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Updated: June 3, 2025
We shall both do our duty, I have no doubt about that." Harry having called at his tailor's, he and Headland went down to the point now so crowded with men-of-war's boats, and wherries coming in and shoving off marines and sailors, watermen, and boat-women, and gaily dressed females and persons of all description, that they had no little difficulty in gaining one of the wherries.
Biscay is Pyrenean grace as Savoy is Alpine grace. The dangerous bays the neighbours of St. Sebastian, Leso, and Fontarabia with storms, with clouds, with spray flying over the capes, with the rages of the waves and the winds, with terror, with uproar, mingle boat-women crowned with roses. He who has seen the Basque country wishes to see it again. It is the blessed land.
They are splendid boat-women, and not vociferous. These women don't bandage their feet. Their dress is dark brown or blue cotton, and consists of wide trousers and a short, loose, sleeved upper garment up to the throat. The feet are big and bare, the hair is neat and drawn back from the face into a stiff roll or chignon, and they all wear jade-stone earrings.
An English pilot was taken; and at sunset the ship was at anchor, and the party had abundant occupation in observing the rugged shores, the shipping that filled the harbor, and especially the Chinese boats, in charge of boat-women generally.
"When we get drunk shortly, we'll go and sit in their rooms and have a lark!" These words evoked laughter from every one. In a body they quitted the place. But they had not proceeded far before they reached the bank covered with aquatic plants, to which place the boat-women, who had been brought from Ku Su, had already punted two crab-wood boats.
His classic face was turned upward to the peaks, and with a look as if he felt their power. He waved his arms toward them as if in a salutation to things sentient. The man seemed to befit the environment, majestic though it was. We returned sooner than we desired from our excursion on the water, the boat-women being over eager for new passengers.
This gives me fine views of the unceasing traffic of the stream, but it is not without its disadvantages as a place of rest at night. The Chinese gods, or devils rather, have a strong fondness for fire-crackers, and these are set off at all hours of the night by the more devout of the boat-women right under my windows. I waken with a start every now and then, as an unusally large bunch is fired.
"The colonel," as the consul was generally called, talked "pidgin" English, which is practically a dialect in itself, to the boat-women. The captain, Mrs. Belgrave, the colonel, and a few others went in the first sampan, and the lady was pleased with the women in charge of the craft; and several children were in a coop at the stern. The price of the craft was ten cents for half an hour.
Some of them are born, marry, grow old, and die without ever having known a home on land. And these boats, it should be remembered, are no larger than a small bedroom at home. I saw many of them yesterday afternoon, and I also saw many of the women managing them. The women boatmen or boat-women of Canton are famous.
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