River of Smoke - Amitav Ghosh [71]
‘Bad news, sir?’ said Paulette.
Fitcher nodded: the brigantine’s skipper had told him that it had become very hard to procure the chops that permitted foreign vessels to enter the Pearl River. Even to enter the harbour at Macau had become a tricky affair and most foreign ships were choosing instead to take shelter at the opposite end of the river mouth, in the strait that separated the island of Hong Kong from the promontory of Kowloon.
After some thought, Fitcher decided to follow the course that had been recommended to him by the skipper: instead of making for Macau, as originally planned, the Redruth tacked about and headed in another direction.
Soon a ridge of jagged mountains came into view, rising sheer out of the sea. This, said Fitcher, was Hong Kong: few houses were visible on the shore and even fewer trees; it was a wild, gale-swept place, not unlike the other islands nearby, only bigger, steeper and taller. The name Hong Kong, Fitcher said, meant ‘fragrant harbour’: this struck Paulette as a strangely whimsical description for such a desolate and forbidding place.
The Redruth dropped anchor in a bay that was overlooked by the tallest peak in the island. There were several other foreign ships there; a small flotilla of bumboats and pilot-boats was swarming around them, ferrying provisions and passengers between the ships and the mainland.
Early the next morning Fitcher took a pilot-boat to Macau, leaving Paulette in charge of the Redruth’s floating garden. He returned a day later, looking thoroughly despondent.
Captain Charles Elliott, the British Representative in Macau, had treated him to a gloomy summation of the present situation. It appeared that the Emperor had sent down a series of edicts, commanding the provincial government to act forcefully against the opium trade. In response they had seized and burned the ‘fast-crab’ boats that had once roamed the Pearl River, transporting opium directly from ship to shore. Many English traders had assumed that the situation would soon go back to normal again – in the past too there had been brief periods of increased vigilance, but they had never lasted for more than a few months. But it was different this time: a few dealers had tried to rebuild their boats and the mandarins had burned them again. That was just the beginning. Next the mandarins had begun to arrest local opium-dealers; some were thrown in prison, some were executed. Their shops and dens were seized and the opium was burned. Then the regulations for travel on the Pearl River were tightened and as a result chops had become very difficult to obtain. Only those foreigners who were vouched for by the merchants’ guild, in Canton, could hope to get chops at this time: since Fitcher had no such connections he was unlikely to be granted one in the immediate future. Such being the circumstances, Captain Elliott had recommended that Fitcher keep the Redruth at anchor near Hong Kong for the time being, to await a more favourable turn of events.
All through Fitcher’s recital, Paulette had been listening for the name ‘Chinnery’. Not having heard it, she said: ‘And did you meet anyone else, sir?’
Fitcher glanced at her, and after a moment’s silence, muttered: ‘So I did. I also went to see Mr Chinnery.’
‘Oh? And it was a useful visit, sir?’
‘Yes. But not in the way I had expected.’
Mr Chinnery had received Fitcher in his studio, which was on the uppermost floor of his residence, at number 8, Rua Ignacio Baptista: a large, sunlit room, it was hung with several excellent portraits and landscapes, including one that was in the process of being finished by a pair of Chinese apprentices.
Within a few minutes Fitcher understood that Mr Chinnery had invited him into his studio in the expectation of receiving a commission for a portrait. When Fitcher explained that he had come in regard to an entirely different matter – a mission that concerned a pair of plant-pictures from Canton – the artist’s expression had grown a little peevish. He favoured the camellia