Sir Robert Hart | Page 6

to put into the young man's hand a roll of fifty sovereigns--a
splendid piece of generosity on the part of one whose whole income at
the time did not amount to more than a few hundreds a year--and later,
splendidly repaid.
It is interesting to review the curious series of incidents that guided
Robert Hart towards the great and romantic career before him. Had it
not been for the tutor's detention, the subsequent move from Taunton to
Dublin, and the sudden awakening there of his mischievous ambition
over Scripture History, he would probably never have developed into
the ardent student he did at a very early age, or left school so young.
Again, had it not been for his extreme youth, his family would probably
have sent him to Dublin instead of to Belfast--and Dublin received no
nomination for the Consular Service in China. Such nominations were
not usually given to Colleges, and the only reason that the three
colleges comprising the Queen's University in Ireland received them
was because the University was new, and the Foreign Office (at which,
by the way, the Chief, Lord Clarendon, was also Chancellor of the
Queen's University) desired to give it some recognition and
encouragement.
Surely if ever a boy was "led," as the Wesleyans say, to do a certain
work, Robert Hart was that boy.

CHAPTER II
FIRST YEARS IN CHINA--LIFE AT NINGPO--THE ALLIED
COMMISSION AND SIR HARRY PARKES--RESIGNATION
FROM THE CONSULAR SERVICE
The journey out to Chinn in 1854 was not the simple matter that it is
now. No Suez Canal existed then, and the Candia that took Robert Hart
from Southampton left him at Alexandria. Thence he had to travel up
the Mahmudi Canal to the Nile, push on towards Cairo, and finally
spend eighteen cramped and weary hours in an omnibus crossing the
desert to Suez, where he got one steamer as far as Galle, and
another--the Pottinger from Bombay--which called there took him on
to his destination.
He remained three uneventful months in Hongkong as Student
Interpreter at the Superintendency of Trade, awaiting the return of Sir
John Bowring, H.B.M.'s Minister to China, who was away at Taku
trying to open negotiations with the Peking Government. It was this
same Sir John Bowring, by the way, who first aroused Robert Hart's
interest in Chinese life and customs--subjects on which so many
foreigners in China remain pitifully ignorant all their lives. "Study
everything around you," said he to the young man. "Go out and walk in
the street and read the shop signs. Bend over the bookstalls and read
titles. Listen to the talk of the people. If you acquire these habits, you
will not only learn something new every time you leave your door, but
you will always carry with you an antidote for boredom."
When the Minister came back in September, Robert Hart was appointed
to the British Consulate at Ningpo, and started off immediately,
travelling up to Shanghai in a trim little 150-ton opium schooner called
the Iona. The voyage should have taken a week; it took three. At first a
calm and then the sudden burst of the north-east monsoon made
progress impossible; the schooner tacked back and forth for a fortnight,
advancing scarcely a mile, and all this time her single passenger could
just manage to take seven steps on her little deck without wetting his

feet. Then, to make matters worse, provisions gave out, and the ship's
company was reduced for twelve days to an unsavoury diet of
water-buffalo and peanuts--all they could get from a nearby island. Was
it any wonder that Hart could never afterwards endure the taste of
peanuts, or that at the mere sight of a passing water-buffalo his appetite
was clean gone for the day?
He found Shanghai in the hands of the Triads (rebels), and a friend, one
of the missionaries, took him to see their famous chief, who was said to
have risen, not from the ranks, but from the stables of an American
merchant. With Mr. (afterwards Sir Rutherford) Alcock he also went
into the other camp to visit the commander of the Imperialist forces, a
Mongol, the Governor of the Province and a man of fine presence. He
was the first specimen of the Mandarin class that Robert Hart had seen,
and consequently the details of the interview remained in his memory.
In later years he would sometimes describe what interested him most as,
silent and inconspicuous, he observed the doings of his seniors. It was
not the crowd of petty officials standing about, though they were
curious enough to a newcomer in their long official robes and hats
decorated with peacock's feathers; it was not the conversation going on
between Alcock and the Governor; it was simply the way the latter, by
his excessive dignity