A HARBOUR SCENE
(HONG KONG).

And bravely do the men toil at the work that is to bring independence to their homes. Down in the deep holds of the great ships, with but small intermissions the livelong day, the huge bales of goods are swung by sturdy arms that seem made of iron into the lighters alongside, and at last as the sun shows signs of setting, the men wipe the dripping perspiration from their faces, and with laughter and jokes that show the unconquerable pluck of these brave fellows they quit their work for the day.

Other farmers, again, have heard of the golden legends that have been wafted to them from the Straits and Java and Borneo, and from Sumatra, which have told of the fortunes that are to be made there by men who are willing to work. Those lands are to the Chinese what the fabled country that was said to contain the Golden Fleece was to the Grecian heroes that set sail to gain possession of it for themselves. They feel that if they linger in their homes, poverty and hunger must be the lot from which there is no escape, and so, leaving their farms to be worked by the women, they set their faces towards the setting sun, and with their brains dancing with visions of fortunes that they are to discover there, they start on the long journey, in the hopes that in a very few years they will return with money sufficient to pay off their debts, and with enough left to enable them to live in comfort the rest of their lives. And so the lands that lie about the equator, and the countless islands that look straight up at the sun, and the Malay Peninsula, where the forests cover the land and countless myriads of mosquitoes sing their high-keyed songs, men from the great Empire of China abound throughout them all. They make the roads, and they dig in the tin mines, and they pull the jinrickshaws, and they seem to be the great workers everywhere. Who are these men that thrust themselves so prominently upon the notice of the stranger and the traveller? They surely must be the refuse of the land from which they have come, for here they are the hewers of wood and the drawers of water. They are nothing of the kind, for nearly every man you see is a farmer in that great Empire of China, and through the stress of poverty and the desire to save his home from distress, he has come to do any work, no matter how menial, that will enable him to accumulate enough to return to his beloved home to bring succour to those who are enduring whilst he is away.

The farmer is truly the handy man of China, for he seems to be able to turn his hand to almost anything, and to succeed fairly well in whatever he touches. He can turn sailor at a moment’s notice, and he seems as familiar amongst the ropes and in the management of the helm as he is amongst the growing grain, that appears to recognize his presence and to rustle and whisper with gladness as he passes unconcernedly with the air of a master down through its midst. All the great fleets of boats that cast their shadows upon the mighty rivers of China are manned and worked by farmers, who, when their voyages are over, return home it may be for a shorter or longer period, and aid the wives in the management of the few fields, that they manage with the same tact and cunning touch of hand as their husbands would do were they not compelled to go afield to earn something to eke out the scanty produce that they are able to get out of their farms.

The stranger from abroad travelling by the native boats that sail, say, up the Yangtze for a thousand miles or more, is struck with the intelligence and activity and pleasant, sociable character of the men that work the boat. He is with them for weeks together, and he admires the quiet, efficient way in which they manage the sails, or get out on the bank and tow her against the stream when there is a head wind or perhaps a dead calm. He never once suspects that they never spent any time as apprentices in learning their business, but that every one of them, even including the captain, is a born farmer, and that his real vocation is to till the lands that his fathers have transmitted to him.

A picnic party is organized to ascend a mountain that rears its lofty head above the plain that lies at its feet. The gentlemen can walk, but the ladies must have sedan chairs to carry them up the narrow pathways trodden by the feet of the buffaloes, and by those of the woodcutters who climb up high on the hillsides to cut down fuel for the homes in the villages below. The ordinary chair-bearers accustomed to carry on the level roads would be no use on these rough and rocky ribands of pathways, that only men who are surefooted and have the wind to mount up steep inclines could travel with safety.

In this emergency a number of farmer lads are engaged, and though they do not carry the chair as scientifically as the regular carriers, they will fly up the steepest hill, and jump over chasms, and surmount boulders in a way that these latter would never attempt. The process is a little rough and one is apt to get somewhat shaken, but there is never any danger of the men falling or of their precipitating their fare over the edge of a precipice into the yawning ravine beneath.

Where the villages are near the great thoroughfares, the carrying of sedan chairs is a very favourite method with the farmers of earning a few extra cash to help to meet the expenses of the home. After the crops have been gathered in, and the rush of work is over, they are accustomed to stand at various points on the roadside, and watch for the coming of sedan chairs that may be passing up or down. No sooner do they come opposite them than they call out and ask the bearers whether they do not wish to engage some one to give them a rest for a few miles and to carry their burden for them. If the men they address have been carrying for some hours and have grown weary, negotiations ensue which end in their dropping the chair on the road, and its being hoisted on to the shoulders of the new men, who, full of vigour and anxious to get their job finished, rush on like racehorses over the rough, uneven road.

The payment for this toilsome labour is of the most meagre and unsatisfactory description. One day I was travelling over one of these great thoroughfares, and the men that were carrying me were becoming somewhat exhausted. The road, which had been very much left to nature to repair, was in a shockingly bad condition. It ran, moreover, through a very hilly country, and sometimes it wound up the sides of hills, and again it descended by rough, circuitous windings into the valley far beneath. The men had the greatest difficulty in keeping from falling. The chair on their shoulders was heavy, and the road was strewed with stones, and tiny waterways that the rains and the streams from the hills had cut into it had to be jumped. Very often I had to hold my breath in terror lest in passing over the face of a sloping rock the men’s feet should slip, and I should find myself rolling down the hillside into a miniature rapid that fretted and foamed as it whirled and tossed in its wild career towards the plain below.

My two bearers, who would have trotted along on an even road with only an occasional grunt, or a muttered expression as to the hardness of their lot in life, broke into expressions of disgust as the various difficulties of the way came one by one upon them; still they struggled manfully on, till finally we reached a small oasis in the hills, where a few houses embowered amid splendid banyan-trees offered refreshments to the travelling public as well as to our panting, perspiring chair-bearers, who dragged their weary limbs under the shadow of the great boughs of the trees, and dropping the chair in the middle of the road, threw themselves utterly exhausted and worn out on the benches that had been provided for those who intended to purchase refreshments before they proceeded further on their journey.

After sitting for a moment listless and drooping, with apparently no strength to utter a word, one of my men held up his hand deftly fashioned into the shape of a bowl, when the shopkeeper, who had kept a keen eye upon the newcomers as possible customers, at once dipped out a bowlful of steaming rice from a huge cauldron that was kept on the boil, and placed it within the bowl-shaped fingers with a pair of chopsticks laid across it, ready for the immediate use of the weary coolie. At the same time he placed before him a tiny little platter in which were some nicely browned strips of fried bean curds to act as appetizer to the rice, and to arouse his flagging appetite.

After a few minutes of solemn stillness, when the only sounds that were heard from the weary men were the music of the chopsticks and the satisfied sighs as the rice was driven down their throats by the two “nimble boys” (a pleasant title given by the Chinese to the chopsticks), the faces of the men began to lighten up. The weary look vanished, smiles covered the yellow visages, and soon jokes were cracked and bantering language was tossed from table to table, until the air rang with the echoes of their laughter.

At this juncture two farmers stepped out from a number who were hanging about in a listless fashion, and asked my men if they did not wish to hire for the next stage, which was about three miles long. At first they pretended that they did not, but that was simply bluff and intended to knock the price down. After some noisy discussion, the men said they would carry for forty-five cash. It must be remembered here that one cash is the thousandth part of two shillings. My men objected that the sum asked was extravagant, and offered ten less. Another wordy contest ensued, when the farmers came down to forty, whilst my men came up to thirty-eight.

Both sides refused to budge an inch, so my chair was once more hoisted upon the shoulders of the chair coolies, and we issued from beneath the branches of the banyan into the glare of the great sun, and the weary march along the toilsome roads was once more begun. We had proceeded on our journey fully a third of a mile, and the whole incident had passed from my mind, when loud sounds of voices calling out were heard behind. In an instant my men let the chair slip from their shoulders on to the road, and stood quietly within the bamboo poles, as though they were expecting some one. “What is the matter,” I asked, “and why do you stop?” “Oh,” one of them replied, with a twinkle in his eyes, “the farmers have consented to carry you this stage for thirty-eight cash, and so we are going to have a rest.”

By this time the men had come up, and putting on their straw sandals to protect their feet from the rough stones, tightened their girdles, twisted their tails round the crowns of their heads, and tossing the chair on to their brawny shoulders, they started with a run on their three-mile race. They might have been chair coolies all their lives, considering the easy manner in which they manipulated the chair, and the perfect way in which they kept step, and yet they were simple farmers, whose lives are spent in the cultivation of the soil, but whose poverty has compelled them to devise some rough methods to enable them to drive the wolf from their doors. Some idea of the strain that has been put upon them may be gathered from the fact that these men were willing to carry me for three miles and walk back the same distance for the trifling sum of thirty-eight cash, which was to be equally divided between the two, and which would thus give each one a little under a halfpenny.The Chinese farmer stands second to none in all the world. It would seem, indeed, as though nature recognized in him a master hand, and that she responded to his touch, and poured out her riches in willing obedience to a mind that understood her and had learned her secrets. There is nothing in the world of agriculture that a Chinese farmer does not understand—that is, as far as the products of this land are concerned—and he seems to know the peculiarities of each, and their moods and their whims, and to be able to coax them to show their best face when the time of the harvesting comes round.

This is all the more remarkable since he has really so few implements with which to work the marvels he produces. These are the hoe, the plough, and the harrow, and beyond these the Chinese farmer never dreams of desiring any other. The first of these seems never to be out of his hands, for it is the one upon which he relies the most, and the one that is really the most effective implement that he possesses for the cultivation of the soil. It really takes the place of the spade in England, though the latter is never put to such extensive and general uses as the hoe. The Chinaman can do anything with it but make it speak. A farmer well on in years can easily be recognized amidst a number of working men by the curve his hands have taken from holding the hoe in the many years of toil in his fields with it.

With it, if he is a poor man and has no oxen to plough the ground, he turns up the soil where he is going to plant his crops, and with it he deftly, and with a turn of his wrist, levels out the surface so that it is made ready for the seed. With a broad-bladed hoe he dips to the bottom of a stream or of a pond, and he draws up the soft mud that had gathered there, and with a dexterous swing he flings the dripping hoeful on to his field near by to increase its richness by this new deposit. The stump of a tree will send out its roots wandering for moisture underneath a choice little plot where his potatoes are growing, and the farmer feels that these are an infringement upon the rights of the plants that look to him for protection. He seizes his hoe, and with a few sturdy strokes of its keen, sharp edge driven into its very heart in a short time the stump has vanished, and the roots have ceased tapping the moisture that the potato tubers require for their own growth.

But it would take up too much space to describe all the thousand and one ways in which this truly national implement is used by the farmers of China. It is quite enough to say that without it they would be left quite helpless, and if the agriculture of the country was to be carried on, some other implement equally serviceable would have to be devised to take its place. The plough and the harrow are of secondary importance to the hoe, but still they occupy a prominent position in the agricultural economy of the nation. They are of course antiquated, for they have come down from the remote past untouched by any inventive genius during the long centuries that have elapsed since they were devised in the early dawn of Chinese history. To alter them, or even to make a suggestion that they could be improved in any way, would be such a monstrous heresy that the nation’s hair would turn grey, and would cause the spirits of their ancestors such misery and shame that there is no knowing what calamities they might send upon the Empire to avenge their wrongs.

The ability of the farmer in this country is measured by the crops he is able to produce. China is an old country, and for countless generations the teeming populations have had to get their living out of the land. There is no rest given it, for one rarely sees any of the fields being allowed to lie fallow in order to give them time for recuperation. The pressure of the hungry mouths is upon it, and to satisfy the needs of the people they must go on indefinitely producing sustenance for them. It is here where the genius of the Chinese farmer comes in. If hungry stomachs can only be satisfied by a supply of food, so the impoverished, famished land can be made to bear the strain upon its resources by putting into it a liberal supply of manures.

This, after all, is the true secret of abundant crops. The land, in the South of China at least, is mostly of a poor and indifferent character. Along the courses of rivers and in the alluvial valleys it is rich enough, and produces splendid crops year after year. But when you get beyond these, and come into the hilly regions, you touch upon territories that are exceedingly reluctant, excepting when they are liberally supplied with manures, to produce crops that are worth the gathering.

The Chinese farmer has no scientific knowledge as to how he should best develop his farm, but he knows by experience that unless the land is coaxed and petted with an ample supply of manures, no acquaintance with the art of farming will avail to cover it with the harvests that will keep his family from hunger, and that will still leave a margin to be sold in the market to bring enough to meet the incidental expenses of the home.

The list of fertilizers in China is a very brief one, and bones and beancake are two important ones in it, but the one that stands the first and foremost in the estimation of the farmers throughout the country is nightsoil. This is the one that is universally used because it is the cheapest, and also because it is the only really available one. The system by which that important manure is collected and distributed is a thoroughly perfect one, and ages of practice has made the managers of this intricate business so well up in it that there is never any hitch in it. The towns and cities, and any place indeed where a considerable population has collected, are so relieved of their accumulations that the Government is never called upon to interfere, nor are sanitary inspectors ever appointed to see to their cleanliness or to prevent the people from suffering from insanitary conditions.

A regular trade is carried on between the towns and the farms that lie in all directions around them in this particular manure, and the farmers’ wives, who are the principal carriers of it, will come into town in the early morning and carry it miles away to their houses in all directions throughout the country places. On one occasion I had started out from a large city of at least a hundred thousand people and had got a few miles from it, when I overtook twenty or thirty young farmers’ wives carrying their purchases in buckets slung on bamboo poles resting on their shoulders, and a merrier set of women it would have been difficult to have met with.

They seemed quite unconcerned at the heavy loads they had to carry or the miles that still lay between them and their homes, nor did they appear to consider that there was any disgrace in having to perform the duties they were doing. They seemed, indeed, to forget all about the toil they had to endure, for they laughed and chatted and joked with each other till the road echoed with the sound of their merry voices. The exercise, which was severe, did not seem to fatigue them, for their eyes twinkled with humour and their brown faces were covered with smiles, and they looked so good humoured and full of pleasant thoughts that it was really a treat to look upon them. Every day these women would come into the city until they had carried enough to their little holdings to suffice for the crop they were going to put in, and then they would have a respite until that had been gathered and it was time to make preparations for the next one.

In the South of China there are two great crops in the year, that absorb the greater part of the energies of the farmers whilst they are in the fields. These consist of the rice which is the staple food for all classes of society, and which occupies the place in the social economy of the Chinese that wheat does in that of the English. The first is gathered in July and the second in November, and from the time that the first crop is put in during the month of April, until the second one is garnered, it may be positively asserted that there is a continued tension on the mind of the farmer.

CHINESE FARMERS.

The planting of the rice is not the simple thing that the cultivation of wheat is. This latter is sown in land that has been carefully prepared for it, and after that it is left very much to nature to do the rest. The rain falls, and the sun shines and the dews lay their diamond drops on the growing grain, and the farmer looks at the miracles of changes that are wrought upon it, until golden-hued he puts the sickle in and gathers it into his barns. With the rice there is no such luxurious rest or waiting.

He first of all sows his seed in a plot of land that is full of water, and they fall into the soft oozy mud at the bottom and take root. As the little spires pierce above the surface, they have the most exquisite light-green that the eye has ever been pleased to look upon. They grow up rapidly with an airy look about them as though they were conscious that the farmer is depending upon them for the whole of his rice crop during this season. They do indeed constitute the stock from which he draws the materials to fill his empty fields waiting to be planted with rice plants.

After they have grown to the height of five or six inches they are all pulled up by the roots, and in little bundles of four or five they are replanted in the larger fields that have been prepared for them, each bundle standing apart from the rest about three or four inches. And now the race of life begins with the several little bunches that have their roots submerged in water, and their emerald pointed leaves looking up at the blue sky. They started life together and grew up side by side, and now marshalled in groups they are not rivals, but friendly competitors in the race to show which shall give the best of beauty and power to the farmer who is caring for them.

From this day until the hour when they are cut down golden-hued, there must be no faltering in the care that is bestowed upon them. The water in the field must always be kept up to a certain level, for should that fail the serried ranks of rice would soon show how keenly they felt its loss, by their drooping heads and distressed-looking manner, as the great sun beat down upon them, and seemed to paralyze them with his scorching rays. Water must be led in some way into the field, or if there is a stream running close by, the endless water-wheel must be set in motion until little rivulets have flowed in, and the gaping cracks in the mud are closed up, and the thirsty roots have drunk their fill, and the drooping stalks once more stand up erect and look the sun in the face without flinching.

Every now and again, too, the farmer must walk between the marshalled ranks and with his hands tenderly feel at the roots of each separate bunch of the growing rice to remove any impediment there may be to the free access of water to them. These roots seem like spoiled children that need petting and coaxing and humouring in order to be willing to send up the vital forces through the stalks above so as to help them to produce the healthy heads of grain that are to give delight to the farmer when he comes to gather in the harvest.

In addition to this precious crop that needs so much attention, the cultivator has others that claim his thoughts and time. These are the beans that are used in the manufacture of soy and in the making of bean curds that are considered so important as condiments to be eaten with the rice. There are also the sweet potatoes which in some of the poorer counties are the staple food of all but the well-to-do. There are also various kinds of vegetables which the Chinese are most expert in growing, but the cultivation of these is considered as pastime when compared with the incessant care and labour that have to be bestowed on the rice crop from the very first day that the seed is cast upon the waters until the moment when the fields are allowed to run dry, and the golden-hued stalks rear their heads in the air with no more anxiety as to whether the rain shall ever fall again or not.

The one element that causes the farmer most distress in his cultivation of the rice is the uncertainty of the weather. When the rainy season has been one in which abundance of rain has been poured down upon the earth, so that the fountains that lie beneath the wells and close by the ponds are filled to overflowing, then his mind is comparatively at rest. He knows there is a perennial supply that can constantly be drawn upon, when the water begins to ebb away in the fields where the rice is growing. Should the showers that the thunderstorms pour down occasionally from the clouds that gather so quickly in the sky come with any kind of regularity, his mind is still more relieved, and he can think with equanimity of the day that is coming when he will gather his precious crop into his garner.

Such an experience, however, as this is not one that falls very often to the lot of the anxious farmer. The rainy seasons are apt to be capricious, and to withhold the rich stores of rain and moisture without which not only his rice, but his beans and his potatoes will be scorched in the field and will wither and perish before his very eyes. It is pitiful to watch the efforts that he has to make to try and preserve his crops from destruction when the year is a dry one.

The days go by, and every morning his first looks are towards the hills around which the clouds have gathered during the night. There seems a great promise in the dense masses that have gathered around some lofty peak, and it is hoped that to-day at last, after weary days of expecting, the rain that is to save the crops will come down in abundant showers. The sun by and by rises in a great red orb of scorching heat, and his rays flash as though they had come straight from a furnace, and they touch the clouds that have taken refuge on the hills, and slowly they vanish into thin air and are gone.

Another day of heat, and the sun in a cloudless sky draws up the water that is standing at the feet of the rice, and he looks upon the ponds and they dissolve in vapour, and he touches the vines of the sweet potatoes with his breath and they turn pale with anguish, and the tubers within the ridges wither up and die for want of moisture. Days and sometimes weeks of this go by, till one wonders at the vitality of nature that can endure such a fiery ordeal and have anything left to tell the tale.

It is on such occasions as these that the profoundest grief and sorrow are felt by the farmers. The dried-up ponds are dug still deeper to reach any reserve of the precious fluid that may have sunk below the surface, and in order to secure that none of that shall be absorbed by the sun, they carry on their operations about the hours of midnight, when the air has become slightly cooler, and when every drop of water can be saved for the dying crops near by. It very often occurs that the farmers of a whole district will be out in the dark nights, and with their hoes are busily engaged in turning up every available spot of ground to discover whether there is any water below. Where the ponds border on each other’s fields, the fiercest struggles will frequently take place for the possession of the discovered treasure, and the night air will resound with the noise of battle, and wounded men will be carried to their homes to add to the bitterness and the grief that have already thrown their shadows there.

In the earlier part of this chapter it was stated that in consequence of the custom of dividing the farms amongst the sons and not handing them over to the eldest, as is done in England, a great many of them are too small to support even a small family, whilst many of what might be called the younger sons are left without any land whatever. It has become the custom with many such people to rent lands from others who have a surplus of such on their hands. It is the custom for rich men to invest their money in the purchase of farms, which they let out to others to cultivate, and taking one year with another they find this is a very profitable way of disposing of the ready money they have at their command.

The system of letting out their lands is thoroughly Oriental and quite different from that which is in vogue in the West. The landlords do not charge any rent, but they share the produce with the tenant. This seems a most equitable arrangement, for when the years are good both tenant and owner mutually reap the benefit, whilst in the seasons when a scarcity of rain prevents the ground from producing as much as it legitimately ought to do, both parties share in the sorrow of diminished crops.

The rule that prevails very generally is for the landlord to take half the crop after it has been gathered. The tenant provides seed, manure, and labour, and for his use of the land he hands over a half of all that it produces. It is very interesting to watch the proceedings that take place when the times comes for harvesting the various kinds of crops during the year. The tenant, with his wife and sons, if he has any, repairs to the field where the grain is ready for the sickle. It is a time of great rejoicing, as it is in all countries, and the months of labour and anxiety are for the time being forgotten in the joy of the golden grain that is now waiting to be gathered.

But another figure is there, who takes no share in the harvesting. He is well dressed and does not have the air of a farmer about him. He has taken his seat on a bank or some place where he can keep his eye upon the whole of the joyous proceedings that are being carried on. Upon inquiry we find that he is an agent of the landlord, and has come to receive his half of the contents of the field. He has bags with him to put his share in, and when the rice is cut and at once threshed on the field, the half is duly measured and handed over to him.

By this arrangement all arrears of rent are avoided, and the distress of feeling in debt to one’s landlord is never experienced by the farmers of China. That their life is an anxious and a troubled one, I have shown very fully, and that sometimes their crops are too small to meet the needs of the family. These are inevitable in the very nature of things, but there is one thing that they are never troubled with, and that is excessive rents. Rack-renting is a thing from which they are mercifully preserved, and it is one sign of the common-sense of the Chinese, and of their instinct for fair play both for landlord and tenant, that the present system was initiated ages ago, and is still carried out all over the country.