yourself!
Well, why shouldnât I go? Shireen retorted. After all, your wives and daughters go out in public, donât they? Donât you boast to your English friends about how âadvancedâ our family is and how we donât keep purdah?
Shireenbai, what are you talking about? Itâs true that our wives donât keep strict purdah but we have a certain standing in society. We would never allow our sisters and daughters to wander around the world on their own. Just imagine the scandal. What would people say?
Is it scandalous for a widow to want to visit her husbandâs grave?
At that point, they seemed to decide that she needed to be humoured and their voices softened.
You should talk to your daughters, Shireen. Theyâll explain the matter to you better than we could.
August 11, 1839
Canton
Yesterday I ran into Compton while walking down Thirteen Hong Street. Ah Neel! he cried. Zhong Lou-si wants to see you!
I asked why and Compton explained that Zhong Lou-si had been very impressed by his report on opium production in Bengal. On hearing of my part in it, heâd said that he wanted to yam-chah (drink tea) with me.
Of course I could not say no.
We agreed that I would come by Comptonâs print shop the next day, at the start of the Hour of the Rabbit (five in the afternoon).
I arrived a few minutes before Zhong Lou-siâs sedan chair came to the door. He looked older than I remembered, stooped and frail, with his wispy white beard clinging to his chin like a tuft of cobwebs. But his eyes were undimmed with age and they twinkled brightly at me.
So, Ah Neel! I hear youâve been learning to speak Cantonese? Haih Lou-si!
Zhong Lou-si is not Cantonese himself but he has been in Guangdong so long that he understands the dialect perfectly. He was very patient with my faltering efforts to speak the tongue. I did not acquit myself too badly Ithink, although I did occasionally have to seek help from Compton, in English.
It turned out that Zhong Lou-si had asked to meet with me for a special reason: he is composing a memorandum about British-ruled India â he used the word Gangjiao , which is the commonly used term for the Companyâs territories â and he wanted to ask me some questions.
Yat-dihng, yat-dihng , said I, at which Zhong Lou-si said that rumours had reached Canton that the English were planning to send an armed fleet to China. Did I have any knowledge of this?
I realized that the question was deceptively simple and had probably been phrased to conceal the full extent of Zhong Lou-siâs intelligence on the subject. I knew that I would have to be careful in choosing my words.
Among foreigners, I said, it had long been rumoured that the British would soon be sending a military expedition to China.
Haih me? Really? Where had I heard this? From whom?
I explained that many men from my province Bengal â ( Ban-gala is the term used here) â were employed as copyists and âwritersâ by British merchants. There were some Bengali copyists even in the staff of Captain Elliot, the British Plenipotentiary, I told him. We often exchanged news amongst us, I said, and it was common knowledge that Elliot had written to the British Governor-General in Calcutta, in April this year, asking for an armed force to be assembled for an expedition to China. I told him that I had overheard Mr Coolidge and his friends talking about this recently, and they appeared to believe that the planning for the expedition had already begun, at British military headquarters in Calcutta. But nothing would be made public until authorization was received from London.
What did it mean, Zhong Lou-si asked, that the planning was being done in Yindu â India. Would the troops be British or Indian?
If past experience was a guide, I told him, it was likely that the force would include both English and Indian troops: this was the pattern the British had followed in all their
Well, why shouldnât I go? Shireen retorted. After all, your wives and daughters go out in public, donât they? Donât you boast to your English friends about how âadvancedâ our family is and how we donât keep purdah?
Shireenbai, what are you talking about? Itâs true that our wives donât keep strict purdah but we have a certain standing in society. We would never allow our sisters and daughters to wander around the world on their own. Just imagine the scandal. What would people say?
Is it scandalous for a widow to want to visit her husbandâs grave?
At that point, they seemed to decide that she needed to be humoured and their voices softened.
You should talk to your daughters, Shireen. Theyâll explain the matter to you better than we could.
August 11, 1839
Canton
Yesterday I ran into Compton while walking down Thirteen Hong Street. Ah Neel! he cried. Zhong Lou-si wants to see you!
I asked why and Compton explained that Zhong Lou-si had been very impressed by his report on opium production in Bengal. On hearing of my part in it, heâd said that he wanted to yam-chah (drink tea) with me.
Of course I could not say no.
We agreed that I would come by Comptonâs print shop the next day, at the start of the Hour of the Rabbit (five in the afternoon).
I arrived a few minutes before Zhong Lou-siâs sedan chair came to the door. He looked older than I remembered, stooped and frail, with his wispy white beard clinging to his chin like a tuft of cobwebs. But his eyes were undimmed with age and they twinkled brightly at me.
So, Ah Neel! I hear youâve been learning to speak Cantonese? Haih Lou-si!
Zhong Lou-si is not Cantonese himself but he has been in Guangdong so long that he understands the dialect perfectly. He was very patient with my faltering efforts to speak the tongue. I did not acquit myself too badly Ithink, although I did occasionally have to seek help from Compton, in English.
It turned out that Zhong Lou-si had asked to meet with me for a special reason: he is composing a memorandum about British-ruled India â he used the word Gangjiao , which is the commonly used term for the Companyâs territories â and he wanted to ask me some questions.
Yat-dihng, yat-dihng , said I, at which Zhong Lou-si said that rumours had reached Canton that the English were planning to send an armed fleet to China. Did I have any knowledge of this?
I realized that the question was deceptively simple and had probably been phrased to conceal the full extent of Zhong Lou-siâs intelligence on the subject. I knew that I would have to be careful in choosing my words.
Among foreigners, I said, it had long been rumoured that the British would soon be sending a military expedition to China.
Haih me? Really? Where had I heard this? From whom?
I explained that many men from my province Bengal â ( Ban-gala is the term used here) â were employed as copyists and âwritersâ by British merchants. There were some Bengali copyists even in the staff of Captain Elliot, the British Plenipotentiary, I told him. We often exchanged news amongst us, I said, and it was common knowledge that Elliot had written to the British Governor-General in Calcutta, in April this year, asking for an armed force to be assembled for an expedition to China. I told him that I had overheard Mr Coolidge and his friends talking about this recently, and they appeared to believe that the planning for the expedition had already begun, at British military headquarters in Calcutta. But nothing would be made public until authorization was received from London.
What did it mean, Zhong Lou-si asked, that the planning was being done in Yindu â India. Would the troops be British or Indian?
If past experience was a guide, I told him, it was likely that the force would include both English and Indian troops: this was the pattern the British had followed in all their
Similar Books
