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Isabella L. Bird - The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither
picturesqueness, color, novelty and movement. to-day I have been carried eighteen miles through and
round it, reveling the whole time in its enchantments, and drinking for the first time of that water of
which it may truly be said that who so drinks "shall thirst again" - true Orientalism. As we sat at mid-day
at the five-storied pagoda, which from a corner of the outer wall overlooks the Tartar city, and ever since,
through this crowded week, I have wished that the sun would stand still in the cloudless sky, and let me
dream of gorgeous sunlight, light without heat, of narrow lanes rich in color, of the glints of sunlight on
embroideries and cloth of gold, resplendent even in the darkness, of hurrying and colored crowds in the
shadow, with the blue sky in narrow strips high above, of gorgeous marriage processions, and the "voice
of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride," of glittering trains of mandarins, of funeral processions,
with the wail of hired mourners clad in sackcloth and ashes, of the Tartar city with its pagodas, of the
hills of graves, great cities of the dead outside the walls, fiery-red under the tropic blue, of the "potter's
field" with its pools of blood and sacks of heads, and crosses for crucifixion, now, as on Calvary,
symbolical of shame alone, of the wonderful river life, and all the busy, crowded, costumed hurry of the
streets, where blue banners hanging here and there show that in those houses death has stilled some busy
brains forevermore. And I should like to tell you of the Buddhist and Confucian temples; of the
monastery garden, which is the original of the famous "Willow Pattern;" of the great Free Dispensary
which is to rival that of the Medical Mission; of the asylums for lepers, foundlings, the blind, aged men
and aged women, dating from the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries, originally well conceived and
noble institutions, but reduced into inefficiency and degradation by the greed and corruption of
generations of officials; of the "Beggars' Square" and beggars' customs; of the trades, and of the shops
with their splendors; of the Examination Hall with its streets numbering eleven thousand six hundred and
seventy-three cells for the candidates for the literary honors which are the only road to office and
distinction in China, but Canton deserves a volume, and Archdeacon Gray has written one!
I. L. B.
LETTER IV
"Faithful unto Death" - "Foreign Devils" - Junks and Boats - Chinese Luxury - Canton Afloat - An Al
Fresco Lunch-Light and Color - A Mundane Disappointment - Street Sights and Sounds - Street Costume
- Food and Restaurants - A Marriage Procession - Temples and Worship - Crippled Feet
REV. B. C. HENRY'S, CANTON, January 6.
In the week in which I have been here I have given myself up to ceaseless sight-seeing. Almost the first
sight that I saw on arriving in this quarter, which is in Canton itself, was a number of Christian refugees,
old men, women, and children, who, having fled from a bloody persecution which is being waged against
Christianity about ninety miles from Canton, are receiving shelter in the compound of the German
mission. It was late in the evening, and these poor refugees, who had sacrificed much for their faith and
had undergone great terror, were singing hymns, and reading and worshipping in Chinese. In the place
from which they came a Christian of wealth wished to build a church, and last week he was proceeding
to do so, when the heathen, instigated by the district mandarin, seized upon him and four other
Christians, and when he would neither say the word nor make the obeisance which is regarded as
equivalent to denying Christ, they wrapped him in cotton wadding soaked in oil, tied him to a cross, and
burned him, no extremity of torture availing to shake his constancy. They cut off the arms and legs of the
four other persons, tied crosses to the trunks, and then burned them. This deed, done so near Canton, has
caused great horror among the foreigners both here and at Hong Kong, and the deepest sympathy is felt
both with the converts and the missionary priests. In the sympathy with the heroism and sufferings of
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