Читать книгу Intimate China: The Chinese as I Have Seen Them - Archibald Mrs. Little - Страница 14

Table of Contents

Arrangement of a Chinese House.—Crowd in Streets.—My First Walk in Chungking City.—Presents.—Cats, Rats, and Eggs.—Paying a Call.—Ladies Affectionate.—Shocked at European Indecency.—Cost of Freight.—Distance by Post.—Children's Pleasures.—Precautions during Drought.—Guild Gardens.—Pretty Environs.—Opium Flowers, and Smokers.—Babble of Schools.—Chinese Girlchild.

Chungking has been so fully described in my husband's volume Through the Yangtse Gorges, I will not here enter upon a description of it further than to say it is situated, like Quebec, at the junction of two rivers. It a little recalls Edinburgh; it is about the size of Lyons; has walls all round it; and its gates are shut at sunset, all but two, which remain open an hour or two longer, except when the country is in commotion. It is built upon a rock; and as the summer progresses all the rock warms up, till the heat is very great indeed. The streets are mostly covered over, both as a protection against the sun, and the rain, which is very frequent. There is thus no possibility of fresh air getting into its streets, short of a gale occurring; and there is only very rarely any wind, as is shown by the large shade-trees on the tops of the hills, and the awnings to keep the sun off the houses, which are supported on bamboos, and which in this windless region are taken up even over the roofs of the houses.

CHUNGKING, COMMERCIAL CAPITAL OF WESTERN CHINA.

Now all the missions have built European houses; but a little while ago all foreigners lived in Chinese houses within the walls of the city. To describe one: You enter off a dirty alley by a large gateway, the only opening in the lofty fire-proof walls that surround the whole property; for fire is the great danger of a Chinese city, and a whole quarter of Chungking has been burnt down since we have lived there. You pass into a sort of courtyard; from that you proceed by a long passage to another gateway, thence into a courtyard ornamentally laid out with pots and flowers. The house door opens from this; and entering by it, you find yourself in the lofty entrance hall, used by Europeans as a dining-room. Passing through an ornamental screen with open doorways, over which hang portières, you find yourself in a sitting-room, of which one wall and two half-walls consist of paper windows, with occasional panes of glass. On either side of these two principal rooms are long narrow ones, only thirteen feet wide, which for convenience their English occupants had divided into two, the end wall being in both cases again paper windows with occasional glass. Paper ceilings had been put in to prevent the dust falling through from the tiled roof above; but the sun would shine through this as well as the tiles quite brilliantly at times. None of the partition doors had handles or latches, and the outer walls, as well as the inside partitions, were all alike of thin planks of wood, not overlapping, and which would shrink in dry weather so as to leave quite large openings between them. It will thus be realised that, whatever was the temperature outside the house, the same was the temperature inside, with the additional disadvantage of draughts on rainy, wintry days; and in winter it generally rains in Chungking. Europeans always took care to secure wooden floors for themselves; but these floors were not uncommonly rotting away under their feet. And picturesque though the houses are, with their lofty roofs, their solid wooden pillars, black rafters, and white plaster, their highly decorated exteriors, little pictures in black and white under the eaves, richly carved and heavily gilded ends to the beams, etc., it became increasingly evident each year that Europeans could not hope for health in them. Chinese in winter wear heavily wadded and fur-lined clothes, in which it is impossible to take exercise, and inside of which they loll about in a semi-comatose condition, much as if in bed.

DINNER PARTY IN THE GARDEN OF A MEMBER OF THE HANLIN COLLEGE,—WHITE CLOTH SPREAD IN COMPLIMENT TO EUROPEANS.

By Mrs. Archibald Little.

The streets, although wide for a Chinese city, are very narrow in comparison with English streets, being only eight feet at the widest, and extraordinarily crowded. Passing through them is a continual pushing through a crowd of foot-passengers; of sedan-chairs, carried by coolies, with sometimes one or two men running before to clear the way, and if it be necessary beat back the crowd; of mules, donkeys, or ponies, with loads; and of numbers of carrying-coolies, a bamboo across their shoulders, and from either end a basket hanging by strings. Everything that can be done in the streets is done in them: pedlars go by with great quantities of goods for sale; men are mending broken china with little rivets after a fashion in which the Chinese are great experts; here is a barber shaving a man's head, there are two women menders, on little stools very neatly dressed, pursuing their avocation; here is a man working at an embroidery-frame, there a cobbler mending shoes; here some pigs, there some chickens; here a baby in a hen-coop, there a pussy-cat tied to a shop-counter; and in the evenings street preachers, in the afternoons vast crowds pouring out from theatres. At night, in going out to dinner we used always to pass at least three street preachers. These men wear official caps, and are as a rule, I believe, reading or expounding the Sacred Edicts. There is always a little crowd listening, though often a very small one. In the better streets every attention is paid to decency; in the lesser streets none is apparent. At the street corners there are often large tanks full of water, as a precaution against fire. These are invariably grown over with weed. A vast army of coolies is every day going down the steep flights of steps to the river to bring water, which drips from the buckets as it is carried along. Another army is carrying out the sewage of the city to be used as manure. A very soft coal is used for fuel; and baskets of coal are constantly being carried in, two dangling from a pole across a coolie's shoulders. The coal-dust, and the smoke, and the drippings, and the bustling crowd, all make the streets rather an unpleasant place to walk in. Yet, although every one told me it was impossible for an English lady to walk in them, I felt it was impossible for me to live in Chungking unless I did; for in summer no one could walk out till sunset, and then the gates are closed; so after showing myself about as much as I could in a sedan-chair with the curtains up—unlike the other ladies, who all kept theirs down in those days—I determined to attempt a walk, with my sedan-chair, of course, following behind to show I had some claim to respectability.