Four Young Explorers; Or, Sight-Seeing in the Tropics by Oliver Optic (best romantic novels to read .TXT) 📗

short; but if you think of anything more that you wish to see in Manila or its vicinity, I will remain," added the captain.

"I don't know that there is anything more to be seen. I seemed to know the city before I had seen it."

"Very well, then we will go to sea to-night."[292]

By ten o'clock the ships were under way; and in a couple of hours more they were in the China Sea, headed north-west-by-north, for Hong-Kong. The sea was as smooth as glass, for the east monsoon seemed to be interrupted under the lee of the islands. The passengers retired at an early hour, and there was no excuse for not going to sleep at once.

In the morning the ship was a long way out of sight of land. Breakfast had been ordered for an hour later than usual, in order to let the party sleep off the fatigue of the day before. But some of them were on deck at sunrise, and saw the beautiful phenomenon of that orb coming out of the eastern sea. There was not an island or anything else in sight but the broad expanse of water. The air was delightful; and it was not hot in the early morning, and under the awnings it would not be during the day. A gentle sea gave the ship a little motion, but it was a quiet time.

Breakfast was served at the appointed hour; and at this time Mr. Gaskette was busy with his assistants, arranging the frame for a new map, considerably larger than any used before, at the head of Conference Hall. He had been at work upon it for several days, and he intended that it should surpass anything he had done before. The orang-outang, the monkey, and the pheasant had been removed to the library, where there was plenty of room for them.[293]

China was a great country, and the professor thought it would require a long talk to dispose of it; and the conference was called for ten o'clock, and so announced at breakfast time. When the passengers went on deck, the first thing that attracted their attention was the new map; and considering that it was made on board of the ship, it was a beautiful piece of work, for the second officer was an artist. At the appointed hour they were all in their seats.

This map, though correct at the time it was made, did not, of course, include the changes which resulted from the war between Japan and China, and which have not even yet been incorporated in modern history. The pacha had been invited to give the lecture on China; but he declared that it was too difficult a subject for him to undertake, and he begged to be excused, and Professor Giroud had willingly undertaken it. It had required all his time on the voyage from Saigon, and all his spare time at Manila, to prepare himself for the difficult task. With the three siamangs in their usual places, he mounted the platform.

A signal from the Blanche caused him to resume his seat, and the screw was stopped. The barge from the consort dropped into the water; and the general, his wife, the rajah, Mrs. Sharp, and Dr. Henderson came on board, and chairs were provided for them. Miss Blanche gave up the baby to Mrs. Noury, who was very fond of the little creature.[294] The professor then took his place again on the rostrum, with the pointer in his hand.

"Mr. Commander, ladies and gentlemen," he began. "Before I say a word, I desire to acknowledge my very great obligations to Mr. Gaskette for the elegant map he has prepared and placed before us. You observe that it extends from the Amur River,—which is spelled in older books Amoor; but the latest fashion is to make it Amur, as Hindu and similar words have been changed from oo to u, for both have the same sound in most European and Oriental names,—from the Amur River to Tonquin, about thirty degrees of latitude, with the nineteen provinces of China, with Korea, properly spelled with initial K, with the islands of Formosa and Hainan. It has given the artist a great deal of labor, and he has done his work in a manner to call for your highest commendation."

The audience vigorously applauded this statement; and the siamangs added their "Ra! Ra! Ra!" with a volley of squeaks. Mr. Gaskette bowed his acknowledgments; and the professor handed him the pointer, which looked like a new arrangement.

"The artist is as well or better acquainted with the map than I am, and I have invited him to assist on the platform. Manchuria, and I adopt the most modern spelling of the name," continued the professor, as the artist pointed to the province.

"I thought the subject for to-day was China," interposed Mrs. Belgrave.[295]

"So it is, madam; but the modern history of China begins with Manchuria. On the west of it is Mongolia, which any of the old-fashioned gentlemen may call Chinese Tartary if they prefer, though that designation is not in use now. Manchuria is a province of China; though the latter was a province of the former three hundred and fifty years ago, for then it conquered China, whose present emperor is the descendant of the conquering Manchu monarch. Manchuria has an area of 280,000, and a population of 21,000,000; but not more than one million of the people are Manchus, who wear the costume and speak the language of the Chinese. The rest of the people are emigrants from China or other countries, and are as industrious and prosperous as any other in the vast empire.

"The Manchus are the aristocracy of the country; and ever since they gave China its ruler, their country has been the principal territory for recruiting the Celestial armies; and there are said to be 80,000 of their soldiers in service. And they also furnish China with its magistrates and police. But I will leave their country to take its place with the other provinces of the empire. China is believed by its own chronologists to have been in existence 2637 years before the Christian era, and perhaps from a date still farther back; but these dates are doubtful.

"The people of China do not know their country by the name so familiar to us, or they know it only[296] so far as they have learned it from merchants and travellers. In the matter of names they all seem barbarous to us; I do not attempt to pronounce them; and I don't think you will succeed in doing so any better than I have. I may add that I have never been in China; and what I tell you I did not pick up myself, but must derive it from others who have travelled and lived in the country.

"I have obtained nearly all my information from the very learned and valuable article of Dr. Legge, in Chambers's. He is familiar with the language of the Chinese, has travelled and lived in the country, and is fully acquainted with the manners and customs of the people. In the oldest literature of the empire, it is called Hwâ Hsiâ, the first word meaning 'flowery,' and the second is the proper name of the country. Chung Kwo is the Middle Kingdom, which came into being in the feudal period, in the midst of the several states and tribes; and if you wish to know more of China, there is an American edition of Dr. Williams in four volumes, which will tell you all about it. But the name did not mean the middle of the earth, as sometimes claimed, nor is it the foundation of the derisive term applied to China, 'The Central Flowery Nation.'

"Other names have been given to China, though seldom seen or heard; but Cathay, perhaps coming from the Russian name Kitai, is not at all uncommon, especially in poetry. The name we use comes to us from India, when two Buddhist missionaries,[297] who came from 'the land of Chin,' called it China and Chintan.

"As stated before, the native Chinese line of rulers, the Ming dynasty, conquered China in 1644, and placed the first of the Tsing monarchs on the throne. I will not tangle up your intellects by following out the individuals of the succession any farther than to say that the present emperor, or Hwangti, of China is Tsait'ien, who was proclaimed as such in January, 1875. The ruler may name his successor, for the descent is not hereditary to his eldest son; and if he fails to do so, the default is made good by his family. He is the ninth emperor of the Manchu or Tartar dynasty.

"As I said, China has nineteen provinces, including the island of Formosa, all of which are represented on the map before you. The divisions of the country are immensely populous; though the average of the whole to the square mile is less than that of Belgium by nearly one-half, several of whose provinces are more densely peopled than any in China. It is also less than the State of Rhode Island, and but a little above that of Massachusetts,—the two States the most densely inhabited in our own country.

"Many say that the population of China has been exaggerated; and it is variously given at from 282,000,000 to 413,000,000, a very great difference, and you suit yourselves with the figures if you can. Dr. Legge thinks that 400,000,000 is not an over-estimate. The area of the eighteen provinces is[298] 1,336,841 square miles, to which about 15,000 may be added for Formosa; but the area of the whole Chinese empire is 4,218,401, while that of the United States, including Alaska, is 3,501,409.

"If you look at the map, you will see that there are numerous chains of mountains in the countries lying west of China, especially in Tibet, while China proper has but few of them. The land generally slopes from the several ranges to the sea, but I will not perplex you with the names of them. The rivers, of course, flow from the mountains, and you can see that they have space for a long course. They are generally called ho in the north, and chiang or kiang in the south. The Ho, Hoang-ho, or Yellow River, and the Chiang, known to us as the Yang-tsze-Chiang, must be over three thousand miles long. I will not follow them from source to mouth. Canton, or Choo-Chiang River, which means Pearl River, is also a very large stream. All these waterways, you notice on the map, have a general course from west to east. All of them are navigable, though the Hoang-ho is less so than the Yang-tsze-Chiang, the 'most beloved' of the Chinese; for its counterpart in the north is a turbid stream, so tricky that it changed its course in 1853 so that its mouth is now about two hundred and fifty miles north of where it was before that date."

Mr. Gaskette pointed out the former course, which he had indicated by double dotted lines, and that of the present course to the Gulf of Pe-chi-li.[299]

"Chinese history begins twenty-four hundred years before our era, when the first human kings of Egypt were on the throne, with the narrative of a tremendous inundation, which some have identified as that of the Flood in the Old Testament. But the floods did not cease with that event, for several others have followed. As late as 1887, only half a dozen years ago, the treacherous Hoang-ho broke loose, and poured its waters into the populous province of Honan, tearing everything to pieces and destroying millions of lives. There have been so many of these floods that they have given the great river the name of 'China's Sorrow.' But the Manchu rulers are repairing damages, and providing against such disasters in the future.

"I have to speak next about the Grand Canal and the Great Wall; but I will defer it for half an hour for a recess, for I think you must be tired of the dry details I have been giving you," said the professor, as he stepped down from the rostrum.

The company then promenaded the deck for the time indicated.[300]

CHAPTER XXXII THE CONTINUATION OF THE LECTURE

A walk of half an hour had freshened up the minds and bodies of the passengers, and they took their places on the promenade for the continuation of the lecture. The professor had been to his stateroom, and returned with additional notes.

"Dr. Legge quotes Marco Polo, the greatest traveller of the Middle Ages, who visited China in the thirteenth century," the speaker began, taking a paper from the table, and reading as follows in regard to the Grand Canal: "'Kublâi caused a water communication to be made in the shape of a wide and deep channel dug between stream and stream, between lake and lake, forming as it were a great river on which large vessels can ply.' Kublâi was the first sovereign of one of the old dynasties.

"The canal extended from Peking, the capital, in the north, to the south of the empire, a distance of six hundred miles; and it was in use all