the question of squeeze—batter fingers for the boatmen—an array of damp scarecrows—ox carts—prehistoric wheels—a decadent people—beggars—the playing of a part—a side show—cumshaw.
they tell me i must not talk about a river port in babylon, because babylon was a city not a country, and it had no river port, but in that valley of mesopotamia there must have been in those old days, little places where the people living along the banks landed their produce, or gathered it in, and i think they must have resembled this river port of lanchou in chihli, to which i came one still pleasant evening in june.
the sun was on the point of setting, and i consulted tuan about where i should go for the night. the inns, he opined, would be full, for all the country-side had come to the feast, and, in truth, i did not hanker much after a chinese inn. i infinitely preferred the wupan, even at its very worst, when the rain was coming through the matting. i only wondered if tuan and the boatmen would think it extremely undignified of me to stay where i was. the worst i knew there were the cockroaches, and heaven only knew what i might find in a chinese inn in june. 342apparently tuan did not think it undignified, and the boatmen of course were glad.
“you pay him one dollar,” suggested tuan. now a dollar is a thousand cash, and a thousand cash, i suppose would about fill that money-box of his. he got the dollar, because i paid it him myself, but what squeeze tuan extracted i am sure i don't know. some he did get, i suppose as of right, for squeeze seems to be the accepted fact in china.
a woman once told me how she was offered squeeze and a good big squeeze too.
she was head of a hospital, and being an attractive young person, she used to go out pretty often for motor drives with the locomotive superintendent of the nearest railway. the chinese took note of this, as apparently they do of all things likely to concern them, and one day there called upon her a chinaman, well-dressed, of the better class. he stood at the door of her sitting-room, shaking his own hands, and bowed three times.
“what do you want?” said she, for she had never to her knowledge, seen him before.
he spoke as good english, almost as she did herself, and he said, well it was a little matter in which she might be of service to him, and—yes—he of service to her.
she looked at him in astonishment. “but i don't know you,” she said, puzzled and surprised.
it was a matter of oil, he said at last, when he got to the point. it was well known that the engines required a great deal of oil, and he had several thousands of tons of oil for sale. 343"but what has that to do with me?” asked the girl, more surprised than ever.
he bowed again. “you are a great friend of ———”
“but how do you know that?”
“oh pardon,” his hand on his heart, “chinaman know everything. you can help me.”
“how?” she said still wondering.
“you speak to mr ———-. he buy oil,” and he looked at her ingratiatingly.
she stared at him, hardly knowing whether to be angry or not.
“i have nothing to do with the locomotives.”
“oh, but it will pay you,” said he, and from each side out of a long pocket he drew two heavy bags, and planked them down on her writing-table. still she did not understand what he was driving at.
“for you,” said he, “for a few words.”
“why, you are offering me squeeze,” said she indignantly, as the full meaning of the thing flashed on her.
he made a soothing sound with his mouth. “everybody does it,” said he.
“indeed i don't.”
“not enough?” said he. “there is five hundred and fifty dollars there,” and he looked at her questioningly. “well,” thoughtfully, “i can make it two hundred dollars more, i have much oil,” and down went another bag of silver. more than six months' salary was on the table.
“and suppose,” said she, curious, “mr ———— pays no attention to me.”
“that would be unfortunate,” with a low bow, “but i think not. i have much oil. i take risk.” 344then she rose up wrathfully. “take it away,” she said, “take it away. how dare you offer me squeeze!” and he did take it away, and as he probably knew her salary to the very last penny, thought her a fool for her pains.
i don't know whether tuan extracted his squeeze beforehand, but i know all three boatmen had the long fingers of batter fried in lard for their breakfast the next morning, for i saw them having them, and tuan informed me with a grin, “missie pay dollar. can do,” and i was very glad i had not patronised the chinese inn.
of course i rose very early. before half-past four i was up and dressed and peeping out of my little tent at the rows and rows of boats that lay double-banked against the shore. the sun got up as early as i did, and most of those people in the boats were up before him. the boats were own sisters to the one in which i had come down the river, with one mast, and shelters in the middle, and all the people had suffered, as we had done, from wet, for such a drying day i have never before seen. all the sails of course had to be dried, all the mats, the dilapidated bedding, and it seemed most of the clothing, for padded blue coats and trousers were stuck on sticks, or laid out in the sun. all the scarecrows that ever i had known, had apparently come to grief on that double-banked row of boats. the banks were knee-deep in mud, but it was sandy mud that soon dried, and by six o'clock business on that shore was in full swing. there was a theatre and fair going on close at hand, but business had to be attended to all the same. these boatmen all still wear the queue, so the barber was very busy, as it is of course impossible to shave on board a boat, and even the immaculate tuan had a fine crop of bristles all over his head. they were gone before he gave me breakfast this morning. the alluvial mud of the shore was cut into deep cart ruts, and there were any number of carts coming down to the boats and going away from them. there were ox carts with a solitary ox, harnessed much as a horse would be and looking strange to me, accustomed to the bullock drays of australia with their bullocks, ten or twenty of them drawing by a single wooden yoke, there were mule carts and carts heavy with merchandise drawn by a mixed team of mule, ox, and the small and patient donkey, and the people took from the boats their loading of grain, grown far away in mongolia, of stones, gathered by the river-bank, water-worn stones used for making the picturesque garden and courtyard paths the chinese love, and even sometimes for building, and of osiers, grown up in the mountains. there were piles and piles of these, and men were carrying them slung on the ends of their bamboos. and the boats, for the return journey were loaded, as far as i could see, with salt and the thin tissue paper they use everywhere for the windows, it is much more portable than glass, and cotton stuffs, such as even the poorest up in the mountains must buy for their clothing. and because it was the dragon boat feast, i suppose, many of the boats were full of passengers, people who had started thus early to make a day of it, innumerable small-footed women and small, shavenheaded children, what little there was left of their hair done up in tiny plaits, that stood straight out on end. and all had on their best clothing. even 346the gentleman whose picture i have taken standing under a tree had on a new hat of the brightest yellow matting, and i wondered whether the poorer folk who thronged the river-side in mesopotamia, so many long centuries ago, were not something like him. the only thing that was modern was the railway station and rolling stock, just behind the river-side town, and the great iron bridge that spans the river. modern civilisation come to babylon. it has barely touched the surface though of this age-old civilisation. the people who came crowding into the feast came in carts with heavy wooden wheels, punch's prehistoric wheels, exactly as their ancestors came, possibly three thousand years ago, and the carts were drawn by mules, by oxen, by donkeys, and were covered, some with the ordinary blue cloth, some with grass matting, and sometimes, when they were open, the women carried umbrellas of chinese oiled paper, with here and there one of ordinary european pattern. and the carts were packed very close together indeed, for there were numberless women, and the majority of them could only just totter along. for them to walk far or for long, would be a sheer impossibility. country people? no, again i saw it strongly, these were serfs, perhaps, but not country people, they were a highly civilised people, far more highly civilised than i am who sit in judgment, so civilised that they were decadent, effete, and every woman was helpless!
they crowded round the theatricals that were going on there in the open, and all the stalls were crowded together round them too. these sellers cannot afford to spread themselves out when half of 347the likely buyers must needs be stationary. never have i seen so many chinese women of the well-to-do class together before. they wore their gayest silks and satins and embroidered coats, their hair was elaborately dressed and decked with flowers, their faces were painted and powdered, and usually there was on them the faintest of impassive smiles. poor women of modern babylon, maimed and crippled! it was rather a relief to look at the beggars, and there were many of them, who, clad in sacking and filthy rags, with wild black hair, beat their foreheads in the dust, and made loud moan of their sufferings. everyone plays his part properly in china. it is the beggars' to make loud moan, it is the women's to give no hint of the cruel suffering that has made childhood and youth a torture, and left the dreadful aftermath behind it.
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i had plenty of time to see everything, for the train was not due till eleven, and when it grew too hot to stay in the open any longer, i went on to the platform and sat in the shade, and formed a sort of side show to the fair, for so many people crowded round to look at the foreign woman, and they had more than what a servant of one of my friends called “a littee stink,” that at last the station policeman, who was really a soldier guarding the line, came and cleared them away drastically with drawn sword, and i explained, as best i could, that on this great occasion, i hadn't the least objection to being a show, for very likely many of these people had come from beyond the beaten tracks, from places where foreigners were scarce, but i must have sufficient air.
tuan got the tickets, and then i suppose, seeing his time was short, for we should be in peking by seven, and should certainly part, he relieved his mind and asked a question that had evidently been burning there ever since we had left the mission station.
“missie have pay mission boys cumshaw?”
now the cumshaw had been a difficulty.
my hostess had come to me and said: “i know you are going to give a cumshaw. i may as well tell you that if our visitors don't we always do ourselves, because the servants expect it, but i am come to beg of you not to give too much and to give it through us. in fact the cook went for his holiday last night and we gave him eighty cents and said it was from you.”
“eighty cents!” i was afraid those servants would think me very mean. but my hostess was very fluent on the subject, and very determined. the majority of their visitors could not possibly afford to give much, and they were very anxious not to establish a precedent. what was i to do? i might have supplemented it through tuan, but i felt it would be making a poor return to the people who had been so kind to me, so i was obliged to let it go at that.
“i pay missie, she give cumshaw for me,” said i to tuan.
“ah!” said that worthy, as if he had settled a doubt satisfactorily in his own mind, “boy say missie pay eighty cent, i say, not my missie, she give five, ten dollar, always give five, ten dollar, your missie give eighty cent!”
and as i went on my way to peking, across the plain in its summer dress of lush green kaoliang, i wondered sorrowfully if all the return i had made for the kindness received was to have those missionaries accused of pocketing the cumshaw i was supposed to have given.
but i was glad to come back, glad not to think any more of the chinaman as a creature whose soul had to be saved, glad to come back to my ordinary associates who were ordinarily worldly and selfish, and felt that they might drink a whisky-and-soda and consider their own enjoyment, though there were a few hundred million people in outer darkness around them. the majority of us cannot live in the rarefied atmosphere that demands constant sacrifice and abnegation for the sake of those we do not and cannot love.
