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THE following extracts from
letters written by Dr Legge's second wife, whom he married during a visit to
England, incidentally throw light upon their surroundings, on the daily life
amid which he carried on his twofold work as missionary and scholar, and on
the precarious conditions of travel and life in the East. These letters were
written hurriedly, amid the press of daily duties, and often in much
suffering from distressing headache and weakness.
'We make our home as English
as possible, which means, as comfortable as possible in this far-off land. I
think it is this element in it which has brought us so many visitors,
especially evening visitors; we rarely sit down to tea with less than six
besides ourselves, often double that number. The rooms are so spacious that
they are never crowded. But I have invited twenty soldiers to tea on
Wednesday; these will help to fill up, with ourselves and the full
complement of friends who may come in.
'It is the fashion here for
every visitor to bring his own servant to wait at table, so with our
numerous visitors we have frequently as many as half a dozen standing round.
Mr L-had his turbaned Hindoo, Mrs T-her Portuguese, and we our two Chinese,
besides others who happen to belong to other friends. They are excellent in
their way, noticing every want, so that you would not think of handing
anything even to the person who sits next you. ... A thousand little matters
from day to day occupy the time, in the midst of which the bell rings, and
A-gong or A-fat brings up somebody's card.
'The visitor is announced,
either a lady dressed grandly (for the fashions are out here six weeks after
their appearance in Paris), or a military or naval officer, or chaplain in
the army, or some young man just come out bringing a letter of introduction,
or some adventurous female en route for Japan, or some new missionary just
arrived from America on the way north, or some of our more intimate friends,
or Chinese to say "chin-chin" ("How do you do?"). About half-past five we go
out in chairs. Each chair is carried by two coolies, who seem wonderfully
adapted to carry for a considerable distance without halting. Sometimes we
take a row in a boat.
'Last Thursday Mr Beecher,
brother of Mrs Beecher Stowe (authoress of Uncle Tom's Cabin), invited us on
board a twelve-oared boat, and we crossed the harbour to the mainland, then
got our chairs (which had been carried over in another boat), and made for
the two military camps. We were met by Major Eagers, who gave us refreshment
and conducted us all round. He and a lieutenant escorted us back to our boat
by way of two villages inhabited entirely by pirates. A number of dogs, like
wolves, rushed out, but were kept back by the inhabitants, who are always
awed by red-coats. The pigs everywhere seemed to fraternise with the people,
and filth reigned supreme. Our sailors rowed us to Mr Beecher's "chop" (a
floating-house), and here we had quite a set-out of pure Japanese tea, which
has a strong and fragrant flavour but no colour. Mr Beecher says his
greatest and almost his only comfort is to spend one or two evenings a week
at our house. The majority of white people here are men who have few social
and no domestic pleasures, and with most who come it is almost, they say,
like coming to a paradise out of the world, for their only other recreations
are either the club-house or mess-room; there are here no lectures,
concerts, etc. I think that with some their only hold on religion, humanly
speaking, has been the privilege of coming and spending an occasional
evening at the mission-house. Dr Legge has services every evening but
Wednesday, but they are over at eight o'clock. We have now staying here a
lady, Miss Aldersey, who has kept a missionary school at Ning-po for twenty
years. She has such a beautiful, angelic countenance; a spiritual influence
goes along with her. She is one of those women in whom "pious wishes dwell
like prayers, and every image is a saint."
Hong Kong has been brimful of
soldiers, and the harbour of ships. Tents on any bit of level ground. The
Sikh regiments were very fine. I went over one day to see them; it was a
most picturesque and animated scene; each man had his war-horse. I went
through in my chair, and we passed the sacred bull they had brought with
them. The Queen's Road is crowded with persons of almost every clime and
costume.
Yesterday we were kept in
continual uproar by a Chinese wedding, which takes place in this
neighbourhood oftener than we desire. Through the night previous and on the
wedding-day there are tremendous explosions of crackers. A grand Chinese
chair is brought for the bride, another for the mother, also lanterns and
streamers. A crowd collects, and the greatest excitement prevails, in the
midst of which, after explosions of crackers, a company dressed as priests,
clad in scarlet, appears. But what most strikes you is the rudeness of the
ceremony. These mock priests, clad in scarlet, wear trousers which may be
denominated filthy, and no shoes or stockings. They make a clatter with
their instruments of music, and the procession moves off. At night the bride
arrives, and has to wait in her chair outside while her husband dines with
his friends. She has to wait a long time, and then, in the midst of a
fearful volley of crackers, she goes into the house, and the first thing she
does is to hand food to her husband and his parents as a token of
subjection.'
'We had a delightful drive on
the sea-coast, the scenery wild and sublime, in some places exquisitely
beautiful. The Swiss and French friends lately staying with us were quite
enchanted. We passed a Joss House, much frequented by the sampan (boat) men
and women. We went in, and nothing shows so much the low intellectual
stature of the heathen as do these temples. One would imagine the
arrangements had been the product of some infantile brain, rather than the
product of a fully developed capacity. In a rude box of wood, filled with
mould, is placed a shabby senseless-looking doll; round it are stuck spills
made of a wood that will smoulder when lighted, and behind the idol is a
stick (similar to those used to tie plants to in England), and at the top of
this a dirty piece of rag is fastened. The food put before it consists only
of a little rice and liquid tea, each contained in a common little gallipot
black with dirt. These boxes and things similar are mixed up in the house
side by side with grand lanterns, etc. Squalid wretchedness characterises
the appearance of the men who live in it; it is black with dirt and smoke,
and the odour is offensive.'
On Monday there walked into
the house, carpet-hags, goloshes, umbrellas, four American missionaries, and
one child. The next morning came another addition in the person of Miss B-,
a most remarkable woman. Next, Dr Chalmers' brother arrived—then Dr Wong,
the Chinese physician from Canton. So we have had all this week nine
visitors besides Mr Turner; no joke when living is more expensive here than
in any other part of the world.'
'Bustle was everywhere
downstairs, for we had to entertain to dinner between one and two hundred
Chinese. At 4 p.m. about sixty Chinese women and children came upstairs into
the drawing-room, and were entertained till five. They then went into the
school-room downstairs, and the men into the lecture-room; about 130 Chinese
altogether. There were in each room perhaps about a dozen tables with bamboo
seats round, and on the tables some twenty cups containing so many different
kinds of fruits. There were perhaps thirty courses, each course containing a
dozen different things—every nasty thing you can imagine, and every nice
thing made nasty. Everyone had chopsticks and a tiny cup, with a little
tea-pot containing a spirit obtained from rice. Sye-po (brother of the
Shield King and our head servant) seemed very desirous that I should honour
his table, and I sat down and took on a chopstick a bit of pine-apple, then
a bit of hard pear; then I had to put the spirit to my mouth and drink
healths. I went to several of the tables, at which they seemed mightily
pleased. Mr Turner stood on a stool and proposed our health, which they
drank with three cheers, Mr Turner instructing them. They laughed
immoderately. The dinner lasted three hours—oh! the mosquitoes—and then they
dispersed.
'A young fellow has just
arrived from Shanghai. When he started the suburbs of Shanghai were in a
blaze. The English have fortified the place to the utmost. We are expecting
a shipload of ladies down.
'We had a letter from the
Shield King (cousin of the Tai-ping king). He congratulates Dr Legge on our
marriage. He has sent about a dozen letters, all in yellow (imperial colour)
for different friends. Sye-po, his brother, went very anxiously yesterday to
Canton to bring his wife and family here, and to bring his brother's wife
and family. If the authorities know, all their heads will be cut off, for it
is a law in China to cut off all tainted (meaning blood), disloyal to the
remotest cousin. I enclose a letter I have received from the seat of war. Dr
Legge has written an account of Sye-po's brother, the Shield King, for a
newspaper. I have a note from Lady Grant, who is much interested in the
rebel movement. She wishes the paper to be sent to her husband, Sir Hope
Grant.
'Sye-po went to Canton to
fetch his wife and family here, and they lived here in poverty till the
Shield King sent him five thousand dollars, and so he has left our service
only lately and taken a house in Hong Kong. I believe he is very grateful to
me.'
The following to Dr Legge
when he was called to a work of possible danger:—
'I know you are farthest from
being a fanatic or a mere enthusiast, but you have the martyr spirit in you,
and if circumstances arise in which you may think it your duty to go, you
would go at all hazards into danger. I try to hope in God for you, and I
have hope and confidence in you that you will act with the greatest
prudence, unless necessity were laid upon you. You have been in China in
times of danger before, and I must think that the good hand of God will be
upon you as heretofore. But the thing has haunted me like a nightmare.'
The following letter speaks
graphically of the river-population of China and of the so-called 'outcast
square' of Canton :—
'We went for a few days to
Canton by the "White Cloud" steamer. Nearing Whampoa two pagodas rose up in
majesty. They are supposed to exert an influence on the spirits of the winds
and storms. The conception of the pagoda is grand. It gives an idea of power
and of oriental magnificence in connection with the mind of a Chinese.
Whampoa is an aggregate of ships, chops or floating houses, Chinese junks
and sampans or flat-bottomed boats. We passed a dense crowd of sampans, in
which exist an indescribable mass of human beings. Some of their boats
crowded round us, wedged into each other and right underneath our vessel.
'Next day we arranged to
visit Pun-tin-qua's garden. We sailed up a stream which cannot be described.
For a mile or two it seemed just wide enough for our boat to steer between
the sampans which filled up the intervening waters on each side and in which
the inhabitants squat and vegetate as weeds in a jungle. There were no
river-banks, not even a footpath, only logs driven into the bed of the
stream on which rested human habitations, black with filth, the smoke and
oil diffusing malodorous particles, the open doors or crevices revealing
only unmitigated squalor. Sometimes a human head and sometimes a pig would
be peering out. The gentler sex could be distinguished only by their
diminutiveness and old look. Every one of these hovels teemed with
life—human life, and doubtless life of various kinds. The air was heavy and
pestiferous, and, as if in provoking contrast, that line of Tennyson would
keep prominent in my mind—
"Through walls of shadowy
granite in a gleaming pass."
Glad were we when we suddenly
emerged into open day and a purer atmosphere, for there are no suburbs to
Canton, no villa residences.
'The country is flat, nothing
noticeable but the white cloud mountain and the river Pearl winding its way
through the plain. We stopped, and under the shadow of the Li-chao ascended
the steps into the garden. The foliage was luxuriant, but flowers scarce^
except a magnificent bed of lotus in full bloom. The walks and terraces,
bridges, arbours and the pagoda, if kept in good order, could be made a
paradise. It might be called a Chinese Arcadia in decay. Pun-tin-qua has
vacated the place and left it in neglect since some French officers
despoiled his wife and daughters of apparel and jewellery, and took all
portable curios. But the house still contains fine massive furniture,
tapestries, lamps and fittings. The theatre is large and separated from the
stage by a stream running between and through the apartment The attendants
brought us water to drink in a basin. A snake about three feet long
intercepted our path, setting itself up and shooting out its tongue with a
hiss.
'We returned by the Pearl, a
right royal river, but blackened over with sampans and junks, reeking with
grease and filth, and wretchedness: at night it resembled a river of
Pandemonium. Some of the largest sampans were brilliantly painted, and the
Mandarin junks were superior in colour and cleanliness to the others. Some
were illuminated with lanterns for an evening's revelry and gambling. The
boats have a large eye painted on them: "No got eye, no can see, no can see,
no can savvy, no can savvy, no can go." Everywhere were scenes, sights and
sounds one would never wish to see or think of again, unless at the call of
duty. Yet every sampan and junk into which I looked contained at one end a
shrine or altar before which one or more lamps were burning, and food spread
out as an offering. Whatever we may call this, idolatry or superstition or
religion, it signifies on the people's part a feeling of dependence on some
higher power, and, though groping in darkness, they do the best they can.
'Next day we went in chairs,
three and two men to a chair. They began a heathenish half shout, half yell,
which I afterwards understood was commenced by the first and carried through
to the last to give notice of what lay before them. "A hill, a bridge, a
step, a corner, accompanied with "Make way, great man coming," and only a
few retorts from the populace of " foreign devil," and " foreign devil's
wife.' With the swiftness of a dromedary we passed through one lane after
another, and the impression was even worse than that of the day before.
Streets— miscalled streets, for there was carriage road in none —they were
mostly just wide enough to get along, the people compressing themselves to
the side or into a shop door. To turn the corner was quite a feat, the
coolies had to get into the shops and with difficulty clear the poles. The
buildings looked black and dirty, and seemed built to exclude light and air;
opposite sides of the street would be in the upper story sometimes not one
yard apart. Each lane would have in it shops all of one trade or nearly so;
the shoe, dress and ivory shops were less squalid than the fish, fruit and
meat shops, etc., in which teemed human beings in a state of more than half
nudity.
'The odour of 'bones and
relics carnal' would have been sweet compared to the aroma which we inhaled.
Sometimes we came into a square, which was only a larger space, where were
squatted pell-mell individuals selling various commodities, most of which,
in conjunction with their belongings, would be rightly called disgusting.
One square is the place of resort for outcast wretches who, having no home
and no friend, crawl hither to die. The lame, the blind, the leper, the
afflicted of any disease lie down uncared for, and unbemoaned, to await
their final doom. Would not death be to them "the dearest friend, the
kindest and the best?" When we arrived at the temple a crowd came around us.
Presently a priest appeared, dressed in the elegant cloak like a Roman toga,
his head shaven, and priest and people followed at our heels, while we
surveyed the rude emblems of heathenism. The 500 Worthies are 500 statues as
large as life, not two alike. They seem to be bronze, but are made of some
composition, and lacquered to resemble that metal. One represented an
immensely stout man with children climbing all about him. Again the rudeness
of the arrangements struck me so forcibly. In cathedrals at home everything
offensive to the eye is put out of sight Here there is no study of effect;
unwieldy painted bedizened idols, splendid new embroideries, faded old
ditto, food, parcels neatly done up in paper containing presents for the
gods, cumshaws from persons who suppose they have received some special
benefit: these are jumbled side by side with smoky black fans and old empty
boxes. Dirty wooden stairs come down into what we should call the grand
nave; and you are not supposed to look at the ceiling, where are things
worse than brushes and dustpans, which if they did not improve the effect,
would at least suggest a cleanly idea. The Chinese seem to have no idea of
the feeling of reverence in connection with their gods. It is characteristic
of a Chinaman to agree with all you say—this from want of reflection. The
gifts which Christianity brings include the reflective faculty.
'We passed, in returning to
our chairs, the great bell through which a bullet had passed. The legend ran
that so long as it was untouched the city would not be taken; when our fire
struck it, all hope was lost We called on Mr Parkes at his residence, the Ya
Moon, which was formerly the residence of the Tartar governor. Mr Parkes is
Commissioner and ConsuL He showed us the grounds, which are like a park. We
ascended the pagoda, and had a magnificent panoramic view. An immense plain
bounded by lofty mountains, the Pearl spreading its broad arms, and winding
into the dim distance, paddy fields and meadows, with here and there a few
trees, and well-cultivated gardens. The city of Canton, a most perfect fiat,
lay as complete as a parcel, with three or four breaks, where the Ya Moon
and the principal temples stand. They looked with their fine trees like
oases in the desert of huts.
4 Out at dinner last Tuesday.
We met the Governor and Lady Robinson, Major Fane of Fane's Horse,— the
magnificent Sikh cavalry, and others. There were, I suppose, some thousand
pounds' worth of curios in the rooms. The other day a large bronze urn was
sent to be interpreted. Dr Legge discovered it to be 3700 years old.
'We have come for a change to
Castle-Douglas at Pok-foo-lum. Our room is an octagon, with windows in seven
sides, and a door in the eighth. The wind sweeps down the valley behind, and
in from the sea in front, and all night long it whirls round the turrets and
toils at the Venetians, as if a host of hard-breathing giants were trying to
break in upon us.
'There are such robberies by
armed bands of ruffians continually taking place; they come thirty and forty
together, so that it is not safe to wander unprotected in lonely parts of
the island. Hundreds are landed every day for no other purpose but plunder.
'You know the mountain
towering just above Hong Kong is called the a Peak." Mr Coffin went up about
a month ago to stay with the signalman, just as we did last year. We slept
then with the doors open, but they fastened them. Well, one night they were
awakened by a loud noise breaking in the Venetians, the doors were forced
open, and some "stink-pots" thrown in. These are shells that explode, and
produce such a horrible smell that it suffocates people, besides burning
them, as the shells contain gunpowder. The signalman was all but killed, and
is lying in the hospital. Mr Coffin has been very ill ever since, but was
not so severely injured. What should we have done if an attack had been made
upon us!
'A-yaou's mother has been
brought here very ill of fever. I had to wash her from head to foot in hot
vinegar and water and change her clothes, for I could not get a Chinese to
touch her. They are so superstitious about dead people. A-mooey told me that
when a child is very ill, and the mother thinks it is going to die, she will
throw it into a corner, and not go near it.
'1 have been to see Mrs
Eastlake and Franky after their terrible voyage; to see them with my own
eyes, and to be sure it was not their ghosts.
'Little Franky looks two
years older, and has got so thin. They were very gay in the ship till ten
o'clock at night, and then went to bed and asleep, and were awakened about
twelve by the scraping and heaving of the vessel. It had struck upon a rock.
They waited for hours. The captain said they were to put on their warmest
clothes, and be ready any moment to come when he called. Then the three
boats were lowered. In the captain's boat were Mrs Eastlake and Franky, Mrs
Abbe and two children, two amahs (nurses) and seamen; making nineteen in the
little boat. They landed, but the natives looked so savage and piratical,
and boats began to spread their sails, that the ladies begged the captain to
commit them to the sea rather than to the horrors of being taken by these
men. So they embarked again and were nine days in this boat; the captain
became delirious, and Mrs Eastlake had to steer the boat herself. They were
wet through. Then they were picked up by a Chinese junk and stowed down in
the vessel with five hundred naked Chinese, and the filth and vermin of all
sorts were past conception; rats continually crawling over them ; and they
were a mass of sores from the bites of the insects. They had only filthy
rice and water, and at the end of thirteen days they reached Tai-gon. They
were taken on board the "Viscount Canning," and two days after Mrs Abbe
died. The others reached Kong Kong on Friday. Dr Eastlake arrived from
Shanghai last night.
'The ship "Maiden Queen" came
in on Monday, having been fifty-four hours on the rocks where Mrs Eastlake
was wrecked. They had to throw 200 tons of cargo overboard. We don't know
yet whether any of our cases are gone. But whether they are or not, we shall
have our share of the loss on the ship's cargo to bear. Dr Legge has £100 of
printing ink on board.
'A-yun (one of the maids) is
the laziest child, besides being untruthful and dishonest. She has never
been betrothed, and her mother is now anxious to get a husband for her. Miss
Baxter's cook was thought of, and he was to stand at a certain door of the
street yesterday while she passed by, and if he liked her face he was to pay
his money and buy her from her mother. But A-yun would not go, so she is
still on my hands.
'We have had more than fifty
soldiers to tpa. I got splendid flowers, and decorated the hanging lamps. I
sat next to a soldier who said, "Ah, we shall never get another minister
like the old man' (meaning Dr Legge). "He's not only pleasant but
fascinating in his way." Another made a speech, and, alluding to the tea in
our drawing-room three years ago, said that from that night he had been made
a new man; for that meeting was like heaven begun upon earth. I played on
the piano and sang "Auld Lang Syne," which brought down thunders of
applause. On Christmas Eve we went to see the Rev. Mr Lechler's Christmas
tree. It was such a setting out, so dark and lonely, with the knowledge that
the roads were infested with thieves and cut-throats. But we crawled along
at a snail's pace. I with my train and Mrs Chalmers with hers, Miss Magrath
and her small-footed girls, Mr Soden and Mr Chalmers as protectors. At last
we got to the house, brimful of Chinese, and the atmosphere corresponding.
We went home with the addition of one lamp to make the darkness visible.
'Mr and Mrs Gulick walked in
one morning and we scarcely knew them. They were married about a month ago,
and three weeks ago started for Tientsin, but their vessel was wrecked;
pirates came up directly and began to knock open everything to get the
contents away before the vessel sank. They were afraid they might be
murdered, which is too often the case, but the pirates treated them very
kindly, and brought them all to Hong Kong. Still they had to give up
everything to them, so we had to clothe them from head to foot. Friends sent
in clothes and they sailed again last Saturday, in a steamer which is taking
troops to the north.
'Dr Legge has gone into the
province with some friends, and I do feel so lonely till his return. The
province is in a most unsettled state, but I trust they will be preserved
from danger. He is obliged to go, or his health would, I fear, quite give
way, for unless he runs away from his work he will do it. His eyes are so
bad. I have not heard from him since a fortnight last Sunday. Though the
house has been full of company, I have felt desolate. I am expecting every
day a bishop from America; so what with Revs., Drs, bishops, children and
ladies, amahs and boys, I am pretty well occupied from morning till night'
[A fortnight later.] 'Dr Legge has returned. Dr Kane told me he was the life
and soul of all'
'A Chinaman called to ask
whether he should get married or not. The parents wanted sixty dollars for
their daughter, ten dollars for cakes, fruit, etc, and two roast pigs on the
third morning after the marriage. "Why," said Dr Legge, "it will cost you
more than one hundred dollars to get married. Have you got the money?" "No,"
was his answer. So he was advised not to think of it.
'1 am kept so constantly
anxious about Dr Legge's health and my own. I think he cannot stand his work
much longer; his sight is dreadfully bad, and he sometimes looks, and is,
nearly blind. And he is so regardless of himself. The general opinion is, he
will soon break up. My own health, too, seems quite broken, and I cannot
stand the summers of Hong Kong. I try and roll my burden upon God. There is
a satisfaction and a joy trusting Him which is above all human joy.
'On Saturday the bishop
returned from his visit of inspection in the north, and I had a dinner party
to meet him.
'Dr Legge had a fall
yesterday which might have been very serious. The doctor came three times
yesterday and did not know till night if any ribs were broken. He was
standing on a chair in the study reaching for books, and a leg broke and
suddenly he fell all his weight on the floor. As is so characteristic of the
Chinese, the servants put the chair for the teacher as usual placing the
broken leg at the corner as if it were all whole.
'Hong Kong is getting into a
dreadfully unsafe state. Two large firms are running steamers in opposition
to and from Canton. They take Chinese for ten cents each. Sometimes over a
thousand Chinese come in one steamer. The most desperate characters are thus
imported every day. Of course many go back again, but it is now unsafe to go
out of the town except in numbers. Many ladies of Hong Kong always carry a
loaded revolver with them which they can fire six times, and others carry M
Penang lawyers, or sticks, or life-preservers. This week our doctor was
walking on the West Road when two men rushed upon him, cut his head open in
three places, and went off with his gold watch and chain, the second of his
stolen within a year. I tell Dr Legge he will be rushed upon for his watch ;
he says, "Sufficient unto the day, my dear."'
Apropos of the allusion to
ladies carrying revolvers, Mrs Legge used to relate that she herself never
ventured to carry one, but that a spirited friend did so, and rather hoped
for an opportunity to use it. One day, seeing a dog among her fowls, she
fired, thinking only to scare it away, as she had very little idea of aim.
The dog, however, tumbled down and lay flat, and feeling that now she must
put the wounded creature out of its misery, she went and knelt down beside
it and fired the remaining shots into its body. Whereupon the dog got up,
shook itself, and ran away.
'Last night, although feeling
very ill, I went with Dr Legge to Government House. It was a brilliant "At
Home." Among the celebrities were Sir Rutherford and Lady Alcock. He is the
best man for Japan. He looks as if he had sense. He had a long talk with my
husband.'
'We are going to Government
House next Thursday. A party of friends is invited to meet Dr Legge, and the
Governor is commissioned by the Home Government to present to him a tea and
coffee service of silver for services rendered to the Colonial Government.'
Mrs Legge paid a visit
shortly after this to Japan for the sake of her health, and was joined there
by Dr Legge.
'We are staying in the
precincts of the Buddhist temple which is under the shadow of the holy tree,
a magnificent camphor. You first reach a part of this house, and then
crossing from the dining-room by the fascinating bridge over a pond, you are
in the other part, the drawing-room, my bedroom, and another large room, too
sacred to be let at any price.
It is the shrine of some
prince whose tablets are on the walls. The whole structure is purely
Japanese. All the floors are matted with four inches of wadding underneath,
so that it is like walking on mattresses. Every night and morning it is just
as if the whole house were coming about one's ears, for then the grand
shutting up or opening takes place. The lacquered and wooden slides or walls
are run along and fixed into grooves. The first night I was terribly
frightened and lay sleepless. Strange noises kept me constantly on the
alert, rats gambolling about the prince's shrine, the rich sonorous bells of
the temple, and now and then a terrible barking of dogs. I had not been
favourably impressed with the looks of the two sworded gentlemen whom I had
met One of them had shown me one of his swords so sharp. I told Mrs Verbeck
(my hostess) I should be frightened, and she said, "Oh, I'll give you a
revolver just to put under your head, and then you have only to show it and
they'll run away; we always sleep with one under ours." Next day I asked Mr
Verbeck to engage a watchman and he has done so. Mrs Verbeck, with her
wonderful unselfishness, has actually had her bed brought down and sleeps
here now with her baby, and with her revolver under her head.
'We are just on the edge of a
hill. I suppose that when the temple was built a few acres of ground were
levelled for it. Splendid trees, the Japanese fir and camphor, the cedar and
wax—and shrubs, tea, azalea, rhododendron and feathery maple, are
everywhere— and then you come to terrace on terrace where the trees are
thicker, and you see first one and then another shrine, and can open the
stone doors just sufficiently to see a cabinet inside, stuffed with paper
charms.
'One night I heard such
strange sounds in the prince's ghostly apartment, that in the morning I
tried the slides and found they would all open to it, and that its outer
slides would open to my touch, so that one whole side of my room had no
fastening whatever. The old priest of the temple has since been pegging them
tight with old nails, but you could easily unfasten any one. There is,
however, really no cause for fear, beyond what might happen in almost any
place, and this I am pretty sure of. Under God's protecting care we are safe
anywhere.
'I had quite a fright this
afternoon while calling at the hotel. A gentleman who had a newspaper in his
hand said, "What a shocking thing that these steamers are lost" "What
steamers?" "Six steamers between Hong Kong and Shanghai." I knew, if all
were well, my dear husband and our little boy, would be in some steamer
between Hong Kong and Shanghai this month, and having had no letters from
him for a month, you may well suppose what a shock it gave me. I looked at
all the papers I could see, and can ascertain that the "Fohkien" (the very
vessel my husband said he should try to come by) went down in twenty
minutes, having struck on a rock, but all the passengers and crew had got
off in boats. The vessel, however, was going to Hong Kong. Two other
vessels, by either of which Dr Legge might have come, have disappeared in a
typhoon, but that was before he could have come, I believe. The names of the
passengers, some of whom I know, are mentioned, and it is feared all of them
are lost. Of the other three I can only make out the names, but the typhoon
took place on the sixth, when Dr Legge hoped to be in Canton.
'The morning after writing
the above my husband walked into the room. I was indeed thankful.'
Many years after, when living
at Oxford, Dr Legge, in a letter to a friend, mentions an incident of this
visit of Mrs Legge to Japan :—
'A wonderful compliment was
once paid me at Nagasaki long ago. My wife, on her arrival, was seated in
the custom-house there on one of her boxes, waiting to get her baggage
examined. A Japanese officer came by, and reading the name on a box, said: "Legge?
Is he the famous translator of the Chinese Classics?" "Yes," was the reply.
"Then your baggage shall all go free." And he sent it off at once. Forgive
me this bit of gossip.' |
