THE CHINA WAR*

Mn. TITACKERLY may say what he likes, but there is a power, or faculty, or union of powers and faculties, in some minds which can only be defined as literary aptitude. It is not mental strength, or in- tellectual breadth, or quickness, or knowledge, or style, or indeed any high quality of any kind, but simply an instinct, without which a man can no more be a successful litterateur than one without ear can be a successful musician. If no such speciality existed, how could able men write on good subjects unreadable books, as they are constantly doing, or how could others describe the most interesting adventures in a style which readers, though longing for those adven- tures, do not know how to tolerate ? How, for example, except by the absence of such a faculty, are we to account for such a book as this Narrative of the Nora China Campaign? Never was there a better subject. The direct interest in the war has not been in any degree exhausted, for we have not had one good account of its inci- dents, while the war itself was crowded with scenes admitting of the most picturesque narrative, and offered at least one unrivalled op- portunity for description. A decent account of Pekin ought of itself to make the fortune of any book ; for it would appeal directly to that quality in an Englishman which we can only define as a geographical imagination, that curious thirst for geographical wonders which circulates a work like Dr. Livingstone s faster than the best new novel. The author is an educated man, with the rare qualification of a thorough acquaintance with Chinese; he was in the thick of the whole campaign, lie saw the destruction of the Summer Palace, he entered Pekin, he followed the whole course of the negotiations, he had, in short, every opportunity a special correspondent might have desired. He writes good readable English, though with a tendency towards the fast school, and yet. with all these qualifications his work is barren and dull to the last degree. It leaves no impression on the mind; of any sort, adds nothing to the reader's knowledge, and affords him no help towards the formation of an opinion. After a careful perusal the reader finds himself possessed of three ideas—that the chiefs of the British army were extremely careful to moderate the evils of war, that Mr. Swinhoe thought them fools for their pains, and that we have not seen the last of Chinese resistance. These ideas may be important enough, especially the last, but they are not those one hopes to obtain from such a work. Two pages by Mr. Russell de- scribing Pekin, or five from Mr. Bowlhy about the villages of the interior, would have been well worth the whole of the information in these four hundred pages. So complete is the absence of novelty that one wonders how it was possible for an observant man to ride so far into China and yet see so little as the writer. The truth is, he has seen enough, but lie possesses no literary aptitude, as witness

i the following paragraph. He is trying to give his readers an idea of the Summer Palace :

"Behind the chief building came the summer park, the extent of wall surround- ing the whole being about twelve miles. Pebbled paths led you through groves of magnificent trees, round lakes into picturesque summer-houses, over fantastic * Narrative of the North China Campaign of 1860. By E. Swinhoe, staff Inter- preter. Smith, Elder, and Co. bridges. As you wandered along herds of deer would amble away from before yon, tossing their antlered heads. Here a solitary building would rise fairy-like from the centre of a lake, reflecting its image on the limpid blue liquid in which it seemed to float, and then a sloping path would carry you into the heart of a mysterious cavern artificially formed of rockery, and leading out on to a grotto in the bosom of another lake. The variety of the picturesque was endless, and charming in the extreme; indeed, all that is most lovely in Chinese scenery, where art contrives to cheat the rude attempts of nature into the bewitching, seemed all associated in these delightful grounds. The resources of the designer appear to have been unending, and no money spared to bring his work to per-

Not one word in that paragraph conveys a definite idea of any sort. What kind of buildings they were, or what it was that art made bewitch- ing, or on what the money was spent, are facts all left in a dim mist of applausive words. On Pekin, Mr. Swinhoe tells us just two distinct facts,—viz.that the population probably. does exceed one million, and that Marco Polo's description of Kublai Khan's palace is " touch- ingly true," the varnished and coloured roof being still there.

Mr. Swinhoe, as we said, bears strong testimony to the desire of the English Generals to leave an impression of English justice and humanity, a desire in which he himself did not participate. At Odin Bay, for example, where the troops were camped for a few days, General Napier ordered that compensation should be granted to all villagers injured. Mr. Swinhoe, accordingly, assembled them, and "Each man was only too eager to make his demand, and when the whole was set on paper I found it amounted to 700 dots. This f handed to the General, remark- ing that as the natives were so absurdly exorbitant in their estimates, the shortest and best plan would be to give them nothing at all. For, on the one hand, we had behaved so leniently to them, and paid them so largely for everything they supplied, that they could not expect any further compensation ; and on the other, whatever sums of money we paid for damage to crops the mandarins would soon be informed of through their numerous spies and through malcontents, and the greater part would be wrested away. But no! the policy of the British Govern- ment was to be lenient and to avoid oppression to the weak; so the poor injured natives would have their rights attended to. Accordingly, the Quartermaster- General was ordered to give each man his just due. The claims being considered, 207 dols. were to be disbursed among the landholders. How each rascal's eyes glistened when his apportioned sum was counted into his hands!"

It is quite possible each of the poor wretches got a little more than his due, though only a third of what he asked; but it is finite certain that a wealthy nation never wasted forts, pounds to better purpose. Mr. Swinhoe seems to forget that stories likethese travel fast among peasants, and that the difference between a hostile and a friendly population involves, in preparations alone, a thousand times the amoirnt the General, by a little proper contempt for human suffering, might have economised. So in dealing for supplies, the Chinese tradei was allowed to haggle as with any other customer, when the price was agreed on, a bit of paper was handed to him, and at the close of the day every such cheque was cashed in silver, paid to the dealer's own hands. No wonder that the commissariat was well supplied. Any army acting on those principles may march through any corner of Southern Asia, and be fed with alacrity by the people. In Chang- ehing-wan a great number of Chinese women were found abandoned by their relatives to ease their flight. Mr. McGhee, chaplain to the forces, immediately turned a native house into an asylum for these poor wretches, who were then collected from all quarters : "A group of females of all ages, from the grey-haired beldame of fifty to the lisping child of two, were huddled together, with small tin boxes of liquid opium by their sides ; some leaned on their hands ; others were prostrate on the floor in unbecoming attitude, their faces ghastly yellow, and their eyes roll- ing wildly in their sockets, while their hands and mouths besmeared with opium-juice told the shocking tale of their attempt at suicide. The more conscious among them started at our entry, and beating their breasts, con- demned the opium for its slow work, crying out, Let na die; we do not wish to live.' They were at once conveyed to the asylum, and placed under the charge of some of the regimental doctors, who kindly volunteered their assistance, and remedies were at once applied to frustrate the effects of the poison. Water was sprinkled on the faces of the wretched patients, and they were kept continually moving about, and before long the majority of them began to give signs of resuscitation. The old gentleman who owned the establish- ment was quite assiduous in his attentions on his self-poisoned countrywomen, and half induced us to change our ideas on the lack of generosity and charity in this heathen land. He rushed about for hot tea and water, and called in an excited manner on his sons to assist him."

In another house the females were alive ; but on their arrival at the asylum,

" On looking into the cart, I discovered the elder woman with a string round one little girl's neck, at the ends of which she was tugging with all her might, with the evident intention of strangling the poor little creature. We soon hurried the old brute out of the cart, and finding the child who had been enduring the pain so patiently without muttering a cry, was not much hurt, set her down and com- menced helping out the rest of the children. When all were out we turned to enter the house, and to our horror found the brutal mother was again in the act of strangling her child."

Had the scene been in Saguntum, Mr. Swinhoe would have pro- nounced the act heroic ; but in China it was only brutal. Acts like these have probably increased the Chinese friendliness, which was observable at most points of the route. Indeed, near Takoo, one pursy old gentleman kindly explained that the Chinese wished nothing so much as to be conquered :

" 1 entered into conversation with a pursy old gentleman with a fat good- natured face. Ah said this worthy, your honoured country has given those Tartars a good thrashing.' Why,' replied I, ' you appear as if you were pleased at the event.' Pleased ! surely I am pleased,' said he ; 'was not the whole of this country groaning with the burden these Tartar rogues imposed on us? What need was there of squeezing the people to build forts for the purpose of driving you away? We felt sure that your ob,ject in coming here was for the purposes of trade, and surely that was a boon for both countries! But these Tartars, who acquired this country themselves by treachery, are naturally jealous of the advance of every other nation, because they are suspicious, and think that the main object of all other people is to wrest away from them by treachery what they won by the same base means.'"

Chinese, like other Asiatics, can lie hard; but many facts seem to indicate that they have no special objection to our rule, which they

meet both in Singapore and Calcutta, and which, owing to their system of governing their municipal affairs through secret societies, presses upon them with remarkable lightness. The way to improve that disposition is not, however, to be found in suinquenuial repeti- tions of scenes like these. The army had occupied Pehtaug merely en paszant:

"The few natives that dill lingered by their unusurped domiciles quietly watched with the eye of despair the destruction of all the property they possessed in the world, and the ruin of their hopes perhaps for ever. A few, both men and wo- men, committed suicide, but the majority quietly escaped to the neighbouring villages, and many others were still to be seen retiring from the scene of de- struction with their packs of worldly goods on their backs; but I grieve to say that even these Door wretches did not pass away scathless. As soon as they

reached the beyond the village, they were met by prowling soldiers, who had watched for t • em, and made to exhibit the contents of their packs before they were allowed to depart in peace. . . . It certainly seemed hard against the poor villagers to be thus deprived of their houses and property, when they had shown us no resistance or hostility, but it was evidently a matter of pure neces- sity. The army must have shelter in such a climate and such a country, and a depot must be formed. They had, therefore, no one actually to blame but their rulers, in not having given them timely warning to clear out in the unpro. tected state they were left; and if they had been warned and did not accept the warning, they had none to blame but their own pig-headed obstinacy in not having removed, at the first arrival of the ships, which they could plainly see from the land, all the goods and chattels that they cared to preserve. . . Fortunately most of the women had been carried away, and so few cases of vio- lence occurred."

Only a few, the people obviously having been too pig-headed to re- move their women either. With that paragraph we think we might quit one of the most unsatisfactory books we ever perused, but that we feel bound in justice to our gallant allies to extract the following story. The French were in the 'Emperor's private room, and

" The greater part of the curiosities lay about these rooms, and we proceeded to examine them as we would the curiosities of. a museum, when, to our astonish.. ment, the French officers commenced to arracher everything they took a fancy to. Gold watches and small valuables were whipped up by these gentlemen with amazing velocity, and as speedily disappeared into their capacious pockets.

" After allowing his people to load themselves as fast as they could for about ten minutes, the General insisted upon them all following him out, and kept on repeating that looting was strictly prohibited, and he would not allow it, although his officers were doing it without any reserve before his own eyes. He then told the Brigadier that nothing should be touched until Sir Hope Grant arrived- Just as we were walking out of the chief gateway an officer accosted the General, and informed him that they had caught a Chinese stealing a pair of old shoes out of the imperial grounds. ' Bring him here!' said the indignant General. Have we not said that looting is strictly forbidden?' The prisoner came forward trembling, and the gallant general exhausted his wrath with his cane about the shoulders of this luckless scapegoat."