Travels in China by Sir John Barrow (top e book reader .txt) 📕

river. At this point of junction the pagoda of Lin-tsin, an octagonal pyramid, was erected, perhaps as a monument of this great and useful undertaking, which, however, in its present state, apparently had not stood many ages. In the hope of finding within it some inscription, that might point out its designation, we mounted with some difficulty upon the first of its nine stages or roofs (for the little door on a level with the ground was walled up with bricks) but it contained only the bare walls, not even a stair-case remained nor any possible means of ascending to the top, and the lower part was choaked up with rubbish. These pagodas (or as the Chinese name them Ta) that so frequently occur in the country, seem to be intended only as embellishments to particular grounds, or objects to terminate villas or prospects. Sometimes, it is true, they appear as appendages to temples, but are never appropriated for the purposes of sacred worship. Whatever their intention might have been, it would seem the rage of building them no longer exists, not one of a late erection having appeared in the whole country, and more than two-thirds of those we saw being in ruins.

At the junction of the canal with the Eu-ho there was no lock nor flood-gate; the gentle current of the former was interrupted only from place to place, by loose planks let down in grooves cut in stone piers. These dams seldom occasioned the difference of a foot in the level of the water; and at each was a guard-house with double the usual number of soldiers stationed, to assist in drawing up or letting down the planks, as occasion might require. The canal, which at the commencement was from sixty to one hundred feet in width, was contracted at such places by the stone piers of the flood-gates to about thirty feet.

Towards the evening of the 23d, as we approached the city Tong-tchang-foo, we were much amused with a military manœuvre, which was evidently intended to astonish us. Under the walls of this city about three hundred soldiers were drawn out in a line, which, however, the darkness of the night had rendered invisible. But just as we were coming to anchor, each soldier, at the sound of the gong, produced from under his cloak a splendid lantern with which he went through a regular manual exercise. The following morning we observed, for the first time, a few hillocks breaking the line of the horizon to the eastward. The country appeared to be in a tolerable state of cultivation; but the mode of tillage exhibited no extraordinary degree of skill or of labour. Villages of considerable extent were erected along the banks of the canal, at intervals of about three miles from each other; and, in the gardens contiguous to these, grew in abundance the tobacco plant whose leaves were small, hairy, and viscous, and the flowers of which were of a greenish yellow passing into a faint rose colour at the edges of the petals. We observed also small patches of hemp. A greater use is made of the seeds and leaflets of this plant, as a substitute for or to mix with tobacco, than of its fibres for cloth, a purpose to which it is as rarely converted by the Chinese as by the Hindoos, being little esteemed for those valuable uses to which, since its introduction into Europe, it has been applied. The number of lateral branches, which in a warm climate each stem throws out close above the surface of the ground, breaks the length of fibre and renders it unfit for those purposes for which, in the northern regions of Europe, its tall branchless stem is so well adapted. The sow thistle, a plant that occurs in almost every part of the world, was nothing different here from its usual habit in Europe. We observed also a species of Chenopodium and of Artemisia or wormwood; abundance of the Pe-tsai, and other common culinary vegetables. In the small flower gardens, without which we scarcely observed a single cottage, were balsams, several kinds of beautiful asters, holy-hocks, two species of Malva, an Amaranthus, and the showy and handsome shrub the Nerium Oleander.

Having passed on the 26th October the walls of the city Tsie-ning, where a multitude of small craft were lying at anchor, we came to an extensive lake of the same name, navigated by a great number of sailing boats. From the east side of this lake the canal was separated only by an immense mound of earth. To the westward the whole country, beyond the reach of sight, was one continued swamp or morass, upon which were interspersed pools or ponds of water abounding with the Nelumbium, at this time in full flower. The morass being several feet below the surface of the water in the canal afforded the means of regulating the quantity; and, accordingly, at certain distances, we observed stone arches turned in the earthen embankment to let off the superfluous water that might be occasioned by the swelling of the feeding rivers. About this place also, it was remarked, that the bed of the canal was carried in a line so nearly horizontal, that the water had a gentle current either to the northward or the southward, according as these sluices were kept shut or thrown open; this line being ascertained, perhaps, rather by the surface of the lake than by the assistance of instruments; for it was sufficiently remarkable, that no opportunity had been omitted in carrying this great work along the side, or through the middle, of lakes or other pools of water wherever it could be done.

The nature of the country admitted of such management for three days' journey, or about eighty miles from Tsie-ning. The whole of this extensive plain consisted in lakes or swampy ground half covered with water. On the former were constantly seen moving about vessels with sails and boats of every description, conveying an animated picture of activity, industry, and commerce. Almost all the lakes were studded with islands and these were covered with villages, that were chiefly inhabited by fishermen. Here, for the first time, we observed the Leu-tzé or fishing corvorant, the Pelicanus Sinensis, diving after the finny tribe and seemingly no less anxious than its master to take them. This bird is so like another species of the pelican, called the Carbo or common corvorant which in England, as naturalists inform us, was formerly trained for fishing, that it has usually been considered the same, but from several specimens brought home with us it appears to be a different species. The usual practice is to take ten or twelve of these birds, in the morning when fasting, upon a raft of bamboo poles lashed together, and to let one or two at most at a time dive for fish, which are taken from them the moment they bring them to the surface. These birds, not much larger than the common duck, will seize and gripe fast fishes that are not less than their own weight. When the proprietor judges the first pair to be pretty well fatigued, they are suffered to feed by way of encouragement on some of the fish they have taken, and a second pair are dispatched upon the water. The fish we observed them to take was a species of perch. In the course of three days' navigation, we saw several thousand boats and rafts employed in this kind of fishing.

Except on the water and the islands, the whole of the swampy country might be said to be uninhabited and totally void of any kind of cultivation. Sometimes, indeed, a few miserable mud huts appeared on the small hillocks that here and there raised their heads out of the dreary waste of morass; but the chief inhabitants were cranes, herons, guillemots and a vast variety of other kinds of birds that frequent the waters and swamps. Here too are great numbers of that singular and beautiful bird, the Anas Galericulata, usually known by the name of the Mandarin duck which, like the gold and silver fishes, is caught and reared as an article of sale to the opulent and curious. The great extent of water had a sensible effect on the temperature of the air, especially in the mornings and evenings, when Fahrenheit's thermometer was sometimes below 40°.

Having passed the lakes and swamps, we entered suddenly, on the 31st, upon a most delightful part of the country, crowded with temples and villages and towns and cities, near all of which, and on every part of the canal, were vast numbers of the revenue vessels, collecting the surplus taxes paid in kind, in order to transport them to the capital. Wheat and cotton appeared to be the two principal articles of culture. The surface of the country was now broken into hill and dale, every inch appeared to be under tillage, except the summit of the knolls, which were generally crowned with forest trees, and few of the detached houses or temples were without extensive gardens and orchards. Apples, pears, plums, peaches, apricots and pomgranates, were the common kinds of fruit, and the culinary vegetables were the same as those of Pe-tche-lee. The canal at this place is, perhaps, the grandest inland navigation in the whole world, being nearly a thousand feet in width and bordered on each side by stone quays, built with massy blocks of grey marble mixed with others of granite; and this immense aqueduct, although forced up several feet above the surface of the country by embankments thrown up by the labour of man, flowed with a current of three miles an hour nearly towards the Yellow River, to which we perceived we were fast approaching, by the bustle and activity both on shore and on the numberless canals that branched out in every direction from the main trunk; on whose banks, for several miles on either side, one continued town extended to the point of junction with this large river, celebrated in every period of the Chinese history. A village was particularly pointed out by the bargemen, whose name was derived from a miracle, which is most sacredly believed by the Chinese. Tradition says, that the famous astronomer Heu was carried up to Heaven in his house, which stood at this place, leaving behind him an old faithful servant who, being thus deprived of his master and his habitation, was reduced to beggary; but happening by accident to throw a little prepared rice into the ground, it immediately grew and produced grain without chaff for his sustenance; from whence the place is called Sen-mee, rice growing ready dressed, to this day.

Before our barges launched into the stream of the Yellow River, which rolled in a very rapid torrent, certain ceremonies were conceived to be indispensably necessary. In the practical part of religion (which indeed may be considered as nearly the whole) a Chinese is not less solicitous to avert a possible evil, than to procure an eventual good; and of all evils personal danger is most apprehended. It was therefore deemed expedient, that an oblation should be made in every vessel of the fleet to the genius of the river. The animals that were sacrificed, on this occasion, were different in different yachts, but they generally consisted of a fowl or a pig, two animals that were very common in Grecian sacrifices. The blood, with the feathers and the hair, was daubed upon the principal parts of the vessel. On the forecastle of some were placed cups of wine, oil and salt; in others, tea, flour and salt; and in others, oil, rice and salt. The last article appears to be thought by the Chinese, as well as by the Hebrews, a necessary accompaniment to every sacrifice. "Every oblation of thy