Preparations being on foot for the return of the squadron to Japan, as soon as the storeship Lexington should arrive, and the services of the storeship Supply being needed for the transportation from China of coal for the steamers, a small English steamer recently built at Hong Kong, was chartered on behalf of the United States government, to take her place off the factories at Canton. She was armed with four guns, and a lieutenant, passed-midshipman, and one engineer ordered to her, besides being manned from the squadron—the American flag waved over the “Queen!”
On the 19th of December we stood up the river with the Hon. Humphrey Marshall, United States commissioner to China, on board, who was going to take possession of his residence at Canton. We reached Whampoa at three o’clock, and found there the British war-steamer Rattler, that had not long before taken an active part in the capture of Rangoon. Her officers had many a kriss and spear trophy of the enemy, and around her engines were well-cut Buddhist idols in marble, which they had brought away with them.
The next day the commissioner left for Canton, and beside receiving his salute of seventeen guns, was accompanied in barges by a suite of officers, an escort of marines, and a band of music—a “grand function” accompanying the movements of prominent foreign personages, always has a great effect with the impressionable Celestials. The American shipping in the Reach fired a number of guns as Mr. Marshall passed up, and dipped their colors. The party accompanying remained in the city some days; I availed myself of the opportunity of making the circuit of the walls, and in company with the chaplain of the ship and a messmate, we started in the morning, Rev. S. W. Bonney, a resident missionary, most kindly acting as conductor. He has been in China eight years and speaks the language. To take the tramp considerable perseverance is necessary. You have to thread your way through streets so narrow, that at times you can easily touch the houses on either side by extending your hands, down into which the sun never comes, densely packed with human beings, and over granite flagging, for ever kept muddy by the innumerable feet in motion over them from day-dawn to midnight. Then you must keep on the alert and quickly step aside to the sill of some shopdoor, or you may be run into by one of the thousand porters—the sole conveyances of Chinese cities—whose short grunt in your rear, as he toddles beneath the burden suspended from the bamboo-pole on his shoulder, warns you to get out of his way; or perhaps you may get a punch in the rear from the ferruled shalves of some high functionary or rich merchant’s sedan-chair, as they rest on the shoulders of the coolies, who carry him along at a dog-trot. On our route we stopped in a number of shops. In one there was seated an Albino-Chinese, seventy-five years old. A rat-merchant informed us that his stock on hand was rather light now, but would be larger in a day or two; while in a turning-establishment, we were shown the Chinese lathe which only turns half way. The perpendicular red and gilded signs to the shops were read to us; such as “May the customers come from the west, like clouds, and when they have purchased, may those from the east come.” We visited a kind of aceldama—the Quan-tung province execution ground—a filthy triangular square in the lower part of the suburbs, running to the river; the place was repulsive in the extreme. On a cross, suspended so that his feet just cleared the ground, had been strangled a culprit, above his head an inscription telling the offence for which he had suffered; while under a shed, near by, was a pile of heads, their long queus matted in blood. The executions by decapitation, during our stay, were very numerous; fifty-nine were to be executed the next day. The culprits are made to kneel, a man stands behind them and raises both of their arms backward, as you would a pump-handle, which brings the neck comparatively horizontal, when one blow from the cleaver-like sword of the practised executioner, severs the head from the trunk. A woman who had killed her liege lord was to be cut to pieces. The laws of China are very severe in the punishment of female offenders—“Women’s Rights” are below par—and it is a land which would not be adapted for the residence of the “strong-minded” women of our own country, Chinese prophecy having foretold the downfall of their empire by the machinations of women.