CHAPTER II.
The next day, when I awoke, on quitting the ordinary reception room of the faï-ting, I was suddenly lost in a forest of dry wood. All around me was an inextricable confusion of poles and masts. These dead trees, adorned like those which are planted throughout France on days of general rejoicing, had on them, instead of leaves, standards and flags of all colours, and they seemed to grow naturally on the sterile and changing soil. This sinuous plain was the magnificent realisation of a celebrated canard, which formerly took flight from New York and went round the world: it was the floating isle with its towns, its fields, its heights, and valleys. Callery, who was with me, enjoyed my stupefaction; he was the more charmed at my amazement, as I am not easily astonished when travelling:
"How shall we get out of here?" I asked him.
"Be easy," replied he; " I have sent an express to Pan-se-Chen to announce our arrival, and he will not fail to send a mandarin boat to us."
"Unless your messenger has wings, like the one from the ark, I do not see which way he can have escaped."
I followed his advice. All the amphibious inhabitants were like so many workmen and citizens in their houses: they clean their dwelling-places, put all in order at home, or they indolently smoke their short pipes. The Chinese boats, without exception, have a clean and pleasant appearance: they are the poetic huts of the ocean, sheltering under their moving roof people as economical and laborious as those of Flanders. These houses are dressed every morning with unparalleled art and care; they are washed, and to embellish them cosmetics are used, which bring into relief the slightest veins of the most common wood. The liquids made use of are varnishes which flow naturally from different kinds of plants, or else from siccatine oils, which are prepared in China with peroxyde of manganese.
In the next house to ours, one family particularly attracted my attention; it consisted of four persons, the mother about thirty-five years of age, a young girl fourteen, and two little boys between five and six years old. All of them were seated on the prow,—shaped like a poop,—which is used as a seat in these vessels, and were finishing their morning meal. The mother's countenance was mild and phlegmatic: her kind, fat face smiled on the laughing little children, who, with clean and well-shaved heads, held their pittance in their hands; the young girl—dressed like a tanka girl, her pig-tail, fastened behind the occiput, falling in a plait down her back—looked at me with a kind and merry expression. Suddenly, the young tanka girl said a few words to me, which I did not understand, and offered me her breakfast: it was rice, seasoned with tao-fou, in a blue porcelain bowl. I took the bowl in my left hand, and the little sticks which are used in China to eat with, in the right. The grains of rice, well boiled and quite separated from one another, were polished and semi-transparent: they were like pearls just drawn from the depths of the ocean. The tao-fou, white like thick cream, and fried in the oil of the sesamum, partly covered the nourishing grain; and over this mess was spread a brown liquid, which formed designs like those we admire on the buildings of raised pastry constructed by Swiss architects, vulgarly called pastry-cooks. This dish was very nice. I thought that among the Europeans who go to China, there are very few who have the opportunity of eating the scanty pittance of the poor, and I did not hesitate to taste it.
With the ease of a Frenchman who would not regret being a Chinese, I took the little sticks between my thumb, first, and middle fingers, and I began by taking a few grains of rice, which I carried to my mouth; they were firm and crisp, and with the flavour peculiar to this grain ripened in the salt plains of the Tchou-kiang. After this first satisfactory attempt, I took some tao-fou; I found it insipid; then, with a boldness natural to those who are inclined to gastronomic cosmopolitism, I mixed the rice, the tao-fou, and the black liquid: it was perfection; the black liquid was only treacle, or at least a very thick syrup of sugar.
The rice thus arranged was something like rice milk, but it had not that taste of starch, nor that gluey and watery appearance possessed by the horrid soups which the poisoners, lying in ambuscade at the corners of the streets of the most civilized town in the universe (Paris), sell after midnight. On seeing what I was doing, the little Chinese, her mother and her brothers, had noisily exclaimed, at several intervals, aïa, which is peculiar to the lower classes of Canton, and some sailors from the top of their faï-ting had added their approbation to this family's expressions of astonishment.
My knowledge of Chinese customs had charmed them; and when, after having taken some mouthfuls from the young girl's bowl, I returned it to her, accompanied by half a piastre, I had from all sides offers to recommence this fraternal communion. I gave the preference to the bowl of a sailor on board; it was, as usual, the unknown which tempted me. The rice was like that of the young girl's: very dry and much swelled. In bursting, the farinaceous matter had spread into silvery lumps, but the condiment accompanying it was not the same: it was a thick substance, of a yellowish colour, and a very decided cheesy taste. This mess was a real Italian rizzoto, the Parmesan of which was very strongly flavoured. I ate every grain of it.
When I asked the name of this seasoning, I was informed that it was also tao-fou. I owe my readers the recipe of a production, which, alternately cream and cheese, is nevertheless made without the intervention of any lacteal substance. Haricots are steeped in cold water till they yield to the pressure of the finger; when they are in this state, they are pounded with a millstone, and the clear liquid which results from them is boiled. After this operation, it is thrown into a sieve, which retains the impure parts, the milk-like liquid which flows through is received in a bowl, and a small quantity. of baked plaster of Paris, reduced to very fine powder, and mixed with water, is added to it. An abundant precipitate is immediately formed, of a dull white colour, like alabaster, or of a rather yellowish-white, according to the haricots which have been used. That is tao-fou. This substance is eaten fresh or fermented. When it is fresh, it is very like the white cheeses called touma in Provence. It was in this state that the young tanka girl introduced it to me. When the tao-fou is fermented, it tastes like our strong cheeses.
The Chinese in the southern provinces have an inexplicable repugnance to milk, and to all that results from the diverse manipulations to which it is subjected; however, they have, by means of an empiric process, certainly the result of chance, fabricated, with a vegetable, a substance which is the best imitation of that which inspires them with so must disgust. Nevertheless, tao-fou, fresh or fermented, will never replace to European palates that thick and unctuous cream which is eaten in Norman farms, nor Sassenage and Roquefort cheeses, nor even Brie or Neufchâtel.
The custom-house officer who accompanied the mission, in his zeal for the industrial interests of France, was desirous of transporting thither the fabrication of tao-fou. All his efforts tended to substitute for our excellent cheeses of Auvergne, Cantal, Normandy, and the Alps, a substance of an inferior quality, and a much higher price: it was what the worthy man called a discovery. The use of tao-fou in this part of China serves to prove a very important sanitary truth: it is, that in every country, in every zone, and at all times, men have instinctively understood, that they must unite with the natural products on which they feed, food which is fermented or undergoing fermentation.
While I was tasting the popular dishes of the Celestial Empire, the deputies from Pan-se-Chen arrived. They were in a charming vessel, rowed by eight men, which boarded our faï-ting.
The mandarin boats are large barks, light and long, with an elegant pavilion in the middle, the curved roof of which is ornamented by flowers and fantastic animals. They are distinguished from other vessels floating on the river by streamers, on which the titles of the proprietors are written. In the evening lanterns, covered with characters, replace the insignia of official vanity, and have the same effect. These pleasure boats are divided into two rooms, where you can easily isolate yourself by letting down an elegant mat in front of the door which separates them. Callery and I installed ourselves in the state saloon—that is, the one which opens on to the stern; it was surrounded by a bench of hard shining wood, and at short distances were placed small ebony tables. The floor was covered with a carpet made of dog's hair, and the windows were furnished with moveable blinds, admirably carved. Servants brought us two cups of tea on a red Japan tray, and then discreetly withdrew.
"It is necessary," said Callery, when we were alone, "that you should know where you are going to live."
"I do know," I replied; "I am going to my friend the mandarin Pan-se-Chen, whom badly-brought up people call Poul-tin-Quoy, like his father the merchant."
"You can call him Pan, his father's name, if you please—he has no parvenu's weakness; but you must be able, if necessary, to point out your residence. Remember, that you live in Tchaoin-Kiaï—that is, 'The Sound-of-the-tide Street'—in the house Thè-kì-Han, which means 'The Remembrance-of-virtue Factory.' Remember, also, that the Chinese word han, which the English pronounce hong, is applied to all houses connected with trade."
In order to get to Pan's, we crossed some streets of the floating town; they were crowded with vessels, but no confusion resulted from this concourse. In other countries, a great crowd of people, and the tumult resulting from it, is an excitement to disorderly conduct and quarrels; here, on the contrary, it seemed as if each had undertaken to avoid disputes, and to prevent causing others trouble and embarrassment; there was a continued interchange of kind offices and polite attentions; sailors and fish-women carefully avoided collisions, and warned those they met of the obstacles they would meet with on their road. The conduct of these poor people says more for the civilisation of China, than all that may be written on the subject; and it will be understood how remarkable the gentle disposition of these seafaring people must be, when it is considered that it was this fact which particularly struck me among so many objects which were new and strange to me.
The house Thè-ki-Han is built partly in the European and partly in the Chinese style: it consists of two storeys, and the roof, which forms a terrace, is paved with granite, which shines in the sun as if strewed with diamonds. On the ground floor are vast magazines, in which are piled up bales of silk, chests of tea, jars full of musk, in fact all the products which European civilisation borrows from the Celestial Empire. Our apartments were on the second floor: they looked on to the river. On our left we had the massive buildings of the factories, on which the colours of the great European nations waved; opposite, the left bank of the Tchou-kiang, covered with Chinese temples and houses, and the thousand streets of the floating town. It was one of those views which seem like the realisation of an opera fairy scene.
When we were installed, we went to visit the apartments prepared for the reception of M. de Lagrené. They consisted of seven rooms on the same floor. The bed-rooms and saloons were separated by lattice-work, formed of ivory and ebony, incrustated on hard wood in an indescribably fantastic manner. The bed-rooms were concealed from curiosity by silk hangings, fastened to the carved walls.
Our inspection was not in vain. The rooms intended for the women, which according to Chinese ideas constitute the sanctuary of the house or the inner apartment, were ornamented with an infinite number of drawings. They were long strips of paper, on which pastoral scenes were represented. These paintings gave us a singular impression of the way the Eclogue is understood in the Celestial Empire. Watteau's little cupids and adorable shepherdesses would have blushed up to the whites of their eyes on seeing them. In our ideas, Pan's pictures would only have done to illustrate Theocritus, Apulius, or Tongus. Callery could not make the mandarin's servants understand that they ought to remove these landscapes; he was obliged to have recourse to the master himself. Pan, on hearing his explanations, did not conceal his astonishment. Those good Chinese are great heathens! However, all the Bouchers and Watteaus disappeared.
This charming palace, as transparent as a glass house, situated on the Tchou-kiang, that enchanted river, is certainly the most delightful dwelling M. de Lagrené can have occupied during his travels. The furniture of all the rooms presented a mixture of European luxury and Chinese elegance: there were magnificent looking-glasses, English and French clocks, with native toys and ornaments in ivory. Of the nations of the East, the Chinese alone have seats like ours,—the Malays and Indians sit on the ground on mats and cushions. But the chairs and divans in the Celestial Empire, particularly in the southern provinces, do not at all resemble the elastic furniture which ornaments our drawing-rooms. Those carved chairs, beautifully polished, remind one of seats in church or college benches; and never, either in pleasure-boats or in the most sumptuous saloons, do you see stuffed furniture. The arm chairs are very massive and excessively heavy; they are seldom displaced, and the divans are generally fixed to the wall.
A few days after our arrival, M. de Lagrené came to live at the hotel intended for him; and with the refined urbanity of which he has given so many proofs during his voyage, he placed two of the rooms of his large suite at the disposal of the rear-admiral commanding the French maritime forces in China.