China by Edward Rutherfurd (historical books to read TXT) 📕

day, they saw a group of headlands ahead. “The Bogue,” McBride said tersely. “Entrance to China.”

As they reached the Bogue, the schooner hove to beside a junk moored some distance from the shore, from which a young Chinese official quickly boarded them, collected fees from McBride, and waved them on.

The entrance to China was certainly well guarded. They passed between two huge forts, one on either side of the river, with packed mud walls, thirty feet thick, and impressive arrays of cannon trained upon the water. Any unwelcome ship in the channel would surely be blown to bits. A short while later they came to another pair of fearsome forts. Mighty empire, John thought, mighty defenses.

The channel became narrower. The men took soundings over the side. “Sandbanks,” McBride grunted. “Got to be careful.”

As they proceeded, Trader saw rice fields, villages of wooden huts, more fields of grain, and now and then an orchard or a temple with a curving hip roof. Small junks with triangular sails on bamboo frameworks skimmed like winged insects on the shallow waters.

So this was China. Fearsome. Picturesque. Mysterious. Sampans came close enough that he could look down at their occupants—pigtailed Chinese, all of them—and they gazed back at him impassively. He smiled at them, even waved, but they did not respond. What were they thinking? He had no idea.

It was the third morning when they came around a bend in the river and he saw a forest of masts ahead.

“Whampoa,” said McBride. “I’ll be leaving you here.”

“I thought you were taking me to Canton.”

“Ships unload here. You take a chop boat up to Canton. It’ll get you there before dark.”

And after the schooner had weaved through the huge network of islands, wharves, and anchorages, Trader found himself, his strongbox, and his trunks swiftly unloaded into one of the lighters going upstream. With only a handshake and a bleak “You’re on your own now, Mr. Trader,” McBride departed.

—

He had to wait two hours before the lighter set off. The final miles up the Pearl River were tedious. Since he couldn’t communicate with the half-dozen Chinese manning the chop boat, John was left alone with his thoughts.

Like most of the traffic, the lighter was going to collect the tea crop season’s final pickings—black tea of the lowest quality—before Canton’s trade wound down for the summer months. Perhaps it was his imagination, but there seemed to be an end-of-season lassitude amongst the crew.

During the afternoon, the sky became overcast. The clouds were growing darker. He had begun to wonder whether they would reach Canton before dusk and had just concluded that they probably wouldn’t when, as they emerged from another bend, he saw a long, untidy settlement of houseboats up ahead. It looked like a floating shantytown. At the end of the houseboats, a little apart, they passed a big painted vessel, three decks high and moored beside the bank. Servants were lighting lanterns around its decks, and by their lights he saw the painted faces of girls looking over the side.

This must be a Chinese flower boat, the floating brothels he’d heard about. The crew came to life now, grinning at him, pointing the girls out to him, and indicating that they could draw alongside. The girls waved encouragingly, but with a politely regretful smile, Trader shook his head.

And a few minutes later, passing a great gaggle of junks moored in the stream, he caught sight of his destination.

The pictures and prints he’d seen had been accurate. There could be no mistaking the splendid port that the foreigners called Canton.

He’d been told that Portuguese merchants had given the place its Western name. Hearing the Chinese refer to the local province as Guangdong, they’d supposed that this meant the city. And soon Guangdong had become Canton. By the time the outside world learned that the city was actually called Guangzhou—which sounded roughly like Gwung-Jo—the name Canton was too well entrenched for foreigners to worry about it.

Come to that, most Western travelers referred to Beijing as Peking, and English speakers said Moscow instead of Moskva and, for some obscure reason, Munich instead of München. A few British diehards even called the French city of Lyon by the splendidly British-sounding name of Lions.

Was it arrogance, ignorance, laziness—or perhaps even the sense that accuracy about foreign names sounded too fussy, intellectual, and not quite decent? Probably all of these things.

The ancient city’s walls lay some way back from the river. Only Chinese could live in the city. But between the walls and the river, the foreign merchants’ quarter had a splendor all its own.

A huge open space, empty apart from a couple of customs booths, ran like an extended parade ground along the waterfront for a quarter of a mile. Behind it, a long line of handsome whitewashed buildings in the Georgian colonial style, many displaying verandas with smart green awnings, stared boldly across the square to the water. These were the offices and warehouses of the foreign merchants, and also the living quarters where they dwelt. Each building was occupied by merchants from a different country and had a high flagpole in front of it, on which their national flag could be raised. And since these merchant gentlemen were traditionally known as factors, their splendid quarters were called the factories. British, American, Dutch, German, French, Swedish, Spanish: There were over a dozen factories lining the parade.

As the chop boat came to the jetties, Trader noticed a Chinese porter run across to one of the larger buildings. By the time that his trunks were all onshore, he saw a stout figure bustling towards him. There could be no doubt who it was.

Tully Odstock’s cheeks were mottled purple; corpulence had made his eyes grow small; tufts of white hair sprouted from his head. He made Trader think of a turnip.

“Mr. Trader? Tully Odstock. Glad you’re safe. I heard you went up the coast. Did you sell any opium?”

“Yes, Mr. Odstock. Fifty chests at six hundred each.”

“Really?” Tully nodded, surprised. “You did well.