But I must not go on… I know you are impatient to learn about your camellias and I have kept you waiting long enough.
Unfortunately, my dear Puggly, it took inordinately long to hear back from Punhyqua, the Hongist, because he has removed to his country estate, for a change of air! But yesterday Jacqua told me that Punhyqua had at last sent a letter, asking that we visit him at his country retreat, which is on Honam Island. And so we went this morning
… and that is why I have set myself down to write to you this very day, because I knew that if I did not get to it at once, I would be overwhelmed, and might never summon the energy to do it – for it was all exceedingly strange and wonderful and new! Even the boat we went in was of a kind I would never have imagined that I would ever step on of my own accord – for it was a coracle! These are round shells, made of plaited reeds and straw: they are often to be seen on the Pearl River, spinning giddily across the water with children clinging on inside, looking as if they were being swept away in a giant basket. In ours there were no children but instead two young women, each armed with an oar. This too is a common sight in Canton, for many of the boats on the river are handled by girls and women – and you must not imagine these females to be delicate, foot-bound creatures, too timid to look a man in the eye. They are absolute harpies and will say things that bring a blush to the cheeks of the most hardened Tars. The tenor of their raillery will be clear to you when you learn what they said to me as I came aboard. Needless to say, coracles are extremely unsteady and when you step in they lurch violently under your weight. To save myself from falling in the water I had to fling an arm around one of the girls. Far from being outraged she gave a great shriek of laughter and said: ‘Na! Na! Morning-time no makee like so. Mandarin see, he squeegee me. Wait litto bit. Nightee time come, no man can see!’ Then there followed gales of laughter and they kept on teasing me in the most shameless way – yet, all this while, our little craft was spinning through the floating city, and all around us were tea-boats and rice-boats and sampans, moored so as to form streets and lanes.
Winding through these waterways, we emerged into the channel that is kept open in mid-stream to permit the flow of traffic: suddenly we were darting past ponderous barges and enormous pole-junks, stacked high with bamboo. It seemed impossible that we should evade a collision and I clung so tightly to the sides of the coracle that my knuckles turned a deathly white – but our two oarswomen were so utterly insensible to the perils around us that from time to time, even as they were rowing and steering, they would cool their faces with their fans.
Honam is on the other bank of the river. I think I have mentioned this island to you before; it lies opposite the city of Canton and is of considerable size, extending sixteen miles from end to end. Jacqua told me that there are some who believe the island should be called not Honam but Honan – which is the name of another province in China. As with everything here, there is a complicated story behind it, something about a mandarin who caused snow to fall on the island by planting pine trees from Honan. It sounds most unlikely – but I think perhaps the story is meant to point to the contrast between the two banks of the river, which is indeed so marked that they might well belong to different provinces. The north bank, where Canton lies, is as crowded a stretch of land as you will ever see, with houses, walls, bustees and galis extending for miles into the distance; Honam, by contrast, is like a vast park, green and wooded: several small creeks and streams cut through it and their shores are dotted with monasteries, nurseries, orchards, pagodas and picturesque little villages.
Our destination lay deep in the interior of the island and to get there we had to turn into a winding creek. Presently, while passing through a stretch of jungle, we came to a jetty, projecting out of a muddy bank. The place is desolate, with no habitation anywhere in sight, but here you must leave your boat and follow a winding path that leads into the forested interior of the island. Then you come to a long wall, shaped like a wave and extending into the far distance. There is only a single gateway in sight, circular in shape, like a full moon. Placed in front of it is an arrangement of feathery pine trees and utterly fantastical boulders: to look at them you would think they were anthills, they are pierced with so many holes and hollows and fissures – but they are grey in colour and their appearance is created not by insects but by the action of water.
The gate was locked and while we were standing outside, waiting to be let in, I learnt from Jacqua that Punhyqua’s estate is regarded as a fine example of the southern style of garden-making. You can imagine, Puggly dear, the eager expectation with which I slipped through that circular portal – and indeed it was as if I had arrived in some other kingdom, a place of the most extravagant fantasy: there were winding streams, spanned by hump-backed bridges; lakes with islands on which dainty little follies sat precariously perched; there were halls and pavilions of many sizes, some large enough to accommodate a hundred people and some in which no more than one person could sit. The trees too were fantastically varied, some tall and sturdy, soaring proud and erect; some tiny and stunted with their branches trained as if to illustrate the flow of the wind. At every turn there was a new perspective to baffle and delight the eye: it was as if the very ground had been shaped and contorted to create illusory vistas.
Suddenly I understood why Chinese artists paint landscapes on scrolls: you would see nothing of a garden like this if you painted it in perspective. On a scroll it would unfold in front of you, from top to bottom, like a story – you would see it like it happened; it would unroll before your gaze as if you were walking through it.
And then, Puggly dear, I had an idea, a Notion, that froze me in my steps. Should my epic painting be a scroll instead? (Of course I would have to find a fitting name for it, since an ‘epic scroll’ does not sound quite right, does it?) But is it not a stroke of Genius? Events, people, faces, scenes would unroll as they happened: it will be something New and Revolutionary – it could make my reputation and establish me for ever in the Pantheon of Artists…
You will understand, my dear Puggly-wallah, why my mind was in such a tumult that I was aware of nothing else until I entered the presence of our host, Punhyqua.
You must not think I was completely unprepared for the meeting: in the days preceding I had been to some trouble to inform myself about this magnate. His family, Zadig Bey had told me, has been conducting business in Canton for hundreds of years and one of his ancestors was among the founders of the Co-Hong guild, in the middle years of the last century. Yet they are not from the province of Canton – they hail from another maritime province, Fujian, where lies the port of Amoy – and despite their long residence in the city they are careful to maintain many of the ways and customs of their ancestors. They are now among the wealthiest of the Co-Hong families, and Punhyqua himself has a mandarin’s rank and is entitled to wear certain buttons in his cap: he is said to be a great sensualist, with a vast harem of wives and concubines, and an epicure too, famous for his banquets.
These accounts had led me to wonder whether Punhyqua might not be a little like our Calcutta Nabobs – insufferably conceited and consequential. But I need have had no fear on this score: he is a grandfatherly man with a kindly twinkle in his eyes. There is not a chittack of conceit about him. When we came upon him he was taking his ease in an airy pavilion, with windows of blue and white glass. He was dressed in the simplest way, in a quilted jacket and a robe of plain cotton, and he was lying on a kind of divan, with a little teapoy at his side. He greeted us in the most hospitable way and inquired at some length after Lamqua, and after Jacqua’s family. Then he asked about Mr Chinnery, whom he knows well, having had his portrait painted by him. I happened to express some curiosity about this work, which, like many of Mr Chinnery’s Chinese paintings, was unknown to me, so he had it fetched from his house – and it proved to be one of my Uncle’s finest, executed in his Grand Manner, with many dabs and flourishes.