The following is a better specimen, there being fewer liberties in the rendering:—
EXCELSIOR.
TOPSIDE GALAH.
One captain ordered a peacock for dinner. We had a variety of feelings in anticipating the repast, none of them agreeable. On coming to table, no peacock appeared. The steward was summoned. “I told you have a peacock. Why no peacock?” The steward as though afraid, said, “I go ashore to get him peacock; I say, ‘Cap’n want peacock. Policee-man come; he say, What for you come ashore no paper tell you may come get peacock? Then he look all a same mad, say, ‘Go long, get in ship; I see you again I catchee you; I lock you up in ‘go-down.’ Then I frightened; so I get no peacock for dinner.” The explanation was as good as a feast, including the look of terror, the gesticulation, the many ellipses in the narration. But the captain who had had great experience of Chinese human nature, said that he had no doubt the whole story was a fabrication.
I heard a captain of a steamer address his man-servant thus, when sending him from the cabin to his stateroom on deck for a box of writing paper: “Boy, you go topside my room. You see two piecee box belong all same, (look just alike.) One piecee have pens; my no wanchee that. Other piecee have paper. My wanchee. You makee pay my, (bring that to me.) Savez? (do you understand?”) The waiter nodded assent, and brought the right box.
A lady was giving a dinner party to several gentleman and ladies. She told her butler to “set the table for sixteen piecee man.”
A sampan man whom our captain wished to hire, was asked by him how many there were to row his sampan. He replied, “Seven piecee man,” meaning, as it proved, himself, several sons, most of them young boys, and the mother who rowed with her infant tied round her neck; making seven hands, not counting the babe.
A gentleman who was joking with one of his sedan bearers, talking nonsense, was answered, “Massa C., you belong too much culio, (too funny.) My never have see one man all same culio.”
The American Eagle, that fierce gray bird with a bending beak, is known even in China by that celebrated feature. A Chinese servant told his master that while he was out a gentleman called. On being asked who it was, the servant said: “My no savee; but my can speakee what fashion he makee look see;” (what his appearance was.) “He belong one smallee man; no too muchee stout; had got one nose all same that Melican chickey.”
The mysteries of human speech are impressively illustrated in the ease with which the children of foreign extraction, brought up from infancy in China, learn and skilfully use the slight tones and the other niceties of the language. An ear accustomed to music of course is a great help in learning this language; but when a person is in the least dull of hearing, it is not easy to distinguish between some of the words, and especially the intonations, which in the Cantonese dialect, for example, so largely determine the meaning. One thought impressed me in thinking of the language as a barrier against the rest of the world: If the Chinese nature is naturally upright, and if sin is owing wholly to contamination by intercourse with depraved people, how happens it that China does not present us with a people of saints? having been kept by their language, as they have been, from mixing with men. That language has done more than their great wall in separating them from the rest of mankind.
We had a typhoon at Hong Kong, Sept. 29. I was spending a fortnight at the house of Dr. Legge. On Sabbath evening at sundown there was an appearance of rain, with some unusual disturbances in the air; soon the servants came into the parlor with planks and joists to strengthen the windows, the same precaution being used outside. The wind rapidly increased, till the strength of our gale at Boston, Sept. 8, 1869, had but a faint resemblance to it. Instead of one blast, there were lulls; then a renewed tempest increasing in strength while the typhoon lasted, which in this case was from sundown on Sunday till Tuesday at daybreak. Hundreds of lives were lost in Hong Kong harbor. The ships were almost invisible from the shore, the spoon-drift being nearly equal to a thick fog. We were grateful that the typhoon did not find us at sea. We could understand the answers of old sea-captains, who, on some one in our hearing saying that he should like to witness a typhoon, shook their heads, looked grave, and said, “You will never wish to see another.”59
AVENUE AT SINGAPORE. Page 253.
Another excursion by favor of the Messrs. Heard and of Captain Arthur H. Clark of the steamer “Suwo Nada,” plying between Hong Kong and Singapore, was made to Singapore. On the way, we stopped at Saigon, a French port in Cochin China, from which the French were then compelling the enemy to retire. Rice is largely exported from this place, and opium is received to an amount which tells a fearful story. Here we saw noble specimens of tigers, which are declared by authors of high repute to have destroyed on an average one man a day through the year, not many years ago, in some parts of the East Indies. They swim over to the islands from the main lands. They approach their victim from behind, felling him with a blow upon the head.
Singapore is about eight days by steamer from Hong Kong, including the visit to Saigon. At Singapore you feel that you are in the East Indies, from the luxuriant foliage, the birds of marvellous plumage. We were politely taken to the country seat of Dr. John Little, by his brother, Matthew Little, Esq., where we found ourselves in a forest of cocoanut trees. The fruit is brought in loads to the mill, where a long blade in a frame separates the outer covering, and the nut goes through several processes by which every part of it is turned to use. The saying is that the cocoanut serves ninety-nine purposes. The rough husk being subjected to a powerful pressure is at once reduced to a fibrous state ready to be worked into coir mats or spun into cheap ropes. The natural bend of the husk, adapting it to the human head, it is sometimes carefully prepared, and dyed, then worn. We were entertained in a sumptuous manner with true East Indian bounty. We rode home after nine o’clock in the evening, listening to every sound, the rustling of every tree and brake, prepared to see a tiger spring upon the horses. We were glad to see the lights of the town in exchange for the long, solitary road which, however, with all its imaginary or real perils we would not willingly have failed to travel. At the residence of Cyrus Wakefield, Jr., and Temple R. Fay, we were superbly entertained, and from these gentlemen we received very many favors. Among them, a box of corals which had attracted my notice as I passed through the packing room of the counting house of Messrs. Bousteed & Co., and which awakened a hopeless desire to purchase, I afterward found was in preparation for us.—Mr. Vaughan and Mr. Hanna laid us under great obligations by their beautiful hospitality.
A principal road runs close by the sea, is well shaded, and abounds in delicious odors from the gardens. The house and grounds of a rich Chinaman, Mr. Whampoa, are visited by foreigners as objects of interest. Rare East-India plants, ponds filled with the pink lotus, vines trained or trimmed in fantastic shapes, such as eagles, deer, lions, and many others, on frames, trees with great variety of foliage, make the place attractive. A six-legged turtle which we examined was an object of much interest to its owner. He is a venerable man, speaks English well, gives free admission to visitors introduced by any one with whom he is acquainted.
It made us feel that we were indeed in Eastern regions to be contiguous, as we were one day, to the residence of a Rajah, the name savoring of Oriental life.
To those who are fond of this condiment, it may be interesting to know that Singapore has the reputation of furnishing the best article in this form of diet. It would require one to be more of a connoisseur than the writer to decide whether Singapore, Manila, or Anjer is entitled to the palm in preparing this article of luxury. Those who award it to Singapore say there are ingredients in the mixture at this place which are not to be obtained elsewhere; for they can not be exported and retain their flavor, the excellence of curry depending, we are told, on its being prepared fresh every day. The flavor of the fresh cocoanut is essential. Those who have eaten curry powder on their food in this country, have an agreeable surprise on tasting the article of curry in the East Indies. The servants grind some of the ingredients on stones, and the frequency with which we saw the operation as we passed along the streets in Singapore, made us feel that the preparation of curry root has a reputation which it requires labor to maintain.
To specify all that is to be enjoyed in Singapore through every sense, would fill a volume. We went off to the “Suwo Nada” in a boat and steamed away from this garden of luxuries by groves of cocoanut trees, through lines of ships from all quarters of the globe, and, after an enchanting passage, found ourselves once more safe in Hong Kong harbor.