&JLK.XJBLI. JLX- V A ^ W - This /VuviiiTrUiif P* A CrJiiHAMAiN Qforncll Httittcraitg ffiibrarjj Jtljaca, Ntin Dock CHARLES WILLIAM WASON COLLECTION CHINA AND THE CHINESE THE GIFT OF CHARLES WILLIAM WASON CLASS OF 1876 1916 Cornell University Library PQ 2469.T82 1889 The adventures of a Chinaman in China / 3 1924 023 981 719 Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924023981719 "Prohibition! prohibition!" Page 174. THE ADVENTURES OF A CHINAMAN IN CHINA FROM THE FRENCH OF JULES VERNE (y VIRGINIA CHAMPLIN WITH FIFTY ILLUSTRATIONS BOSTON LEE AND SHEPARD, PUBLISHERS NEW YORK CHARLES T. DILLINGHAM 1889 4 VV.IST Copyright, 1879, By LEE AND SHEPARD. All rights reserved. Franklin Press: ElectrotyPed and Printed fa Rand, Avery, & Co., Boston. CJjia ^Translation IS GRATEFULLY DEDICATED TO Mr. FRANCIS A. NICHOLS, WHO AS AN EDITOR GAVE ME MY FIRST LITERARY OPPORTUNITIES. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE In which the Peculiarities and Nationality of the Personages are gradually revealed I CHAPTER II. In which Kin-Fo and the Philosopher are more fully de- scribed 14 CHAPTER III. In which the Reader, without Fatigue, can glance over the City of Shang-hai 26 CHAPTER IV. In which Kin-Fo receives an Important Letter, which is Eight Days behind Time 36 CHAPTER V. In which Le-ou receives a Letter which she would rather not have received 49 CHAPTER VI. Which will, perhaps, make the Reader desire to visit the Offices of the " Centenary " 58 CHAPTER VII. Which would be very Sad if it did not treat of Ways and Customs peculiar to the Celestial Empire ... 69 CHAPTER VIII. In which Kin-Fo makes a Serious Proposition to Wang, which the Latter no less seriously accepts ... 82 CHAPTER IX. The Conclusion of which, however Singular it may be, per- haps will not surprise the Reader 89 CHAPTER X. In which Craig and Fry are officially presented to the New Patron of the Centenary . . .'.'.". .101 vi CONTENTS. CHAPTER XI. Page In which Kin-Fo becomes the most Celebrated Man in the Central Empire 109 CHAPTER XII. In which Kin-Fo, his Two Acolytes, and his Valet start on an Adventure 121 CHAPTER XIII. In which is heard the Celebrated Lament called " The Five Periods in the Life of a Centenarian" .... 136 CHAPTER XIV. In which the Visitor, without Fatigue, can travel through Four Cities by visiting only One 149 CHAPTER XV. Which certainly contains a Surprise for Kin-Fo, and perhaps for the Reader 164 CHAPTER XVI. In which Kin-Fo, who is still a Bachelor, begins to travel again in earnest 177 CHAPTER XVII. In which Kin-Fo's Market Value is Once more Uncertain . 188 CHAPTER XVIII. In which Craig and Fry, urged by Curiosity, visit the Hold of the ".Sam- Yep " 202 CHAPTER XIX. Which does not finish well, either for Capt. Yin, the Com- mander of the " Sam-Yep," or for her Crew . . . 215 CHAPTER XX. In which it will be seen to what Dangers Men are exposed who use Capt. Boyton's Nautical Apparatus . . . 229 CHAPTER XXI. In which Craig and Fry see the Moon rise with Extreme Satisfaction 244 CHAPTER XXII. Which the Reader might have written himself, it ends in so Surprising a Way 258 THE TRIBULATIONS OF A CHINAMAN IN CHINA. CHAPTER I. IN WHICH THE PECULIARITIES AND NATIONALITY OF THE PERSONAGES ARE GRADUALLY REVEALED. " It must be acknowledged, however, that there is some good in life," observed one of the guests, who, leaning his elbow on the arm of his chair with a marble back, sat nibbling a root of a sugar water-lily. "And evil also," added another, between two spells of coughing, having been nearly strangled by the prickles of the delicate fin of a shark. "Let us be philosophers," then said an older person, whose nose supported an enormous pair of spectacles with broad glasses affixed to wooden bows. "To-day one comes near strangling, and to-morrow every thing flows smoothly as the fra- grant draughts of this nectar. This is life, after all." After these words, this easily pleased epicure 2 TRIBULATIONS OF A CHINAMAN. swallowed a glass of excellent warm wine, whose light vapor was slowly escaping from a metal teapot. "For my part," continued a fourth guest, "ex- istence seems very acceptable whenever one does nothing, and has the means which enable him to do nothing." " You mistake," quickly replied the fifth : " hap- piness is in study and work. To acquire the greatest possible amount of knowledge is the way to render one's self happy." " And to learn, when you sum it all up, that you know nothing." " Is not that the beginning of wisdom ? " " But what is the end ? " " Wisdom has no end," philosophically answered the man with spectacles. "To have common sense would be supreme satisfaction." Upon this the first guest directly addressed the host, who occupied the upper end of the table, — that is, the poorest place, — as the rules of polite- ness require. With indifference and inattention the latter listened silently to this discussion inter pocula. " Come, let us hear what our host thinks of this rambling talk over the wine-cup ? Does he find existence a blessing, or an evil ? Is it yes, or no ? The host carelessly munched several water- melon-seeds, and for answer merely pouted . his lips scornfully, like a man who seems to take interest in nothing. PECULIARITIES AND NATIONALITY. 3 " Pooh ! " said he. This is a favorite word with indifferent people, for it means every thing and nothing. It belongs to all languages, and must have a place in every dictionary on the globe, and is an articulated pout The five guests whom this ennuyt was entertain- ing then pressed him with arguments, each in favor of his own proposition; for they wished to have his opinion. He at first tried to avoid an- swering, but finally asserted that life was neither a blessing nor an evil : in his opinion, it was an " invention," rather insignificant, and, in short, not very encouraging. " Ah ! now our friend reveals himself." "How can he speak thus, when his life has been as smooth as an unruffled rose-leaf ? " " And he so young ! " "Young and in good health ! " " In good health, and rich." "Very rich." " More than very rich." "Too rich perhaps." These remarks followed each other like rockets from a piece of fireworks, without even bringing a smile to the host's impassive face. He only shrugged his shoulders slightly, like a man who has never wished, even for an hour, to turn over the leaves in the book of his own life, and has not so much as cut the first pages. And yet this indifferent man was thirty-one years at most ; was in wonderfully good health ; 4 TRIBULATIONS OF A CHINAMAN. possessed a great fortune, a mind that did not lack culture, an intelligence above the average; and had, in short, every thing, which so many others have not, to make him one of the happy of this world. And why was he not happy ? "Why?" The philosopher's grave voice was now heard, speaking like a leader of a chorus of the early drama. " Friend," he said, " if you are not happy here below, it is because, till now, your happiness has been only negative. \j With happiness as with health : to enjoy it, one should be deprived of it occasionally. Now, you have never been ill. I mean you have never been unfortunate : it is that which your life needs. Who can appreciate hap- piness if misfortune has never even for a moment assailed him ? " And at this remark, which was stamped with wisdom, the philosopher, raising his glass, full of champagne of the best brand, said, — " I wish some shadow to fall athwart our host's sunlight, and some sorrows to enter his life." Saying which, he emptied his glass at one swal- low. The host made a gesture of assent, and again lapsed into his habitual apathy. Where did this conversation take place ? In a European dining-room, in Paris, London, Vienna, or St. Petersburg ? Were these six companions conversing together PECULIARITIES AND NATIONALITY. 5 in a restaurant in the Old or New World ? And who were they, who, without having drunk more than usual, were discussing these questions in the midst of a repast ? Certainly they were not Frenchmen, because they were not talking politics. They were seated at a table in an elegantly decorated saloon of medium size. The last rays of the. sun were streaming through the network of blue and orange window-panes, and past the open windows the evening breeze was swinging garlands of natural and artificial flowers ; and a few variegated lanterns mingled their pale light with the dying gleams of day. Above the win- dows were carved arabesques, enriched with varied sculpture, and representing celestial and terres- trial beauty, and animals and vegetables of a strange fauna and flora. On the walls of the saloon, which were hung in silken tapestry, were shining broad, double-bev- elled mirrors ; and on the ceiling a " punka," moving its painted percale wings, rendered the temperature endurable. The table was a vast quadrilateral of black lacquer-work, and, being uncovered, reflected the numerous pieces of silver and porcelain as a slab of the purest crystal might have done. There were no napkins, only simple squares of orna- mented paper, a sufficient supply of which was furnished each guest. Around the table stood chairs with marble backs, far preferable in this latitude to the covering of modern furniture. 6 TRIBULATIONS OF A CHINAMAN. The attendants were very prepossessing young girls, in whose black hair were mingled lilies and chrysanthemums, and round whose arms bracelets of gold and jade were coquettishly wound. Smil- ing and sprightly, they served or removed dishes with one hand, while with the other they grace- fully waved a large fan, which restored the currents of air displaced by the punka on the ceiling. The repast left nothing to be desired. One could not imagine any thing more delicate than the cooking, which was both neat and artistic ; for the Bignon of the place, knowing that he was catering to connoisseurs, surpassed himself in the preparation of the five hundred dishes which com- posed the menu. In the first course there were sugared cakes, caviare, fried grasshoppers, dried fruits, and oys- ters from Ning-po. Then followed, at short inter- vals, poached eggs of the duck, pigeon, and lap- wing ; swallows' nests with buttered eggs ; f ricasees of " ging-seng; " stewed sturgeons' gills ; whales' nerves with sugar sauce ; fresh-water tadpoles ; a ragout of the yolks of crabs' eggs, sparrows' giz- zards, and sheeps' eyes pierced with a pointed bit of garlic for flavoring; ravinoli x prepared with the milk of apricot-stones ; a stew of holothuria. Bamboo-shoots in their juice, sugared salads of young roots, pine-apples from Singapore, roasted earth-nuts, salted almonds, savory mangoes, fruits 1 Translator's Note. — An Italian dish, a compound of vermicelli, eggs, cheese, and green herbs, prepared in the form of fritters. The attendants were very prepossessing young girls. Page 6. PECULIARITIES AND NATIONALITY. J of the " long-yen " with white flesh, and " li-tchi " with pale pulp, water caltrops, and. preserved Can- ton oranges composed the last course of a repast which had lasted three hours, — a repast largely watered with beer, champagne, Chao Chigne wine ; and the inevitable rice, which, placed between the lips of the guests by the aid of chop-sticks, was to crown at dessert the wisely arranged bill of fare. The moment came at last for the young girls to bring, not those bowls of European fashion which contain a perfumed liquid, but napkins saturated with warm water, which each of the guests passed over his face with extreme satisfaction. It was, however, only an entr'acte of the repast, — an hour oifar niente, whose moments were to be filled with music ; for soon a troupe of singers and instrumentalists entered the saloon. The singers were pretty young girls of modest appear- ance and behavior. What music and method was theirs ! — a mewing, and clucking without measure or tunefulness, rising in sharp notes to the utmost limit of perception by the auditory nerves. As for the instruments, there were violins whose strings became entangled in those of the bow, guitars covered with serpents' skins, screeching clarinets, and harmonicas resembling small porta- ble pianos ; and all worthy of the songs and the singers, to whom they formed a noisy accompani- ment. The leader of this discordant orchestra pre- 8 TRIBULATIONS OF A CHINAMAN. sented the programme of his repertoire as he entered ; and at a motion from the host, who gave him carte blanche, his musicians played the "Bouquet of Ten Flowers," — a piece very much in the mode at the time, and the rage in fashiona- ble society. Then the singing and performing troupe, having been well paid in advance, withdrew, carrying with them many a bravo, with which they would yet reap a rich harvest in the neighboring saloons. The six companions then left their seats, but only to pass from one table to another, which movement was accompanied with great ceremony and compliments of all kinds. On this second table each found a small cup with a lid ornamented wj*h a portrait of Bddhid- harama, the celebrated Buddhist monk, standing on his legendary raft. Each received a pinch of tea, which he steeped in the boiling water in his cup, and drank almost immediately without sugar. And what tea ! It was not , to be feared either that the house of Gibb-Gibb & Co., who furnished it, had adulterated it with a mixture of foreign leaves ; or that it had already undergone a first infusion, and was only good to use in sweeping carpets ; or that an unscrupulous preparer had colored it yellow with curcuma, or green with Prussian blue. It was imperial tea in all its purity, and was composed of those precious leaves of the first harvest in March which are similar to the flower itself, and are seldom gathered ; for loss PECULIARITIES AND NATIONALITY. 9 of its leaves causes the death of the plant. It was composed of those leaves which young children alone, with carefully gloved hands, are allowed to cull. A European could not have found words of praise in number sufficient to extol this beverage, which the six companions were slowly sipping, without going into ecstasies, like connoisseurs who were used to it ; but, it must be confessed, they were really unable to appreciate the delicacy of the excellent concoction. They were gentle- men of the best society, richly dressed in the "han-chaol," — alight under-waistcoat ; the "ma- coual," — a short tunic ; and the " haol," — a long robe, buttoning at the side. They wore yellow sandals and open-work hose ; silk panta- loons, fastened at the waist with a tasselled sash ; and a plastron of fine embroidered silk on their bosom, and a fan at their waist. These amiable persons were born in the same country where the tea-plant once a year produces its harvest of fragrant leaves. This repast, in which swallows' nests, fish of the holothurian species, whales' nerves, and sharks' fins appeared, was partaken, of as the delicacy of the viands deserved; but its menu, which would have astonished a foreigner, did not surprise them in the least. But what did surprise them was the statement which their host made to them, as they were at last about to leave the table, and from which they understood why he had entertained them that day. io TRIBULATIONS OF A CHINAMAN. The cups were still full, and the indifferent gentleman, with his eyes fixed on vacancy, and his elbow leaning on the table, was about to empty his cup for the last time, when he expressed him- self in these words : — "My friends, listen to me without laughing. The die is cast. I am about to introduce into my life a new element, which perhaps will dispel its monotony. Will it be a blessing, or a misfor- tune ? The future only can tell. This dinner, to which I have invited you, is my farewell dinner to bachelor life. In a fortnight I shall be married, and " — * " And you will be the happiest of men," cried the optimist. " Behold ! all the signs are in your favor." In fact, the lamps flickered, and cast a pale light around ; the magpies chattered on the arabesques of the windows ; and the little tea-leaves floated perpendicularly in the cups. So many lucky omens could not fail. Therefore all congratulated their host, who received these compliments with the most perfect composure. But, as he did not name the person destined to the role of "new element," and the one whom he had chosen, no one was so indiscreet as to question him on the subject. But the philosopher's voice did not mingle in. the general concert of congratulations. With his arms crossed, his eyes partly closed, and an ironical smile on his lips, he seemed to approve PECULIARITIES AND NATIONALITY. II those complimenting no more than he did the one complimented. The latter then rose, placed his hand on his friend's shoulder, and, in a voice that seemed less calm than usual, asked, — " Am I, then, too old to marry ? " " No." " Too young ? " " No : neither too young nor too old." " Do you think I am doing wrong ? " "Perhaps so." " But she whom I have chosen, and with whom you are acquainted, possesses every quality neces- sary to make me happy." " I know it." "Well?" " It is you who have not all that is necessary to make you so. To be bored single in life is bad, but to be bored double is worse." " Then I shall never be happy ? " " No : not so long as you do not know what misfortune is." " Misfortune cannot reach me." " So much the worse ; for then you are incur- able." " Ah ! these philosophers ! " cried the youngest of the guests. "One should not listen to them. They are machines with theories. They manu- facture all kinds of theories, which are trash, and good for nothing in practice. Get married, — get married, my friend ! I should do the same, had I 12 TRIBULATIONS OF A CHINAMAN. not made a vow never to do any thing. Get mar- ried ; and, as our poets say, may the two phoenixes always appear to you tenderly united ! Friends, I drink to the happiness of our host." "And I," responded the philosopher, "drink to the near interposition of some protecting divinity, who, in order to make him happy, will cause him to pass through the trial of misfortune." At this odd toast the guests arose, brought their fists together as boxers do before beginning a contest, and, having alternately lowered and raised them while bowing their heads, took leave of each other. From the description of the saloon in which this entertainment was given, and the foreign menu which composed it, as well as from the dress of the guests, with their manner of expressing themselves, — perhaps, too, from the singularity of their theories, — the reader has surmised that we have had to do with the Chinese ; not with those "Celestials" who look as if they had been un- glued from a Chinese screen, or had escaped from a pottery vase where they properly belonged, but with the modern inhabitants of the Celestial Em- pire, already Europeanized by their studies, voy- ages, and frequent communication with the civil- ized people of the West. Indeed, it was in the saloon of one of the flower- boats on the River of Pearls at Canton that the rich Kin-Fo, accompanied by the inseparable Wang the philosopher, had just entertained four of the PECULIARITIES AND NATIONALITY. 13 best friends of his youth, ■ — Pao-Shen, a mandarin of the fourth class, and of the order of the blue button ; Yin-Pang, a rich silk-merchant in Apothe- cary Street ; Tim, the high liver ; and Houal, the literary man. And this took place on the twenty-seventh day of the fourth moon, during the first of those five periods which so poetically divide the hours of the Chinese night. 14 TRIBULATIONS OF A CHINAMAN. CHAPTER II. IN WHICH KIN-FO AND THE PHILOSOPHER ARE MORE FULLY DESCRIBED. The reason why Kin-Fo gave a farewell dinner to his Canton friends was, because he passed a part of his youth in the capital of the province of KuangiTung. Of the numerous comrade^s a wealthy and generois young man is sure to have, the only ones left him at this time were the four guests who were present on the flower-boat. It would .have been useless for him to have tried to bring the others together, as they were scattered by the various accidents of life. Kin-Fo lived in Shang-hai, and, being worn out with ennui, was now for a change spending a few days in Canton. This evening he intended to take the steamboat which stops at several points along the coast, and return quietly home to his yamen. The reason that Wang accompanied Kin-Fo was because the philosopher could never leave his pupil, who did not want for lessons ; though, to tell the truth, he paid no heed to them, and they were just so many maxims and wise sayings lost. The " theory-machine," however, as Tim the high liver called him, was never weary of producing them. Kin-Fo. Page 14. KIN-FO AND THE PHILOSOPHER. 15 Kin-Fo was a perfect type of the northern Chi- nese, whose race is being transformed, and who have never united with the Tartars. He was of a stamp differing from that usually found in the southern provinces, where the high and low classes are more intimately blended with the. Mandshurian race : he had not a drop of Tartar blood in his veins, neither from father nor mother, whose ancestors kept secluded after the conquest. He was tall, well built, fair rather than yellow ; with straight eyebrows, and eyes following the horizontal, and but slightly raised towards the temple ; with a straight nose, and a face that was not flat. He would have been distinguished even among the finest specimens of Western people. Indeed, if Kin-Fo appeared at all like a China- man, it was because of his carefully shaved skull ; his smooth, hairless brow and neck ; and his mag- nificent braid, which started at the back of his head, and rolled down like a serpent o? jet. He was very careful about his person, and wore a deli- cate mustache, which made a half-circle over his upper lip ; and an imperial, which was exactly like a rest in musical notation. His nails were more than a centimetre long, a proof that he belonged to those fortunate men who are not obliged to work. Perhaps, too, his careless walk and haughty bearing added still more to the comme il faut appearance of his whole person. Besides, Kin-Fo was born at Pekin, an advan- tage of which the Chinese are very proud. To 1 6 TRIBULATIONS OF A CHINAMAN. any one who would have asked him where he came from, he would have answered proudly, " I come from above." His father, Tchoung-Heou, was living at Pekin when he was born ; and he was six years old when the former settled at Shang-hai. This worthy Chinaman, who came from a fine family in the northern part of the empire, like all his compatriots, had a remarkable capacity for business. During the first years of his career, he bartered and sold every thing that the rich and populous territory produces ; such as paper goods from Swatow, silks from Soo-Choo, sugar-candy from Formosa, tea from Han-kow and Fou-chow, iron from Ho-nan, and red and yellow copper from the province of Yunnan. His principal business- house, his " hong," was at Shang-hai ; but he had branch establishments at Nankin, Tien-sing, Macao, and Hong-Kong. As he was a close fol- lower of "European progress, he shipped his goods on English steamers, and kept himself informed by cablegram of the state of the silk and opium market at Lyons and Calcutta. He was not op- posed to these agents of progress, steam and elec- tricity, as are the majority of the Chinese, who are under the influence of mandarins and the gov- ernment, whose prestige is gradually being les- sened by progress. In short, Tchoung-Heou managed so shrewdly in his business in the interior of the empire, as well as in his transactions with Portuguese, KIN-FO AND THE PHILOSOPHER. 17 French, English, or American houses, in Shang- hai, Macao, and Hong-Kong, that, when Kin-Fo came into the world, his fortune exceeded four hundred thousand dollars; and, during the years that followed, this capital was doubled, on account of the establishment of a new traffic, which might be called the " coolie trade of the New World." It is well known that the population of China is in excess, and out of all proportion to the vast extent of the territory, which is poetically divided into the various names of Celestial Empire, Cen- tral Empire, and Empire or Land of Flowers. Its inhabitants are estimated at not less than three hundred and sixty million, which is almost a third of the population of the earth. Now, little as the Chinaman eats, he nevertheless eats ; and China, even with its numerous rice-fields, and extensive cultivation of millet and wheat, does not provide enough to nourish him. Hence there are more inhabitants than can be cared for ; and their only desire is to escape through some of the loopholes which the English and French cannon have made in the moral and material walls of the Celestial Empire. This surplus has poured into North America, and principally into the State of California, but in such multitudes that Congress has been obliged to take restrictive measures against the invasion, which is rather impolitely called " the yellow pest." As was observed, fifty million Chinese emigrants in the United States would not have sensibly 18 TRIBULATIONS OF A CHINAMAN: diminished the population of China, and it would have brought about a blending with the Anglo- Saxon race, to the benefit of the Mongolian. However this may be, the exodus was conducted on a large scale. These coolies, living on a hand- ful of rice, a cup of tea, and a pipe of tobacco, and apt at all trades, met with remarkably quick suc- cess in Virginia, Salt Lake, Oregon, and, above all, the State of California, where they greatly reduced the wages of manual labor. Companies were then formed for the transporta- tion of these inexpensive emigrants ; and there were five which had charge of the enlisting in the five provinces of the Celestial Empire, and a sixth which was stationed at San Francisco. The for- mer shipped, and the latter received, the merchan- dise; while an additional agency, called the Ting- Tong, re-shipped them. This requires an explanation. The Chinese are very willing to expatriate them- selves to seek their fortune with the " Melicans," as they call the people of the United States, but on one condition, that their bodies shall be faith- fully brought back, and buried in their native land. This is one of the principal conditions of the con- tract, — a sine qua non clause, which is binding on these companies with regard to the emigrant, and cannot be eluded. Therefore the Ting-Tong — or, in other words, the Agency of the Dead, which draws its funds from private sources — is charged with freighting KIN-FO AND THE PHILOSOPHER. 19 the " corpse steamers," which leave San Francisco fully loaded for Shang-hai, Hong-Kong, or Tien- Sing. Here was a new business, and a new source of profit, which the shrewd and enterprising Tchoung-Heou foresaw. At the time of his death, in 1866, he was a director in the Kouang-Than Company in the province of that name, and sub- director of the Treasury for the Dead in San Francisco. Kin-Fo, having neither father nor mother, was heir to a fortune valued at four million francs, invested in stock in the Central Bank in Califor- nia, and which he had the good sense to let remain there. When he lost his father, the young heir, who was nineteen years old, would have been alone in the world, had it not been for Wang, the insepara- ble Wang, who filled the place of mentor and friend. But who was this Wang ? For seventeen years he had lived in the yamen at Shang-hai, and was the guest of the father before he became that of the son. But where did he come from ? What was his past ? All these somewhat difficult ques- tions Tchoung-Heou and Kin-Fo alone could have answered ; and if they had considered it proper to do so, which was not probable, this is what one would have learned from them : — No one is unaware that China, is, par excellence, the kingdom where insurrections last many years, and carry off hundreds of thousands of men. Now, 20 TRIBULATIONS OF A CHINAMAN. in the seventeenth century, the celebrated dynasty of Ming, of Chinese origin, had been in power in China three hundred years, when, in 1644, the chief, feeling too weak to resist the rebels who threatened the capital, asked aid of a Tartar king. The king, who did not need to be entreated, hastened to his assistance, drove out the rebels, and profited by the situation to overthrow him who had implored his aid, and proclaimed his own son, Chun-Tche, emperor. From this period the Tartar rule was substituted for that of the Chinese, and the throne was occu- pied by Mandshurian emperors. The two races, especially among the lower classes, gradually came together ; but among the rich families of the north they did not mingle. Therefore the type still retains its characteristics, particularly in the centre of the western provinces of the empire, There the " irreconcilables " who remained faithful to the fallen dynasty took refuge. Kin-Fo's father was one of the latter ; and he did not belie the traditions of his family, who re- fused to enter into compact with the Tartars. A rebellion against the foreign power, even after a rule of three hundred years, would have found him ready to join it. It is unnecessary to add that his son, Kin-Fo, fully shared his political opinions. Now, in i860, there still reigned that emperor, S'Hiene-Fong, who declared war against England and France, — a war ended by the treaty of Pekin on the 25th of October of the same year. Wang. Page 21, KIN-FO AND THE PHILOSOPHER. 21 But before that date a formidable uprising threatened the reigning dynasty. The Tchang- Mao, or the Tai-ping, — the " long-haired rebels," — took possession of Nankin in 1853, and Shang- hai in 1855. After S'Hiene-Fong's death, his son had great difficulty in repulsing the Tai-ping. Without the Viceroy Li, and Prince Kong, and especially the English Colonel Gordon, he, per- haps, would not have been able to save his throne. The Tai-ping, the declared enemies of the Tar- tars, being strongly organized for rebellion, wished to replace the dynasty of the Tsing for that of the Wang. They formed four distinct armies, — the first, under a black banner, appointed to kill ; the second, under a red banner, to set fire ; the third, under a yellow banner, to pillage ; and the fourth, under a white banner, to provision the other three. There were important military operations in Kiang-Sou ; and Soo-Choo and Kia-Hing, five leagues distant from Shang-hai, fell into the power of the rebels, and were recovered, not without difficulty, by the imperial troops. Shang-hai, which had been seriously threatened, was also attacked on the 18th of August, i860, at the time that Gens. Grant and Montauban, com- manding the Anglo-French army, were cannon- ading the forts of Pei-ho. Now, at this time, Tchoung-Heou, Kin-Fo's father, was lining near Shang-hai, not far from the magnificent bridge thrown across the river by 22 TRIBULATIONS OF A CHINAMAN. Chinese engineers at Sou-Choo. He disapproved of this rebellion of the Tai-ping, since it was chiefly directed against the Tartar dynasty. This, then, was the state of affairs when, on the evening of the 18th of August, after the rebels had been driven out of Sbang-hai, the door of Tchoung-Heou's house suddenly opened, and a fugitive, having dodged his pursuers, came to throw himself at the feet of Tchoung-Heou. The unfortunate man had no weapon with which to defend himself ; and, if he to whom he came to ask for shelter had given him up to the imperial soldiers, he would have been killed. Kin-Fo's father was not the man to betray a Tai-ping who sought refuge in his house ; and he closed the door, and said, — " I do not wish to know, and I never shall know, who you are, what you have done, or whence you come. You are my guest, and for that reason only will be perfectly safe at my house." The fugitive tried to speak to express his grati- tude, but scarcely had strength. " Your name ? " asked Tchoung-Heou. "Wang." It was Wang indeed, saved by Tchoung-Heou's generosity, — a generosity which would have cost the latter his life if any one had suspected that he was giving an asylum to a rebel. But Tchoung- Heou was like one of those men of ancient times with whom every guest is sacred. ^ A few years later the uprising of the rebels was KIN-FO AND THE PHILOSOPHER. 23 forever repressed. In 1864 the Tai-ping chief, who was besieged at Nankin, poisoned himself to escape falling into the hands of the Imperials. Wang, ever since that day, had remained in his benefactor's house. He was never obliged to say any thing about his past ; for no one questioned him. Perhaps they feared they might hear too much. The atrocities committed by the rebels were frightful, it was said ; and under what banner Wang had served, — the yellow, red, black, or white, — it was better to remain in ignorance, and to fancy that he belonged only to the provisioning column. Wang, however, was delighted with his lot, and continued to be the guest of this hospitable house. After Tchoung-Heou's death, his son, being so accustomed to the amiable man's company, would never be parted from him. But, in truth, at the time when this story be- gins, who would have ever recognized a former Tai-ping, a murderer, plunderer, or incendiary from choice, in this philosopher of fifty-five years, this moralist in spectacles, playing the part of China- man, with eyes drawn towards the temples, and with the traditional mustache ? With his long robe of a modest color, and a waist rising towards his chest from a growing obesity ; with his head- dress regulated according to the imperial decree, — that is to say, with a fur hat with the rim raised around the crown, from whence streamed tassels of red cord, — did he not look the worthy professor 24 TRIBULATIONS OF A CHINAMAN. of philosophy, and one of those savants who write fluently in the eighty thousand characters of Chinese handwriting, and like a litterateur of the superior dialect receiving the first prize in the examination of doctors, with the right to pass under the grand gate at Pekin, which is an honor reserved for the Sons of Heaven ? Perhaps, after all, the rebel, forgetting a past full of horror, had improved by contact with the honest Tchoung-Heou, and had gradually branched off to the road of speculative philosophy. That is why, on this evening, Kin-Fo and Wang, who never left each other, were together at Can- ton, and why, after this farewell dinner, both were going along the wharves to seek a steamer to take them quickly to Shang-hai. Kin-Fo walked on in silence, and even some- what thoughtfully. Wang, looking round to the right and to the left, philosophizing to the moon and the stars, passed smilingly under the Gate of Eternal Purity, which he did not find too high for him, and underthe Gate of Eternal Joy, whose doors seemed to open on his own existence, and finally saw the Pagoda of the Five Hundred Divinities vanishing in the.distance. The steamer " Perma " was under full steam. Kin-Fo and Wang went on board, and entered the cabins reserved for them. The rapid current of the River of Pearls, which daily bears along the bodies of those condemned to death with the mud from its shores, carried the boat swiftly KIN-FO AND THE PHILOSOPHER. 25 onward. It sped like an arrow between the ruins made by French cannon, and left standing here and there ; past the pagoda Haf-Way, nine stories high ; and past Point Jardyne, near Whampoa, where the large ships anchor, between the islands and the bamboo palisades of the two shores. The one hundred and fifty kilometres — that is to say, the three hundred and seventy-five leagues which separate Canton from the mouth of the river — were travelled in the night. At sunrise the " Perma " passed the Tiger's Mouth, and then the two bars of the estuary. The Victoria Peak of the isle of Hong-Kong, eighteen hundred and twenty-five feet high, ap- peared for a moment through the morning mist, when, after the most successful of passages, Kin-Fo and the philosopher, leaving the yellowish waters of the Blue River behind them, landed at Shang- hai, on the shores of the province of Kiang-Nan. 26 TRIBULATIONS OF A CHINAMAN. CHAPTER III. IN WHICH THE READER, WITHOUT FATIGUE, CAN GLANCE OVER THE CITY OF SHANG-HAI. A Chinese proverb says, — " When sabres are rusty, and spades bright ; " When prisons are emptyj and granaries full ; " When the steps of the temples are worn by the feet of worshippers, and the court-yards of the tribunals are cov- ered with grass ; "When physicians go on foot, and bakers on horse- back, — " The empire is well governed." It is a good proverb, and might be applied to all the States of the Old and New World. But, if there is a single one where this desideratum is still far from being realized, it is precisely the Celestial Empire : for there it is the sabres which are bright, and the spades rusty ; the prisons which are overflowing, and the granaries empty. The bakers rest more than the physicians ; and, if the pagodas attract worshippers, the tribunals, on the contrary, lack neither criminals nor litigants. Besides, a kingdom of a hundred and eighty thousand square miles, which from north to south measures more than eight hundred leagues, and THE CITY OF SHANG-HAI. 27 from east to west more than nine hundred, which counts eighteen vast provinces, not to mention the tributary countries,- — Mongolia, M'andshuria, Thibet, Tonking, Corea, the Loo-Choo Islands, &c, — can be but very imperfectly governed. If the Chinese have a faint suspicion of this, foreigners are not at all deceived. The emperor, who is called the Son of Heaven, the father and mother of his subjects, who makes or unmakes laws at his pleasure, and has power of life or death over every one, and to whom the revenues of the empire are a birthright, — the sovereign before whom brows are bowed to the dust, — shut up in his palace, which is sheltered by the walls of a triple city, — alone, perhaps, considers that every thing is for the best in the best of worlds. It would be unnecessary even to try to prove to him that he is mistaken. A Son of Heaven is never mistaken. Did Kin-Fo have any reason to think that it would be better to be governed in the European than in the Chinese manner? One would be tempted to think so. Indeed, he lived, not in Shang-hai, but out of the city, in a part of the English concession, which preserves a sort of freedom that is highly prized. Shang-hai, the city proper, is situated on the left shore of the little River Houang-Pou, which, unit- ing at a right angle with the Wousung, flows into the Yang-Tze-Kiang, or Blue River, and from there is lost in the Yellow Sea. 28 TRIBULATIONS OF A CHINAMAN. It is an oval, extending from north to south, and surrounded by high walls, with an outlet of gates opening on its suburbs. An inextricable network of paved lanes, which would soon wear out sweeping-machines, were they to clean them ; gloomy shops, without shutters or any display of goods in their windows, and in which the shop- keepers perform their duties naked to the waist ; not a carriage, not a palanquin, and scarcely any horsemen ; here and there a few native temples or foreign chapels ; for promenades, a "tea-garden," and a rather pebbly parade-ground, built on an embankment, filled with ancient rice-fields, and subject to marshy emanations ; a population of two hundred thousand inhabitants in the streets and narrow houses, — all compose this city, which, though as a place of residence is hardly desirable, is, nevertheless, of great commercial importance. In this city, after the treaty of Nankin, for- eigners for the first time possessed the right to establish stores, and here was the great port opened in China to European traffic : therefore, outside of Shang-hai and its suburbs, the govern- ment ceded, for an annual sum, three portions of territory to the French, English, and Americans, who number about two thousand. Of the French concession, there is little to be said, it being the least important. Nearly the whole of it is within the northern enclosure of the city, reaching as far as the Brook Yang-King-Pang, which separates it from the English territory. THE CITY OF SHANG-HAI. 29 There stand the churches of the Lazarists and Jesuits, who, four miles from Shang-hai, own the college of Tsikave, where they confer bachelors' degrees. But this little French colony does not equal its neighbors : far from it. Of the ten commercial houses founded in 1 861, there remain but three; and they even preferred to establish the discount- broker's office on the English concession. The American territory occupies that part of the country extending to Wousung, and is sepa- rated from the English territory by the Soo-Choo Creek, which is spanned by a wooden bridge. Here are the Hotel Astor, and the Church of the Missions, and the docks erected for the repair of European ships. But, of the three concessions, the most flourish- ing is indisputably the English. Here are sump- tuous dwellings on the wharves, houses with verandas and gardens, palaces of the merchant princes, the Oriental Bank, the "hong " of the cele- brated house which bears the name of the firm of Lao-Tchi-Tchang, the stores of the Jardynes, Rus- sels, and other great merchants, the English club, the theatre, the tennis-court, the park, the race- course, and the library. Such is that wealthy creation of the Anglo-Saxons, which has justly merited the name of " Model Colony." That is why, on this privileged territory, under the patronage of a liberal administration, one will not be astonished, as M. Leon Russet says, to find 30 TRIBULATIONS OF A CHINAMAN: " a Chinese city of an especially individual charac- ter, which has not its counterpart anywhere." In this little corner of the earth, the foreigner, arriving by the picturesque Blue River, sees four flags unfurled by the same breeze, — the three French colors, the " yacht " of ^;he United King- dom, the American stars, and the cross of St. Andre, yellow with a green background, of the Flowery Empire. As for the environs of Shang-hai, they are a flat, treeless country, cut up by narrow, stony roads and footpaths, laid out at right angles, or hollowed out by cisterns and " arroyos " distributing the water through numerous rice-fields, or furrowed by canals conveying junk-boats, which start in the middle of the fields, like the canal-boats through Holland. They are a sort of vast tableau, very green in tone, a picture without a frame. " The Perma," on her arrival, anchored at the wharf of the native port, before the eastern suburbs of Shang-hai ; and it was there that Wang and Kin-Fo landed in the afternoon. The coming and going of business people cre- ated a traffic that was enormous on the shore, and beyond description on the river. The junk-boats by hundreds, the flower-boats, the sampans (a kind of gondola managed by the scull), the gigs, and other boats, of every size, formed a kind of floating city inhabited by a mari- time population, which cannot be reckoned at less than forty thousand souls, — a population main- The two friends sauntered along the wharf. Page 31. THE CITY OF SHANG-HAI. 31 tained in an inferior situation, and the wealthy part of which cannot rise to the rank of the liter- ary or mandarin class. The two friends sauntered along the wharf among the strange, motley crowd, which comprised merchants of eyery kind ; venders of arachides, betel-nuts, and oranges, with some from the Indian orange-tree ; seamen of every nation, water-car- riers, fortune-tellers, bonzes, lamas, Catholic priests clothed in Chinese fashion with pigtail and fan, native soldiers, "tipaos" (the town-bailiffs of the place), and " compradores," or deputy- brokers, as they might be called, who transact busi- ness for European merchants. Kin-Fo, with his fan in his hand, cast his usual indifferent look over the crowd, and took no inter- est in what was passing around him. Neither the metallic sound of the Mexican piasters, nor that of the silver taels and copper sapeques, which sellers and buyers were exchanging with considerable noise, could have disturbed him. He had the means to buy out the entire suburbs for cash. As for Wang, he opened his immense yellow umbrella, which was decorated with black mon- sters, and constantly faced the east as every high- bred Chinaman should, and looked around every- where for objects worthy of his observation. As he passed before the eastern gate, his eyes fell by chance on a dozen bamboo cages, from which the faces of criminals who had been be- headed the evening before grinned at him. " Per- 32 TRIBULATIONS OF A CHINAMAN. haps," said he, "there is something better to do than to cut off people's heads ; and that is, to make them stronger." Kin-Fo, no doubt, did not hear Wang's reflec- tion, which, on the part of a former Tai-ping, would have astonished him. m Both continued to follow the wharf, winding around the walls of the Chinese city. At the extremity of the outskirts, just as they were about to set foot on the French concession, a native in a long blue robe, who was striking a buf- falo-horn with a small stick, which produced a harsh, grating sound, attracted quite a crowd around him. " A sien-cheng," said the philosopher. "What is it to us ? " added Kin-Fo. " Friend," answered Wang, " ask him your for- tune. This is a good time, when you are about to be married." Kin-Fo started on his way again ; but Wang held him back. The " sien-cheng " is a sort of popular prophet, who for a few sapeques makes a business of fore-, telling the future. His only professional appara- tus is a cage, enclosing a little bird, which he hangs on one of the buttons of his robe, and a pack of sixty-four cards, representing figures of gods, men, or animals. The Chinese of every class, who are generally superstitious, make noth- ing of the predictions of the sien-cheng, who, probably is not in earnest. "A Sien-Cheng," said the philosopher. Page 33. THE CITY OF SHANG-HAI. 33 At a sign from Wang, he spread a piece of cot- ton cloth on the ground, placed his cage on it, drew out his cards, shuffled, and placed them on this carpeting in a manner to display their figures. The door of the cage was then opened ; and. a little bird came out, selected one of the cards, and went back again, after having received a kernel of rice as a reward. The sien-cheng turned over the card. It bore the face of a man, and a device written in kunan- runa, the mandarin language of the north and an official language used by educated people. Then, addressing Kin-Fo, the fortune-teller pre- dicted what those of his profession in all countries invariably predict without compromising them- selves, — that, after undergoing some near trial, he would enjoy ten thousand years of happiness. " One," answered Kin-Fo, " one only, and I won't insist upon the rest." Then he threw a silver tael on the ground, which the prophet scrambled for as a hungry dog does for a bone: Such windfalls did not come to him every day. After this, Wang and his pupil proceeded to the French colony, — the former thinking of the predic- tion, which accorded with his own theories about happiness ; the latter knowing well that no trial could come to him. They passed the French consulate* and as- cended as far as the culvert thrown across Yang- King-Pang, and crossed the brook ; then went in 34 TRIBULATIONS 0F% CHINAMAN. an oblique direction across the English territory, in order to reach the wharf at the European port. It was just striking twelve ; and business, which had been very active throughout the morning, stopped as if by magic. The business-day was ended, we may say ; and quiet took the place of bustle, even in the English city, which had become Chinese in this respect. At this moment several foreign ships were arriving in port, most of them under the flag of the United Kingdom. Nine out of ten, we must state, were laden with opium. This brutalizing substance, this poison with which England encum- bers China, creates a traffic amounting to more than two hundred and sixty million francs, and returns three hundred per cent profit. In vain has the Chinese government tried to prevent the importation of opium into the Celestial Empire. The war of 1841 and the treaty of Nankin gave free entry to English merchandise, and yielded the day to the merchant princes. We must also add, that, if the government of Pekin has gone so far as to proclaim death to every Chinaman who sells opium, there are arrangements that can be made, through a financial medium, with the treasurers of the ruler ; and it is even believed that the manda- rin governor of Shang-hai lays up a million annu- ally by merely shutting his eyes to the acts of his subordinates. We need not add that neither Kin-Fo nor Wang were addicted to the detestable habit of smoking THE CITY OF SHANG-HAI. 35 opium, which destroys all the elasticity of the sys- tem, and quickly leads to death. Therefore not an ounce of this substance had even entered the costly dwelling which the two friends reached an hour after landing on the wharf at Shang-hai. Wang (the remark is still more surprising be- cause it is that of an ex-Tai-ping) did not hesitate to say, " Perhaps r there is something better than importing that which brutalizes a whole nation. Commerce is well enough ; but philosophy is better. Let us be philosophers before all ! let us be philosophers !" 36 TRIBULATIONS OF A CHINAMAN. CHAPTER IV. IN WHICH KIN-FO RECEIVES AN IMPORTANT LET- TER, WHICH IS EIGHT DAYS BEHIND TIME. A yamen is a collection of various buildings ranged along a parallel line, which is cut across perpendicularly by a second line of kiosks and pavilions. Usually the yamen serves as a dwelling for mandarins of high rank, and belongs to the emperor ; but wealthy celestials are not forbidden \o have one. It was in one of these sumptuous hotels that the opulent Kin-Fo lived. Wang and his pupil stopped at the principal gate, which opened on the vast enclosure surround- ing the various structures qf the yamen, and its gardens and court-yards. If, instead of being the dwelling of a private individual, it had been that of a mandarin, a great drum would have occupied the best place, under the carved roof of the porch over the door, and where, in the night as well as in the day, those of his officers who might have to ask for justice would have knocked. But, instead of this " com- plainers' drum," huge porcelain jars ornamented the entrance of the yamen, and contained cold tea, which was constantly renewed by attendants. AN IMPORTANT LETTER. 37 These jars were at the disposal of passers-by, a generosity which did honor to Kin-Fo. So he was thought a great deal of, as they say, " by his neighbors in the East and West." On the master's arrival, the servants ran to the door to meet him. Valets-de-chambre, footmen, porters, chair-bearers, grooms, coachmen, waiters, night-watch ers, and cooks, and all who compose the Chinese household, formed into line under the orders of the intendant ; while a dozen coolies, engaged by the month for the heaviest work, stood a little in the rear. The intendant offered his welcome to the master of the house, who made a slight acknowledgment with a motion of his hand, and passed rapidly on. "Soun?" said he simply. " Soun ! " answered Wang, smiling. " If Soun were here, it would not be Soun ! " " Where is he ? " repeated Kin-Fo. The intendant had to confess that neither he nor any one knew what had become of him. Now, Soun held no less important a position than that of first valet-de-chambre, and was in particular at- tached to Kin-Fo's person, and was one whom the latter could by no means do without. Was he, then,, a model servant ? No : he could not possibly have performed his duties in a worse manner. Absent-minded, incoherent in speech, awkward with his hands and tongue, a thorough gourmand, and somewhat of a coward, he was a true Chinese-screen Chinaman, but faithful on 38 TRIBULATIONS OF A CHINAMAN. the whole, and the only person, after all, who po& sessed the gift of moving his master. Kin-Fo found an occasion to get angry with Soun twenty times a day ; and, if he only corrected him ten, there was just so much the less to rouse him from his habitual indifference, and stir his bile. A hygienic servant, it is plain to be seen. Besides, Soun, like the majority of Chinese ser- vants, came of his own accord to receive punish- ment whenever he merited it, which his master was not sparing in bestowing. The blows of the rattan rained down on his shoulders, but he hardly minded them. What caused him to show infinitely more sensibility was the successive cuttings of his braided pigtail, which Kin-Fo made him undergo when he was guilty of any grave fault. Probably no one is unaware how much the Chinaman values this odd appendage. The loss of his pigtail is the first punishment offered to a criminal. It is a dishonor for life : therefore the unhappy valet dreaded nothing so much as to be condemned to lose a piece of it. Four years before, when he entered Kin-Fo's service, his braid, one of the most beautiful in the Celestial Empire, measured one metre and twenty-five. Now there remained only fifty-seven centimetres. At this rate, Soun in two years would be en- tirely bald. However, Wang and Kin-Fo, followed respect- fully by the servants, crossed the garden, in which the trees, that were mostly set in porcelain vases, Wang and Kin-Fo, followed respectfully by the servants, crossed the ga ' den - Page 38. AN IMPORTANT LETTER. 39 and trimmed in an astonishing but lamentable style of art, assumed the form of fantastic ani- mals. Then the friends walked around the reser- voir filled with "gouramis" and red fishes, and in which the limpid water was hidden from view under the broad, pale-red flowers of the "nelum- bo," the most beautiful of the native water-lilies in the Empire of Flowers. They saluted a quad- ruped in hieroglyphics, painted in violent colors on a wall ad hoc, like a symbolical fresco, and finally reached the entrance to the principal dwell- ing in the yamen. It was a house composed of a ground-floor and one story, raised on a terrace which was ascended by six marble steps. Bamboo screens were hung like awnings before the doors and windows, in order to render endurable the excessive heat by airing the interior. The flat roof contrasted with the fantastic roofing of the pavilions, scattered here and there in the enclosure of the yamen, whose embrasures, many-colored tiles, and bricks carved in fine arabesques, were extremely pleasing to the eye. Inside, with the exception of the rooms espe- cially reserved for the occupancy of Wang and Kin-Fo, there were only salons surrounded by cabi- nets formed of transparent walls, on which were traced garlands of painted flowers, or inscriptions giving those moral aphorisms with which the Celestials are profuse. Everywhere were to be seen seats oddly fashioned in pottery or porcelain, 40 TRIBULATIONS OF A CHINAMAN. in wood or marble, to say nothing of some dozens of cushions of more inviting softness ; and every- where were lamps or lanterns of various forms, with glasses shaded in delicate colors, and more encumbered with tassels, fringes, and top-knots than a Spanish mule ; and the little tea-tables called teha-ki, which form an indispensable complement to the furniture of a Chinese" apartment. One g would not have wasted, but have well employed, hours in counting the ivory and shell carvings, the dead bronzes, the censers, the lacquer-work orna- mented with filagree of raised gold, them ilky- white and emerald-green objects in jade, the vases (round or in the form of a prism) of the dynasty of the Ming and Tsing, and the still rarer porce- lains of the dynasty of the Yen in veined enamel- work of translucent pink and yellow, the secret of whose manufacture is unknown. All that Chinese fancy, added to European comfort, could offer, was to be found in this luxurious home. Indeed, Kin-Fo — it has been alluded to before, and his tastes prove it — was a progressive man, who was not opposed to the importation of each and every modern invention ; and he might be classed with those Sons of Heaven, still too rare, who are charmed by the physical and chemical sci- ences. He was not one of those barbarians who cut the first telegraph-wires which the house of Reynolds, wished to establish as far as Wousung with the intention of learning sooner of the arrival of English and American mails ; nor one of those AN IMPORTANT LETTER. 41 behind-the-times mandarins, who, in order not to allow the submarine cable from Shang-hai to Hong- Kong to be secured at any point whatsoever of the territory, obliged the telegraph-workers to fasten it on a boat floating in the middle of the river. No : Kin-Fo joined those of his compatriots who approved of the government building arsenals and ship-yards in Fou-Chao under the direction of French engineers ; and he was also a stockholder in the Chinese steamers which ply between Tien- sing and Shang-hai on government business, and was interested in those boats of great speed, which, after leaving Singapore, gain three or four days over the English mail. It has been affirmed that material progress found its way even into his home. Indeed, the telephone gave communication between the differ- ent buildings in his yamen ; and electric bells con- nected the rooms in his house. During the cold season he built a fire to warm himself without a feeling of shame, being more sensible in this re- spect than his fellow-citizens, who froze before an empty fireplace under four or five suits of clothes. He lighted his house with gas, like the inspector- general of the custom-house in Pekin, and the immensely rich Mr. Yang, the principal proprietor of the pawn-shops in the Central Empire. Final- ly, disdaining the superannuated custom of hand- writing in his familiar correspondence, the pro- gressive Kin-Fo, as one will soon find, adopted phonography, recently brought to the highest de- gree of perfection by Edison, 42 TRIBULATIONS OF A CHINAMAN: Thus the pupil of the philosopher Wang had, in his material as well as in his moral life, all that was necessary to make him happy ; yet he was not so ! He had Soun to rouse him from his daily apathy ; but even Soun did not suffice to bring happiness. It is true, that, at the present moment at least, Soun, who was never where he ought to be, would not show himself. He, no doubt, must have some grave fault with which to reproach himself, some awkward act done in his master's absence ; or if he did not fear for his shoulders, accustomed to the domestic rattan, every thing led one to believe that he was trembling particularly for his pigtail. " Soun ! " called Kin-Fo, as he entered the hall into which opened the salons on the right and left ; and his voice indicated an ill-repressed impatience. " Soun ! " repeated Wang, whose good advice and reproofs had produced no effect on the incor- rigible valet. " Let some one hunt up Soun, and bring him to me," said Kin-Fo, addressing the intendant, who set all his people to find the unfindable. Wang and Kin-Fo remained alone. "Wisdom," then spoke the philosopher, "com- mands the traveller who returns to his fireside to take rest." "Let us be wise," simply answered Wang's pupil ; and, after having clasped the philosopher's hand, he went to his apartments. Kin-Fo, when at length alone, stretched himself on one of those AN IMPORTANT LETTER. 43 soft lounges of European manufacture which a Chinese upholsterer would never have been able to make so comfortable. In this position he began to meditate. Was he meditating on his marriage with the amiable and pretty woman he was to make the companion of his life ? Yes ; but that is not surprising, because he was about to visit her. This charming person did not reside in Shang-hai, but in Pekin ; and Kin-Fo thought that it would be proper to announce to her both his return to Shang-hai, and his inten- tion of soon visiting the capital of the Celestial Empire. Even were he to show a certain desire and slight impatience to see her again, it would not be out of place ; for he really had a true affec- tion for her. Wang had demonstrated this to him by the most unanswerable rules of logic ; and this new element introduced into his life might, perhaps, call forth the unknown, — that is, happiness, — who, — which, — of which — 4 Kin-Fo was dreaming, with his eyes already closed ; and he would have gently fallen asleep, if he had not felt a sort of tickling in his right hand. Instinctively his fingers came together, and seized a' slightly knotty, cylindrical body, of tol- erable thickness, which they undoubtedly were accustomed to handle. He could not be mistaken : it was a rattan, which had slipped into his right hand, while at the same time were heard, in a resigned tone, the following words : — 44 TRIBULATIONS OF A CHINAMAN: " When master wishes." Kin-Fo started up, and instinctively brandished, the correcting rattan. Soun was before him, presenting his shoulders, and bending half double in the position of a male- factor about to be beheaded. Supporting himself on the floor by one hand, he held a letter in the other. "Well, here you are at last ! " cried Kin-Fo. " Ai, ai,ya!" answered Soun. "I did not ex- pect master till the third period. If he wishes " — Kin-Fo threw the rattan on the floor. Soun, al- though he was naturally so yellow, managed to turn pale. " If you offer your back without any other ex- planation," said his master, " it is because you de- serve something more. What is the matter ? " " This letter." " Well, what of it ? Speak ! " cried Kin-Fo, seiz- ing the letter which Soun presented to him. " I very stupidly forgot to give it to you before your departure to Canton." " A week behind time, you xascal ! " " I did wrong, master." ° Come here." " I am like a poor crab that has no claws, and cannot walk. Ai, ai, ya ! " This last cry was one of despair. Kin-Fo, having seized Soun by his braid, with one clip of the well- sharpened scissors cut off the extreme tip. It is to be supposed that claws grow instantane- "Ai ai yal'' Page 44 AN IMPORTANT LETTER. 45 ously on the unhappy crab ; for this one, having first snatched from the carpet the severed part of his precious appendage, scampered hastily away. From fifty-seven centimetres, Soun's pigtail had become reduced to fifty-four. Kin-Fo, who was again perfectly calm, had thrown himself once more on the lounge, and was examin- ing, with the air of a man whom nothing hurries, the letter which had arrived a week ago. He was only displeased with Soun on account of his care- lessness, not on account of the delay. How could any letter whatsoever interest him ? It would only be welcome if it could cause him an emotion. An emotion for him ! He looked at it, therefore, somewhat vacantly. The envelope, of heavy linen paper, revealed on the front and the reverse side various postmarks of a chocolate and a wine color, with the printed picture of a man under- neath the figure 2, and "six cents," which showed that it came from the United States of America. " Good ! " said Kin-Fo, shrugging his shoulders, "a letter from my correspondent in San Fran- cisco." And he threw it in a corner of the lounge. Indeed, what could his correspondent have to tell him ? That the securities which composed air most all his fortune remained quietly in the safes of the Central Bank in California, or that his stock had risen from fifteen to twenty per cent, or that the dividends to be distributed would exceed those of the preceding year, &c. A few million dollars more or less really could not move him. 46 TRIBULATIONS OF A CHINAMAN. However, a few moments later, Kin-Fo took the letter again, and mechanically tore the envelope ; but, instead of reading it, his eyes at first sought only the signature. " It is truly from my correspondent," he said. " He can only have business-matters to tell me of ; and business I won't think of till to-morrow." And a second time Kin-Fo was about to throw down the letter, when inside, on the right-hand page, a word underlined several times caught his eye. It was the word "indebtedness," to which the San Francisco correspondent wished to draw the attention of his client at Shang-hai. Kin-Fo then began the letter from the beginning, and read every word from the first to the last line, not without a certain feeling of curiosity rather surprising on his part. For a moment his eye- brows contracted ; but a rather disdainful smile played round his lips when he finished reading. He then rose, took about twenty steps around his room, and approached the rubber tube which placed him in communication with Wang. He even carried the mouth-piece to his lips, and was about to whistle through it, when he changed his mind, let fall the rubber serpent, and, returning, threw himself on the lounge. " Pooh ! " said he. This word just expressed Kin-Fo. " And she ! " he murmured. " She is really more interested in all this than I am." He then approached a little lacquered table, on AN IMPORTANT LETTER. 47 which stood an oblong box of rare carving ; but, as he was about to open it, he stayed his hand. "What was it that her last letter said?" he murmured. Instead of raising the box-cover, he pressed a spring at one end, and immediately a sweet voice was heard : — " My little elder brother, am I no longer to you like the flower mei-houa in the first moon, like the flower of the apricot in the second, and the flower of the peach-tree in the third ? My dear, precious jewel of a 'heart, a thousand, ten thousand greet- ings to you ! " It was the voice of a young woman, whose ten- der words were repeated by the phonograph. " Poor little younger sister ! " said Kin-Fo. Then, opening the box, he took out from the apparatus the paper on which were the indented lines which had just reproduced the inflections of the absent voice, and replaced it with another. The phonograph was then perfected to such a degree, that it was necessary only to speak aloud for the membrane to receive the impression, and the wheel, which was turned as by the machinery of a watch, would stamp the words on the paper inside. Kin-Fo spoke in it for about a moment. By his voice, which was always calm and even, one could not have learned whether joy or sorrow influenced his thoughts. No more than three or four sentences were 48 TRIBULATIONS OF A CHINAMAN. spoken. Having ended, he stopped the machinery of the phonograph, drew out the special paper on which the needle, acted upon by the membrane, had traced oblique ridges corresponding to the words spoken ; then, placing this paper in an en- velope which he sealed, he wrote from right to left the following address : — Madame Le-ou, .Cha-Coua Avenue, PEKIN. An electric bell quickly brought the servant who had charge of letters, and he was ordered to take this one immediately to the post-office. An hour afterwards Kin-Fo was sleeping peace- fully, pressing in his arms his "tchou-fou-jen," — a kind of pillow of plaited bamboo, which maintains a medium temperature in Chinese beds, and is very- much prized in these warm latitudes. LE-OU RECEIVES A LETTER. 49 CHAPTER V. IN WHICH LE-OU RECEIVES A LETTER WHICH SHE WOULD RATHER NOT HAVE RECEIVED. " You have no letter for me yet ? " " Eh ! No, madam." " Time seems so long to me, old mother ! " Thus for the tenth time that day spoke the charming Le-ou in the boudoir of her house in Cha-Coua Avenue, Pekin. The " old mother " who answered her, and to whom she gave this title, usually bestowed in China on- servants of a re- spectable age, was the grumbling and disagreeable Miss Nan. Le-ou had married at eighteen a literary man of the highest distinction, who had contributed to the famous " Tse-Khou-Tsuane-Chou." 1 This savant was twice her age, and died three years after this unequal union. The young widow was left alone in the world when she was only twenty-one years old. Kin-Fo met her on a journey which he made to Pekin about this time. Wang, who was acquainted with 1 This work, begun in 1773, is to comprise one hundred and sixty thou- sand volumes, and at present has reached only the seventy-eight thousand seven hundred and thirty-eighth. 50 TRIBULATIONS OF A CHINAMAN. this charming person, called the attention of his indifferent pupil to her ; and Kin-Fo gradually gave himself up to the idea of modifying the conditions of his life by becoming the husband of such a pretty widow. Le-ou was not avers'e to the propo- sition : so the marriage, which was decided upon to the great satisfaction of the philosopher, was to be celebrated as soon as Kin-Fo, after having made the necessary arrangements at Shang-hai, should return to Pekin. It is not common in the Celestial Empire for widows to marry again, — not that they do not wish to as much as those of their class in West- ern countries, but because their wish is shared by few of the opposite sex. If Kin-Fo was an exception to the rule, it was because he was ec- centric, as we know. Le-ou, if married again, it is true, would no longer have the right to pass under the commemorative arches, which the em- peror has sometimes erected in honor of women celebrated for their fidelity to a deceased husband, — such as that in honor of the widow Soung, who never would leave her husband's tomb ; of the widow Koung-Kiang, who cut off an arm ; and of the widow Yen-Tchiang, who disfigured herself as a sign of conjugal grief. But Le-ou thought she could do better in her twentieth year. She would resume that life of obedience which constitutes the whole rdle of woman in a Chinese family, give up talking of outside matters, conform to the precepts of the book "Li-nun" on domestic LE-OU RECEIVES A LETTER. 51 virtues, and the book " Nei-tso-pien " on marital duties, and again find that consideration enjoyed by the wife who, in the upper classes, is not the slave she is generally believed to be. So Le-ou, who was intelligent and well educated, under- standing what place she would hold in the life of the rich ennuyt, and' feeling herself drawn towards him by the desire of proving to him that happiness exists on the earth, was quite resigned to her new fate. The savant had left his young widow in easy, though moderate, circumstances ; and the house in Cha-Coua Avenue was therefore unpretentious. The intolerable Nan was the only servant ; but Le-ou was accustomed to her deplorable manners, which are not peculiar to the servants of the Em- pire of Flowers. The young woman preferred to spend most of her time in her boudoir, the furniture of which would have seemed very plain, had it not been for the rich presents which, for two eventful months, had been arriving from Shang-hai. A few pictures hung on the walls ; among others a chef-d 'ceuvre of the old painter ' Huan-Tse-Nen, 1 The renown of the great masters has been handed down to us by traditions, which, though anecdotical, are none the less worthy of atten- tion. It is recorded, for example, that in the third century a painter, by the name of Tsao-Pouh-Ying, having finished a screen for the emperor, amused himself by painting flies here and there, and had the satisfaction of seeing his majesty take his handkerchief to brush them off. No less celebrated was Huan-Tse-Nen, who flourished towards the year one thou- sand. Having had charge of the mural decorations in one of the palace- halls, he painted several pheasants on it. Now, some foreign envoys who- 52 TRIBULATIONS OF A CHINAMAN. which would have attracted the attention of con- noisseurs among other very Chinese water-colors with green horses, violet dogs, "and blue trees, the work of native modern artists. On a lacquer table were displayed fans, like great butterflies with expanded wings, from the celebrated school of Swatow. From a porcelain hanging-lamp drooped elegant festoons of those artificial flow- ers, so admirably manufactured from the pith of the Arabia papyrifera of Formosa, and rivalling the white water-lilies, yellow chrysanthemums, and red lilies of Japan, which crowded the jardinieres of delicately carved wood. A soft light filled the room, as the screens of braided bamboo at the windows excluded the direct rays of the sun by filtering them, as it were. A magnificent screen, made of large sparrow-hawks' feathers, on which the spots of color, artistically disposed,, represented a large peony, — that emblem of beauty in the Empire of Flowers, — two bird-cages in the form of a pagoda, real kaleidoscopes of the most bril- liant birds of India, a few seolian "tiemaols," whose glass plate vibrated in the breeze, and a thousand objects, in fact, which recalled the ab- sent one, completed the curious adornment of this boudoir. brought several falcons as a present to the emperor, having been introduced into this hall, the birds of prey no sooner beheld the pheasants painted on the walls, than they flew upon them to the injury of their heads more than to the satisfaction of their voracious instincts. — Thompson's Voyage to China. LE-OU RECEIVES A LETTER. S3 " No letter yet, Nan ? " " Why no, madam, not yet ! " A charming woman was this young Le-ou, and pretty even to European eyes : for she was fair, not yellow, and had soft eyes, but slightly raised near the temples ; black hair, which was orna- mented with a few peach-blossoms, fastened by pins of green jade ; small white teeth, and eye- brows faintly defined with a delicate line of India ink. She put no cosmetic of honey or Spanish white on her cheeks, as the beauties in the Celestial Empire generally do, no circle of car- mine on her lower lip, no small vertical line be- tween her eyes, nor a single layer of the paint which the imperial court dispenses annually for ten million sapeques. The young widow had nothing to do with these artificial ingredients. She seldom went out of her house at Cha-Coua, and for that reason could scorn this mask which every Chinese woman uses outside of her own house. As for her toilet, nothing could be more simple and elegant. A long robe, slashed on four sides, with a wide embroidered galloon at the hem, and, underneath this, a plaited skirt ; at her waist a plastron embellished with braid in gold filagree ; pantaloons attached to the belt, and fastened over hose of Nankin silk; and pretty slippers orna- mented with pearls, composed her attire. We can mention nothing more to make the young woman charming, unless we add that her hands 54 TRIBULATIONS OF A CHINAMAN. were delicate, and that she preserved her nails, which were long and rosy, in little silver cases, carved with exquisite art. And her feet ? Well, her feet were small, not in consequence of that barbarous custom of de- forming them, which, happily, is being done away with, but because nature had made them so. This custom has already lasted seven hundred years, and probably arose from the deformity of some club-footed princess, and not, as has been believed, from the jealousy of husbands. In its most simple application, the flexion of the four toes under the sole, while leaving the calcaneum intact, converts the leg into" a sort of conical trunk, abso- lutely impedes walking, and predisposes to anemia. The custom had extended day by day from the conquest by the Tartars ; but now one cannot find three Chinese women out of ten who have been forced to submit at an early age to a succession of those painful operations which causes the deform- ity of the foot. " It cannot be possible that a letter has not come to-day," said Le-ou again. " Go and see, old mother." "I have been to see," answered Miss Nan very disrespectfully, as she left the room, grumbling. Le-ou tried to work to divert her mind : yet she was thinking of Kin-Fo all the same ; since she was embroidering for him a pair of cloth stockings, whose manufacture is confined to women in Chinese households, to whatever class they may belong. But * I have been to see," answered Miss Nan very disrespectfully, as she left the room. Page 54 LE-OU RECEIVES A LETTER. 55 her work soon fell from her hands. She rose, took two or three watermelon-seeds from a bonbon- box, crunched them between her little teeth, then opened a book entitled "Nushun," — a code of instructions which it is the habit of every worthy wife to read daily. "As spring is the most favorable season for the farmer, so is the dawn the most propitious moment of the day. " Rise early, and do not yield to the wooing of sleep. " Take care of the mulberry-tree and the hemp. " Spin silk and cotton zealously. "A woman's virtue is in being industrious and economi- cal. " Your neighbor will sing your praises." This book was soon closed ; for the fond Le-ou was not thinking of what she was reading. " Where can he be ? " she questioned. " He must have gone to Canton. Has he returned to Shang-hai ? When will he arrive at Pekin ? Has the sea been smooth for him ? I pray the goddess Koanine may watch over him." Thus spoke the anxious young woman ; and her eyes wandered absently over a table-cover, which was artistically made of a thousand little pieces patched together in a sort of mosaic, and of a ma- terial of Portuguese fashion, on which were de- signed the mandarin duck and his family, the sym- bol of fidelity. Finally she approached ajardinitre, and plucked a flower at random. " Ah ! " said she, " this is not a flower of the green willow, the emblem of spring, youth, and 56 TRIBULATIONS OF A CHINAMAN. joy : it is the yellow chrysanthemum, the emblem ■of autumn and sorrow ! " To dispel the anxiety which now possessed her, she took up her lute, and ran her fingers over the strings, while she softly sang the first words of the song, " Hands United ; " but she could not con- tinue. " His letters always came promptly," she said to herself ; " and what emotion they caused me as I read them ! Or, instead of those lines which were addressed only to my eyes, it was his voice itself I could hear ; for in that instrument it spoke to me as if he were near." Le-ou glanced at a phonograph which stood on a small lacquered table, and which was exactly like the one that Kin-Fo used at Shang-hai. Both could thus hear each other speak, or rather the sound of their voices, in spite of the distance which sepa- rated them. But to-day, as for several days, the apparatus was silent, and no longer spoke the thoughts of the absent one. The old mother now entered. " Here is your letter," she said ; and she handed Le-ou an envelope postmarked Shang-hai, and then left the room. A smile played about Le-ou's lips, and her eyes sparkled with a more brilliant light. She quickly tore open the envelope, without taking time to look at it, as was her habit. It did not contain a letter, but one of those pieces of paper with ob- lique indented lines, which, when adjusted in the ^C.'gv *■»■»<- aSeSr*^ «t'"-j _ __^ J The paper was placed on the roller of the phonograph. Page 57. LE-OU RECEIVES A LETTER. 57 phonograph, reproduce all the inflections of the human voice. " Ah ! I like this even better ! " she cried joy- ously; "for I can hear him speak." The paper was placed on the roller of the phon- ograph, which the machinery, like clock-work, im- mediately made revolve, and Le-ou, putting her ear to it, heard a well-known voice, which said, — " Little younger sister, ruin has made way with my riches, as the east wind blows away the yellow leaves of au- tumn. I do not wish to make another wretched by having her share my poverty. Forget him on whom ten thousand misfortunes have fallen. " Yours in despair, " Kin-Fo." What a blow for the young woman ! A life more bitter than the bitter gentian awaited her now. Yes, the golden wind was carrying away her last hopes with the fortune of him she loved. Was Kin-Fo's love for her gone forever ? Did her friend believe only in the happiness which riches give ? Ah, poor Le-ou ! she now resembled a kite, which, when its string is broken, falls to the ground and is shattered. Nan, whom she had called, entered the room, and, with a shrug of her shoulders, carried her mistress to her "hang." But, although her couch was one of those stove-beds artificially warmed, it seemed cold to the unfortunate Le-ou ; and how slowly passed the five parts of that sleepless night ! 58 TRIBULATIONS OF A CHINAMAN. CHAPTER VI. WHICH WILL, PERHAPS, MAKE THE READER DESIRE TO VISIT THE OFFICES OF THE "CENTENARY." The next day Kin-Fo, whose disdain for things of this world did not lessen for a moment, left home alone, and, with his usual regular gait, de- scended the right shore of the creek. Having reached the wooden bridge which connects the English concession with the American, he crossed the river, and proceeded to a rather handsome house, which stood between the mission-church and the consulate of the United States. On the front of this house was displayed a large copper plate, on which was engraved, in raised letters, this inscription, — "THE CENTENARY LIFE-INSURANCE COMPANY. Guaranteed Capital, $20,000,000. Principal Agent, William J. Bidulph." Kin-Fo pushed open the door, which was pro- tected by another one inside, and found himself in an office divided into two compartments by a simple balustrade, as high as his elbow. Several paste- board boxes for papers, some books with nickel THE OFFICES OF THE "CENTENARY." 59 clasps, an American safe, two or three tables where the agent's clerks were working, and a complicated secretary reserved for the Honorable William J. Bidulph, comprised the furniture of this room, which seemed to belong more to a house in Broadway than to one on the shores of the Wousung. William J. Bidulph was the principal agent in China of the life and fire insurance company whose head was in Chicago. It was called the Centenary, — a good title, which must draw pa- trons. The Centenary, which was very popular in the United States, had branches in the five divisions of the world. It carried on an enormous business, — thanks to its by-laws, which were very boldly and liberally framed, — and was thus able to take every risk. The Celestials were beginning to follow these modern ideas which filled the coffers of com- panies of this kind. A large number of houses in the Central Empire were insured against fire ; and the contracts of insurance in case of death, with their complex combinations, did not lack Chinese signatures. The advertisement of the Centenary was already posted on doors in Shang- hai, and, among other places, on the pillars of Kin-Fo's costly yamen. Therefore it was not with the intention of insuring against fire that Wang's pupil was paying a visit to the Honorable William J. Bidulph. " Mr. Bidulph ? " he asked, as he entered. 60 TRIBULATIONS OF A CHINAMAN. William J. Bidulph was there "in person," like a photographer who is his own operator, and always at the disposition of the public. He was a man fifty years old, correctly dressed in a black coat and white cravat, with a full-grown beard, but no mustache, and with peculiarly American manners. " To whom have I the honor of speaking ? " he asked. "To Mr. Kin-Fo of Shang-hai." " Mr. Kin-Fo ! one of the patrons of the Cen- tenary, — policy number twenty-seven thousand two hundred." "The same." " Am I to have the good fortune of having you desire my services, sir ? " "I would like to speak to you in private," an- swered Kin-Fo. Conversation between these two could be the more easily carried on, since William J. Bidulph spoke Chinese, and Kin-Fo spoke English. The wealthy patron was then introduced, with the respect due him, into an inner office, hung with heavy tapestry, and closed with double doors, where one might have plotted the overthrow of the dynasty of Tsing without fear of being heard by the most cunning tipaos in the Celestial Em- pire. "Sir," said Kin-Fo, as soon as he had seated himself in a rocking-chair before a fireplace heated by gas, " I desire to negotiate with your company IHHNnUfef \* ill! ■ ' \ swiff- *' r ".-iJ^i- •£ IHIIi-i "You desire to die only at a very advanced age, do you not?" Page 61. THE OFFICES OF THE "CENTENARY." 6 1 for the insurance of my life for a sum, the amount of which I will give you presently." "Sir," answered William J. Bidulph, "there is nothing more simple. Two signatures — yours and mine — at the bottom of a policy, and the insurance is effected after a few preliminary for- malities. But, sir, permit me to ask this question : you desire to die only at a very advanced age, do you not? — quite a natural desire." "Why should I?" asked Kin-Fo. "Usually, when one insures his life, it indicates that he fears sudden death." " O sir ! " answered Mr. Bidulph in the most serious way in the world, " that fear is never enter- tained by the patrons of the Centenary. Does not its name indicate this? To insure with us is to take out a patent of long life. I beg pardon ; but it is rare that those insuring with us do not live beyond the hundredth year, — very rare, very rare ! For their own good, we ought to deprive them of life. But we do a superb business. So, I assure you, sir, that insurance in the Centenary is a quasi certainty of becoming a centenarian." " Indeed ! " said Kin-Fo quietly, looking at William J. Bidulph with his cold eye. The chief agent, serious as a clergyman, had by no means the appearance of joking. " However that may be," resumed Kin-Fo, " I desire to get insured for two hundred thousand dollars." " We say a policy of two hundred thousand dollars," answered Mr. Bidulph. 62 TRIBULATIONS OF A CHINAMAN. He entered this sum in his note-book, and its magnitude did not even cause him to raise his eyebrows. " You know," he added, " that the insurance is void, and that all premiums paid, whatever their number, go to the company, if the person insured loses his life through the act of the beneficiary of the contract." " I knbw that." " And against what risks do you pretend to in- sure, my dear sir ? " "All kinds." " Risks of travel by land or sea, and those of a residence outside the limits of the Celestial Em- pire ? " " Yes." " Risks of legal sentence ? " "Yes." " Risks of duel ? " " Yes." " Risks of military service ? " " Yes." "Then the premiums will be very high." "I will pay what is necessary." " It is agreed." "But," added Kin-Fo, "there is another very important risk, which you do not speak of." "What is it?" " Suicide. I thought the statutes of the Cen- tenary authorized it to insure against suicide also." THE OFFICES OF THE "CENTENARY." 63 "Just so, sir! just so!" answered William J. Bidulph, rubbing his hands. "Even that proves a source of splendid profit to us. You under- stand, our patrons are generally people who value life ; and those who, through exaggerated pru- dence, insure against suicide, never kill them- selves," " For all that," answered Kin-Fo, " for personal reasons, I wish to insure against this risk also." " Bless me ! but it is a pretty big premium." " I repeat that I will pay whatever is necessary." " Of course we will put down, then," said Mr. Bidulph, continuing to write in his note-book, "risks of travelling by sea and land, and suicide." "And on those conditions what will be the amount to pay ? " asked Kin-Fo. " My dear sir," answered the principal agent, "our premiums are tabled with a mathematical accuracy which is greatly to the honor of the company. They are not based, as they used to be, on Duvillars' tables. Are you acquainted with Duvillars ? " " I am not acquainted with Duvillars." " A remarkable statistician, but already ancient, — so ancient, even, that he is dead. At the time that he established his famous tables, which still serve as the scale for premiums in the majority of European companies, which are very much behind the times, the average duration of life was less than now, thanks to general progress. We form a basis on a higher medium, and, con- 64 TRIBULATIONS OF A CHINAMAN. sequently, one more favorable to the insured, who pays a lower price, and lives longer." " What will be the amount of my premium ? " resumed Kin-Fo, desirous of stopping the wordy agent, who neglected no occasion to mention this advantage in favor of the Centenary. "Sir," answered William J. Bidulph, "may I take the liberty of asking your age ? " "Thirty-one years." " Well, at thirty-one, if you were only insuring on ordinary risks, you would pay in any company two eighty-three per cent ; but in the Centenary it will only be two seventy, which, for a capital of two hundred thousand dollars, would make five thousand four hundred dollars per annum." " And on the conditions that I desire ? " asked Kin-Fo. " Insuring against every risk, even suicide ? " "Suicide above every thing." "Sir," answered Mr. Bidulph in an amiable tone, after having consulted a printed table on the last page of his note-book, "we cannot do this for you at less than twenty-five per cent." " Which will make ? " " Fifty thousand dollars." " And how will the premium be paid you ? " " All at once, or in parts monthly, at the pleas- ure of the person insured." "And what would it be for the first two months ? " " Eight thousand three hundred and thirty-two THE OFFICES OF THE "CENTENARY." 65 dollars, which, if paid to-day, the 30th of April, my dear sir, would cover you to the 30th of June of the present year." " Sir," said Kin-Fo, " those conditions suit me. Here is the premium for the first two months." And he placed on the table a thick roll of bills, which he drew from his pocket. "Well, sir, very well," answered Mr. Bidulph. " But, before signing the policy, there is one for- mality to be gone through with." "What is it?" "You must receive a visit from the physician of the company." " For what reason ? " " In order to ascertain if you are soundly built, if you have no organic malady of a nature to shorten life, if, in short, you can give us guaran- ties of a long life." "Of what use is that, since I insure even against duel and suicide ? " observed Kin-Fo. "Well, my dear sir," answered Mr. Bidulph, still smiling, "a malady whose germs you might have, and which would carry you off in a few months, would cost us in all two hundred thou- sand dollars." " My suicide would cost you that also, I sup- pose." " Dear sir," answered the gracious agent, taking Kin-Fo's hand, which he gently patted, " allow me to tell you that many of our patrons insure against suicide, but they never commit suicide. But we 66 TRIBULATIONS OF A CHINAMAN. are not prevented from watching over them, — but with the greatest discretion." "Ah!" said Kin-Fo. " I will add this, which I have often said, that, of all those insured by the Centenary, they are the ones who pay premiums the longest. But, be- tween ourselves, pray tell me, why should the wealthy Mr. Kin-Fo commit suicide ? " " And why should the wealthy Mr. Kin-Fo get insured ? " " Oh ! " answered William J. Bidulph, " to ob- tain the certainty of living to be very old as a patron of the Centenary." There was no use in discussing any longer with the principal agent of the celebrated company, he was so positive in what he said. " And now," he added, " to whose profit is this insurance of two hundred thousand dollars ? Who will be the beneficiary of the contract ? " "There will be two beneficiaries," "answered Kin-Fo. " In equal shares ? " " No, in unequal shares. One for fifty thousand dollars, the other for one hundred and fifty thou- sand." " For the fifty thousand, we say Mr. ? " "Wang." "The philosopher Wang ? " "The same." " And for the hundred and fifty thousand ? " "Madame Le-ou of Pekin." THE OFFICES OF THE "CENTENARY." 67 " Pekin," added Mr. Bidulph, finishing his entry of the names of the beneficiaries. Then he re> sumed : — " What is Madame Le-ou's age ? " "Twenty-one," answered Kin-Fo. " Oh ! " said the agent, " a young lady who will be quite old when she receives the amount of the policy." " Why so, please ? " " Because you will live to be more than a hun- dred, my dear sir. And how old is the philosopher Wang ? " " Fifty-five." " Well, this worthy man is sure of never receiv- ing any thing." "That remains to be seen, sir." " Sir," answered Mr. Bidulph, " if at fifty-five I were the heir of a man of thirty-one, who was to die a centenarian, I would not be so simple as to count on inheriting from him." " Your servant, sir," said Kin-Fo, moving to the office-door. "And yours," answered the Honorable Mr. Bidulph, bowing to the new insuree of the Cen- tenary. The next day the physician of the company made Kin-Fo the regular visit. " Body of iron, muscles of steel, lungs like organ- bellows," read the report. There was nothing to prevent the company from dealing with a man so soundly built. The policy was then signed under 68 TRIBULATIONS OF A CHINAMAN. this date by Kin-Fo, on his part, for the benefit of the young widow and the philosopher Wang ; and, on the other, by William J. Bidulph, the represen- tative of the company. Neither Le-ou nor Wang, unless through im- probable circumstances, would ever know what Kin-Fo had just done for them, until the day when the Centenary should be called upon to pay them the policy, the last generous act of the ex-million- naire. WAYS AND CUSTOMS OF THE CHINESE. 69 CHAPTER VII. Which would be very sad if it did not treat of ways and. customs peculiar to the ce- lestial empire. Whatever the Honorable William J. Bidulph might think and say, the funds of the Centenary were very seriously threatened. Indeed, Kin-Fo's plan was not of that kind, which, on reflection, one postpones executing indefinitely. Being ut- terly ruined, Wang's pupil had thoroughly re- solved to end an existence which even in the time of his prosperity brought him only sadness and ennui. • The letter which was not delivered for a week by Soun came from San Francisco, and gave notice of the suspension of payment of the Cen- tral Bank of California. Now, Kin-Fo's fortune consisted almost entirely, as we know, of stock in this celebrated bank, which had previously been so sound. But the situation was not to be doubted. Improbable as the news might seem, it was unhappily only too true. The suspension of the Central Bank had just been confirmed by journals received at Shang-hai. The failure had been declared, and Kin-Fo was wholly ruined. 70 TRIBULATIONS OF A CHINAMAN. Indeed, what remained to him outside of the stocks in this bank ? Nothing, or almost nothing. The sale of his house at Shang-hai, which it would be almost impossible to bring about, would give him a sum insufficient for an income. The eight thousand dollars premium paid into the Centenary, a small amount of stock in the Boat Company of Tien-sing, which, if sold that day, wtfuld furnish him with hardly enough to carry on things in ex- tremis, now comprised his sole fortune. A Western man, Frenchman or Englishman, would have taken this new state of things philo- sophically perhaps, and would have begun life over again, seeking to repair his fortunes by assiduous labor ; but a Celestial would think and act quite differently. It was voluntary death that Kin-Fo, as a true Chinaman, without compunctions of con- science, and with that typical indifference which characterized the yellow race, was meditating as a means of getting out of his troubles. The Chinaman has only a passive courage, but this courage he possesses in the highest degree. His indifference to death is truly extraordinary. When he is ill, he sees it approach, and does not falter. When condemned, and already in the hands of an officer, he manifests no fear. The frequent public executions, the sight of the horri- ble torments which are part of the penal laws, in the Celestial Empire, have early familiarized the Sons of Heaven with the idea of renouncing the things of this world without regret. WAYS AND CUSTOMS OF THE CHINESE. 71 Therefore one will not be astonished to find that in every family this thought of death is the order of the day, and the subject of many conver- sations, and has an influence over the most ordi- nary acts of life. The worship of ancestors is also observed by the poorest people. There is not a wealthy home where a sort of domestic sanctuary has not been set apart, and no hut so wretched but some corner has been kept for the relics of ancestors, in whose honor a day is cele- brated in the second month. That is why one finds in the same store where are sold babies' cribs and wedding-gifts, a varied assortment of coffins, which form a staple article in Chinese trade. The purchase of a coffin is, indeed, one of the constant occupations of the Celestials. The fur- niture of a house would be incomplete if a coffin were wanting ; and the son makes it a duty to offer one to his father in the latter's lifetime, which is a touching proof of tenderness. This coffin is placed in a special room. It is ornamented and taken care of, and generally, when it has received mortal remains, is kept with pious care for years. In short, respect for the dead is -the foundation of Chinese religion, and tends to bind family ties more closely. Kin-Fo, owing to his temperament, was consid- ering, with more perfect tranquillity than another would have had, the thought of ending his days. He had insured the fate of the two beings to 72 TRIBULATIONS OF A CHINAMAN. whom his affections turned. Therefore what had he now to regret? Nothing. Suicide coulo not even cause him remorse. What is a crime in civilized countries of the West is only a lawful act, we might say, with this strange people of Eastern Asia. Kin-Fo's decision was then made ; and no influ- ence could turn him from carrying out his project, not even that of the philosopher Wang. But the latter was absolutely ignorant of his pupil's designs. Soun was no better acquainted with them, and had observed but one thing, that since his return Kin-Fo showed himself more tol- erant of his daily stupidities. Positively Soun was coming to the conclusion that he could not find a better master, and now his precious pigtail wriggled on his back in unwonted security. A Chinese proverb says, — " To be happy on earth, one must live at Canton, and die at Liao-Tcheou." It is indeed true that at Canton one finds every luxury of life, and at Liao-Tcheou the best coffins are manufactured. Kin-Fo did not fail to leave an order with the best house that his last bed of repose might ar- rive in time. To have a proper couch for the eternal sleep is the constant thought of every Celestial who knows how to live. Kin-Fo at the same time bought a white cock, WAYS AND CUSTOMS OF THE CHINESE. 73 whose part, as one knows, is to embody departing spirits, and seize in their flight one of the seven elements of which a Chinese soul is composed. One sees that if the pupil of the philosopher Wang showed himself indifferent to the details of life, he was much less so to those of death. That being done, he had only to arrange the programme for his funeral ; and that very day a beautiful sheet of paper, called rice-paper, — in whose composition rice is entirely foreign, — re- ceived Kin-Fo's last will. After having bequeathed his house in Shang-hai to the young widow, and a portrait of the Tap- ping chief to Wang, which the philosopher had always looked upon with pleasure, and having done this without injury to the policy of the Centenary, Kin-Fo traced with a firm hand the order of march of the persons who were to attend the obsequies. First, in default of relations, of which he had none, a party of friends, which he had, were to appear at the head of the cortige, dressed in white, — the color of mourning in China. Through the streets, as far out as the country about the old tomb, a double row of servants, charged with the burial, would file. They would bear different symbols, — blue parasols, halberds, sceptres, silk screens, written documents with the details of the ceremony, and be dressed in a black tunic with a white belt, and wear a black felt cap with red aigrettes on their heads. Behind the first group of friends would walk a guide dressed in 74 TRIBULATIONS OF A CHINAMAN. scarlet from head to foot, beating a gong, and pre- ceding the portrait of the deceased, which would be lying in a sort of decorated shrine. Then a second group of friends would follow, whose part it is to faint at regular intervals on cushions prepared for the occasion. Finally, a last group of young men, screened under a blue and gold canopy, would strew the road with little pieces of white paper, pierced with a hole like sapeques, which were intended to lure away the evil spirits that might be tempted to join the funeral proces- sion. Then the catafalque would appear, an enormous palanquin hung in violet silk, and embroidered with gold dragons, which fifty valets would bear on their shoulders between a double row of bonzes. The priests, clad in robes of gray, red, or yellow, would follow, reciting prayers in the intervals be- tween the thunder of gongs, the shrill tooting of flutes, and the noisy din of trumpets six feet long. At last the mourners' carriages draped in white would bring up the rear of this gorgeous proces- sion, the expenses of which must exhaust the last resources of the opulent corpse. There was really nothing extraordinary in this programme. Many funerals of this class pass through the streets of Canton, Shang-hai, or Pekin ; and the Celestials see in them only a natural hom- age rendered to the remains of him who is no more. On the 20th of October a box, expressed from Then the catafalque would appear. Page 74, WAYS AND CUSTOMS OF THE CHINESE. 75 Liao-Tcheou and addressed to Kin-Fo, reached his house at Shang-hai. It contained the coffin he had ordered, which was carefully packed. Neither Wang, nor Soun, nor any of the servants in the yamen, felt any cause for surprise ; for, we repeat, there is not a Chinaman who does not long to pos- sess in his lifetime the bed in which he will be laid to rest for eternity. This coffin — a chef-d'oeuvre from the manufac- tory of Liao-Tcheou — was placed in the "ances- tors' chamber." There, after being brushed, waxed, and polished, it would usually, no doubt, have waited a long while for the day when the pupil of the philosopher Wang would have utilized it on his own account. It was not so ordained, however ; for Kin-Fo's days were numbered, and the hour was near that would add him to the list of his family ancestors. Indeed, this was the very evening when he had determined to die. A letter had arrived that day from the afflicted Le-ou, who offered him the little that she pos- sessed. Fortune was nothing to her : she could do without it. She loved him ; and what did he wish more ? Could they not be happy in more modest circumstances ? This letter, which ex- pressed the most sincere affection, did not modify Kin-Fo's resolution. " My d^ath alone can enrich her," he thought. It now remained to decide where and how this last act should be performed ; and Kin-Fo experi- enced a sort of pleasure in planning the details, 76 TRIBULATIONS OF A CHINAMAN. for he hoped that at the last moment an emotion, however fleeting, would make his heart beat. Within the enclosure of the yamen rose four pretty kiosks, ornamented in the fanciful manner characteristic of Chinese decorators. They bore significant names, — the Pavilion of Happiness, which Kin-Fo never entered ; the Pavilion of For- tune, which he scorned ; the Pavilion of Pleas- ure, whose gates had long been closed to him ; and the Pavilion of Long Life, which he had resolved to destroy. It was this last one that instinct led him to choose, and he resolved to shut himself up in it at night- fall ; and it was there next day they would find him happy in death. This point being settled, in what manner should he die ? Stab himself like a Japanese? strangle himself with a silken girdle like a mandarin ? open his veins in a perfumed bath like an epicurean in ancient Rome ? No : these methods would seem brutal, and painful to his friends and servants. One or two grains of opium mixed with a subtle poison would be suffi- cient to take him from this world to the next. While unconscious, perhaps, he would pass away in one of those dreams which convert slumber into eternal sleep. The sun was already beginning to sink below the horizon, and Kin-Fo had only a few moments more to live. He wished to take a last walk, and see once more the country around Shang-hai, and the shores of the Houang-Pou, on which he Here was the vast flat country. Page 77. WAYS AND CUSTOMS OF THE CHINESE. 77 had so often walked away his ennui. Alone, with- out having even caught a glimpse of Wang that day, he left the yamen to return once more, and never leave it again. He crossed the English territory, the little bridge over the creek, and the French concession, with an indolent step, which he did not. care to hasten in this last hour. Passing along the wharf of the native port, -he wound around the Shang-hai wall as far as the Roman-Catholic cathedral, whose cupola overlooks the southern portion of the coun- try. Then he bore to the right, and quTetly as- cended the road to the pagoda at Loung-Hao. Here was the vast flat country which extends to the shadowy heights which bound the valley of the Min. It was an immense swamp, which agricultu- ral industry has converted into rice-fields. Here and there were a network of canals filled by the tide, and a few wretched villages in which the reed huts were cemented with yellowish mud ; and two or three fields of wheat, banked up above reach of the water. The narrow paths were fre- quented by a large number of dogs and white goats, ducks and geese ; and, whenever a pedes- trian disturbed their sport, the former would scamper off on all fours, and the latter flap their wings and fly away. This richly cultivated country, whose aspect could not astonish a native, would, however, have attracted the attention of a stranger, and perhaps repelled him ; for everywhere were seen coffins by 78 TRIBULATIONS OF A CHINAMAN. the hundreds, to say nothing of the mounds whose turf covered the dead buried at last forever. One saw only piles of oblong boxes, and pyramids of biers in layers, like planks in a shipbuilder's yard ; for the Chinese plain on the outskirts of the towns is only a vast cemetery, where the dead, as well as the living, encumber the ground. It is asserted that the burial of these coffins is forbidden so long as one dynasty occupies the throne of the Son of Heaven ; and these dynasties last centuries. Whether the prohibition be true or not, it is a fact that corpses, lying in their coffins, — some of which are painted in bright colors, some sombre and modest, some new and smart looking, and others already falling to dust, — wait years for the day of burial. ■ Kin-Fo was by no means astonished at this state of affairs, and he walked on without looking around him ; so that two strangers, dressed like Europeans, who had followed him from the time he left the yamen, did not even attract his attention. He did not see them, although they seemed desir- ous of not losing sight of him. They kept at some distance, following him, — walking when he walked, stopping when he stopped. At times these two men exchanged peculiar looks and a couple of words, and it was very evident that they were there to watch him. Of medium height, not over thirty, active, and well set, one would have called them two pointers with sharp eyes and fleet limbs. Kin-Fo, after walking around the country for a Two strangers, dressed as Europeans, who had followed him from the time he left the yamen. Page 78. WAYS AND CUSTOMS OF THE CHINESE. 79 league, retraced his steps, in order to reach the shores of Houang-Pou. The two blood-hounds immediately followed. Kin-Fo, on his way home, met two or three beg- gars of the most forlorn aspect, and bestowed alms upon them. A short distance beyond, several Christian Chi- nese women, trained to their charitable profession by the French Sisters of Charity, crossed the road. They were carrying home poor little waifs in a basket on their back. They have been appro- priately called the "rag-pickers of children." And what are these unfortunate little ones but rags scattered in the gutter ? Kin-Fo emptied his purse into the hands of these sisters, who seemed rather surprised at this act on the part of a Celestial. By the time he reached Shang-hai on his way home, and was returning by the way of the wharf, it was evening, and the floating population were still astir. Shouting and singing came to his ears from every side. He listened intently, eager to know what would be the last words to fall on his ear in this life. A young Tankadere, guiding her sampan through the sombre waters of Houang-Pou, was singing the following ditty : — " With bark in bright colors, Embellished With thousands of flowers, In rapture I wait him Who comes back to-morrow. WAYS AND CUSTOMS OF THE CHINESE. 8 1 Life, opened the door, closed it again, and found himself alone in a little salon, lighted by a lantern of ground glass, which shed a soft glow around. On a table, which was made of a single piece of jade, stood a box containing a few grains of opium, mjxed with a deadly .poison, — a "have ready " which the wealthy ennuyt kept always on hand. Kin-Fo took up two of these grains, put them in one of those red-clay pipes which opium- smokers are in the habit of using, and began to light it. "Why, how is this,?" said he. "Not even an emotion in this moment when I am about to fall asleep never to wake again ! " He hesitated a moment. " No ! " he cried, throwing down his pipe on the floor, which broke it in pieces. " That supreme emotion I must have, even if it be but an attempt. I must have it, and I will have it." And, leaving the kiosk, he proceeded to Wang's room, walking faster than usual. 82 TRIBULATIONS OF A CHINAMAN. CHAPTER VIII. IN WHICH KIN-FO MAKES A SERIOUS PROPOSITION TO WANG, WHICH THE LATTER NO LESS SERI- OUSLY ACCEPTS. The philosopher had not yet retired, but was lying on the lounge reading the latest edition of "The Pekin Gazette;" and the contraction of his eyebrows was a certain indication that the paper was paying a compliment to the reigning dynasty of Tsing. Kin-Fo pushed open his door, entered the room, threw himself on an arm-chair, and, without other preamble, said, — " Wang, I have come to ask you to do me a service." "Ten thousand services," answered the philoso- pher, letting fall the paper. " Speak, speak, my son ! speak without fear ; and, whatever they may be, I will render them." " The service I require," said Kin-Fo, " is one of that kind that a friend can render but once ; and when it is done, Wang, I will excuse you from the nine thousand nine hundred and ninety- nine" others. And I must add that you must not even expect a return of thanks on my part." A SERIOUS PROPOSITION. 83 " The most skilful unraveller of the inexplicable could not understand you. What is it all about?" " Wang," said Kin-Fo, " I am ruined." " Ah, ah ! " said the philosopher, with the tone of one who hears good rather than bad news. "The letter that I found here on our return from Canton," resumed Kin-Fo, "informed me that the Central Bank in California had failed. With the exception of the yamen and a million dollars, which would enable me to exist a month or two longer, I have nothing left." "Then," said Wang, after a good look at his pupil, " it is no longer the rich Kin-Fo who speaks t# me ? " "It is the poor Kin-Fo, whom poverty by no means frightens." " Well answered, my son," said the philosopher, rising. " I have not lost my time and pains in teaching you wisdom. The future has changed. Heretofore you have only vegetated, without tastes, passions, or struggles. You are going to live now. Confucius said, ' What matters it that the future has changed ? There always come fewer misfortunes than one fears.' And the Talmud re- peated his words. We shall earn our daily rice. The ' Nun-Schum ' teaches us that, ' In life there are ups and downs. The wheel of fortune turns perpetually, and the spring wind is variable. Rich or poor, try to do your duty.' Let us leave." And Wang in earnest, like a practical philoso- pher, was about to leave the sumptuous house; but Kin-Fo detained him. 84 TRIBULATIONS OF A CHINAMAN. " I said a moment ago," he resumed, " that poverty did not frighten me ; and I now add that it is because I have resolved not to endure it." "Ah !" said Wang, "you wish then" — "To die!" " To die ! " answered the philosopher quietly. " The^ man who has resolved to end his life says nothing about it to any one." " It would have been done already," resumed Kin-Fo, with a calmness equal to that of the philosopher, " if I had not wished that my death should cause at least my first and last emotion. Now, as I was about to swallow one of those grains of opium that you know about, my heart beat with so little emotion that I threw away the poison, and came to find you." " Do you then wish, my friend, that we should die together?" answered Wang, smiling. " No," said Kin-Fo : " I wish you to live." "Why?" "To kill me with your own hand." At this unexpected proposition, Wang did not even shudder. But Kin-Fo, who looked steadily into his face, saw a gleam in his eyes. Was the old Tai-ping awakening ? Did he feel no hesita- tion at this charge which his pupil was about to lay on him ? Could eighteen years, then, have passed over his head without stifling the san- guinary instincts of his youth ? He did n.ot even make an objection to doing this to the son of the man who had been charitable to him. He would "To kill me with your own hand." Page 84. A SERIOUS PROPOSITION. 85 agree, without flinching, to deliver him from the existence he no longer desired. He would do this, he, Wang the philosopher. But this peculiar light almost immediately died out of his eyes ; and his face, though rather more 'serious, now looked like that of a worthy man as usual. " Is that the service you ask of me ? " he said, resuming his seat. " Yes," answered Kin-Fo ; " and this service will acquit you of all you may imagine you owe Tchoung-Heou and his son." " What do you require of me ? " simply asked the philosopher. "On the 25th of June, — the twenty-eighth day of the sixth moon, you understand, Wang, — the day which will complete my thirty-first year, — I shall have ceased to live. I must fall by your hand ; and the blow may be given in my face or in my back, in the daytime or night, — no matter where, no matter how, — standing or sitting, sleep- ing or awake, — and I be sent to my rest by shot or poison. In each of the eighty thousand min- utes which will remain to me of life for fifty-five days yet, I must be filled with the thought, and I hope with the fear, that my life is to suddenly end. I must have before me those eighty thousand emo- tions, so that, when the seven elements of my soul separate, I can cry out, ' At last I have lived ! ' " Kin-Fo, contrary to his habit, had spoken with decided animation ; and it will also be observed 86 TRIBULATIONS OF A CHINAMAN. that he had appointed as, the extreme limit of his existence the sixth day before the -expiration of his policy. This was acting like a prudent man ; for, in default of payment of a new premium, a delay would cause his heirs to lose the insurance. The philosopher listened gravely, casting a- quick, stealthy look at the portrait of the Tai-ping chief which ornamented his room, — a portrait which was to fall to him, though he was not aware of it. "You will not shrink from the obligation you will take upon yourself of killing me?" asked Kin-Fo. Wang, with a gesture, asserted that he had not yet become so feeble-hearted : he had seen too much when fighting under the banners of the Tai- ping. " But," he added, wishing to exhaust every objection before pledging himself, "do you wish to renounce the chances that the True Master has accorded you to reach extreme old age ? " " I renounce them." , " Without regret ? " "Without regret," replied Kin-Fo. "Live to be old ! To resemble some piece of wood which can no longer be carved ! No, indeed ! Nor do I desire to be lich, and still less to be poor." " And the young widow at Pekin ? " asked Wang. " Do you forget the saying, ' Flowers with flowers, and the willow with the willow : the union of two hearts makes a hundred years of spring ' ? " "Against three hundred years of autumn, sum- A SERIOUS PROPOSITION. 87 mer, and winter," replied Kin-Fo, shrugging his shoulders. " No : if Le-ou were poor, she would be wretched with me ; but now my death will insure her a fortune." " Have you done that ? " " Yes. And you, Wang, have fifty thousand dollars placed on my head." " Ah ! " said the philosopher quietly, " you have an answer for every question." " For every thing, even to an objection that you have not yet made." "What is it?" "Why, the danger that you may incur after my death of being pursued as an assassin." " Oh ! " said Wang, " they are only blunderers or rogues who let themselves be caught. Besides, what merit would there be in rendering you this last service if I risked nothing?" " None at all, Wang. I prefer to give you every security as to that, and no one will think of dis- turbing you." And, saying this, Kin-Fo approached a table, took up a sheet of paper, and, in a clear, plain hand, wrote the following lines : — " I have voluntarily taken my own life, through disgust and weariness of life." Then he gave the paper to Wang. The philosopher read it in a low voice at first, then aloud, after which he folded it carefully, and put it in a memorandum-book which he always carried about him. 88 TRIBULATIONS OF A CHINAMAN. Another gleam came into his eyes. "Is all this serious on your part?" he asked, looking fixedly at his pupil. "Very serious." "It will be none the less so on mine." " I have your word ? " "You have." " Then before the 25th of June, at the latest, I shall have lived ? " " I do not know if you .will have lived in the sense you mean," answered the philosopher grave- ly; "but you will surely be dead." ,v Thank you, and farewell, Wang ! " "Farewell, Kin-Fo ! " Thereupon Kin-Fo quietly left the philosopher's room. WILL NOT SURPRISE THE READER. 89 CHAPTER IX. THE CONCLUSION OF WHICH, HOWEVER SINGULAR IT MAY BE, PERHAPS WILL NOT SURPRISE THE READER. " Well, Craig-Fry ? " said the Honorable Mr. Bidulph, the next day, to the two agents whom he had appointed to watch over the new patron of the Centenary. " Well," answered Craig, "we followed him yes- terday during a long walk which he took in the country around Shang-hai " — "And he certainly did not appear like a man who is thinking of killing himself," added Fry. " And, when night came, we escorted him as far as his door " — "Which, unfortunately, we could not enter." " And this morning ? " asked Mr. Bidulph. "We have heard," answered Craig, "that he was " — "As safe and sound as the Palikao bridge," added Fry. The agents Craig and Fry — two unmistakable Americans, two cousins in the employ of the Cen- tenary — were absolutely only one being in two per- sons, who could not possibly be more thoroughly 9<5 TRIBULATIONS OF A CHINAMAN. identified with each , other. In fact, they were so identified, that the latter invariably finished the sentences that the former began, and vice versa. They had the same brain, thoughts, heart, and stomach, and the same manner of doing every thing ; and had four hands, arms, and legs, united in one body as it were. In a word, they were Siamese twins, whose connecting ligament must have been severed by an audacious surgeon. " Then you have not been able to enter the house yet," said Mr. Bidulph. " Not " — said Craig. " Yet," said Fry. " It will be difficult ; but it must be done," an- swered the principal agent : " for it is important for the Centenary to gain not only an enormous premium, but also to save two hundred thousand dollars. Therefore you will watch over our new patron two months, and perhaps longer if he re- news his policy."