Only now did I discover how fortunate I was in having an Amanuensis like Zadig Bey: he has studied the city closely and is familiar with all its landmarks. He had brought a spyglass with him and he pointed the sights out to me, one by one. The first, as I remember, was the mandir that marks the founding of the city – which happened, he said, at about the same time as Rome! And as with Rome, it is said that the gods had a hand in Canton’s birth: five Devas are said to have descended from the heavens to mark a spot on the bank of the river: the immortals were mounted on rams, each with a stalk of grain in its mouth; these they gave to the people on the shore with the blessing: ‘May Hunger Never Visit Your Markets’.
I must admit that the strange tale, and the sight of the forbidden city, lying outspread at my feet, had a powerful effect upon me. More than ever it made me conscious of my Alien-ness, of the distance between myself and this city. I remembered the galees those apprentices had hurled at me and it struck me that perhaps they had only been telling the truth: perhaps it was indeed an unforgivable intrusion for one such as myself to seek to impose his presence upon a place that is so singular, so ancient, so completely an outgrowth of its own soil.
But Zadig Bey would have none of it: the true surprise of Canton, he said, is that its streets and lanes are strewn with reminders of the presence of Aliens. ‘Why,’ he said, ‘even the city’s guardian deity is a foreigner – an Achha in fact!’
‘Impossible!’ I cried, but he insisted that it was so and to back it up he pointed his spyglass in the direction of a mandir nearby: it was the temple of the goddess Kuan-yin, who is said to have been a bhikkuni from Hindusthan, a Buddhist nun who chose not to become a Bodhisattva, as she might have done, so she could tend to the common people.
Is it not stupefying, Puggly dear, to think that Canton’s tutelary spirit may have been a woman who had once worn a sari?
Scarcely had I recovered from the surprise of this when Zadig Bey pointed his spyglass in the direction of another temple, far away: Buddhists from Hindusthan had lived there for centuries, he said, the most famous of them being a Kashmiri monk called Dharamyasa.
Nor is this all! Down by the river stands a temple that was founded by the most famous of Buddhist missionaries – the Bodhidharma, who had come to Canton from southern India and was perhaps a native of Madras!
And that too was not the end of it: Zadig Bey’s finger rose again to point to another roof, which belonged, he said, to a mosque – one of the oldest in the whole world, having been built in the lifetime of the Prophet Mohammad himself! It is a most remarkable structure, no different, in outward appearance, from a Chinese temple – all except for the minaret, which is like that of any dargah in Bengal!
But how is it possible, I said, that people from Hindusthan and Arabia and Persia were able to build monasteries and mosques in a city that is forbidden to foreigners?
It was then that I learnt it has not always been thus: there was a time, said Zadig Bey, when hundreds of thousands of Achhas, Arabs, Persians and Africans had lived in Canton. Back in the time of the Tang dynasty (they of the marvellous horses and paintings!): the emperors had invited foreigners to settle in Canton, along with their wives and children and servants. They were allowed their own courts and places of worship and were permitted to come and go as they pleased. Amongst the Arabs the city was so famous, said Zadig Bey, that it was known by a word that meant ‘Olive’ – Zaitoon. Even Marco Polo had visited it, he said; in fact he had probably stood where I was standing at that very moment!
Not content with these revelations Zadig Bey produced another, still more surprising.
Why, he asked me, do you know how the Pearl River got its name?
No, I said, so then he pointed his spyglass at an island in the river, not far from the foreign enclave: it is but a small outcrop of rock, with some crumbling ruins on it. Fanquis speak of it as ‘the Dutch folly’.
‘But the Chinese have another name for it,’ said Zadig Bey. ‘They call it Pearl Island. It’s said that there was nothing there until a jewel merchant from across the sea (whether he was an Arab or an Armenian or a Hindusthani, no one knows) but wherever he was from he was clumsier than a jewel merchant ought to be – he dropped the best of his pearls in the river. Now you’ve seen how muddy that water is? How quickly things disappear? Most things maybe, but not that pearl. It lay at the bottom, glowing like a lantern and slowly growing larger until it grew into an island. And from then on that waterway, which is properly spoken of as the “West River”, became famous as the Choo Kiang or “Pearl River”.’
You will understand how dumbfounded I was.
‘I cannot credit it, Zadig Bey,’ I cried. ‘Surely you do not expect me to believe that the Pearl River may owe its name to an Achha?’
He answered with a nod. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It is quite likely.’
‘So what happened then?’ I asked. ‘Why did they go away? The Arabs, the Persians and the Achhas?’
‘It is a familiar story,’ said Zadig Bey. ‘The Tang went into decline and people became discontented. There was hunger and unrest, and as is common at such times, the troublemakers looked to place the blame on the foreigners. One day a rebel army stormed into the city and killed them all – men, women and children, over a hundred thousand of them were slaughtered, in a great river of blood. The memory of it was so bitter and lingered so long, that for centuries afterwards no visitors would venture here from overseas.’ Here he paused, with a proud smile. ‘But when the foreigners did return it was my own people who were in the lead.’
‘Armenians?’ said I, and he nodded: ‘Yes. Some came overland from Lhasa, where a large Armenian community has existed since late Roman times. Some came by sea, through Persia and Hindusthan. By the fourteenth century there were hundreds of them living here in Canton. One of them, a woman, even built an Armenian church.’
‘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
