Life and sport in China / Second Edition

AND

ree route

by rail through E

s the Atlantic, North

Mediterranean, Suez Canal

take a magnificent mail steamer at an English port and remain on board, surrounded by as much comfor

hly carpeted, illuminated with electric light, cooled by electric fans, and where meals are served which would not demean any restau

cold stoves in some of the cabins, so that when passing through great heat in the Red S

y with the refrigerator, which makes ice for use on board and provides cold storage

g point. Although undoubtedly very pleasant during intense heat, and invaluable for hospital purposes, I question if they will come into anything like general use, for it seem

causes each day to be shortened. By the westerly route yo

ained a day, and instead of its being Wednesday, as you might think, it would be Tuesday, wherefore you would be obliged to have two Wednesdays in one week. By the westerly route, on the contrar

e date is always regulated

be two consecutive Mondays, or two Thursdays, a

a week must be omitted, there being no time for

engers settled to hold service in the saloon at 10:30 a.m. on Sunday, and posted up a notice to that effect in the

next morning finding an official notice posted up immediately over that of the missionaries, saying that it would be Sunday un

e large river steamers running up the Yangtse for six hundred miles from Shanghai to Hankow, an

on day and night over calm waters in a dream-like peace, broken only for a short time every few hours by the necessary stopping at ports of call to work cargo, and at riverside stations for Chinese passengers, who, however, do not mingle

longing to his own cabin, when on dashing in, the door having evidently been insecurely fastened on the inside, he found himself face to face with the captain's wife in her bath. Retreat was naturally instantaneous, but the position was so serious that his only course was to at on

ncident w

trange habit of doing so many things in an exactly contrary manner to Europeans, they "box"

o to the east-south" or to the "west-north," as the case may be. Even in cities, when asking your w

rreptitiously abstracted my flask from the tiffin-basket and tried to unscrew the stopper to get at the whisky, but being ignorant of the different method, he in reality screwed it on tighte

ated by a roaring fire we discussed for practice in talking any subjects of interest. Amongst many curious things w

furs in general, he told me that some rare wolf-skins were exceedingly costly from the fact that the wolves, after being caught by Mongol hunters, had been skinned alive and the skins dressed in a particular manner. Rugs made of these, he declare

be such a skin, but repeat the stor

timid and docile. In summer, for the sake of coolness and to avoid mosquitoes, they plunge into streams or mud-holes, and lie there for hours with only their muzzles and eyes above water. It is rather a pleasing sight to see one of these unwieldy, dangerous-looking brutes being led quietly along, by means of a thin string attached to its nose, by a wee native girl, who, when tired of walking, stops the

om a neighbouring meadow, and on making inquiries was told that they had been to bury th

et high. The grass being very soft, my close approach was unobserved, until a hare getting up I fired off my gun. Instantly the buffalo dashed through the ditch and up the bank, when

ile the furniture is home-made and of the roughest description. No walks or gardens surround the house, which stands in the centre of the farm-yard, outbuildings and cesspools, with the threshing-floor, as a rule, immediat

al Farm

page 1

rally very much less, are now tilled. First, they are flooded by a careful system of irrigation to a depth of three or four inches, and when sufficiently soft turned over with a primitive, wooden plough, shod with a small iron blade or tip, and drawn by one water buffalo. After this they are harrowed, the farmer standing on the harrow and driving the buffa

, which, when thus filled, is replaced by an empty one and taken to the threshing-floor, where the contents are thrown up by shovels-full into the air, the breeze blowing the chaff to one side and the winnowed rice falling in a heap by itself. When the crop is not thus threshed in the h

d, so that each housewife may know her own. One woman will colour hers a bright red, another will use blue, another green, and so on, t

Academicians, belief in ghosts, dreams and the s

in nervousness of being thought ridiculous, as well as from a feeling of the fut

then only Europeans residing amongst a dense, hostile population, which only a few weeks previously had burnt down all foreign houses and forced

of Szechwan, where an individual named Yü Man-tze was heading a crusade against Christians and foreign influence, when at least one

y-educated Chinese gentleman, who kept me informed of local events, said that the natives generally credited him with mystic

ther foreigners might or might not believe, I personally had cons

ussion of the matter, went in search of cigars and stimulants to help us while away the afternoon. At length he again broached the subject, which I could see was of great interest to him, and wa

their ankles such heavy weights that they were at first totally unable to move; but, as the fruit of continual exertions, they

iples were so buoyant that they could all fly, and so were able to pass rapidl

believed by any considerable number of people, yet such was the case, and the fact that the Chinese government eventually bribed

ge fires simultaneously broke out in different parts of the town we thought trouble was at hand. Our anticipations, however, were happily unfulfilled, the s

ims, who had been fearfully burnt, were lying in the street covered with straw mats, but still alive. Being without

ers had brought them to a piece of waste ground hard by, had heaped wood round them, had poured petroleum over the

eady beyond any human aid, and to have interfered would have brought on us instant vengeance from the ex

er heard of as taking place amongst the Chinese, although it is a matter of common knowledge

de by the storm, crossed the border into the province of Hunan, and there, after murdering an official, his women-folk an

king two white, foreign-bred pigs, they were objects of immense curiosity to the local Chinese, who thought them exceedingly uncanny,

quarry than he scuttled off in alarm, and nothing would induce him to return, nor could any other butcher be prevailed upon to offici

ution, persistency and strength. If anything can be justified by old custom, or even prec

atter of f

us, have never practised it, still the Chinese, and the women more than the men, cling to it with fanatical stubbornness for the

ers had natural feet they would most probably fail to get husbands, as no man wishes his wife to be in any way extraordinary or different from other women. "In any case," they freq

ation and guidance, and to concern oneself about novelty or change a

can be established, and of its binding force

g the city wall had for long years been spanned by a foot-bridg

strians between the opposite banks, strongly objected to a new bridge on the ground that it would take away their occupation now fairly established. Backed by numerous relatives and by public opinion, t

solely as a religious festival, the New Year with its train of bills, gifts, junketings an

er elaborate teas, at which all gentlemen of their acquaintance are expected to appear if only for a few minutes, while the men, both married and single, taking a large supply of cards, sally forth to call at the house of each lady in turn to wish

is still reckoned by the old style, and as Russians are particularly keen and very pronounced in their observance of ann

erally places their New Year some time in February, the exact date

all outstanding debts must be paid so as to commence the New Year wit

e morning all China is astir betimes, dressed in gala attire and interchanging congratulatory visits. Business is entirely suspended for several days, it being the one great annual holiday, and it is extremely difficult to get even your own servants to pay so much as a mi

in the habit of making presents indicative of good-will t

h the weight of hams, boxes of cigars, jars of dried fruits, boxes of tea, oranges and champagne. You inspect the presents with exclamations of appreciation and then privately consult the boy as to what you should retain, it being the general practice to return the greater part.

conds I started to catch him, but found it was no easy matter. He flew on to the sideboard, from there to the mantelpiece and then to the window-sill, scattering knick-knacks and photographs far and wide. He ran under the sofa and table, finally escaping into my bedroom, where,

label bearing New Year greet

Macao Harbour at

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ing up their craft in convenient places give themselves up t

in the bay facing the Praia Grande, under strict supervision of the Portuguese authorities. Mat awnings are erected over the decks, thus forming commodious rooms, which are decor

rs, cormorants, nets, baskets and hooks without bait, all meet with due measure of success, but by far the mos

I had been to tiffin with the captain and was just coming away when, pointing to some na

Having come to a suitable spot, where the depth may have been from ten to fifteen feet, the boat was stopped, and the two divers instantly plunged into the turbid water, to reappear some seconds later with a live fish in each hand, while one of them had also

w took the jolly-boat and rowed ashore, a distance of some hundred yards, and while smoking on deck I could see them wading along by the bank, groping in the mud and occasionally putting something into a bucket which they had taken with them. Questioned as to what they were doing, the

s, where on warm days, when lying in the weeds, tench can be tickled with the fingers and caught by a sudden

Scholars perform no manual labour, in visible token of which they allow the nails of the left hand to grow an inch or an

he nails of the left hand. As the use of the word esquire has degenerated in this country until not to apply it to all and sundry is considered to be almost a snub, so the habit of wearing long finger-nails in China has descended through every rank of Society until it is now more oft

eems if anything to act as an incentive, so, yielding to the pleasant temptation of palliating faults in pretty women, I would suggest as an excuse that they

having straight wooden stems a foot in length, with clumsy porcelain mouthpieces, or brass water-pipes, which when being smoked make an unpleasant gurgling sound. The bowl of either kind is so tiny that it will only hold a pin

y use ladies' bicycles. Of these few pastimes archery is considered the most distingué, while boys attain to great skill in playing shuttlecock with their feet, being able to keep up the feathered cork for a dozen or twenty times, and passing i

ith questions that I elicited it was the cricket of the hearth to which he alluded, and that his club was a gambling-house to which young men brought their crickets, there to fight grim d

nd his sons, who swim them about from place to place in search of suitable feeding-grounds. On the Yangtse I have seen them in mid-stream floating down in compact masses with the raci

ich fact had ever been a source of mild surprise to me, in view of the number of simultaneo

lies driving the wheel with their feet, on the same principle as the tread-mill, and we were gliding up the Taipa Channel near Macao at about four knots,

perintending the icing of the champagne, came on deck and explained that they undoubtedly were from an incubator in which ducks had just been hatched. This was new to me, so I asked him for det

will reveal little beyond the fact that incubators "h

process. However, he ascertained that the hatching takes place in early spring, when "a kind of primitive incubator is used. The eggs are placed in a big basket covered with straw or cotton wool, about a thousand eggs in on

kinds, the interesting fact is established that incubators "have always existed" in China, while results, as seen in the huge flocks of ducks, procl

en paragraphs in several papers announcing the excellent results obtai

have seen illiterate men smear their thumbs with ink and make impressions at the foot of