Adrift in Pacific and Other Great Adventures – 17 Titles in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). Jules Verne
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the most ancient in China; if the doctrine of Confucius, promulgated about the same time (nearly five hundred years before Jesus Christ), is followed by the emperor, the literary people, and high mandarins,—it is Buddhism, or the religion of Fo, which counts the greatest number of worshippers on the face of the globe,—almost three hundred million.
Buddhism comprises two distinct sects,—one having for its ministers bonzes dressed in gray with red headgear; and the other, lamas with robes and head-gear of yellow.
Le-ou was a Buddhist of the first sect; and the bonzes often saw her coming to the Temple of Koan-Ti-Miao, which is consecrated to the Goddess Koanine. There she offered up prayers for her friend, burned perfumed sticks, and prostrated herself in the porch of the temple.
That day she thought she would go and implore aid of the Goddess Koanine, and offer up still more fervent prayers; for she felt a presentiment that some grave danger menaced him whom she awaited with natural impatience. She then called the “old mother,” and bade her to go to the square in Grand Avenue, and order a chair and carriers.
Nan shrugged her shoulders, according to her very hateful habit, and went out to execute the order.
Meanwhile the young widow, alone in her boudoir, looked sadly at the silent machine, which no longer enabled her to hear the sweet voice of the absent one.
“Ah!” said she, “he must at least know that I have not ceased to think of him; and I wish my voice to repeat this to him on his return.”
And, pushing the spring which puts the phonographic wheel in motion, she spoke aloud the sweetest phrases her heart could inspire.
Nan, entering suddenly, interrupted this tender monologue.
The chair-bearers were awaiting madame, “who might as well have remained at home.”
Le-ou did not listen, but, leaving the “old mother” to grumble at her pleasure, immediately went out, and got into her chair, after having directed the carriers to take her to Koan-Ti-Miao.
The road was a straight one. They had only to turn around Cha-Coua Avenue at the cross-roads, and ascend Grand Avenue as far as the Gate of Tien.
But the chair did not proceed without difficulties. Indeed it was still the business-hours, and there was at all times considerable obstruction in this neighborhood, which is one of the most populous in the capital. The peddlers’ booths along the road gave the avenue the appearance of a fairground with its thousand noisy sounds and bustle. Then open-air orators, public lecturers, fortune-tellers, photographers, and caricaturists, who had little respect for mandarin authority, were shouting and adding their voices to the general hubbub.
Here was a funeral passing with great pomp, and obstructing the travel; there a wedding procession, less gay, perhaps, than the funeral, but blocking the way quite as much. In another place there was an assemblage before the yamen of a magistrate, where a complainer had just struck on the “drum” to ask for justice. On the Leou-Ping Rock a malefactor was kneeling, who had received a beating, and was guarded by police-soldiers, who wore the Mandshurian cap with red tassels, and who carried a short spear and two sabres in the same scabbard. Farther on, several reluctant Chinamen, tied together by their braids, were being led to the station. Farther still, a poor fellow, with the left hand and right foot through separate holes in a piece of board, went limping along with the step of some queer animal. There was also a thief shut up in a wooden box, with his head protruding through the back, who was left to public charity. Others were seen wearing yokes, like oxen.
These unfortunate men were evidently seeking the most frequented localities in the hope of earning more money, and to speculate on the kindness of passers-by, to the disadvantage of beggars of every kind; such as one-armed and lame men, paralytics, files of blind men led by a one-eyed man, and the thousand varieties of real or pretended cripples who swarm in the cities of the Empire of Flowers.
Le-ou’s chair progressed but slowly, and the obstruction was greater as it approached the outer boulevard. Le-ou arrived there, however, and stopped inside of the bastion which defends the gate near the Temple of the Goddess Koanine.
Here she alighted from the chair, entered the temple, and kneeled at first; then bowed before the statue of the goddess. Afterwards she proceeded to a religious machine, which bears the name of “prayer-mill.”
It was a sort of reel with eight branches, on the ends of which were little streamers ornamented with sacred texts. A bonze stood near the machine, gravely awaiting worshippers, and more particularly the fee for their devotions.
Le-ou handed a few taels to the servant of Buddha to defray her part of the expenses of religion; then with her right hand she took hold of the handle of the reel, and lightly turned it, after placing her left hand on her heart. No doubt the wheel did not turn rapidly enough for the prayer to be effectual; for the priest said, with a gesture of encouragement, “Faster, faster!”
And the young woman began to spin faster. She kept it up nearly a quarter of an hour, at the end of which time the bonze assured her that the prayers of the supplicant would be granted.
Le-ou again prostrated herself before the Goddess Koanine, left the temple, and entered her chair to return home. But, as she was turning into Grand Avenue, the bearers moved aside quickly; for soldiers were roughly clearing the streets, shops were being closed by order, and the side-streets were barred by strips of blue guarded by tipaos.
A lengthy cortége filled a part of the avenue, and was noisily approaching.
The Emperor Koang-Sin, whose name means “Continuation of Glory,” was returning to his good Tartar city, whose central gate was about to open to him.
Two of the advance-guard led the way; while the rest were followed by a company of outriders, ranged in two rows, and having a bâton slung across their shoulders. Next to them came a group of officers of high rank, who held a yellow parasol with ruffles, and ornamented with the dragon, which is the emblem of the emperor, as the phoenix is that of the empress.
The palanquin, whose yellow silk hangings were drawn up, next appeared, and was borne by sixteen men wearing red dresses covered with white rosettes, and closely fitting embroidered silk waistcoats. Princes of the blood, dignitaries on horses harnessed in yellow silk as a sign of very high rank, escorted the imperial equipage.
In the palanquin was reclining the Son of Heaven, cousin of the Emperor Tong-Tche and nephew of Prince Kong.
After the palanquin came grooms and a relay of carriers. Soon this cortége vanished in the Gates of Tien, to the great satisfaction of pedestrians, merchants, and beggars, who could now resume business.
Le-ou’s chair continued on its way, and she was set down at her house after an absence of two hours.
Ah! what a surprise the good Goddess Koanine had prepared for the young woman!
At the very moment the chair stopped, a carriage, covered with dust and drawn by two mules, drove up to the door; and Kin-Fo, followed by Craig-Fry and Soun, alighted.
“Is it you?” cried Le-ou, who could not believe her eyes.
“Dear little younger sister!” answered Kin-Fo, “you surely did not doubt that I would return.”
Le-ou did not answer, but took her friend’s hand, and drew him into the boudoir to the little phonograph, the discreet confidant of her troubles.
“I have not for a single moment ceased to expect you, dear heart embroidered with silken flowers!” she said. And, adjusting the wheel, she pressed the spring, which set the machine in motion.
Kin-Fo then heard a sweet voice repeat what the loving Le-ou had been saying to him a few hours before his arrival:—
“Return, little dearly beloved brother! return to me! May our hearts no longer be separated as