Swatou, China, Wednesday, 3:10 p.m. Your time 7:15 a.m. Ap’l 6/98.
While in Mr. Maclagan‘s house I wrote you a few lines & the mail leaves here this afternoon for Hong Kong, so you will get the letter with the one I posted yesterday morning at Hong Kong. I’ve enjoyed my visit ashore & Mr. Maclagan came off to the “Haimun” with me in a sanpan [sic]. Steamer is laying mid stream, loading one side while discharging at the other. She was to leave at 3 but it may be 5 or 6. Mr. Maclagan, after writing me a letter of introduction to Mr. Thompson at Amoy, returned ashore in the sampan as he had some student preparation to do. I am to break my return journey & stay a few days, & this I shall do. Swatou is much more of a place than I had imagined & there are many Europeans here, & a very busy place it is, tho’ little of a town. The river is 2 or 3 times broader than the Tweed. On one side, where the Presbyterian Mission is, seems to be the business part, & the opposite, where the American Mission is, seems more residential. The Mission station here is comprised of many buildings enclosed with a wall, & has some fine trees & gardens. Dr. Maclagan lives in a very nice house & fine flower garden around it, many familiar plants & flowers: pinks, violets, carnations &c. &c., [3:23] & lillies [sic] growing in the garden also, & some native fruit trees. I took a snap of the front entrance with Mr. & Mrs. on the steps, but the sun has not shone today, so I fear the light was not favourable, but I thought I would risk it, fearing it might not be more favourable on my return. Should it be I will repeat it. Strange, is it not, that I should be here in Swatou & a guest of a Berwick man.
We left Hong Kong yesterday (Tuesday) at 3 p.m., 5 hours late, however, it suited arrival here, 8:30 this morning. We had a roughish passage. I had dinner at 6:30 but soon discharged it & turned in & had a very comfortable night, tho’ the ship pitched very much & the propeller [sic] raced every pitch, & she was well loaded. The Captain said it had been a rough night. I’ve done so well all the voyage, but this ship, being small is easily tossed, whereas the big boats are quite motionless comparatively. We are due in Amoy tomorrow & I will stay there 1 day & return here for Sunday, where Dr. Maclagan says they have a good congregation. The coasts here are very rugged & the community real Chinese. The fine river is very pea soupy & runs very rapidly, & navigable a long way inland. Dr. M. took me for a walk, before tiffin, inland & amongst many Chinese, through a burying ground & saw some of their agriculture: barley, sugar cane, [3:24] vegetables, sweet potatoes &c. &c. He speaks to the natives nicely & he explained to the students & scholars who I was & where from. He took me to see Dr. Liall, a Greenlaw man, who is the missionary Dr. & has a good hospital, & several native students. He was busy removing a cataract & finished it in our presence. The patient, an oldish man, bore it unflinchingly, & he had only the week before had the other eye operated upon. He got up after having both eyes bandaged & will be kept from the light for a time. Then 2 women brought in a child who was blind, to have an operation performed on it, but it had just had food so Dr. could not give it chloroform & deferred it. He knows the Stoddarts & especially Robert, who is at Greenlaw, & Lena also. Then we went into the ward & convalescence chamber, & the students’ apartments & cook houses &c. &c., & I was deeply interested all through. I am pleased I made this tour. It may prevent my getting to Canton but this will be of more import to me, & the native is the same, China over. Tell the Musgraves I’ve made a trip in the Douglas steamers & saw the “Hai-tan”[1] in Hong Kong yesterday. She was engined at H’pool, & Frank returned to China 2nd in her.
Hong Kong is really a very fine city & quite surprised me. Its situation is so grand, on the face of a beautiful hill, [3:25] & as we steamed out of the harbour yesterday & through the narrows, it resembled the Kyles of Bute[2] as 2 peas are alike. It’s a lovely spot & very large, & its harbour so spacious & so many “man-o’-war” of all nations. Many salutes were made & returned.[3] After I had written you in hotel & we saw the saluting from our deck, we closely passed Prince Henry’s[4] “Deutschland” & the companion is in a dry dock near by. Dr. Maclagan told me he had been up here with his ship & paid a visit to the German Consulate, which is only a few yards from the Presby. Mission Compound. Then the great number of steamers, cargo & passenger, that come in & out of Hong Kong is only surpassed by London & Liverpool (Oh, what a noise & row the natives are making working the cargo. You’d think there was a riot but it’s alike all over the East. More shouting than work.). The floating population at Hong Kong is enormous. Thousands, & swarms with (now we are just off, 4 exactly, so I will stop writing) families, some 3 generations in each boat. Little accommodation they have. At night after a certain hour, 9, I think it is, every native boat must move 100 yards, I think is the distance, from the quay & police launch patrols the whole night between the shore & boats. They are such robbers, the government – British – enforce this & any one of them found moving during the night are very rigorously dealt with. The inhabitants are thankful this practice obtains.
[3:26]
I may have more to say about Hong Kong on my leaving there finally. Now I am at Amoy & this is Saturday morning, 9:05 a.m. & your time 1:20 a.m. (April 9th). I wrote you a post card yesterday while in the post office with Mr. Beattie, a young ordained missionary just come out this year, Hawick man. He was taking me to view & visit & had to call at the P. office, so I took the opportunity to write it. You will get it & the Swatou letter & one from Hong Kong all same time.
Yesterday was Good Friday, April 8th, & I oft thought about you all, tho’ our day was nearly done before yours began. I arrived here on Thursday morning about 7:30, had breakfast before leaving the Hai-mun. Mr. Roberts, the chief, came ashore with me. He first took me to the hospital under an American doctor,[5] & who is just having a new hospital completed. He kindly shewed us all through & was very kind. Then we made our way to our missionary quarters (all this is on the island of Kuloonsu[6]), turn up Chambers & see Amoy. I have just been reading it this morning. Mr. Thompson has the complete work exactly ours. Amoy City is exactly opposite this small residential island about ½ mile across the channel. We met Mr. Thompson, who is presently the only missionary here (the others are inland just now) & Mr. Beattie, who is just commencing & at this moment I hear him having his lessons from his Chinese tutor, & it will take fully 12 months before he acquires a full enough knowledge to address them. Already he can fairly interpret & make himself known. Well, Mr. Thompson of Hull (Revd. Hy. Thompson, his wife & family are presently all at home) he received us very kindly & I am his guest till Monday.
I wanted to be back to Swatou on Sunday morning but the steamer “Thales” left here yesterday at 4 & will be at Swatou this morning. This would have given me too [3:27] long a stay & maybe not convenient for Mr. & Mrs. Maclagan, seeing the Hai Mun is not back at Swatou till tuesday, so I leave here on Monday, getting to Swatou on Tuesday & leaving with the Hai Mun again for Hong Kong. This will give me a while again at Swatou & will describe it after to you. Mr. Thompson & Mr. Beattie took me over to see the ancient city of Amoy, a real typical Chinese city & of all the abominations of filth & disorder it presents is beyond conception & description. Streets, they call them, so narrow. Crawford Alley, for width, fairly represent these, but loathsome beyond belief & one must see to believe. Of course a great curiosity to me & what I wanted to see, but a little goes a long way, & woe to one whose system is not proof against this “change of air”. You have no idea such exists on earth. Every phase of Chinese life & character is to be seen in Amoy. It’s a busy place, important harbour, several European agencies, & Eastern merchants & the harbour front swarming with native boats & bigger river craft, very similar to Hong Kong life. Clusters followed us through the street & were very curious but Mr. Thompson is well known & speaks fluently. He has been here away over 20 years. Addressed us W. H’pool folks in our new church when at home, H’pool also, Chatton & Belford too & several known places, remembers Mr. Campbell nicely. He took me yesterday morning with him to school[7] where he has scripture every morning 9 to 10. I had to say a few words. After, he interpreted. There were 64, all girls, & very nicely they seem to get along & are very apt pupils. Native teachers. No English taught by our missionaries. Then he took me around amongst other Mission schools, LM Society[8] & the American Presbyterian Missionary Society. The Talmages, Mrs. & 2 daughters, are the head, all work in union & have one [3:28] Church where these 3 take turns. On Thursday night there was a choir practice for Easter Sunday in this church. I accompanied Mr. Thompson & Mr. Beattie (Mr. Beattie lives in this house mean time, it is Mr. McGregor’s who is at home just now. Mr. Thompson’s house is let so he & Mr. Beattie is occupying this, Mr. McGregor’s house, while he is away. Mr. Wales’ house is also let during his stay at home. You know who I mean. He addressed us before I left & I tell the friends here it was chiefly at his persuasion I came up to Swatou & Amoy).
Well, the practice, the hymns & anthems are all Eastertide & they expect a good day tomorrow. I should have liked to spent [sic] the day at Swatou but I’m a creature of circumstances while from home & has [sic] to submit thereto. They are very kind & Amoy, this island especially (Kuloonsu),[9] is a remarkable pretty place, scarcely a level yard on its face & fine view. It is only 3 miles around & on its ridges & sides are immense boulders, very curiously formed & some like tumbling down as you glance at them. The biggest is not 5 minutes’ walk from this house. Vegetation is fine here & flowers[10] in rich & profuse abundance, & the trees are flowering also. Ferns & lillies [sic] common, & lovely they are, & all our English flowers too but much finer & larger than we have them in our plots or pots. Lovely double geraniums all colours, stocks, asters, pansies, pinks, foxglove, mignonette & lively violets. You would feel charmed to see them all & the rich scents are to me overpowering but better they than the Amoy or even the native quarter of this island’s smells.
Graves are every where here (native), no particular order (nice European cemetery), & on Tuesday this week it had been the day for redecorating the graves & appeasing spirits, & every grave is covered with what they call cash paper only negotiable with the spirits, but it is an industry, this paper making, cutting figures on each which carrys [sic] a meaning & then last night we saw 2 graves had been opened & their remains [3:29] taken out (bones) & potted because their spirits had not rested peaceably in the grave, so these will be interred some other spot by & by, if the friends find the spirit is quieter. What lots of, to us, curious superstitions they have, & Mr. Thompson is conversant with them now & repeats them to me as we pass along. Mr. Swanson lived in the house which Mr. Wales occupies when here. He is at home yet. H. Matthison was his great friend, & while Mr. Swanson occupied one part, this Mr. Thompson & his family occupied the other. I took a snap of it, as also several places here & over at Amoy, but no sun & I doubt very much they won’t be very good. Mr. Beattie is going to take me over to Amoy this afternoon to see a wonderful temple & I hope it may be brighter, tho’ at present (5 to 10) it is dull. Some rain fell yesterday while we were out. No female servants, all “boys”, & these in this house 4 (one went off yesterday to see his father, who is very bad) they are Christians & morning worship is in Chinese.
After breakfast 7:30, (rise at 7), sing, read scripture & prayer. Night after supper, 7 o’clock, family worship but no Chinese present. Mr. Thompson has 3 services tomorrow, twice in Chinese in our church, & he is to take the evening service at night in the Union Church. We had a very pitchy rough night between Swatou & Amoy. That was Wednesday night & Thursday morning. I soon turned in after leaving Swatou & rested, tho’ I did not get much sleep. I managed to retain my dinner, for which I got up & dressed again at 7 o’clock, but went to bed soon after for safety. The “Hai Mun” was just like a cork & came down astern in the wave like a gun shot noise & the propeller racing every lift. Their cargo is chiefly light box & bale goods. She went over to Formosa from here. While in the Amoy streets, there was a procession & such a ridiculous affair. Some on ponies, the poorest skeletons & such decorations, & in these alleys of streets, we had to side in every here & there. In the shops are workers [3:30] all trades & all open: cookery, carpentry, tailoring, coffin making & every other trade, idol making, many of these, & opium dens. I went into 4 & saw them in real style. Horrid dens they were, & amused when I popped in to see what was going on. I was amused at a poultry dealer’s. One lad was cramming 4 chickens, & every mouthful put his thumb & forefinger round the neck & worked the food down to the crop, we did laugh, & the man got some of the food to let Mr. Thompson see there was no sand to make the birds weigh heavy, so we suppose sand is used for such a purpose. The chickens were put back into the little vase-like baskets. Poultry are cruelly used & handled in the East.[11]
We walked on the wall; portion of the ancient city is walled around but not much extent & a poor wall it is, of course now very, very ancient. I took a view from a point over the tops of the houses but it was dull. The walls are no great height, say 15 or 20 feet, & a poor path. Several street exhibitions going on, one a theatre, & lots about. We did not delay thereabouts. A Miss Johnson, we visited her in her school,[12] is a very active, enthusiastic little lady, & full of warmth in her work. She has a sister here but I’ve not seen her yet. Of course, every school & class I was shewn had to sing, read, & one school of girls, Miss Johnson’s, repeated the Ten Commandments. Only in one school, Anglo-Chinese, do they teach English, & this by the Americans, & they welcomed me with “Good Morning”, all standing up. Miss Johnson said she had heard from the school I had addressed how much they had been pleased with what I had said to them, & the description I gave of our schools, both secular & Sunday, in England. Certainly their faces brightened the while, & the matron, an old native woman with wonderful happy expression, presented me with a bunch of lovely roses, which I very appreciatively accepted. I hope to remember other incidents & will write them later on.
[3:31]
This Mr. Beattie is a fine young man, 26 (see December Monthly Messenger, & his portrait, he says, is in it). Well, he knows Wooler well & Coldstream better, & has preached in Mr. Hay’s Church, then Mr. Rutherford’s, often. He knows Mr. Elliot nicely & Mrs. E. also, so Andrew can tell Mr. E. that I am staying 4 days at Amoy & in the same house as the Revd. James Beattie. I told Mr. B. I would convey this to Mr. Elliot. Mr. B.’s father is a farmer & well known. Mr. B. also knows Mr. Keir’s brother in Lauder. Mr. Thompson has visited Chatton since Mr. Thorpe was ordained, but I can’t remember him at W. H’pool. Maybe I would be away at the time. He had some of the children dressed up in Chinese costume. I have an indistinct recollection of some incident of that kind but was not present. Do you remember it?
By the way, Mr. B. is a Free Church man, but Mr. Mackenzie, when at home, had been introduced to him & persuaded him to come out. He does look a very likely man for the work.
I’m often wondering how you all are & what the news will be when I get letters on my return to Hong Kong. I do pray for happy news about father. Often do I think how much I shall have to tell you all, should God spare me to reach home safely. It’s a great experience indeed, this journey around the world, & so much & so varied is the daily opening up of fresh things & objects that the mind & eye gets over crowded. Still, one is loath to miss anything & to observed it [sic]. My journal but poorly represents what I’ve so far seen & my hope is that I may be able to recall a very great deal & explain it viva voice to you all. After this I am looking forward to Japan & especially Australia & New Zealand, & all going well I should be nearing Australia about the end of May, but it’s really very difficult fixing dates or even approximate dates. The steamer connections are always to some extent uncertain. I hope my Comely had a happy birthday [3:32] & that he is a good boy. I send him sweet kisses from Amoy. Willie & Andy will begin to cycle now & I hope they will thoroughly enjoy themselves. There was nothing in either the “Mails” Feby 10th & onward, or in the “Journal”, that specially took my attention. I read them on the passage up to Swatou. Tell Miss Forsyth I shall not have the opportunity of seeing any of her friends, seeing they are inland & far from here. A hand bill just came in to the house saying the “Formosa” will sail this evening for Swatou, but Mr. Thompson says it might be early tomorrow morning & might not get to Swatou till late Sunday, so I prefer to spend Sunday ashore rather than risk arriving late. Also the “Hai-tan” sails for Formosa island this evening, & as we cross to Amoy this afternoon we will see them close in midstream. I shall get a day & night at Swatou which will be ample & reach Hong Kong, I think, on Thursday morning. (We got back to Hong Kong Wednesday morning.)
[1] Inserted on facing page: “Haitan”.
[2] The Kyles of Bute are one of the most beautiful areas in Scotland. Beside the main road between Dunoon and Tighnabruaich there are several viewpoints high over Loch Riddon, looking down on the straits or kyles between the Cowal peninsula and the Isle of Bute.
[3] Inserted on facing page: “The saluting in Hong Kong harbour was consequent on the arrival of a large Russian war ship. Each arrival salutes the port & the port replies, also other war ships then in port, so there is great banging away of powder for some time”.
[4] Prince Henry of Prussia was a younger brother of Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany. He commanded SMS Deutschland from 1897, and took command of the East Asia Squadron in 1899.
[5] Inserted on facing page: “Dr. Otte”.
[6] Kulangsu, an islet in Amoy Harbour where Great Britain established a trade concession in 1851, and where most of the foreign residents lived.
[7] Inserted on facing page: “Colloquial
Amoy school”.
[8] Libertarian Municipalism Society
[9] Inserted on facing page: “Kuloonsu”.
[10] Inserted on facing page: “Flowers”.
[11] Inserted on facing page: “Pigs in crates or cylindrical baskets”, with sketch of pig in basket. Then sketch labelled “Poultry basket”.
[12] Inserted on facing page: “Schools. Miss Johnston”.