BARON GROS'S EMBASSY TO CHINA AND JAPAN. * IF publishers were
much in the habit of letting their business transactions be governed by sentimental motives, we should not be so entirely unable, as we confess ourselves to be, to assign any plausible reason for the appearance of M. de Moges's lively but shallow little book in an English dress. It was a mere waste of labour to translate it, except as an act of international courtesy, which indeed would be the more laudable for being wholly gra- tuitous. Although M. de Moges was officially concerned in the proceedings of the French embassy to China and Japan, he writes like a dilettante, and there is little in his gossip that can interest the countrymen of Mr. Oliphant, Captain Sherard Osborne, and Mr. Wingrove Cooke. The most novel thing we find in his no- tice of Tien-tsin is an account of some Chinese cluicatures of the foreign devils with which the latter were greatly amused. " One of them represented a European accoutred after the most outra- geous fashion, buying a hedgehog, working himself into a state of excitement to drive a hard bargain, but at last making the pur- chase with a big bag of money." A capital emblem surely of the nature and results of our diplomacy in China ; it gives us a higher opinion than we had yet conceived of Chinese wit. How often have the rogues made us pay dear for what was worth little, and pricked our fingers when we tried to lay hold on it ! When sail- ing down the Pei-ho after the conclusion of the treaty, M. de Moges picked up a story worth telling :— We passed near the junk of M. Delorisse, the naval officer, who, having charge of the transport service between Tien-tsin and Pecheli, had been for some time living with a few European sailors in the midst of the enemy's country. We learned to our surprise that he had hanged two Chinamen the night before. Two of his sailors had gone on shore in the usual way to buy provisions, and had been attacked at the corner of a street. One of them had received six deadly wounds from a spear. M. Delorisse armed his twelve Europeans, gave his junk in charge to the Chinese crew, and set out in pursuit of the mandarins of the village. He told them that, if they did not deliver up the perpetrators, their own heads would suffer for it. They brought the guilty parties without delay. One was already dead from wounds he had received. The two others were alive. They were hanged from the mast of the junk. A very curious incident, illustrative of Chinese manners, imparted a touch of the ridiculous to this fatal occurrence. Three old men came on board. They had been sent by the relations to offer them- selves as substitutes for the prisoners. They were willing, they said, to be hanged in lieu of those who had committed the offence. They were very much surprised when their offer was refusedby the commander, and inde4 on leaving any one seeing them would have said that they had been badly used by him. Tact their proposal been accepted, they would have obtained a large sum in return for their lives, which would have enriched their rela.' tions for years. They had missed a good bargain in consequence of the childish scruples of. the French officer. These extraordinary' transactions are not uncommonin the history of the Chinese empire, and, indeed, they are closely interwoven with Chinese manners. The English have often • Recollections of Baron Gros's Embassy to China and Japan in 1851-58. By the Marquis de Mooes, Attache to the Mission. (Authorized Translation.) With Coloured Illustratimes. Published by Griffin, London.
been deceived in this way on the Canton river when they have endeavoured to obtain justice from the mandarins for attacks upon their countrymen. In such cases, poor creatures, who had voluntarily taken the place of the mur- derers, and who were perfect12, innocent of the crime, have been executed with great solemnity in presence of the persons appointed by the European authorities to see that the punishment was actually inflicted."
Having finished his business at Tien-tsia, Baron Gros took the opportunity of visiting the Great Wall to ascertain the truth of the statement, that it begins at the seaward near the entrance of the Gulf of Leotung. He found what he sought :—
" We had before us the most interesting and most picturesque scene in China. Along the coast lay a specious plain, covered with rich meadows, and dotted here and there with villages buried in the midst of trees. Farther in the distance, the landscape was bounded by lofty mountains, some of which were abrupt and rocky, while others were wooded and green to their very summits. The general effect was magnificent, and perhaps only to be equalled among the Alpine valleys of Switzerland. The Great Wall gave it an additional charm. Terminating in the sea, covered with bastions and pagodas, and clambering over the wildest and most precipitous crags, it imparted a character to the whole landscape calculated to stir even the most sluggish imagination. At the foot of the Wall, on the Chinese side. we could see the white tents of two Tartar encampments, the horses belonging to which were wandering at large in the surrounding pastures. The landscape, in the golden light of the dawn, was charming Seen from the Chinese side, the Great Wall resembled a huge earthern mound crowned with battlements built of brick. Everywhere, it had an old and dilapidated appearance. In some places, it had been altogether destroyed. On the Mantchoorian side, on the other hand, the Great Wall seemed con- structed of bricks resting upon a basement of stone. It is flanked by square towers throughout its whole length. These are placed at the distance of about two bow-shots, in order that the enemy may be everywhere within range. It descends into the sea in two parallel piers or jetties, which slope so gently that one can ascend to the top from the water flowing between them. The largest ships may approach within two miles of the Wall, and, indeed, it is the very place at which visitors should, in future, dis- embark."
The members of the embassy landed under an escort of a dozen soldiers, for the purpose of exploring the Wall, but their inten- tion was very civily resisted by a force of three hundred Tartar horsemen, whom they could easily have kept at bay with the twelve bayonets of their escort and the revolvers of the civilians ; but the French envoy was unwilling to engage in a quarrel upon a mere matter of curiosity. The French party were astonished to find that their Tartar friends, encamped almost at the gates of the capital, were not even aware of the fact that their government had been at war with France anclEngland. The visit to Japan occupies little more than fifty pages. The most notable thing in it is an account of a misunderstanding oc- casioned by the manner in which the French Envoy entered Yedo in the chair of state he had brought with him from China. The incident is not without interest, as showing how easily Europeans may be led by their ignorance of Japanese peculiarities into giving unintentional offence.
" The evening before, in the historical chair which had figured at Tien- tsin, Baron Gros had made his entrance into the town, carried by eight Japanese Coolies decked out as Chinamen. Now it appears that it is a thing quite unknown in Japan for a native to appear in Chinese garments ; it is an enormity—a violation of all propriety. It is more—it is a crime, On this occasion the unfortunate Coolies were not considered the only guilty parties. Six hundred Japanese officials, who had not prevented the offence, were sentenced to a hundred day's imprisonment S Here, then, was a total of sixty thousand days imprisonment, all on account of this unlucky palan- quin. The ambassador was much annoyed when he heard of this proceed- ing, and took care to get the prisoners immediately liberated. But if a wholesome respect for Japanese legislation had been taught the two hun- dred officers sent by the taleoon to guard and watch us, they had also been alarmed to an extent painful to us, lest we should be found wanting in res- pect for those rites to which the government attached so much importance, without their having it in their power to keep us right."
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