Sir Thomas Wade demands his passports—Retires to man-of-war off Tien-tsin—Interviews with Li-Hung-Chang—Convention of Che-Foo—Description of Ichang on the Yang-tse—The Manchester of Western China—Pak-hoÏ and its harbour—A magnificent pagoda—Ceremony of opening the port to foreign trade—New Year's fÉte at Pak-hoÏ—The game of Morra—Description of Wenchau—Temples and pagodas turned into inns—Wahn and its native officials—Dislike of mandarins, etc., to missionaries—Beautiful surroundings of the town—An eclipse of the moon expected—The eclipse does not keep time—Excitement of the people—The dragon attacks the moon at last—Threatening message from the Emperor to the astronomers—Two astronomers beheaded in B.C. 2155—Reasons for importance attached to eclipses in China.

No good purpose would be served by relating in detail all the negotiations which took place after the death of Margary, between Sir Thomas Wade and the Government of Pekin, on the subject of the reparation to be made for the murder. It will be enough to say that after twenty months of shilly-shallying on the part of the Chinese and dogged perseverance on that of the British Envoy, the latter demanded his passports, shut up his legation with considerable Éclat, and retired on board a man-of-war in the port of Tien-tsin, whence he issued a dignified threat of the imminent declaration of war between England and China if his demands were not complied with. This brought the Chinese Government to reason, for the Emperor and his advisers felt it would be better to yield everything than to see a victorious English army march a second time into Pekin. Sir Thomas Wade was therefore invited to meet the now celebrated Li-Hung-Chang, who became later so well-known in London and in Paris, at Che-Foo, a treaty port on the northern side of the province of Shantung, and there was signed the famous convention, of which on account of its great importance a rÉsumÉ of the principal clauses is given here:

A large money indemnity, £60,000, was to be paid to the English Ambassador, to be distributed amongst the families of Europeans who should be in want or have lost their bread-winners in Yunnan. An Imperial edict would be sent to the Viceroy of Yunnan, who should discuss with some English official, a commercial treaty between Burma and the Chinese frontier province, where Margary met his fate. England was to have the right of appointing a representative at Tali-Fow, and he was to be seconded in his researches by the Chinese authorities; the country was to be opened to commerce; to avoid misunderstandings it would be for the Tsung-li-Yamen, or ministers of foreign affairs, to invite the various European legations to draw up and submit to them a code of etiquette by which alike the Chinese and foreign signatories to the agreement should be bound. China should send consuls and ambassadors to foreign countries; when a Chinese accused of a crime against a European is tried by the Chinese authorities, the European authorities shall have a right to be present in the court, but they must not interfere; it is to be the same if the guilty person is a European who is tried by Englishmen. If, however, the representative of one of the two powers is not satisfied with the verdict given, he will have the right to protest. The penalty inflicted on the condemned will be that prescribed by the law of the country to which the judge belongs; the likin, or inland tax, imposed on foreign goods in transit, is no longer to be exacted in the concessions belonging to Europeans; China will permit Ichang in the province of Hupe, Wu-hu in Anhui, Wenchow in Che-kiang, and Pak-hoÏ in Canton to be opened to European trade; consuls shall also be allowed to reside in each of these towns. Acting in a spirit of conciliation China will allow foreign steamers to take passengers and merchandise to the following ports on the Yang-tse: Ta-Tung, Anking, Hukow, Wusuch, Ling-hi-Kow, and Sha-Shi. Furthermore, if foreign expeditions wish to go by way of the Kan-su and Kokconor route or by the way of Szechuan to Thibet and thence to India, the Tsung-li-Yamen will give the necessary passports to those expeditions, and instructions will also be sent to the Chinese officials of Thibet in order that the explorers may travel in all security.

This convention, which if fully acted on would have completely revolutionized the position of Europeans in China, was signed on the 13th September, 1876, but though more than twenty-two years have passed since then, much of it still remains a dead letter. Now, however, there are many signs of the inauguration of a very different state of things; Chinese procrastinations and delays can no longer avert the final opening up of the whole country to European commerce and colonization, the only question being which of the European powers will secure the largest share of the undeveloped wealth of the inland provinces.

It will be interesting before going further to inquire what is the present position of one or two of the ports mentioned in the rÉsumÉ just given of the Treaty of 1876. We will begin with Ichang, recent events having brought it into considerable prominence. Beautifully situated on the banks of the Yang-tse, one thousand miles from its mouth, just at the entrance to the grand ravines of its middle course, great things were hoped of Ichang by the few Europeans who, emboldened by the delusive promises of the Chinese Government, took up their residence there in the early eighties. In 1883, we are told by Archibald Little, the intrepid English explorer, who last year took a specially-constructed steamer up to Chung-Ting, 500 miles beyond Ichang, "the foreign community in the latter town comprised a commissioner of customs with three assistants; one Scotch Presbyterian minister and his wife, and two Roman Catholic missionaries; whilst in 1898 the foreigners had increased to twelve Europeans employed in the Imperial customs, and thirty missionaries. The trade," he adds, "is a busy retail one, but there are no large banks or wealthy wholesale merchants such as there are at Sha-Shi, eighty miles lower down the river, which has been called the 'Manchester of Western China.' The opening to navigation of the Upper Yang-tse will doubtless ere long change all that, and the English owe a debt of gratitude to the pioneers who have broken through the long-sustained opposition of the junk-ring to the use of steamers. Ichang will, it is hoped, ere long become what its position marks it out to be—a centre of foreign trade for the long-closed border districts of Western China."

Pak-hoÏ, another of the Treaty ports of the 1876 Convention, presents a very marked contrast to Ichang. It is a town of some 10,000 inhabitants in the province of Canton, on the northern shore of Tonking, and is likely, now that the concession for the railway between it and Nanking has been secured by the French Government, to be of great importance as a port of export. Unfortunately, however, it has not a good harbour, and as at Hankow, large vessels are compelled to anchor in the offing on account of the lowness of the water further inshore. The chief imports to Pak-hoÏ are cotton and woollen goods, opium and rice, whilst the exports are sugar, ground-nut oil, aniseed, betel-vine leaves, and other spices. Lovers of sport will find plenty of woodcock, partridges, wild-ducks, and other water-fowl in the neighbourhood of Pak-hoÏ. Opposite to the town, in the south of the bay, is a very celebrated pagoda, one of the most remarkable in China. From its centre grows a magnificent plane-tree, in which nest thousands of sparrows. The branches have forced their way through the windows of the building, and the masses of dark green foliage, contrasting as they do with the stonework, produce a most charming and picturesque effect. The bay on which Pak-hoÏ is situated is dotted with islands, and in them many French missionaries have taken up their abode, adopting the costumes and many of the customs of the natives, including the wearing of the pig-tail. One of these devoted soldiers of the Cross had been an exile from his native land for nineteen years.

Pak-hoÏ was opened to trade with considerable ceremony in the presence of the English Consul and several mandarins of high standing. The foreign flags were saluted by the Chinese with a volley from two guns, and the director of the new Custom House let off a number of crackers amongst the assembled crowds with a view to warning off evil spirits, who, in the opinion of the Celestials, are afraid of them. In spite of the expenditure of gunpowder, the receipts of the Pak-hoÏ Customs officers have so far remained insignificant, though there is every probability of a considerable increase in the near future.

It so happened that when I visited the town the fÉte of the New Year was being celebrated, which prevented my giving as much attention as I might otherwise have done to the statistics of trade. The year begins in China fifteen days after the rising of the February moon, and at this fÉte the Celestials, who are generally so devoted to business, throw aside all occupation and give themselves completely up to amusement. There is no Sabbath or weekly day of rest in this land of the yellow races, which perhaps accounts for the intense zest with which they enjoy the annual fortnight of repose.

On the eve of the holiday the Chinese merchant puts his business affairs into scrupulous order, balancing his accounts as he sits at his desk, bending over his numerous little ledgers, or his calculator made of tiny balls of ivory, his big spectacles upon his nose, and a pencil or a reed pen in his hand. His work done, he locks up his books and hastens off to don his very best clothes; then holding fast the indispensable fan, he runs off to the theatres and the flower-boats, treats his friends and becomes intoxicated as they do with opium, or with champagne, to the deafening accompaniment of the beating of gongs, or the explosion of thousands of crackers. Or if he is fonder of play than of drinking, he goes to some sordid gambling-den and there in a few hours dissipates the results of a whole year of toil. As in France at the beginning of a new year many presents are exchanged by the Celestials, and a well-brought-up Chinaman sends to each of his friends a little square piece of red paper on which, side by side with the name of the donor, is inscribed some wise precept of Confucius. To the women with whom he is on visiting terms he will present small lacquer articles, microscopic shrubs, or quaint representations of fish with red scales and golden fins. If he is anxious to secure the patronage of some merchant or trader, he will send him beautiful fruit, such as Mandarin oranges, dainty hams, or sugar-candy, according to what he knows to be the recipient's special weakness.

At the fÉte of the New Year the wives of the mandarins and other officials exchange visits in their ornate palanquins, dressed up in their finest silk dresses, generally either yellow or blue, and with their faces laden with rouge. Endless is the talk these decked-out dames have together, as they sip their tea from tiny little cups, and nibble sweets, or munch up immense quantities of dried and strongly-salted slices of water-melon. At these feminine reunions, too, there is a good deal of singing, and the voices are pitched so high that a stranger passing by a house where a concert was going on would think a lot of amorous cats were yelling on the roof.

None of the lower classes will do any work on a general holiday, and the coolies, palanquin-bearers, and boatmen, who have not much money to risk, content themselves with playing at the popular and almost cosmopolitan game of morra at the street-corners, shouting and laughing over it with wonderful animation, forty Celestials making more noise than would five hundred Europeans. Sometimes the game ends in a quarrel, but even when he is insulted a Chinaman never fights; his mode of working off his spleen is quite unlike that of the corresponding class in the West.

Wenchow is an important town on the coast of the fertile and beautifully-wooded province of Che-kiang, and is about equidistant from Fuchau and Tsing-Ho. It is the port of embarkation for great quantities of tea, and considerable trade is done in it in bamboo, wood, and timber. It is a bright, clean-looking town, as well kept as any in the Flowery Land, as Chinese authors love to call their country, and the streets are said by travellers to be wider than those of any other city of the Celestial Empire. There are, moreover, such an immense number of temples, that inns being scarce, Europeans often lodge in the sacred buildings, the natives offering no objection; but it must be added that in many parts of China, pagodas are turned to account as caravanserais in which any one is allowed to sleep and to cook food. In spite of all the stories told of the bigotry of the Chinese, and of the awful penalties exacted for sacrilege, there is really no doubt that taken as a whole the inhabitants of the Celestial Empire are really less intolerant than those of Europe, a fact which should not be forgotten in passing judgment upon them. The port of Wenchow has increased rapidly in prosperity since the Convention of 1876 threw it open to European trade, and many foreign vessels are always in the harbour, discharging their cargoes of various stuffs, or taking Chinese merchandise on board.

Wu-hu, fifty miles from Nanking, is on the Yang-tse, and so far has not profited very much by its new privileges, though it now seems likely to become a centre of the rice-exporting trade of the surrounding districts. The story goes that the first Englishman to settle in Wu-hu wrote to a fellow-countryman at Shanghai soon after his arrival, to say he had drunk so much champagne with the Chinese governor that he was quite unable to describe his new quarters. He had arrived in a snow-storm, a happy augury according to the natives, but far from a pleasant one to a European. Wu-hu is the residence of a civil magistrate, and of a tao-tai, whose duties are very much those of a Prefect in French towns. There are also a colonel, who has two regiments of soldiers under him, and two naval officers in the Imperial service. One of the latter is in command of the fleet stationed at the mouth of the Yang-tse, the other looks after the gun-boats which act as the river police. The town is well built, the chief street is a league long, well paved and bordered by beautiful houses, some two storeys high, and all decorated with red or black lacquer signs on which stand out the names in golden letters of the merchants owning them. When this fine street is lit up by the oblique rays of the setting sun the effect is as dazzling as at Canton itself. The climate is healthy, the people are friendly to foreigners, so that many causes combine to make Wu-hu a pleasant place of residence for Europeans. It must, however, be added that the mandarins and government officials are alike hostile to missionaries.

On every side of the town, except of course on that of the river, stretch vast plantations of rice and corn-fields. A raised causeway crosses these beautiful and well-kept districts, along which I went with a fellow-countryman, a French naval officer, to be present at a noisy demonstration by the natives in honour of an eclipse of the moon. On this occasion, however, the satellite of our earth so much beloved by poets played the astronomers of Pekin a very scurvy trick.

The learned members of the Kin-Tien-Kien, or Imperial astronomers, had with all due solemnity announced to the Emperor of China, the Son of Heaven, as well as to all the provincial governors, that on the 7th February at eight o'clock in the evening precisely, the dragon who wanders to and fro in the regions of the air, quÆrens quem devoret, will endeavour to swallow the moon. The eclipse was to be almost total, so the astronomers had warned the people that the attack of the monster would be terrible, and that the pale satellite of the earth would very likely succumb if the shouts and the noise of the gongs did not put the dragon to flight.

Long before the appointed time on the day when the tragedy was expected to come off, millions of Chinese issued from all the towns of the vast Empire to flock out into the open country, there, nose in air, to watch the wonderful phenomenon about, as they supposed, to take place. Those amongst them who had been unable to get gongs, had provided themselves with saucepans, rattles, pieces of the hollow stems of the bamboo, and immense quantities of little red crackers. But, oh, what a disappointment! Oh, what a fraud! At eight o'clock the gazing multitudes saw the moon rise above the horizon in all the untarnished glory of her full disc, without the slightest sign of any alteration in her usual appearance. At nine o'clock she was shining placidly down upon the watchers, her radiance totally unimpaired. Was the whole thing a mystification, a fabrication of the astronomers? But just as all hope was being regretfully abandoned, a tremendous noise began on every side, for the watchers saw a change coming over the face of the planet, which was assuming a reddish hue like that of blood, whilst a hideous black spot was slowly advancing across it. The dragon was beginning his attack.

It is absolutely impossible to describe the rage with which the Chinese then began to beat their gongs and saucepans, whirl their rattles, and let off their crackers. The dragon was evidently frightened away by the row, for after an hour of looking up at the full moon, and seeing nothing more of the black spot, the crowds, jubilant over their action, began to disperse, whilst the planet triumphantly continued her course through space.

I learnt later that the Emperor sent a message to his astronomers telling them that next time they made such a mistake in their calculations he would relieve them of their appointments and send them into exile. In the reign of Tchung Kang, 2155 years before the Christian era, his astronomers named Hi and Ho were beheaded for not having foreseen an eclipse of the sun. Father Gaubil, in his interesting History of Chinese Astronomy, explains the reasons of this very severe punishment as follows:

"In China an eclipse of the sun or of the moon is considered of evil augury for the Emperor, intended to warn him to examine himself and correct his faults.... Hence an eclipse is always looked upon as an affair of state in the Celestial Empire, and the greatest care is taken to calculate the time when one will take place, as well as to observe it whilst it is going on with the ceremonies prescribed on such occasions. Now this time Hi and Ho had failed altogether to announce the approaching event, and when the orb of day was suddenly obscured, the mandarins, not expecting an eclipse, hastened to the palace in alarmed dismay. The confusion which ensued of course terrified the people, who had also been left in ignorance of the approaching phenomenon. The whole course of the proper proceedings on these occasions is presented in the ancient book of rites. Directly the light of the sun begins to grow dim, the chief musician strikes a drum, and the mandarins are all expected to hurry at once to the palace armed with bows and arrows, as if to aid the Emperor, who is supposed to be the image of the sun. All the officials, moreover, have to offer their sovereign pieces of silk. Meanwhile the Emperor and the chief dignitaries of the court don their simplest garments and fast. As the astronomers did not give the usual notice, all these ceremonies, generally so religiously observed, were neglected, and, although Hi and Ho were princes as well as men of science, they had to pay the penalty of their neglect. They were not at court at the time, but at their country seats, where, said Rumour, they were conspiring against their sovereign. They were arrested, and without any trial the Emperor ordered their heads to be cut off. Thus dramatically ended an episode thoroughly characteristic of the Celestial Empire, where the Son of Heaven has ever been ready to order those who annoy him on earth to be decapitated, inquiring into their conduct only when the proving of their innocence can do them no good."