River of Smoke - Amitav Ghosh [181]
‘Inside the walled city?’
‘Possibly. But this was almost five hundred years ago, you understand. The walls were not where they are now.’
‘But it was still possible, was it, for foreigners to venture inside the city?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Zadig Bey, ‘it was only about a hundred years ago that foreigners were banned from entering the city.’
Now once again he pointed his spyglass at the Dutch Folly. ‘When the Netherlanders first came to Canton,’ he said, ‘they needed a place to set up warehouses, just as the Portuguese had done in Macau. They were given that little island, so then they asked if they could build a hospital there, to treat their sick sailors. This was impossible to object to, so the Chinese said go ahead, and the Dutchmen began to bring ashore a great number of tubs and barrels – filled, they said, with provisions and building materials. But the tubs were strangely heavy and one of them got loose; it broke into splinters and out rolled a cannon! “How can sickman eat gun?” they were asked and of course they had no answer. Evidently, under the guise of setting up a hospital, the Dutchmen were busy building a fort! And even after the deception was discovered the Chinese did not attack or molest them. Instead they used the tactic that has since become their favourite weapon against the Europeans: a boycott. They stopped people from sending supplies, so the Dutch ran out of provisions and had to abandon the island. From then on the Chinese knew the Europeans would stop at nothing to seize their land – and one thing you have to say about the Chinese is that unlike others in the East they are a practical people. When faced with a problem they try to find a solution. And that over there was their answer: Fanqui-town. It was built not because the Chinese wished to keep all aliens at bay, but because the Europeans gave them every reason for suspicion.’
You cannot imagine, Puggly dear, what a tonic effect these discoveries had on me.
Canton appeared to me in an entirely new light: surely, if only I could see Jacqua, I thought, surely I would be able to explain that I was not one of those fanquis who come with cannon, but rather one of those who have been drawn here by Art – by paintings and porcelain, as in the times of the Tang?
Happily these explanations proved unnecessary. For who should knock on my door the next day but Jacqua himself? He had bandages on his arm, tied by the bone-setter, but that did not prevent him from greeting me with a fond Embrace!
You can imagine, I am sure, how glad I was when I discovered that Jacqua had not for a moment thought to link me with the vile men who had set upon him in the Maidan: indeed, when he heard of the recriminations that had been heaped upon me by his colleagues, he was shocked. He reproached them so forcibly that they had made me a painting by way of apology – a view of the Maidan with Jacqua and I, strolling arm-in-arm! It is not perhaps a masterpiece, yet nothing I have ever owned has been so precious to me!
And so, my sweet rose of Pugglesbury, everything is well again: my Friend has been restored to me, my blue-devils have been banished, and I am so Happy I do not know how I shall ever bring myself to leave this place …
And do not imagine for a moment, my dear Puggly, that I have forgotten about your camellias – I have not! The moment the river is opened again I shall make another foray in the direction of Fa-Tee.
Oh, and I cannot send this off without mention of the incident you described in your last letter (your little squabble with the Redruth’s cook). You must not take it too much to heart, dear: it was not at all wrong of you to tell him that the galley smelled like a crêperie! The fault was entirely his for taking offence. I suspect the fellow has no French and did not understand that you were merely complimenting him on his pancakes. If he was upset it was probably because he thought (quite wrongly, of course) that you were comparing his kitchen to a tottee-connah (sometimes