Streets Choked Up With
Household Goods And The Costly Contents Of Shops, Treasured Books And
Nick-Nacks Lying On The
Dusty pavements, with beds, pictures,
clothing, mirrors, goods of all sorts; Chinamen dragging their
possessions to the hills; Chinawomen, some
Of them with hoofs rather
than feet, carrying their children on their backs and under their arms;
officers, black with smoke, working at the hose like firemen; parties
of troops marching as steadily as on parade, or keeping guard in
perilous places; Mr. Pope Henessey, the Governor, ubiquitous in a chair
with four scarlet bearers; men belonging to the insurance companies
running about with drawn swords; the miscellaneous population running
hither and thither; loud and frequent explosions; heavy crashes as of
tottering walls, and, above all, the loud bell of the Romish cathedral
tolling rapidly, calling to work or prayer, made a scene of intense
excitement; while utterly unmoved, in grand Oriental calm (or apathy),
with the waves of tumult breaking round their feet, stood Sikh
sentries, majestic men, with swarthy faces and great, crimson turbans.
Through the encumbered streets and up grand flights of stairs my
bearers brought me to these picturesque grounds, which were covered
over with furniture and goods of all descriptions brought hither for
safety, and Chinese families camping out among them. Indeed, the Bishop
and Mrs. Burdon had not only thrown open their beautiful grounds to
these poor people, but had accommodated some Chinese families in rooms
in the palace under their own. The apathy or calm of the Chinese women
as they sat houseless amidst their possessions was very striking. In
the broad, covered corridor which runs round the palace everything the
Burdons most value was lying ready for instantaneous removal, and I was
warned not to unpack or take off my traveling dress. The Bishop and I
at once went down to the fire, which was got under, and saw the wreck
of the city and the houseless people camping out among the things they
had saved. Fire was still burning or smouldering everywhere, high walls
were falling, hose were playing on mountains of smouldering timber,
whole streets were blocked with masses of fallen brick and stone,
charred telegraph poles and fused wires were lying about, with half
burned ledgers and half burned everything. The colored population
exceeds one hundred and fifty-two thousand souls, and only those who
know the Babel which an eastern crowd is capable of making under
ordinary circumstances can imagine what the deafening din of human
tongues was under these very extraordinary ones. In the prison, which
was threatened by the flames, were over eight hundred ruffians of all
nations, and it was held by one hundred soldiers with ten rounds of
ammunition each, prepared to convey the criminals to a place of safety
and to shoot any who attempted to escape. The dread of these
miscreants, which was everywhere expressed, is not unreasonable, for
the position of Victoria, and the freedom and protection afforded by
our laws, together with the present Governor's known sympathies with
colored people, have attracted here thousands of the scum of Canton and
other Chinese cities, to say nothing of a mass of European and Asiatic
ruffianism, much of which is at all times percolating through the
magnificent Victoria prison.
On returning, I was just beginning to unpack when the flames burst out
again. It was luridly grand in the twilight, the tongues of flame
lapping up house after house, the jets of flame loaded with blazing
fragments, the explosions, each one succeeded by a burst of flame,
carrying high into the air all sorts of projectiles, beams and rafters
paraffine soaked, strewing them over the doomed city, the leaping
flames coming nearer and nearer, the great volumes of smoke,
spark-laden, rolling toward us, all mingling with a din indescribable.
Burning fragments shortly fell on the window-sills, and as the wind was
very strong and setting this way, there seemed so little prospect of
the palace being saved that important papers were sent to the cathedral
and several of the refugees fled with their things to the hills. At
that moment the wind changed, and the great drift of flame and smoke
was carried in a comparatively harmless direction, the fire was got
well in hand the second time, the official quarter was saved, and
before 10 P.M. we were able for the first time since my arrival at
mid-day to sit down to food.
Most people seem much upset as well from personal peril as from
sympathy, and all parties and picnics for two days were given up. Even
the newspapers did not come out this morning, the types of one of them
being in this garden. The city is now patrolled night and day by strong
parties of marines and Sikhs, for both the disposition to loot and the
facilities for looting are very great.
I. L. B.
LETTER II
A Delightful Climate - Imprisoned Fever Germs - "Pidjun" English - Hong
Kong Harbor - Prosperity of Hong Kong - Rampageous Criminal
Classes - Circumspice!
THE PALACE, VICTORIA, December 29.
I like and admire Victoria. It is so pleasant to come in from the dark,
misty, coarse, loud-tongued Pacific, and the December colorlessness of
Japan to bright blue waters crisped by a perpetual north wind - to the
flaming hills of the Asian mainland, which are red in the early
morning, redder in the glow of noon, and pass away in the glorious
sunsets through ruby and vermilion into an amethyst haze, deepening
into the purple of a tropic night, when the vast expanse of sky which
is seen from this high elevation is literally one blaze of stars.
Though they are by no means to be seen in perfection, there are here
many things that I love, - bananas, poinsettias, papayas, tree-ferns,
dendrobiums, dracenas, the scarlet passion-flower, the spurious banyan,
date, sago, and traveler's palms, and numberless other trees and
shrubs, children of the burning sun of the tropics, carefully watered
and tended, but exotics after all.
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