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By Root 1238 0

in front of every lodging house and store in Chinatown. There was a big table right in the middle of Chinatown too, piled high with offerings of cakes and fruit of every sort, and chickens and ducks and roasted suckling pigs which gleamed golden. At each end of the table were two burners for the “spirit money.” From a distance, the whole street seemed to be wreathed in smoke. At midday, a propitious time chosen according to the lunar calendar, the consul gave a great shout and the orchestra struck up. There were ten master players of the Chinese fiddle, dressed in white gowns, with their instruments swathed in white cloth too. The strings trembled and an almighty wailing issued forth, the high notes ear-splitting and the low notes like dull hammer blows, overwhelming the listeners with waves of melancholy. When the first piece had finished, there was a sudden change in the weather: a chill blast of wind swept the ashes of the paper money in the burners into the air, where they spiralled upward, the column of ash getting thinner as it blew higher, until the very top formed a sharp point which lingered high in the air.

There was consternation among the watching crowds. The consul, a man of mature years and experience, threw himself on his knees in front of the burners and cried loudly: “Great Buddha, our countrymen have died in foreign parts. They suffered numerous injustices, yet today, finally, they can begin the journey home. There they will pay their respects to their ancestors, and will be reunited with their earthly sons and daughters. We beg you to bless them with a fair wind and a smooth sailing. When one spirit is safely home, ten thousand spirits will rejoice.” As he finished speaking and raised his head, the ash plume dispersed and the wind dropped.

In front of the mortuary, eight horses stood harnessed to four open carriages covered in white mourning drapes. The order was given and the horses slowly set off towards the docks, heavily laden with several hundred wooden caskets. As the sound of the horses’ hooves gradually faded into the distance, and nothing remained but a faint puff of dust, some of the spectators could be seen wiping their eyes with their sleeves.

“He bartered some tea for a pair of boots from the Redskins, and gave them short measures. The Redskins beat him up,” Red Hair told Ah-Fat on the way home.

“Who?” asked Ah-Fat.

“Ah-Sing’s cousin.”

Years seven to thirteen of the reign of Guangxu (1881–1887) Province of British Columbia, Canada

This afternoon, five hundred Chinese navvies from Victoria and New Westminster boarded a steamship bound for Port Moody. They are part of the work force which will build the Pacific Railroad. After ten years of intense negotiations within the Canadian Federal Government, work can now begin on the railroad project. In order to cut costs to the minimum, Chief Engineer Andrew Onderdonk has overseen the recruitment of over five thousand navvies from Canton and California. Several thousand more will arrive over the next few months. These figures do not include a significant number of Chinese already living in Victoria who have joined the work teams.

The Pacific Railroad will extend through the precipitous Rocky Mountains of the Fraser Valley region. Here the rocks are of solid granite and all the railroad foundations will have to be hacked out by hand. Between the towns of Yale and Lytton alone, a mere seventeen miles, it will be necessary to hack out thirteen tunnels. In one mile-and-a-half section, four tunnels will be built in quick succession. The coolies will undertake the most dangerous work, pitting human flesh against hard rock.

Within these construction teams, those who blast the rock earn the highest wages, estimated to be four dollars a day. Metal-grinders earn three dollars fifty a day, bridge-building carpenters earn three dollars a day and brick-layers, two dollars fifty to three dollars a day. Wood cutters earn two dollars a day. The least skilled of the workers earn one dollar seventy five per day. Although some among them are hefty and strong,