rich
+          man will have sometimes twenty or thirty slaves.
+          People called 'go-betweens' generally buy them for
+          the masters. We have very few servants of our own
+          now, as we are on a visit. Mother's maid shows
+          dear little Chu what to do. Female slaves attend
+          upon the ladies and children, and we have often
+          seen them carrying their mistresses with small
+          feet. It does look so funny. In good families,
+          father says, they are very well treated, but some
+          maid-of-all-work slaves often run away because
+          they are so unhappy.
+
+          "Children are sometimes stolen to be slaves.
+          Great-grandsons of slaves can buy their freedom. I
+          am so glad I have my little Chu, because she
+          cannot be bought or sold now: father made that
+          agreement. I should not know nearly so much about
+          the servants and slaves if I had not wanted to
+          know what might have become of little Chu if we
+          had not had her. Sometimes servants stand in the
+          streets to be hired.
+
+          "In a suburb of Canton, in a street called the
+          Taiping Kai, we saw one morning a number of
+          bricklayers, journeymen, and carpenters, waiting
+          to be hired. The carpenters stand in a line on one
+          side, and bricklayers on the other. Father said
+          they had been there since five o'clock.
+
+          "Another day we saw men carrying baskets, in which
+          they were collecting every bit of paper they could
+          find about the streets, which had been written
+          upon. The Chinese have such respect for every
+          little piece of paper, on which have been any
+          Chinese characters, that they will not allow any
+          parcels even to be wrapped up in them. When all
+          these scraps have been collected, they are burnt
+          in a furnace, and the ashes are put into baskets,
+          carried in procession, and emptied into a stream.
+          Slips of paper are pasted on walls, telling people
+          to reverence lettered paper. Chinese characters
+          are called 'eyes of the sage;' and some people
+          think that if they are irreverent to the paper,
+          they are so to the sages who invented them, and
+          they will perhaps, for a punishment, be born blind
+          in the next world.
+
+          "Men become famous in China when they write very
+          beautifully. They write with a brush and Indian
+          ink. Father's teacher says there are three styles
+          of writing Chinese characters, and that the
+          literature of China is the first in Asia. A
+          Chinaman writes from right to left, and all the
+          writing consists of signs or characters. I cannot
+          think how Chinese people understand either their
+          writing or their conversation. One word will mean
+          a number of things, and you know which word they
+          mean by the sound of the voice and the stress on
+          the word. Leonard asked the teacher one day what
+          soldier was in Chinese, and he said, 'ping;' but
+          he also told him that 'ping' meant ice, pancake,
+          and other words too. 'Fu' is father, and 'Mu'
+          mother. They think we have no written language.
+
+          "Canton is entered by twelve outer, and four
+          inner, gates. The name means 'City of Perfection.'
+          Leonard and I are now going for a walk, with
+          father, to the Street of Apothecaries, and
+          to-morrow we are to see a bridal procession.
+
+[Illustration: WAITING TO BE HIRED.]
+
+          "There are such a number of narrow streets in
+          Canton, and religious worship is carried on in the
+          open streets, in front of shrines; and before the
+          shops lighted sticks, called 'joss-sticks,' are
+          put at dawn and sunset. The natives live in the
+          narrow streets. Those in the European settlement,
+          where we are, are larger.
+
+          "The ports, which are open to foreign commerce,
+          have European parts where the European inhabitants
+          live.
+
+                         "Always your affectionate
+                                           "SYBIL GRAHAM."
+
+[Illustration: A CHINESE WRITER ]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+A BRIDE AND BRIDEGROOM.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+THE Street of Apothecaries was no exception to the general rule that
+Sybil had laid down. It also was very narrow, and, like many other
+streets in Canton, was so covered over at the top that in walking
+through it the sun did not burn too fiercely, neither did the rain fall
+upon the passers-by.
+
+The shops opened right upon the street, which was very gay indeed with
+sign-boards. Just in front of the shops were granite counters, on which
+goods were shown to purchasers.
+
+Many of the sign-boards rested on granite pedestals. On one side of each
+shop was a little altar, dedicated to the god of wealth, or the god
+supposed to preside over the special trade carried on within. Every
+heathen Chinese merchant and shopkeeper has some little spot set apart
+for this worship, although all the shops have not an altar, but many
+only a piece of red paper pasted upon a wall, on which the characters
+meaning "god of wealth" are written, and before which incense and
+candles are burnt. Every day, as soon as the shop is opened, worship is
+paid to this divinity.
+
+[Illustration: THE STREET OF APOTHECARIES, CANTON.]
+
+The counters and shelves inside these hongs were very handsome. The
+accountant's desk was at the end of the hong, and here again the red
+colour was not absent, for the scales and weights of the shop were
+covered with cloth of that hue.
+
+Beggars (some miserably and scantily dressed) are very numerous in
+China, people making quite a profession of begging, when they visit
+shops in companies, and there make a great disturbance until they
+receive what they demand. These beggars are often governed by a
+head-man, who was really first appointed to rule over them by the
+mandarin, to save himself trouble. A head-man will sometimes make an
+agreement with a hong proprietor, that if he will pay a sum of money
+down beggars shall not molest him; and when he agrees to this, a notice
+on red paper, stating the arrangement made, is hung up in the shop,
+after which any native beggar applying for aid can be shown this, turned
+out of the hong, and upon refusing to go, he can be beaten. But unless
+such an arrangement has been made, beggars may neither be beaten nor
+turned out of a shop, whatever annoyance they may offer, unless they
+steal, or break some other law. Therefore it is that poor shop-keepers
+feel themselves bound to pay money in order to avoid such annoyance.
+When the head-man is paid a sum of money, he is supposed to divide it
+amongst his band.
+
+"I never heard such a shame!" Leonard exclaimed, when he saw one of
+these beggars very troublesome in the Street of Apothecaries, and heard
+the law with regard to them. "I wish I were a mandarin. I'd very soon
+put a stop to poor shop-keepers being so persecuted."
+
+[Illustration: A BEGGAR.]
+
+[Illustration: BRIDESMAIDS]
+
+That evening both Sybil and Leonard, feeling tired, went very early to
+bed, as they wanted to be up in very good time in the morning, so as to
+see the whole of the bridal procession, for the bridegroom sends very
+early indeed in the morning for his bride. The bridal-chair which he
+sends for her is often painted red. The one which the Grahams saw was of
+this colour, and over the door were also strips of red paper. Before the
+bride took her seat in the sedan, which was brought into the
+reception-room of her home for her, she having eaten nothing that
+morning, and having kow-towed very often to her parents, they covered
+her head and face with a thick veil, so that she could not be seen. The
+floor, from her room to the sedan, was covered with red carpet. When in
+the sedan, four bread-cakes were tossed into the air by one of the
+bridesmaids as an omen of good fortune. In front of the procession two
+men carried large lighted lanterns, having the family name of the
+bridegroom, cut in red paper, and pasted on them. Then came two men
+bearing the family name of the bride, who were, however, only to go part
+of the way. Other men followed, some carrying a large red umbrella,
+others torches, and again some playing a band of music. Near the
+bridal-chair brothers or friends of the bride walked. Half-way between
+the two houses the friends of the bridegroom met the bride, and as they
+approached the procession stopped.
+
+The children were very much interested in watching what happened next.
+The bride's friends brought out a large red card, on which was written
+the bride's family name, and the other party produced a similar one,
+bearing that of the bridegroom. These were exchanged with bows. The two
+men at the head of the procession then walked, with their lanterns,
+between the sedan-chair and the lantern-bearers, who carried the bride's
+family name, and returned to their places in front, when the bride's
+party turned round and went back to her father's house, carrying home
+her family name, she being supposed to have now taken that of her
+husband. Even her brothers went back also, and then the band played a
+very lively air whilst the rest of the procession took her on.
+
+Fireworks were let off along the road, and a great many outside the
+bridegroom's door when the bride arrived. Her bridesmaids, who have to
+keep with her throughout the day, accompanied the procession.
+
+As the sedan-chair was taken into the reception-room, the torch-bearers
+and musicians stayed near the door, and where it was put down the floor
+was again covered with red carpet. The bridegroom then came and knocked
+at the bridal door, but a married woman and a little boy, holding a
+mirror, asked the bride to get out. Her bridesmaids helped her to
+alight. The mirror was supposed to ward off evil influences.
+
+[Illustration: BRIDE AND BRIDEGROOM.]
+
+Sometimes, much for the same purpose, a bride is carried over a charcoal
+fire on a servant's back, but this was not done on this occasion. All
+this time the bride's face was hidden by her veil. She was then taken
+into a room, where the bridegroom was waiting for her, and here they sat
+down together for a few minutes, without speaking a word. Sometimes the
+bridegroom sits on a high stool, while the bride throws herself down
+before him, to show that she considers man superior to woman.
+
+He then went into the reception-room, where he waited for his bride to
+come to worship his ancestral tablets with him. A table was put in front
+of the room, on which were two lighted candles and lighted incense. Two
+goblets, chop-sticks, white sugar-cocks, and other things were on the
+table, when the bride and bridegroom both knelt four times, bowing their
+heads towards the earth. This was called "worshipping heaven and earth."
+The ancestral tablets were on tables at the back, on which were also
+lighted candles and incense. Turning round towards the tablets, they
+worshipped them eight times, and then facing one another, they knelt
+four times.
+
+Wedding wine was now drunk, and the bride and bridegroom ate a small
+piece from the same sugar-cock, which was to make them agree.
+
+The thick veil was now taken off the bride, but her face was still
+partly hidden by strings of pearl hanging from a bridal coronet.
+
+It often happens that the bridegroom now sees his bride for the first
+time, the two fathers having perhaps planned the marriage, asked a
+fortune-teller's advice, sent go-betweens to make all the necessary
+arrangements, chosen a lucky day, without the bride or bridegroom having
+a voice in the matter. This was the case with the young couple, a great
+part of whose wedding ceremony Sybil and Leonard had witnessed. Both
+Chinese boys and girls marry sometimes when they are sixteen years of
+age; these were very little older.
+
+Many other ceremonies had to take place, such as kneeling very often
+before the bridegroom's parents, when at last it was time for the
+bride's heavy outer garments to be taken off, together with her
+head-dress, so that her hair could be well arranged; but she was not
+allowed to eat anything at all at the wedding dinner. Indeed, on her
+wedding-day, she is hardly expected to touch food at all.
+
+Many people came in to see her, and on this day she must be quite
+natural, and wear no rouge at all. She has to stand up quietly to be
+looked at, blessed, and have remarks made upon her appearance. Presents
+are sent to the bridegroom's family. For three days the bride's parents
+send her food, as she may not, during that time, eat what her husband
+provides. In some districts of the province of Canton the bride leaves
+her husband, and goes home again for a time after she is married, but
+after marriage she is generally considered to belong almost entirely to
+her husband's family, in a wing of whose house she lives with him, and
+to whose parents she is supposed to help him to be filial. On many other
+days the ancestral tablets have to be worshipped by the bride and
+bridegroom, and amongst other gods and goddesses, those of the kitchen
+have adoration paid to them.
+
+[Illustration: AT A CHINESE FARM.]
+
+
+                                 "_Canton, February, 1881._
+
+          "MY DEAREST LILY.--Father took us to a lovely farm
+          the other day" (Sybil wrote in another letter),
+          "where we saw a little donkey, who was so well
+          cared for that he seemed like one of the family.
+          Leonard and I fed him for some time. We both
+          thought that the farm-house was something like a
+          Swiss cottage. Father said the walls were made of
+          clay, and on these walls were scrolls, which were
+          supposed to have power to keep the fox and wild
+          cat away.
+
+          "There were a few bullocks and cows here, but not
+          many; their stalls were quite near to the house.
+          We liked the village, to which we went, very much,
+          and it was surrounded by high trees. Father says
+          that the stables of the Chinese are like
+          cart-sheds, but each stable has an altar in honour
+          of the ruler of horses. In this city there is a
+          large temple to this god.
+
+          "We saw a number of bean, pea, rice, and
+          cotton-fields, and had some sugar-cane given us to
+          eat. Sugar-cane is grown in Canton, and we had
+          some bean-curds to drink. We liked them very much.
+          Mother says she was told that they were made in
+          Canton overnight, and generally sold very early in
+          the morning. The beans are ground to flour, which
+          is strained, and then boiled slowly for an hour. I
+          wonder if you would like it?
+
+          "The Chinese are so fond of sugar-cane, and it
+          grew in China before it grew anywhere else. Ever
+          so many fruits and vegetables grow also in China,
+          but there seem to be more rice-fields than any
+          other. I will tell you a few of the vegetables:
+          sweet potatoes, yams, tomatoes, cabbages,
+          lettuces, turnips, and carrots; and some fruits
+          are apricots, custard-apples, rose-apples, dates,
+          oranges, pomegranates, melons, pumpkins, and ever
+          so many others. Canton is in the tropics, but it
+          is not hot here in the winter. There are such
+          pretty water-lilies here, not only white, but also
+          red and red-and-white. The Chinese look upon this
+          lily as a sacred plant. Some shop-keepers use the
+          leaves, in which to wrap up things, instead of
+          paper.
+
+          "Chinese people do very funny things. Because they
+          think that their birds sometimes like change of
+          air, they carry their cages out of doors with them
+          for a walk. But I do so wish that they did not eat
+          dogs! You see them being sold in the shops, and in
+          one district of Canton a fair is held, where they
+          are regularly sold for food. Many people like
+          black dogs best. At the beginning of summer nearly
+          everybody eats dog's flesh, when a ceremony takes
+          place. If people eat it, they think that it will
+          keep them from being ill in the summer. I am glad,
+          for that reason, that I shall not be here in June,
+          as the dogs are cruelly beaten the day before they
+          are killed. Fancy, poor little things! I suppose
+          that is to bring luck too! And yet the Cantonese
+          think that they displease the gods when they eat
+          dog's flesh, and we have seen it written on
+          Buddhist temples that people ought not to eat
+          'their faithful guardians.'
+
+          "The Cantonese must not go into a temple to
+          worship till they have been three whole days
+          without eating any dog. One of the 'boys' here--he
+          is a footman; but in China all these sort of
+          people are called 'boys'--eats rats. He says he is
+          getting bald, and if he eats them his hair will
+          grow again. Horses are sometimes eaten too; and
+          worms that spoil the rice-fields, father told me,
+          are sent to the markets and sold to be eaten.
+          Isn't that nasty? And a kind of swallow's nest is
+          eaten even by ladies. It is lined with feathers,
+          which are first removed; then it is scraped,
+          washed, and pulled to pieces, when it looks white.
+          People say it is something like blancmange. I
+          should not like to eat it. Does it not seem
+          greedy, when people have so much to eat, to take
+          poor little birds'-nests which have been made with
+          such pains by their owners?
+
+          "There is a bird in China that has such a long
+          tail: it is called the Golden Pheasant. The
+          feathers of the cock bird are most beautiful. His
+          throat and breast are like purple velvet, and his
+          back looks like gold. The upper part of his very
+          long tail is scarlet, and the rest yellow. When
+          this pheasant lifts his head and neck-feathers he
+          shows such a tuft!
+
+          "There are a good many deer in China, which are
+          also supposed to bring good fortune. Some Chinese
+          are very cruel to animals. We have seen them
+          carrying pigs, ducks, and geese fastened to a
+          pole, hanging with their heads downwards; and some
+          of their dogs look so hungry, and their beasts of
+          burden so tired. We saw a dreadful thing one day,
+          almost too dreadful to write about--a poor little
+          dog running yelping through the streets with its
+          tail cut off! A Taouist priest had cut it off, so
+          that it should run screaming through all the house
+          in which evil spirits were supposed to be, because
+          this would drive them out; then the poor little
+          dog rushed into the streets, where we saw it, and,
+          fortunately, father was near enough to have it
+          killed at once.
+
+          "The people listen more to father than they do to
+          many missionaries, because he goes to the
+          dispensary and helps to cure them when they are
+          ill.
+
+          "I forgot to tell you that when we first went to
+          the farm nobody saw us, because the farmer, his
+          wife, daughter, and a labourer were all listening
+          to a man reading to them. We thought he must have
+          got hold of some of the Chinese classics. The
+          pigeon-English people talk sometimes is so funny.
+          They are so fond of the word 'piecee.' Instead of
+          'one child,' they say 'one piecee chilo;' and if
+          they had many children, I expect they would say
+          'piecee muchee.'
+
+          "Leonard makes very good shots at pigeon-English,
+          and can talk it much better than I can. What we
+          generally do is to put 'ee' at the end of our
+          words; but when we spoke to the farmer he could
+          not understand, and so said, 'You talkee me. Very
+          good talkee.' When he wanted to tell us that his
+          house was very large, he said, 'Number one largee,
+          handsome howsow;' and for 'There is a child
+          up-stairs,' he said, 'Have got chilo topside.'
+
+          "You asked me how the Chinese dressed, so I must
+          try to tell you this, although I have written you
+          such a long letter already.
+
+[Illustration: CHINESE LADIES.]
+
+[Illustration: A VILLAGER.]
+
+[Illustration: A COOLIE.]
+
+          "Gentlemen and ladies seem to dress very much
+          alike; and people cannot change their clothes as
+          they choose, because there is a minister of
+          ceremonies, who says of what colour, stuff, and
+          shape things are to be made, and when winter and
+          summer things are to be changed. Even a head-dress
+          may not be altered as people like, or they might
+          be breaking a law. And it is so funny about the
+          nails; some people let some of their nails grow as
+          long as they can, and are so proud when they are
+          very long. No Chinaman wears a beard till he is
+          forty. The outside robe of a gentleman is so long
+          that it reaches to his ankles, and it is fastened
+          with buttons. The sleeves are first broad, and
+          then get narrower and narrower. A sash is tied
+          round his waist, and from this chop-sticks, a
+          tobacco-case, fans, and such-like things hang. The
+          head-dress is a cap with a peak at the top. Men do
+          not take off their hats to bow; indeed, they would
+          put them on if they were off. In-doors they wear
+          silk slippers, pointed and turned up at the toes.
+          Chinese men are admired when they are stout, and
+          women when they are thin. Women also have two
+          robes, the top one often being made of satin, and
+          reaching from the chin to the ground. Their
+          sleeves are so long that they do instead of
+          gloves. They always wear trousers, and often carry
+          a pipe, for women smoke a great deal in China.
+          Some, I think, are pretty. They have rather large
+          eyes and red lips. Old ladies wear very quiet
+          clothes. Mother says the Chinese are not at all
+          clean people, and ought to change their clothes
+          much oftener than they do. People wear shoes of
+          silk, or cotton, with thick felt soles. The women
+          spend hours having their hair done into all sorts
+          of shapes, such as baskets, bird-cages, or
+          anything they and their amahs can manufacture.
+          Then besides ornaments in their hair, they wear
+          ear-rings and bangles. Even boat-women wear these;
+          and the ladies almost always paint their faces,
+          to do which they have a kind of enamel. Chinese
+          ladies have little useful occupation, and spend a
+          great part of their time, mother says, when they
+          are not doing embroidery, in gambling and adorning
+          themselves.
+
+          "The peasants wear a coarse linen shirt, covered
+          by a cotton tunic, with thin trousers fastened to
+          the ankles. In wet and cold weather they make a
+          useful covering of net-work, into which are
+          plaited rushes, or coarse dry grass, and they put
+          on very large hats, made in the same way. The
+          Chinese are not at all lazy people, for father
+          says after their shutters are shut, and all looks
+          dark from the outside, they are often at work, and
+          they get up early too. When men grow old their
+          tails get so thin. I saw such a wrinkled old man
+          the other day, with hardly any tail at all. I
+          think he must have been very sorry about that; he
+          was an old villager.
+
+          "Coolies wear their tails twisted round their
+          heads. They do all the heavy work, and are
+          porters, common house labourers, and sedan-chair
+          bearers.
+
+          "Leonard says if I write any more stuff he is sure
+          you will not read it; but I hope you will think it
+          interesting stuff, at all events, and, therefore,
+          not mind my letter being so long. There seems to
+          be so much to tell you when you have not been to
+          China, and it seems selfish to keep all the
+          pleasure of seeing such new things to myself. I
+          meant to tell you about the New Year, which we
+          have just kept, but I have not room. I hope you
+          will write to me very soon. We all send love to
+          you, and
+
+                            "Believe me,
+                         "Your very affectionate friend,
+                                 "SYBIL GRAHAM."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+PROCESSIONS.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+A FORTNIGHT later Mr. Graham saw a large, Leonard a small, portion of a
+funeral procession, and Sybil was very anxious afterwards to hear all
+about it, for Leonard had told her that it seemed even grander than the
+marriage one.
+
+"Please, father," she said, "tell me all that the Chinese do when
+anybody dies."
+
+"I do not think I could tell you all," was her father's reply, "because
+it would take too long, and I do not know all myself; but I dare say I
+can tell you quite enough to satisfy your curiosity. When a Chinese
+thinks that a relation is likely to die soon, he places him, with his
+feet towards the door, on a bed of boards, arranging his best robes and
+a hat, or cap, quite close to him, that he may be dressed in these just
+before he dies. It would be considered a dreadful thing if he were to
+die without putting them on. Soon after he is dead, a priest--usually a
+priest of Taou--is called in to ask the spirit to make haste to Elysium,
+and to cast the man's horoscope, so as to see how far the spirit has got
+on its journey."
+
+"What does casting his horoscope mean?"
+
+"Finding out the hour of a man's birth, and then foretelling events by
+the appearance of the heavens. More clothes are then put upon the dead
+man, who, if he be a person of rank, would wear three silk robes. Gongs
+are beaten, and when the body is placed in its coffin, every corner of
+the room is beaten with a hammer, to frighten away bad spirits. A crown
+is also put on any person of rank. Widows and children, to show their
+grief, sit on the floor instead of on chairs for seven days, and sleep
+on mats near to the husband and father's coffin. On the seventh day
+letters are written to friends, informing them of the death, when they
+send presents of money to help to defray the funeral expenses. I saw a
+very strange letter of thanks yesterday, a copy of which had been sent
+to each giver of a present, and besides money, food is sometimes given
+or priests are sent. The letter, as far as I can remember, ran thus:
+'This is to express the thanks of the orphaned son, who weeps tears of
+blood, and bows his head; of the mourning brother, who weeps and bows
+his head; of the mourning nephew, who wipes away his tears and bows his
+head.' Then a letter is also written to the departed, and burnt, that it
+may reach him, whilst cakes and other presents are also sent to him by
+means of burning.
+
+[Illustration: MEN ENGAGED TO WALK IN FUNERAL PROCESSIONS.]
+
+"On the twenty-first day after death a banquet is prepared in honour
+of the spirit, which is supposed, on that day, to come back to his home,
+when the entrance doors are shut, for fear any one should come in and
+vex the spirit. On the twenty-third day three large paper birds are put
+on high poles in front of the house, to carry the soul to Elysium; and
+for three days Buddhist priests pray to the ten kings of Buddhist hell
+to hasten the flight of the departed soul to the Western Paradise.
+
+"The coffin is kept in the house for seven weeks, where an altar is set
+up, near to which the tablet and portrait of the deceased are put.
+Banners, which are looked upon as letters of condolence, are fixed upon
+the walls, and on these the merits of the dead man are inscribed.
+
+"Pictures of the three Buddhas are also to be seen in the house. A lucky
+place and day have then to be fixed, by fortune-tellers, for the burial,
+and should these not be forthcoming, the coffin would be placed on a
+hill till they can be found. Burial is considered of so much importance,
+that should a man be drowned his spirit would be called back into a
+figure of wood or paper, and buried with pomp. Before the grave-diggers
+begin their work, members of the family worship the genii of the
+mountain, and write letters to these gods, asking them to be so kind as
+to allow the funeral to take place."
+
+"But how are these letters made to 'arrive?'"
+
+"They are set on fire and burnt."
+
+"Leonard says he saw a number of people dressed in white in the
+procession."
+
+"Those were the relatives in deep mourning, white, you remember, being
+the deepest, white and blue lesser, mourning."
+
+[Illustration: CHE-YIN.]
+
+"And he says he is sure he saw his friend Che-Yin among the mourners.
+You know, father, Che-Yin is really a great friend of Leonard's, though
+he is so much older than himself, and now he is taking great trouble to
+teach him to play on the musical instrument which he plays so well
+himself. I believe if Leonard were going to stay longer here he would
+really learn to play it quite well. Is it not kind of Che-Yin? But I
+must not interrupt you any more," Sybil went on, "and this is so
+interesting. Leonard said he wondered so much what could be happening
+once when he heard a tremendous noise, and saw people rushing out into
+the streets screaming."
+
+"I think I know what that meant," was the missionary's answer. "On the
+day of burial the relatives weep and lament very loudly. They carry a
+long white streamer, called a soul-cloth, to the ancestral hall, for the
+spirit to say 'Good-bye' to its ancestors. At three or four o'clock in
+the morning all decorations, that have been put up in front of the door,
+are taken down, and a banquet is made ready, of which the spirit is
+invited to partake. You remember I told you that they believe one spirit
+is buried with the body. Well, some kind of paper is now again burnt,
+while the spirit is asked to accompany the body, and the tablet and
+portrait of the dead man are put in a sedan-chair by his eldest son,
+over the top of which is a streamer of red satin, on which his name and
+titles are written.
+
+"Distant relations remain standing out in the streets; but I expect what
+Leonard saw was people rushing out of the house, dreadfully frightened,
+for fear that after all the day might not be lucky, and the spirit
+should be vexed, and send trouble to them, in consequence.
+
+"As the coffin is brought out offerings are also again presented to the
+spirit. Two men walk first, carrying large lanterns, on which are
+written the name, title, and age of the man who has died. Then come two
+other men with a gong, which they beat from time to time."
+
+"Leonard heard that."
+
+"Then follow musicians, and behind these some men walk with flags,
+others with red boards, on which are inscribed, in golden letters, the
+titles of the ancestors of the deceased."
+
+"Then Leonard saw some gold canopies and sedan-chairs."
+
+"Offerings made to the dead are carried under gilded canopies, and these
+canopies also follow the ancestral tablets. The portrait of the dead man
+is in one sedan-chair, and his wooden tablet in another.
+
+"I believe somewhere about here are more musicians, then comes a man
+scattering pieces of paper fastened to tinfoil. This is supposed to be
+mock-money for hungry ghosts, the souls of those people who have died at
+corners of the streets, and this money is to make peace with them, so
+that they shall not injure the soul of the man now being buried. The
+eldest son carries a staff, whilst a person walks on either side to
+support him."
+
+"But Leonard said he saw a white cock, when he could not help laughing.
+What could this be for?"
+
+"The cock is also carried to call the soul to go with the body. Behind
+the eldest son comes the bier, carried by men or drawn by horses.
+
+"Many other persons follow. All the people that can, go in the
+procession. Women with small feet, unless carried on their slaves'
+backs, can only go a short way. At the grave, grains of rice are
+scattered over the coffin, when the priest and all the people lift the
+cock and bend their bodies forward three times. The tablet is taken out
+of the chair, on which the nearest relation makes a mark with a red
+pencil; then the sons kneel down, and a priest, if present, addresses
+them."
+
+"Then a priest is not obliged to go to the funeral?"
+
+"No; sometimes only a man skilled in geomancy is present. Geomancy is a
+kind of foretelling things, by means of little dots first made on the
+ground and then on paper. The tablet is marked, I believe, to bring good
+luck to the sons, and then every one knocks his head on the ground and
+does homage to it."
+
+Sybil was looking very serious, though she was smiling too.
+
+"Oh, father!" she said, "how much you, and other missionaries, will have
+to teach these people! What a pity it is that they cannot know that the
+soul is never buried, and that they can't learn to worship and pray to
+God, Who would send them such real happiness in answer to their
+prayers!"
+
+"It is indeed, my child," was the missionary's answer.
+
+"And is anything more done for the dead after this except worship being
+paid to them?"
+
+"Yes; for many days feasts are prepared for the departed relative, hot
+water is carried to him to wash his face and hands, and I have also
+heard of another way that the Chinese have of 'conveying' spirits to the
+kingdoms of Buddhistic hell. Little sedan-chairs are made of bamboo
+splints and paper, with four little paper bearers, and sometimes there
+is a fifth little paper man, holding an umbrella. These are burnt like
+the paper mock-money; and sometimes, after the death of another friend,
+a little paper trunk, full of paper clothes, is supplied for one already
+dead, and burnt, when the senders believe that the person who died last
+is conveying this trunk to the other in safety for them."
+
+"They think that people need a great many things in the other world,
+then," Sybil said. "And do children often worship at their parents'
+tombs?"
+
+"Yes; at certain seasons of the year they make pilgrimages to the tops
+of high hills, or to other distant parts, where they prostrate
+themselves, this being supposed to continue the homage and reverence
+which they showed to them on earth; and they believe that in a great
+measure the happiness of the spirits depends upon the adoration and
+worship which they pay to them, whilst those who render it secure for
+themselves favour from the gods. Twice a day do children also pay
+adoration to their dead parents, before a shrine set up in the house to
+the memory of departed ancestors."
+
+"But what is the use of preparing feasts for the dead?" Sybil asked.
+"They cannot think that the dead really eat the food?"
+
+"They seem to do so, and not only lay a place for them, but even put
+chop-sticks for their use."
+
+Another procession Sybil and Leonard saw one day, and this Sybil
+described in the last letter that she wrote to her friend, before she
+left China. Some men carried an image of the Dragon King, others carried
+gongs, drums, and green and black and yellow and white flags, whilst
+boys, walking in the procession, called out loudly from time to time.
+
+The children could not possibly imagine what this procession could be
+all about.
+
+Some characters were written on the flags.
+
+One man who, as Leonard thought, had a very happy, smiling face, had a
+pole slung across his shoulders, from which hung two buckets of water.
+In his hand he held a green branch of a shrub which, from time to time,
+he dipped in the water, and then sprinkled the ground; while he also
+continually called out something. Other men were carrying sticks of
+lighted incense. Most of the people, in the procession, wore white
+clothes, and white caps without tassels.
+
+[Illustration: SPRINKLING WATER.]
+
+Sybil and Leonard were afterwards told that this was praying for rain,
+because for some time there had been none.
+
+The Dragon King was carried, because he is supposed to be the god of
+rain. Besides the Dragon King there is a River Dragon, who is both
+feared and worshipped. His mother, Loong-Moo, is often worshipped by
+people engaged in river traffic.
+
+The men and boys were calling out "Rain comes!" The yellow and white
+banners were to represent wind and water, and the green and black,
+clouds.
+
+The inscription on the flags was, when translated, "Prayer is offered
+for rain."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+THE LAST PEEP.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+SYBIL had made several friends amongst Cantonese ladies and children,
+and some very pleasant afternoons had she spent with them. The girls,
+she noticed, generally wore cotton tunics and trousers. One little girl,
+with whom she had spent a few hours, was in mourning, so she wore white,
+bound with blue. Sybil could not help thinking that this was very pretty
+mourning, but her brother's was still prettier, for his trousers were of
+pale blue silk tied round the ankles, and he wore white shoes. His cue
+was tied with blue. And there were such very pretty gardens belonging to
+the houses in which they lived, with rockeries, fish-ponds, and
+summer-houses almost large enough to live in.
+
+One lady, whom Sybil visited, astonished her very much, because she had
+an only boy, who was very pale-looking and delicate, and she called him
+all sorts of names, and seemed to treat him so unkindly. When Sybil had
+been ill herself, her mother had always treated her with such extra love
+and care, and she fancied that all mothers behaved like this. Then the
+Chinese love their boys so much, that one would therefore have thought
+an only boy would be so very precious. The next time that she saw the
+lady she had given away her child to be adopted by some one else. Mrs.
+Graham heard the explanation to this unnatural conduct, and gave it to
+Sybil. The woman really loved her boy most fondly, and would have given
+anything she had to have him well, but she fancied that the gods were
+malicious towards him, and that if she pretended to them that she did
+not care for the child they would let him get well again. All that
+conduct was to deceive the gods.
+
+Mr. Graham had several times dined out at Chinese houses, and sometimes
+his wife had accompanied him, but as Cantonese ladies never dine with
+their husbands in public, where her doing so was likely to give any
+offence, even though she were invited, she never went; but many Chinese
+very well understand that there are quite different laws for Europeans
+than there are for them, and these seemed to be glad to admit English
+ladies, with their husbands, to be guests at their houses.
+
+When Mr. and Mrs. Graham went to one of these dinners, knives and forks
+were borrowed for them, and the other English visitors, in place of
+chop-sticks. A china spoon and a two-pronged fork were set before each
+person, and there were china wine-glasses. The table-napkins were of
+brown paper. Basins of fruit, from which all helped themselves as they
+liked, were in the middle of the table. There were a great many soups
+and other courses. Every now and then the host took something out of a
+basin with his chop-stick, and offered to put it into the mouths of his
+guests. Out of politeness they were bound to accept these gifts. There
+was not any beef, as no Chinaman eats beef. Music was played, and slaves
+fanned the people during dinner.
+
+Once when Sybil visited some of her young Chinese friends, the tea was
+brought in to them in covered cups, and when they wanted more,
+tea-leaves were put into the cups and boiling water was poured upon
+them. She had learnt now to be able to drink tea without milk or sugar,
+but she could not like it.
+
+A two months' stay at Canton brought the children to the end of four
+months and a half of their stay in China, and left but six weeks more
+before they were to return to England. It was the middle of March when
+the Grahams said "Good-bye" to their kind friends at the Yamen, and
+returned to Hong-Kong. Sybil could not bear to say this farewell, as it
+was the last but one, and she knew how very quickly six weeks would
+pass.
+
+They had all enjoyed their stay in Canton very much, and often thought
+about the New Year's Day which had been kept, while they were there,
+with such grand rejoicings. At midnight, on the last day of the old
+year, a bell, never used except on this occasion, pealed forth, when, at
+the signal, people rushed into the streets in crowds to let off
+fireworks.
+
+Every temple and every pagoda was lighted up, and people burnt incense
+before idols in their own homes. Some streets are lighted in Canton by
+lanterns, but, as a rule, the smaller streets are in darkness, with the
+exception of paper lanterns, which hang, every now and then, from before
+shops or private houses, and even these are put out by half-past nine
+o'clock. Paraffin lamps are now being introduced along Chinese city
+streets.
+
+All New Year's night a great noise was to be heard, and in the morning
+friends dressed in their best to call upon, and salute, one another.
+
+In the streets they were to be seen prostrating themselves upon the
+ground. Rich and poor alike had great rejoicings on New Year's Day, the
+rich often keeping up their holiday for ten days.
+
+Latterly Mr. Graham had been several times backwards and forwards to
+Hong-Kong, where he had made his final arrangements.
+
+The missionary, whose place he was about to fill, would, when he left
+the island, take with him to England, besides his own family, Sybil and
+Leonard Graham. Until they sailed, the Grahams would all stay with them
+at the Mission House, when it would be handed over to Mr. Graham.
+
+The other missionary had three children of his own, two daughters,
+twelve and ten years old, and a son of nine, but as they had been absent
+from Hong-Kong when the Grahams had been there before, the children had
+not yet made one another's acquaintance.
+
+The eldest, Katie, now became Sybil's very useful interpreter, for as
+she had been born in China and lived there all her life, she could
+understand, and speak, many Chinese dialects.
+
+Sybil now knew several Chinese words herself. "Che-fan," or "Have you
+eaten your rice?" was "How do you do?" though, as a rule, when people
+said "How do you do?" to her it was "Chin-chin mississi?"
+
+When she went out visiting, questions such as the following were
+generally put to her, "What honourable name have you?" "What is the name
+of your beautiful dwelling?" and "What age have you?" Had she been grown
+up, this question would probably have been, "What is your venerable
+age?"
+
+Leonard was often told to "catchee plenty chow-chow," which means "eat a
+very good dinner," but as somehow he generally seemed able to do this,
+he hardly needed the kind advice.
+
+Mrs. Graham's amah amused Sybil very much. She had been a great
+traveller, having visited both England and America, and she liked
+England much the best. One day she said to Sybil: "Melicae no good
+countly. Welly bad chow-chow. Appool number one. My hab chow-chow sixty
+pieces before bleakfast. Any man no got dollar, all hab got paper.
+Number one foolo pidgin. No good countly. My no likee Melicae. My likee
+England side more better." This meant: "America is not a good country.
+It has very bad food, but first-rate apples. I ate sixty before
+breakfast. No one has any dollars there, all use paper money. Very
+foolish business. Not a good country. I do not like America. I like
+England better."
+
+Some pleasure or another was always forthcoming for Sybil and Leonard,
+and the few last "Peep-shows" were very precious.
+
+[Illustration: "SING-SONG."]
+
+One day, when they were out, they saw a "Sing-Song," as the performance
+was called. Under a canopy, in the open streets, children were acting
+and dancing. To do so, they had dressed up in very gorgeous costumes,
+their ornaments and head-dresses being grander, Leonard said, than
+anything he had ever seen before; and the little Chinese actors
+themselves seemed to be thoroughly at their ease, and quite at home, in
+their grand attire.
+
+"Why did that policeman come after you to-day, father, and take down the
+name of the boat that we got into?" Leonard once asked, when he and his
+father had been out together, and were returning home.
+
+"Policemen have done that several times, if you had only noticed," was
+the reply. "That was to guard us from pirates. They took the name of our
+boat, so that the owner could be held responsible if we did not return
+safely. The Chinese are dreadful pirates, and are generally on the
+look-out for opportunities to rob. Sometimes a band of them will take
+their passages in a ship, and when fairly out at sea will all rise in
+mutiny against the captain and his officers, and perhaps murder them, so
+as to be able to plunder as they choose."
+
+"I should think the boat-policemen had plenty of work to do," Leonard
+then said.
+
+"Father, do you remember well when you were just eleven?" the child then
+asked suddenly, going, as it seemed, right away from his present
+subject. "Did you ever want to be a sailor then? ever think for certain
+you would be one?"
+
+"I do not remember ever having had that wish."
+
+"Well, I have had it over and over again, and thought that there could
+not be anything better in the world than going about in ships, and
+seeing different places. I've wished to be a sailor for ever so many
+years; but, you know, I don't wish it now."
+
+[Illustration: FISHERMEN AND FISHERWOMEN.]
+
+Mr. Graham smiled. I expect it was Leonard's "ever so many years" which
+made him do so.
+
+"Don't you?" his father asked. "Then what do you want to be now?"
+
+"Something, father, I'm not half good enough for," the boy answered,
+thoughtfully. "A missionary! Oh, father, I do so want to be a missionary
+now, and come to China, as you and grandfather have done! Shouldn't you
+like it too? I know mother would; and perhaps the Church Missionary
+Society would send me out if I asked them."
+
+"I should like nothing better, my little son," was the missionary's
+reply.
+
+A few minutes later Leonard was out of doors again, flying himself one
+of the "wonderful kites," which a Chinaman had made for, and given to,
+him, and his father was watching his little fellow with pleasure almost
+amounting to pride.
+
+Was this his impulsive boy's own thought, he wondered, or had his sister
+suggested it to him.
+
+Quite his own; but no doubt the quiet, gentle influence which Sybil
+exerted over her younger brother was very good for him.
+
+"Do you think, Sybil, that the heathen Chinese could teach the Christian
+English anything?" Mr. Graham asked his daughter, as they sat and talked
+together the very last evening.
+
+"I am sure they could," she answered quickly; "many things. Filial love
+and obedience for one, respect and reverence for old age for another;
+and then, though they do believe such silly, superstitious things, there
+seems to be such a reality, so much earnestness, about the way some of
+them carry out their religion. They do not mind how early they get up
+and go out to keep a religious festival, and they seem to ask a sort of
+blessing, from their gods, on everything they do, and keep their fasts
+and feasts so very regularly; but I think their love for their parents
+beats everything. 'Boy' asked for a holiday yesterday, because it was
+his mother's birthday, and got up very early to do his work before he
+went." "Boy" was a kind of footman.
+
+"Yes; parents' birthdays are kept up much more than are those of
+children. Sometimes on their birthdays they will sit under a crimson
+canopy, whilst their children kneel and perform the 'kow-tow' to them.
+The fifty-first birthday, and every ten years afterwards, is celebrated
+with great pomp, when religious ceremonies are often performed at the
+Temple of Longevity. I believe thirty Buddhist priests will then
+sometimes return thanks for three days.
+
+"When a man is eighty-one, the fact is occasionally communicated to the
+Emperor, who may then allow money to be given for a monumental arch to
+be erected to the old man's honour.
+
+"After parents are dead their birthdays are still celebrated in the
+ancestral hall, where their portraits hang."
+
+"I suppose children give their parents beautiful presents on their
+birthdays?"
+
+"When they begin to get old the best present that a child can, and does,
+make a parent, and one which he values more than anything else, is a
+coffin, because, you know, a Chinaman thinks that unless his body be
+buried properly his spirit cannot rest.
+
+"The Chinese are strange contradictions," Mr. Graham went on. "Although
+they are very courageous in bearing torture, they are dreadful liars,
+and a great liar is generally a great coward. Then they are sober and
+industrious, but slaves to the opium drug; meek and gentle, but, at the
+same time, treacherous and cruel; most dutiful to their parents, but
+often very jealous of their neighbours; and then, perhaps strangest of
+all, is their love towards their children, but yet their readiness to
+put their girls to death."
+
+Sybil was silent for several minutes. "Oh, father!" she then said,
+"isn't the time dreadfully near now? Fancy leaving you and dear mother!
+How can we?"
+
+"You must go to _your_ work, darling, and we must stay here to do ours.
+Is it not so?" Mr. Graham asked, in the dear, kind, soft voice that
+Sybil loved so much, and which she always called his "preachy voice."
+"But what shall give us comfort? what shall we think about when we are
+trying to do our several duties, though apart, I hope contentedly and
+well? That it is God who has called us to our several duties; it is His
+Almighty will which we have now and always to obey; but remember, not
+alone, not unaided, dear Sybil. Who will be our guide, stay, and
+comfort, when we are separated from one another?"
+
+Sybil knew, but could not answer, because she was crying.
+
+[Illustration: WOMAN OF POAH-BI.]
+
+"Your mother and I," Mr. Graham went on, "in commending our children to
+the Fatherly love and care of Him Who gave you to us, know that we place
+you in the safest keeping; and you yourselves have also both learnt,
+have you not, how to go to our Father and 'Supreme Ruler' in earnest
+prayer, whenever tempted to do what would displease Him? A missionary,
+you know, is one who is sent on a mission--to fulfil a duty. A
+missionary's children must not shrink from fulfilling, must not fail to
+fulfil, the mission on which they are sent, must they?"
+
+Sybil looked comforted. She liked this last "Peep-show" very much, and
+kissed her father to show him that she did.
+
+A few minutes later she said, "Do you know, father, I believe little Chu
+is really beginning to believe and understand properly, for the other
+day, when I was saying my prayers, she came and knelt down beside me,
+and she would never kneel to our God before, even when she saw the
+Christian woman at Poah-bi do so, with whom we stayed, and with whom she
+was such good friends. I shall often remember that woman and her dear
+little baby, which she tied to herself so funnily, because I liked them
+so very much.
+
+"Poor little Chu!" Sybil then went on. "I shall be so glad to see her
+again when I come back to you, but I do not think she will like me to go
+away."
+
+"Chu will have to be a great deal at school now. She has her work to do
+too, you know."
+
+"How I shall think of you, father, and the Hong-Kong Mission on
+Intercession Day, when it comes round, shan't I?"
+
+"Yes, Sybil; and not only on Intercession Day, but always in your
+prayers, you must remember to pray very fervently, both for Chinese and
+other unbelievers, and not only for me, but for all who are seeking
+their conversion."
+
+"It seems a more real thing now to pray for," Sybil said.
+
+"And to give thanks for too. Here in Hong-Kong we have great cause to be
+thankful."
+
+"What a dear old lady that was who was baptized on Sunday! but what was
+the Christian name she chose? I could not hear it."
+
+"Mong-Oi, which means 'desiring the love' (of Jesus)."
+
+"That was a beautiful name, wasn't it? And there were a number of
+communicants for here too. How many native communicants are there in
+Hong-Kong?"
+
+"Between sixty and seventy; and what is so comforting is that the
+communicants seem to be really devout, and to realise what being a
+communicant means for, and requires of, them, and it is no easy matter
+at all for natives of China to embrace Christianity. Sometimes they have
+to leave all their relations, and suffer much persecution in
+consequence."
+
+"When was the Hong-Kong mission begun?" Sybil asked.
+
+"In 1862."
+
+Although the results were far from what the zealous missionaries would
+fain have seen them, Mr. Graham was right in saying that the Mission
+from the Church of England to Hong-Kong had cause to take hope and be
+thankful.
+
+Several men and women were now under instruction both for baptism and
+confirmation. The mission schools for boys numbered more than 190, and
+for girls more than thirty, and here the children were religiously as
+well as secularly instructed.
+
+There were, although only two European missionaries and one native
+clergyman, twenty-three native Christian teachers, and 183 native
+Christians. The Mission comprised, besides St. Stephen's Church and the
+agencies around it in the island of Hong-Kong, many out-stations in the
+province of Quangtung occupied by native agents.
+
+The Prayer Book, and, still better, the Holy Bible, translated into
+their own tongue, were now circulated among the people, some of whom
+were really learning to love and value them; and not only were the
+services for the Christians well attended, but every evening the heathen
+were to be seen in numbers going to hear sermons that were to be
+preached for them.
+
+Well, then, might Mr. Graham go forth to his new work with hope.
+
+"How much you will have to do, father," Sybil said, "if you go to the
+Medical Missionary Institution so often, and do all your other work
+besides! But the people seem to be very grateful to you. 'Boy' said
+yesterday that you were 'a hundred man good,' and I know what that
+means: 'The best of men.'"
+
+Mr. Graham smiled.
+
+"I like, and it is good for us all," he said, "to have plenty to do; and
+one work, you know, may help on the other."
+
+"I expect mother will help you a very great deal too."
+
+"She is sure to do that." Sybil knew she was.
+
+All day long the child had spent beside her much-loved mother; now, for
+another hour, she sat on and talked with her father, receiving good,
+kind counsel, when Leonard, who had been closeted with his mother,
+listening to her dear words of best advice, came in, with eyes swollen
+from crying, and then the four sat together till it was long past
+bed-time; but what of that? To-morrow, on board ship, there would be
+nothing to keep them up late, when they could make up for to-night, and
+go early to bed.
+
+To-morrow came, as happy and sad to-morrows all alike will come; when
+the mother gave her children their last kisses, the father their last
+kisses and benedictions, and Sybil and Leonard Graham started on their
+homeward voyage to England, leaving their parents very grateful for
+having such good, kind friends to whose care on board ship to entrust
+them.
+
+Both children were to return at once to their former schools, and spend
+their holidays together at Mrs. Graham's brother's house, who was also
+the rector of a country parish, and where she knew they would very soon
+feel quite at home.
+
+Sybil and Leonard Graham, the children of brave parents, were brave
+children themselves, and as they had promised not to grieve more then
+they could help, they at once did battle with their tears, and before
+long were talking really cheerfully with their friends.
+
+"Who knows," Sybil said once to Leonard, when she and her brother found
+themselves alone, "but what they might come over for a small
+holiday-trip in two or three years' time? and if not, I believe when I
+go out you are to go with me for another 'Peep-show' holiday, and to see
+_them_!"
+
+"Of course I ought to go whenever I can," Leonard answered, "as I'm
+going to be a missionary out there myself."
+
+Sybil had said "them" because she could not yet say, without crying,
+those two dear, sacred words, father and mother, which stand alone in
+the vocabulary of every language, and have no peers.
+
+Mrs. Graham herself was then alone, shedding bitter tears, which she
+had stifled until her children left her, but which she could keep back
+no longer.
+
+Yet, though her mother's loving heart was very sad and sore, she would
+not weep long, but would, to the very best of her ability, go forth at
+once to help her husband--who could not but feel sad now too--in the
+good work in which she had encouraged him to embark, counting _all_ the
+costs beforehand.
+
+And Sybil, who had said "_I like my father to be a missionary very
+much_," would not unsay the words now, though it took both her parents
+so far away from her and Leonard. Oh no! since she had seen the great
+need that there was for missionaries to China, she liked, even better
+than before, her father "to be a missionary!"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+Bold text is surrounded by =equal signs= and italic text by
+_underscores_.
+
+Text uses uses varied hyphenation on the naming of the cities. This
+includes both Fu-kien and Fukien, Poahbi and Poa-bi, and Pei-ho and
+Peiho, among others.
+
+Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
+
+Page 31, Illustration caption: MENE changed to MENE (HATA-MENE-TA-KIE)
+
+Page 74, "r st" changed to "rest" (rest of their lives)
+
+Page 178, "Europeon" changed to "European" (the European settlement)
+
+Page 196, "al" changed to "all" (soon. We all)
+
+Page 212, twice the word "Melicae" was spelled with a macron over the
+"a". This was replaced with a "ae" for this text version.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Peeps Into China, by E. C. Phillips
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