River of Smoke - Amitav Ghosh [129]
When Neel entered this part of the house the womenfolk would disappear, but the children, of whom there were many, would remain. Often Neel would see faces he had not seen before, and this gave him the impression of an extended family, frequently augmented by visitors: he was not surprised when Compton told him that his ancestral village lay at the mouth of the Pearl River, at Chuenpi, which was why he often had to play host to visiting relatives.
Compton himself was not Canton-born and nor had he grown up in the city. As a boy he had spent much of his time on the water: his father had made his living as a ship’s comprador, and the family had usually spent the trading season travelling between the Bogue and Whampoa, in the wake of foreign vessels.
The job of a ship’s comprador was different from that of a factory comprador; the latter, like the dubashes of India, were responsible for providing supplies to foreign traders after they had taken up residence in Canton. Ships’ compradors were more like ship chandlers, procuring provisions and equipment for the vessels that engaged their services. Unlike factory compradors, who had close links with the merchants of the Co-Hong, ships’ compradors worked on their own and had no powerful patrons to rely on. Theirs was a fiercely competitive business: as a boy, at the start of each season, Compton and his father would take it in turns to keep a lookout for the opium fleet, from a hill near their house. When the first vessel was spotted, they would go running down to the harbour to unmoor the family sampan. Then would begin a wild race against the rest of the bumboat fleet. The first boat to reach the incoming vessels stood the best chance of being taken on as the comprador, especially if the captain happened to be known to the family; if they were quick and lucky, they would secure a contract that would keep them busy for the next several weeks.
Compton’s family had been in the business long enough to be known to the skippers and crews of many foreign ships and some would hire them every time they returned to southern China. Among their oldest and most loyal customers were the vessels of a Boston-based firm, Russell & Co. Through them their family had acquired a large American clientele, many of whom gave them letters of recommendation to show to other American ships; some of their customers stayed in touch with them long after they had stopped sailing, and some even sent them little gifts and tokens with younger seafaring relatives. In this way the family had acquired letters from a Mr Coolidge, a Mr Astor and a Mr Delano, all of whom, they had later discovered, were from families that were of the first importance in America. A Canton trader called William Irving had even given them a book, Tales of the Alhambra written by his uncle, Washington Irving: unfortunately Compton had no memory of this man; to him he was just one amongst hundreds of friendly travellers who had given him lessons in English.
From the time he could walk, Compton had accompanied his father on his visits to foreign vessels. He was a winning child and was always made much of by the seamen and ship’s officers. At Whampoa, where inbound ships had to spend several weeks at anchor, time always hung heavy on the hands of the crewmen and they would amuse themselves by speaking English with the boy. A quick learner, Compton became an invaluable asset to his family, winning them many clients with his fluency. In time this talent also earned him a job at the De Souza print-shop, in Macau. But printing was not all he did there: during his apprenticeship, he had also conceived the idea of combining his knowledge