Across Asia on a Bicycle by William Lewis Sachtleben (ebook reader .TXT) 📕

the low walls and squatty ceiling, as well as the calico covering on the divans, was soiled and torn. The room itself was filled with mandarins from various parts of the country, waiting for an audience with his excellency. Each wore the official robe and dish-pan hat, with its particular button or insignia of rank. Each had a portly, well-fed appearance, with a pompous, dignified mien overspreading his features. The servant by whom we had sent in our Chinese visiting-cards returned and asked us to follow him. Passing through several rooms, and then along a narrow, darkened hallway, we emerged into an inner courtyard. Here there were several servants standing like sentinels in waiting for orders; others were hurrying hither and thither with different messages intrusted to their care. This was all there was to give to the place the air of busy headquarters. On one side of the courtyard the doors of the “foreign reception” room opened. Through these we were ushered by the liveried servant, who bore a message from the viceroy, asking us to wait a few moments until he should finish some important business.

The foreign reception-room in which we were now sit[pg 223]ting was the only one in any official residence in the empire, and this single instance of compliance with foreign customs was significant as bearing upon the attitude toward Western ideas of the man who stands at the head of the Chinese government. Everything about us was foreign except a Chinese divan in one corner of the room. In the middle of the floor stood a circular sofa of the latest pattern, with chairs and settees to match, and at one end a foreign stove, in which a fire had been recently lighted for our coming. Against the wall were placed a full-length mirror, several brackets, and some fancy work. The most interesting of the ornaments in the room were portraits of Li-Hung-Chang himself, Krupp the gun-maker, Armstrong the ship-builder, and the immortal “Chinese Gordon,” the only foreigner, it is said, who has ever won a spark of admiration from the Chinese people.

While we were waiting for the viceroy, his second son, the pupil of Mr. Tenney, came in and was introduced in the foreign fashion. His English was fluent and correct. He was a bright, intelligent lad of nineteen years, then about to take his first trial examinations for the Chinese degree of scholarship, which, if attained, would make him eligible for official position. Although a son of the viceroy he will have to rise by his own merit.

Our conversation with the viceroy’s son extended over ten or fifteen minutes. He asked many questions about the details of our journey. “How,” said he, “could you get along without interpreter, guide, or servant, when every foreigner who goes even from here to Peking has to have them?” He questioned us as to whether or not the Chinese had ever called us names. We replied that we usually traveled in China under the nom de Chinois, yang queedza (the foreign devils), alias yeh renn (the wild men). A blush overspread his cheeks as he said: “I must [pg 224]apologize for my countrymen; I hope you will excuse them, for they know no better.” The young man expressed deep interest in America and American institutions, and said if he could obtain his father’s consent he would certainly make a visit to our country. This was the only son then at home with the viceroy, his eldest son being minister to Japan. The youngest, the viceroy’s favorite, was, it was said, the brightest and most promising. His death occurred only a few months before our arrival in Tientsin.

We were holding an animated conversation when the viceroy himself was announced. We all stood to show our respect for the prime minister whom General Grant included among the three greatest statesmen of his day. The viceroy was preceded by two body-servants. We stood before a man who appeared to be over six feet in height, although his head and shoulders were considerably bent with age. His flowing dress was made of rich colored silk, but very plain indeed. Any ornamentation would have been a profanation of the natural dignity and stateliness of Li-Hung-Chang. With slow pace he walked into the room, stopped a moment to look at us, then advanced with outstretched hand, while a faint smile played about his features and softened the piercing glance of his eyes. He shook our hands heartily in the foreign fashion, and without any show of ceremony led the way into an adjoining room, where a long council-table extended over half the length. The viceroy took the arm-chair at the head, and motioned us to take the two seats on his left, while Mr. Tenney and the viceroy’s son sat on his right. For almost a minute not a word was said on either side. The viceroy had fixed his gaze intently upon us, and, like a good general perhaps, was taking a thorough survey of the field before he opened up the cannonade of questions [pg 225]that was to follow. We in turn were just as busily engaged in taking a mental sketch of his most prominent physical characteristics. His face was distinctly oval, tapering from a very broad forehead to a sharp pointed chin, half-obscured by his thin, gray “goatee.” The crown of his head was shaven in the usual Tsing fashion, leaving a tuft of hair for a queue, which in the viceroy’s case was short and very thin. His dry, sallow skin showed signs of wrinkling; a thick fold lay under each eye, and [pg 226]at each end of his upper lip. There were no prominent cheek-bones or almond-shaped eyes, which are so distinctively seen in most of the Mongolian race. Under the scraggy mustache we could distinguish a rather benevolent though determined mouth; while his small, keen eyes, which were somewhat sunken, gave forth a flash that was perhaps but a flickering ember of the fire they once contained. The left eye, which was partly closed by a paralytic stroke several years ago, gave him a rather artful, waggish appearance. The whole physiognomy was that of a man of strong intuition, with the ability to force his point when necessary, and the shrewd common sense to yield when desiring to be politic.

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