Directory_and_Chronicle_1842 — Page 101

1842.

Sketches of China

63

this last phrase. That of " Hung king" is taken, we believe, from Ross's chart, to which the names were supplied by a comprador-inter- preter, not too anxious to be correct, so long as he could find an answer that would satisfy his employers.

But these are small errors-if indeed errors they be; and con- sidering the subject, and the occasion, on which it has been written no one could have produced a better book than Mr. Davis; and though it be six-and-twenty years since he made 'the inland journey,' his sketches are, on that account, none the less vivid, nor his remarks any the less accurate. Parts of the Journal we read several years ago; but the two volumes, with the map, as they now appear-correct- ed and enlivened with a variety of incidents-do no discredit to the author of “The Chinese." A more ill-judged and badly conducted mission was never, perhaps, set on foot than that in question. Of this Mr. Davis seems to have been conscious, though he does not venture to say so. His views of its general policy are plainly enough expressed in the following paragraphs.

"It was indeed lucky that we had brought a good supply of provisions of all kinds, as those supplied to us by the emperor's ngan-tien, or bounty, were totally unworthy of the occasion. There is reason to attribute this chiefly to peculation on the part of the purveyors. Neither of the officers, or conductors, showed the least attention in visiting the embassador at our occasional places of stoppage, as we had been led to expect from the ac- counts of the former mission. From whatever cause it might arise, there seemed to exist a decided ill-will towards us; and as the authorities at Can- ton had good reason to apprehend that we went as complainants against them- selves, it appeared probable that their influence at Peking had prejudiced our cause there. The near approach of the mission to Tientsin was likely to bring the question of ceremonials into iminediate discussion, and there could be no doubt of its being required of the embassador that he should make the nine prostrations before the emperor's imagined presence. Among expe- rienced and well-informed people no two opinions could exist on this subject; and the most determined refusal seemed absolutely necessary, with the pre- cedent of the last mission before us. My own persuasion (founded on the import which the kotow hears among the Chinese themselves) was, that even before the emperor himself such an act of homage should be considered as impossible from the representative of our sovereign. Similar reasons led me to wish that the inscription kung-sz', "tribute-bearer," had not been allowed to be suspended from the mast of the embassador's yacht, in confor- inity with the precedent of the last embassy. The Chinese histories observe of the conduct of an emperor of the Sung dynasty, who concluded a peace with the Tartars on humiliating terms, that he sham fully made use, in the treaty, of the word kung (tribute).' We might perhaps have required that our own flag should supply the place of the other, without making the propriety