Through China with a camera/Chapter 4

​ Canton and the Kwang-tung province, as my reader is doubtless aware, continued for many years to be almost the only places in the vast Chinese Empire with which Europeans were acquainted. I need hardly do more here than refer those of my readers who take an interest in the obscured and chequered history of Canton, to an elaborate and interesting account, translated and published in China by Mr. Bowra, of the Imperial Customs. In this narrative it is stated that the first authentic notice of Kwang-tung province is found in the native writings of the Chow dynasty, B. C. 1122. The fifth century of our era is set down as the date at which Buddhist missionaries introduced their religious classics, and not only founded the sect which now predominates in the country, but led to the establishment of commercial relations between the Empires of India and China. Until recently, for the last two centuries foreign trade was confined to Canton, and nearly all ​ ​the knowledge of China possessed by Western nations was limited to that city and its neighbourhood. The foreign trade of Canton was one of sufferance, maintained by the aggressive perseverance of traders and their disregard of the repeated slights and indignities of the local authorities, who looked upon trade and traders with contempt and reported accordingly to the Government at Peking. But the Treaty of Tientsin placed the course of trade beyond the control and caprice of local Mandarins. The people are now allowed comparative freedom to indulge their trading inclinations. Although in some degree modified, the native prejudice against foreigners and their wares still flows in a deep undercurrent, which comes to the surface, conceal it as they may, in their contact with Europeans.

The city of Canton stands on the north bank of the Chukiang or Pearl river, about ninety miles inland, and is accessible at all seasons to vessels of the largest tonnage. Communication between the capital and the other parts of the province is afforded by the three branches which feed the Pearl river, and by a network of canals and creeks. A line of fine steamers plies between the city and Hongkong, and the submarine telegraph at the latter place, has thus brought the once distant Cathay into daily correspondence with the western world. It is a pleasant trip from Hongkong up the broad Pearl river; from the deck of the steamers one may view with comfort the ruins of the Bogue forts, and think of the time and feelings of Captain Weddell, who in 1637 anchored the first fleet of English merchant vessels before them. The Chinese cabin in the Canton steamer is an interesting sight, too. It is crowded with passengers every trip; and there they lie on the deck in all imaginable attitudes, some on mats, smoking opium, others on benches, fast asleep. There are little gambling parties in one corner, ​and city merchants talking trade in another; and viewed from the cabin-door the whole presents a wonderfully confused perspective of naked limbs, arms and heads, queues, fans, pipes, and silk or cotton jackets. The owners of these miscellaneous effects never dream of walking about, or enjoying the scenery or sea-breeze. I only once noticed a party of Chinese passengers aroused to something bordering on excitement, and it was in this Canton steamer. They had caught a countryman in an attempt at robbery and determined to punish him in their own way. When the steamer reached the wharf, they relieved the delinquent of his clothing, bound it around his head, and tied his hands behind his back with cords: and in this condition sent him ashore to meet his friends, but not before they had covered his nakedness with a coat of paint of various tints.

My readers will remember the celebrated Governor Yeh of Canton, who was carried prisoner to Calcutta. He would almost be forgotten in this quarter were it not for a temple erected to his departed spirit. It may be seen on the bank of a suburban creek; a very pretty monument it is to remind one of our lively intercourse with the notorious Imperial commissioner in 1857, an intercourse marked by trouble and bloodshed throughout, and which ended in the capture of that unfortunate official in an obscure Yamen.

The Fatee gardens, so often described were still to be found, almost unchanged, at the side of a narrow creek on the right bank of the river. These gardens were nurseries for flowers, dwarf shrubs and trees. Like most Chinese gardens they covered only a small area, and were contrived to represent landscape gardening in miniature. Some distance below the Fatee creek, on the same side of the river, a number of Tea Hongs and tea-firing establishments are to be found. To these I now ​ ​venture to introduce the reader, as he must needs feel more or less interest in the tea-men, and their mode of preparing this highly-prized luxury. Passing up the creek, along the usual narrow channel, between densely-packed rows of floating craft, we land on a broad stone platform, cross a court where men are to be seen weighing the tea, and enter a large three-storied brick building, where we meet Tan King Ching, the proprietor, to whom we bear an introduction from one of his foreign customers. One of the clerks is directed to show us over the place. He first ushers us into a large warehouse, where thousands of chests of the new crop are piled up, ready for inspection by the buyer. The inspection of this cargo is an exceedingly simple process; the foreign tea-taster enters and places his mark on certain boxes in different parts of the pile and these are forthwith removed, weighed and scrutinised as fair samples of the bulk. The whole cargo is shipped without further ceremony should the parcels examined prove satisfactory ones; and, indeed, nowadays it seldom happens that shortcomings in weight and quality are at the last moment detected, for the better class of Chinese merchants are remarkable for their honesty and fair dealing. I am the more anxious thus to do justice to the Chinese dealers, because the notion has got abroad that, as a rule, they are the most notorious cheats; men who never fail to overreach the unsuspecting trader when an opportunity occurs, and upon whose shoulders must fall the full weight of the charge of preparing and selling spurious or adulterated teas which have reached this country in a condition not fit for human food. It seems clear to me that the Chinese manufacturer of this sort of rubbish is by no means the most reprehensible party in the trade. He it is, indeed, who sets himself to collect from the servants of foreigners or natives, and from the restaurants and tea-saloons, the leaves ​that have been already used, and to dry them, cook them and mix them with imitations of the genuine leaf. This process completed, he next adds pickings, dust and sweepings from the tea-factory, and mixes the whole with foreign materials, so as to lend it a healthy surface hue. Lastly, he perfumes the lot with some sweet-smelling flower — the chlorantus, olea, aglaia and others; and thus provides a cheap, fragrant and polluted cup for the humble consumers abroad. This evil has been to a great extent cured by the competition which has sprung up in the cultivation of tea. China still holds a market in the finer sorts of tea, but her trade has greatly fallen as a whole, and is threatened with extinction unless, by improved methods of culture and preparation, she can rival the cost and quality of the full-flavoured leaf of India and Ceylon. In 1895, as compared with the previous year, the export of black teas to Great Britain and the United States had fallen off 150,000 piculs.

The tea-trade in China is more or less a speculative one, always full of risks (as some of our merchants have found out to their cost); and though a vast amount of foreign capital is annually invested in the enterprise, it is probably only every second or third venture that will return, I do not say a handsome profit, but any profit at all.

We will now proceed to another apartment and see the method adopted in the manufacture of gunpowder teas. First the fresh leaves of black tea are partially dried in the sun; these are next rolled, either in the palm of the hand, or on a flat tray, or by the feet in a hempen bag, then they are scorched in hollow iron pans over a charcoal fire, and after this are spread out on bamboo trays, that the broken stems and refuse may be picked out. In this large stone-paved room we notice the leaves in different stages of preparation. The ​ ​labour required to produce the gunpowder leaf is the most curious and interesting of the many processes to which the plant is subjected. We are surprised to notice a troop of able-bodied coolies, each dressed only in a short pair of cotton trousers, tucked up so as to give free action to his naked limbs. One feels puzzled at first to conjecture what they are about. Can they be at work, or is it only play? They each rest their arms on a cross beam, or against the wall, and with their feet busily roll and toss balls of about a foot in diameter (or the size of an ordinary football), up and down the floor of the room. Our guide assures us it is work, and very hard work too. The balls beneath their feet are the bags packed full of tea leaves, which by the constant rolling motion assume the pellet shape. As the leaves become more compact, the bag loosens and requires to be twisted up at the neck and again rolled; the twisting and rolling being repeated until the leaf has become perfectly globose. It is then divided through selves into different sizes, or qualities, and the scent and bouquet is imparted after the final drying or scorching. I feel convinced that the introduction of the best machinery for rolling, cooking and preparing the leaf is only a question of time, and will follow in the wake of railways and silk and cotton mills, after the manner of the Japanese.

Most of the tea shipped from Canton is now grown in the province of Kwang-tung; formerly part of it used to be brought from the "Tung-ting" district, but that now finds its way to Hankow. Leaves from the Taishan district are mostly used in making "Canton District Pekoe" and "Long-Leaf Scented Orange Pekoe," while Loting leaf makes "Scented Caper and Gunpowder" teas.

In order to see the foreign tea-tasters prosecuting a branch ​of science which they have made peculiarly their own, we must cross the river to Shameen, a pretty little green island, on which the foreign houses stand; looking with its villas, gardens and croquet-lawns and churches like the suburb of some English town. We ascend a flight of steps in a massive stone retaining wall with which Shameen is surrounded, — and this done we might wander for a whole day and examine all the houses on the island, without discovering a trace of a merchant's office, or any outward sign of commerce at all. Those who are familiar with the factory site, and who can figure what that must have been in olden times, when the foreign merchants were caged up like wild beasts and subjected to the company and taunts of the vilest part of the river population, and to the pestilential fumes of an open drain that carried the sewage of the city to the stream, will be surprised at the transformation that has, since those days, been wrought.

The present residences of foreigners on this grassy site (reclaimed mud flat, raised above the river) are substantial, elegant buildings of stone or brick, each surrounded by a wall; an ornamental railing, or bamboo hedge, enclosing the gardens and outhouses in its circuit. Except the firm's name on each small brass door-plate, there is nothing anywhere that tells us of trade. But when we have entered, we find the dwelling-house on the upper story, and the comprador's room and offices on the ground-floor; next to the offices the tea-taster's apartment. Ranged against the walls of this chamber are rows of polished shelves, covered with small round tin boxes of a uniform size, and each bearing a label and date in Chinese and English writing. These boxes contain samples of all the various sorts of old and new teas, used for reference and comparison in tasting, smelling and scrutinising parcels, or chops, which may ​ ​be offered for sale. In the centre of the floor stands a long table bestrewn with a multitude of white porcelain covered cups, manufactured specially for the purpose of tasting tea. The samples are placed in these cups, and hot water of a given temperature is then poured upon them. The time the tea rests in the hot water is measured by a sand-glass; and when this is accomplished, all is ready for the tasting, which is a much more useful than elegant operation.

The windows of the room have a northern aspect, and are screened off so as to admit only a steady skylight, which falls directly on a tea-board beneath. Upon this board the samples are spread on square wooden trays, and it is under the uniform light above described that the minute inspection of colour, make, general appearance and smell takes place. All these tests are made by assistants who have gone through a special course of training which fits them for the mysteries of their art. The knowledge which these experts possess is of the greatest importance to the merchant, as the profitable outcome of the crops selected for the home market depends, to a great extent, on their judgment and ability. It will thus be seen that the merchant, not only when he chooses his teas for exportation, but at the last moment before they are shipped, takes the minutest precautions against fraudulent shortcomings, either in quality or weight. It is possible, however, for a sound tea, if undercooked or imperfectly dried, to become putrid during the homeward voyage, and to reach this country in a condition quite unfit for use. This I know from my own experience. I at one time was presented with a box of tea by the Taotai of Taiwanfu, in Formosa, and when I first got it I found that some of the leaves had a slightly green tint and were damp. I had intended to bring this tea home to England; it was of good ​quality, but it spoiled before I left China. Judging from the quantities of tea that have been condemned, the importation of spurious cargoes can hardly be a lucrative trade.

Although Chinese commercial morality has not run to such a very low ebb as some might imagine, yet the clever traders of the lower orders of Cathay are by no means above resorting to highly questionable and ingenious practices of adulteration, when such practices can be managed with safety and profit. Thus the foreign merchant finds it always necessary to be vigilant in his scrutiny of tea, silk and other produce, before effecting a purchase. But equal care requires to be observed in all money transactions, as counterfeit coining is a profession carried on in Canton with marvellous success; so successful indeed, are the coiners of false dollars that the native experts, or schroffs, who are employed by foreign merchants (Mr. W. F. Mayers assured me), are taught the art of schroffing, or detecting counterfeit coin, by men who are in direct communication with the coiners of the spurious dollars in circulation.

In many of the Canton shops one notices the intimation "Schroffing taught here." This is a curious system of corruption, which one would think would be worth the serious attention of the Government. Were counterfeiting coining put down, there would be no need for the crafty instructors of schroffs; and at the same time the expensive staff of experts employed in banks and merchants' offices could be dispensed with.

But the dollar in the hands of a needy and ingenious Chinaman is not only delightful to behold, but it admits of a manipulation at once most skilful and profitable. The art of "schroffing" or detecting spurious coin and ascertaining the difference in the value of dollars of various issues, is studied as a profession by hundreds of young Chinamen, who find ​

​employment in banks and merchants' offices. The establishments where schroffing is taught are well known to be in direct communication with counterfeiters of Mexican dollars and other coin, and it has often been said that the existence of schroffs and false money are mutually indispensable to each other. If the amount of counterfeit coin in circulation were less, the necessity for a multitude of schroffs would not be so severely felt, and if the establishments where schroffing is taught did not exist, the counterfeiters would lose the principal means of passing false money into circulation.