Marketing 6th Edition Grewal Test Bank

Marketing 6th Edition Grewal Test Bank

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Chapter 02
Test Bank
1. Strong supplier relations and efficient supply chains help firms such as Walmart achieve operational excellence.
TRUE

AACSB: Analytical Thinking

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation
Blooms: Understand
Difficulty: 1 Easy
Learning Objective: 02-01 Define a marketing strategy.
Topic: Supply Chain Management

Feedback: Operational excellence is achieved through efficient operations and excellent supply chain and human resource management.

2. To build a sustainable competitive advantage, companies should focus on a single strategy.

FALSE

AACSB: Analytical Thinking

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation
Blooms: Remember
Difficulty: 1 Easy
Learning Objective: 02-01 Define a marketing strategy.
Topic: Developing a Competitive Strategy

Feedback: In most cases, a single strategy, such as low prices or excellent service, is not sufficient to build a sustainable competitive advantage. Firms
require multiple approaches to build a “wall” around their position that stands as high as possible.

3. It is not always necessary to go through all the steps in the marketing planning process.
TRUE

AACSB: Analytical Thinking

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation
Blooms: Remember
Difficulty: 1 Easy
Learning Objective: 02-02 Describe the elements of a marketing plan.
Topic: Elements of the Marketing Plan

Feedback: It is not always necessary to go through the entire process for every evaluation. For instance, a firm could evaluate its performance in Step 5,
and then go directly to Step 2 to conduct a situation audit without redefining its overall mission.

4. A mission statement describes the specific actions a firm will take to achieve its goals.
FALSE

AACSB: Analytical Thinking

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation
Blooms: Remember
Difficulty: 1 Easy
Learning Objective: 02-02 Describe the elements of a marketing plan.
Topic: The Mission Statement

Feedback: A mission statement is a broad description of a firm's objectives and the scope of activities it plans to undertake.

5. iTunes software is often credited with the success of the Apple iPod MP3 player, because it made the iPod easier to use than competing players, and
was difficult for competitors to duplicate. This is an example of a sustainable competitive advantage.
TRUE

AACSB: Knowledge Application

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation
Blooms: Apply
Difficulty: 3 Hard
Learning Objective: 02-01 Define a marketing strategy.
Topic: Developing a Competitive Strategy

Feedback: A sustainable competitive advantage is an advantage over the competition that is not easily copied and thus can be maintained over a long
period of time. iTunes made the iPod so easy to use that it was difficult for other MP3 players to compete, even at lower prices. Over time, some
competitors have created similar tools, but it has been difficult enough to copy that these competitors have never really caught up.
2-1
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McGraw-Hill Education.

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6. STP refers to segmentation, testing, and promotion.
FALSE

AACSB: Analytical Thinking

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation

2-2
Copyright © 2018 McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. No reproduction or distribution without the prior written consent of
McGraw-Hill Education.
Blooms: Remember
Difficulty: 1 Easy
Learning Objective: 02-04 Describe how a firm chooses which consumer group(s) to pursue with its marketing efforts.
Topic: Steps in Market Segmentation

Feedback: STP stands for segmentation, targeting, and positioning.

7. The components of a SWOT analysis are strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and tactics.
FALSE

AACSB: Analytical Thinking

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation
Blooms: Remember
Difficulty: 1 Easy
Learning Objective: 02-03 Analyze a marketing situation using SWOT analyses.
Topic: SWOT Analysis

Feedback: The components of a SWOT analysis are strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

8. Firms are typically more successful when they focus on opportunities that build on their strengths relative to those of their competition.
TRUE

AACSB: Analytical Thinking

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation
Blooms: Understand
Difficulty: 2 Medium
Learning Objective: 02-04 Describe how a firm chooses which consumer group(s) to pursue with its marketing efforts.
Topic: SWOT Analysis

Feedback: After identifying its target segments, a firm must evaluate each of its strategic opportunities. Firms typically are most successful when they
focus on opportunities that build on their strengths relative to those of their competition.

9. Duke's is a surfer-themed restaurant chain in Hawaii. Most of its customers are tourists. In a SWOT analysis for Duke's, the possibility that the
recession might cut back on tourism in Hawaii would be considered a weakness.
FALSE

AACSB: Knowledge Application

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation
Blooms: Apply
Difficulty: 3 Hard
Learning Objective: 02-03 Analyze a marketing situation using SWOT analyses.
Topic: SWOT Analysis

Feedback: A recession is an external factor with possible negative results, so it is a threat.

10. Price should be based on the value that the customer perceives as giving them a good value for the product they receive.
TRUE

AACSB: Analytical Thinking

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation
Blooms: Understand
Difficulty: 2 Medium
Learning Objective: 02-05 Outline the implementation of the marketing mix as a means to increase customer value.
Topic: Setting Prices

Feedback: As part of the exchange process, a firm provides a product or a service, or some combination thereof, and in return, it gets money.
Value-based marketing requires that firms charge a price that customers perceive as giving them a good value for the product they receive.

11. Geraldo manages the electrical turbine engine division of General Electric Corporation. He makes most decisions independently, without consulting
headquarters. Geraldo manages a strategic business unit.
TRUE

AACSB: Knowledge Application

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation
Blooms: Apply
Difficulty: 2 Medium
Learning Objective: 02-06 Summarize portfolio analysis and its use to evaluate marketing performance.
Topic: Business Portfolio Analysis

Feedback: A strategic business unit is a division of the firm that can be managed and operated somewhat independently from other divisions and may
have a different mission or objectives.

12. The strategic planning process always proceeds sequentially through the five steps.
FALSE

2-3
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McGraw-Hill Education.
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I felt inclined to buy his release), birds’ nests, rice-birds, the beccafichi of
China, and all manner of delicacies, are cheek-by-jowl with equally
numerous abominations, not to speak of rats and “such small deer.” The
greengrocers’ are the most tempting of the provision shops; they at least
show nothing offensive, and they make their fruit look to the greatest
advantage, setting oranges, apples, lychees, and vegetables in curious
patterns, while ropes of bananas, leeks, young lettuces, and other greens
hang from the ceiling. Competition is great, and with the utmost labour it is
hard to earn a living, for the two cities, Tartar and Chinese, with their
suburbs, hold an immense population, not to speak of the thousands who
are born, live, and die in the boats, and have no part or share in the land
until they come in for that property six feet by three, which is the common
inheritance. Altogether, taking both sides of the river, there are probably a
million and a half of inhabitants, of whom not more than one hundred are
Europeans.
Until the return of the English to Canton, it used to be a point of honour
with the Chinese at Hong-kong to try and persuade people that the
bombardment of 1856 had not done much damage. If they were asked
whether Yeh’s Palace or Yamên had been injured they would answer, “Not
too muchee; my hab hear they breakee that cup that saucer; that alloo.” But
the fact is that the city still bears the marks of the punishment it received;
considerable spaces have been laid waste by fire; Yeh’s Yamên has been
razed to the ground and its site “annexed” by the French, who are building a
cathedral and Jesuit college upon it. Notwithstanding the havoc made by
shot and shell, however, there is much to be seen. The Yamêns of the
Viceroy, the Governor, and other high functionaries are standing. I only saw
the outsides of these palaces. They are all pretty much alike. An arched
gateway, with a colossal warrior painted in fresco on either side, faces a
blank wall, on which is drawn the outline of some fabulous monster, and
this appears to be used for notices and announcements; marble kylins and
grotesque beasts adorn the courtyard, which is crowded with functionaries
and dependants. The roofs are fretted into a thousand quaint designs; but
you are as familiar with their style as I am, and as I shall probably in some
future letter have an opportunity of saying something about the interior of a
Chinese officer’s palace, I had better let the subject alone now.
 Of course we went to see the “Temple of Punishments” and that of the
Five Hundred Saints, which last is one of the celebrities of China. The
former is so called from its containing models of all the various modes
which Chinese ingenuity has invented for torturing malefactors. Guarding
the portals are two colossal “josses” or idols, represented with vermilion
faces and a prodigious corpulency. Bits of paper, as votive offerings, some
with inscriptions, but more without, are pinned or fastened to them by the
pious: this is a Chinese method of showing respect to the graves of their
dead, and to their gods. Inside the gate is a large courtyard, which we found
crowded with people; all around were little tables at which sat fortune-
tellers, some young men, others veterans with scanty beards and enormous
tortoise-shell spectacles, writing as solemnly as judges. Here in bamboo
divisions are the dolls which give the temple its name, and very horrible are
the scenes which they represent; beyond the courtyard is the real joss-
house, from which I carried away a confused idea of tinsel, artificial
flowers, scraps of paper, and gloom.
Far more interesting was the Temple of the Five Hundred Saints. In the
gateway, as in the former case, two josses of stupendous size mount guard.
One is represented as solacing himself with a tune on a kind of mandoline;
and I noticed that many of the scraps of paper with which he has been
“chin-chinned” were cut in the shape of his favourite instrument. Without
let or hindrance we wandered through a maze of white-washed and neatly-
kept cloisters, until we came to the refectory (for there is a monastery
attached to this temple), where we found the monks at their afternoon meal.
Just as we arrived, a tiny musical-toned bell was sounded, at which signal
the brethren rose, and what appeared to be a short prayer or grace was
recited in chorus, after which a monk of higher rank, preceded by an
attendant, left the hall, which was a square room with long tables, and
fenced off from the cloisters at one end by a low bamboo railing. As soon as
the great man was gone the others fell to at their chopsticks and small bowls
with renewed vigour. The monks wear a long light gray robe, and they
shave the whole head, but in other respects their dress does not differ from
that of laymen. The temple itself is a large hall in which the five hundred,
placed in alleys at right angles, sit facing one another in all their majesty.
They are all of gilt metal or wood, and under life size, if one may use such a
term with regard to idols. They are represented in every variety of attitude,
occupation, and expression. Some are playing on musical instruments, and
are bland; others are evidently preaching, and are didactic; others are
inflicting punishment or doing battle, and are very fierce; one is performing
a difficult act of horsemanship on a large kylin, while two smaller kylins are
looking on in admiration—one and all are made to look fat and
comfortable, with huge paunches. Before each is placed a small green
porcelain pot filled with the ashes of the joss-sticks which have been burnt
in his honour. The monks were uniformly civil to us, and neither here nor in
the Temple of Horrors was any fee asked or expected; how much better it
would be if Europeans would follow the example of these heathens, and not
ask admission fees in their cathedrals and churches.
You may well imagine that during a first visit to a great Chinese city
everything appeared strange and marvellous, but the greatest wonder of all
was that we should be able to wander hither and thither, intruding into
temples, thrusting our curious noses into every hole and corner, like ferrets
in a rabbit warren, elbowing our way unmolested through crowds that a
very few years ago would have mobbed and brick-batted at least, and
perhaps tortured and murdered by inches, any European that ventured
outside the factories. It seems almost a fatality that now that the city is safe,
and its inhabitants peacefully inclined, the opening of the Yang-Tse-Chiang
should have turned the European traffic with the interior, of which Canton
was formerly the headquarters, into a new channel. The prosperity of
Canton is evident, and very striking. But it is a native and self-containing
prosperity, and in no ways dependent on Europe, and shows that the
Chinese were quite right when they asserted that they could do very well
without us. Just before the principal English firms withdrew their
representatives from the city, finding that the little business there was to do
could be more cheaply transacted by agents drawing a small percentage, an
arrangement was made with the local government whereby we became the
lessees of a small mud island, which had to be filled in at a great cost,
called Shah-Meen. This was to become the English quarter. The church and
new consular buildings have been erected there, and there are a few empty
bungalows belonging to merchants, but the place does not seem likely ever
to wear a look of great importance; the merchants see no likelihood of an
inducement to return, so Shah-Meen has so far been a poor bargain.
Not far from Shah-Meen are the pleasure-gardens of a merchant named
Po-Ting-Qua. Terraces, summer-houses, stairs, drawbridges, carp-ponds,
rock-work, and flowers are thrown together most fantastically, exactly like
the gardens that the ladies and gentlemen on teacups and plates walk about
in. The doors are cut out of the walls in quaint shapes, such as circles, jars,
bottles, etc. As the rainy season has set in the garden was not looking its
best, but it was very pretty nevertheless, although there was a little too
much stagnant water about for our ideas. Lord Bacon in his essay on
gardens says: “For fountains they are a great beauty and refreshment; but
pools mar all and make the garden unwholesome, and full of flies and
frogs.” If this is true in England, how much more does it apply to the East.
Such things as flower-beds are unknown here. The plants grow anyhow,
without order or arrangement, but they are carefully tended, and indeed the
whole place was beautifully kept, and there seemed to be a large staff of
gardeners and carpenters, who play a conspicuous part in a Chinese garden.
You will be wanting to hear about the curiosity shops. I went to see them,
but found nothing but rubbish at outrageous prices. The Chinese buy up
everything good at any price. The dealers carry round their best things to
the native connoisseurs, and put off any trash upon chance customers,
swearing that everything is “oloo and culew,” old and curious. I bought one
small bottle for a few shillings as a souvenir of Canton, but even if I had
had heaps of money, there was no temptation to spend it. I found an old
friend at Canton in the person of Mr. R., our consul, who was a most
amiable cicerone. He has passed the chief part of his life in China, and is a
great authority upon all matters connected with our relations with the
Chinese. He lives in a fascinatingly picturesque Yamên with quite an
extensive garden—a curiosity in itself,—we spent most of the day together
and met for dinner, either at my quarters or in his beautiful Aladdin’s
palace, every evening.
We returned to Hong-kong on May Day. I found that the P. and O. Co.
had put on an extra steamer, to start on Thursday the 4th, so I determined
not to wait for the mail, but to start for Shanghai without delay. This
prevents me from making a trip to Macao, which is par excellence the
“outing” from Hong-kong. But as the rainy season has begun in earnest,
perhaps I do not lose much—at any rate, I shall leave my Hong-kong
friends with the utmost regret; their kindness and hospitality have known no
bounds.
 LETTER II
S , 10th May 1865.
T Ganges did not leave Hong-kong until the 5th at noon, and we
anchored off the lightship in the estuary here on Monday night, but the river
is so difficult of navigation that we could not run into Shanghai until the
next morning. We had on the whole a fine passage and a very quick one; C.
and R., who were my companions at Canton, came on with me, and the
captain of the ship being a very well-read, gentlemanlike man, sparing no
pains to make every one comfortable, we had a very cheery voyage. We had
besides a young French artillery officer on his way to revisit the scene of
the campaign he had made in 1860, a few nondescripts, two or three
Chinese families, and a Parsee. Of course the Chinamen pigged together
separately, and his “odium theologicum” forbade the Parsee to eat with us,
which was a benefit to all parties, for he was not a desirable companion by
any means. The point of dirt at which the Chinese passengers contrived to
arrive during the voyage, and the whiffs which came from their cabins
when the doors were opened, surpass belief; one of their great gentlemen
here stood over the French officer and myself as we were playing
backgammon one day, and manifested the utmost interest in the game,
uttering exclamations at every lucky throw, for the Chinese are gamblers to
the backbone,—but so noisome was he that we had to leave off playing and
rush on deck for fresh air. This being the condition of a “gentleman,” fancy
how pleasant the 110 coolie passengers under the forecastle were to sight
and smell. The Chinese ladies did not show at all, but they used to send
their dirty little brats up on deck to play, and very offensive they contrived
to make their small selves. Independently of their dirt, Chinamen are a sorry
spectacle on a journey—their heads require shaving (a week’s crop looks
even worse on the poll than on the chin), and their tails get untidy and
shaggy from being slept upon. Talking of tails, it seems to be the “chic” at
Shanghai to lengthen them with white instead of black silk, which does not
look near so well. I noticed one man who, like little Cock Robin, had “tied
up his tail with a yard of blue bobbin.” (I found out afterwards that these
white and blue tails are signs of mourning.)
 The voyage from Hong-kong to the north, being principally a coasting
affair, is not so dull and uneventful as more sea-going cruises. We were
constantly in sight of land—numberless headlands and islands mark the
course, but render it dangerous in bad weather. There are plenty of ships to
be seen, and all around the rocky islands the sea is alive with fishing-
smacks, their crews busily at work. We had no mails on board, nor stern
officers in charge, so the captain stopped once and bought a quantity of
fresh fish, delicious pomfret all alive and kicking, paying the fishermen in
kind with ship’s biscuit, which I hope was as great a boon to them as their
fish was to us. It is such a fine sight in one of these narrow island passages,
where one can almost hear the sea dashing against the basaltic rocks on
either side, to pass a great sailing-ship close on our lee, and steam away
from her at top speed. Long before the estuary is reached, the sea, which in
these parts is of a deep aquamarine green, becomes clouded and
discoloured. This is owing to the immense volume of yellow dirty water
which the Yang-tse-kiang pours down. It is much the same colour as the
Rhine, and quite as foul-looking.
We began ascending the river soon after daybreak on Tuesday morning.
Its banks are low and flat. If it were not for a few trees there would be
nothing to relieve the eye from the monotony of the filthy water and vast
plain. Here and there a group of European houses and an ensign or two
mark a settlement. By eleven o’clock we had threaded our way through the
labyrinth of shipping and had reached Shanghai. I landed at once and heard
of an opportunity for Tientsing on Friday next, of which I shall avail
myself. By the way, I must tell you here, that so far as I can learn, the
communications between Tientsing and this place are somewhat uncertain,
so if any mail should not carry a letter to you from me, do not pay me the
compliment of being uneasy, but let no news be good news.
My good quarters and the kind hospitality which I had met with at Hong-
kong seem to follow me on my travels. Here again I have been received
with the warmest welcome by Mr. D., a junior partner of C.’s, and I am
assured of the same at Tientsing. If all the travellers and officers stationed
in China, whom I have met, did not tell me that this hospitality is the
universal rule, I should be almost shy of accepting so much kindness.
I have little enough to tell you about Shanghai. The city is ugly and
unattractive, the river dingy, and the country a dead level plain. From the
top of the club-house the view in every direction is utterly unbroken, there
is not a mound the height of dear old Salt Hill. Then, commercially
speaking, the town at the time of my visit was a blank. The crisis of which I
have spoken to you before has told here more than elsewhere; to my eye the
harbour seems full enough of shipping, but I am told that there are not more
than a third of the vessels that used to be seen in former years. One of the
causes which has brought about this effect has been the speculation in land.
When the rebellion panic was upon the Chinese they were only too glad to
flock into the settlement for shelter; land rose in value, and was bought up
in every direction. Now that the revolt has been put down in this part of the
empire the natives have gone home to their own abodes, and of course
landed property has fallen, so that those speculators who did not sell in time
have their money hopelessly tied up. This, and the competition system
practised by the Europeans in contrast to the Chinese, who do everything by
combination, together with “hard times,” have brought Shanghai very low.
In short, morally as well as physically, it is, for the present, flat.
I have had a good deal of conversation with Sir Harry Parkes, our consul
here. You will recollect him as famous for the pluck he showed when he
and Loch were taken prisoners in Peking; he is one of the great authorities
in China, and one of our ablest officers in the East. He tells me that he
considers the state of feeling between the Chinese and Europeans in this
part as on the whole satisfactory; that the natives have begun to accept us
and our trade as a necessity; to use his own expression, it is a sort of
husband and wife arrangement, with slight incompatibilities of temper on
both sides. Sir Harry Parkes is a man of extraordinary determination and
energy; his knowledge of the Chinese language, customs, and character
have given him an immense influence over the natives. He is in every way a
remarkable man, and great things are expected of him, even by those who
differ from him in opinion. It is only fair to say, that there are many men of
judgment and experience out here who do not agree with him in holding
that our trade with China stands on a solid footing. They consider that the
unwilling spirit with which the natives first received us has by no means
died out, and that little by little, always by fair means and without violence,
[4]
for they know our strength, the Chinese will endeavour to oust us from
our position, and return to their traditional conservatism. Perhaps this is a
pessimist creed, but still it is largely professed. At any rate the Chinese will
find it a hard matter to get rid of us, for no Government will give up a
matter of nearly six millions of revenue without a struggle. For the present
the British are welcome here. The Ta̔i Pı̔ngs have been driven out of this
part of China, and the rebellion has dwindled down to comparative
unimportance. The Chinese may be given credit for so much of gratitude as
looks upon past benefits as earnests of future favours. We can still be useful,
so we are still courted. It remains to be seen whether, when we shall have
played our part out, our friends will try to cast us on one side.
When Sir Rutherford Alcock was in authority here he established a
municipal system which so long as Shanghai was prosperous answered very
well; of course, however, this being Chinese territory, subscription to the
authority of the municipality could not be compulsory, nor were its
enactments binding; but it suited the interests of the public to accept it, and
so it was supported by all the respectable part of the community. Now the
failures have told upon this as upon every other institution, and unless better
times come, it will fall to the ground for want of funds and strength. It
would be a great pity that this should be the case, for there are many
improvements needed here; above all, gas-lighting. It is really to be hoped
that things will take a better turn soon, for they seem to be quite at their
worst.
I must tell you of rather a funny offer of service that I received the other
day. R.’s Chinese boy came into me, and after playing nervously with his
tail for a little while, said, “My massa talkee my too muchee fooloo; my
thinkee more better my walkee Peking side long you.” I felt half-inclined to
engage the man for his simplicity, especially as he is a good servant, though
certainly not over bright.

11th May.
I have just been to see my berth on board the Yuen-tse-Fee, a private
steamer. She is to stop at Chihfu. I have a cabin to myself, a piece of good
luck which I have enjoyed ever since Galle. In about a week hence I expect
to be at Peking. We sail at three in the morning to-morrow, so I must go on
board this evening. The Yuen-tse-Fee is a very tiny craft; nothing big can
get up the Peiho, so if it blows at all shan’t we just pitch about!
We are expecting the mail in hourly, but I hope to reach Peking before it.
 LETTER III
Ship Yuen-tse-Fee,
In the Gulf of Pechili,
15th May 1865.
I you will understand that I was rather melancholy at leaving
Shanghai. For the first time on all this long journey I was to set out alone,
and my hosts, although they were only recent acquaintances, had been so
kind to me that I felt as if I were leaving old friends. I took leave of them at
half-past eleven on Thursday night, 11th May, for as the ship was to sail at
three in the morning I had to sleep on board. The harbour was dark and
gloomy, and it was as much as I could do to steer the six-oared gig by the
dim light of the lanterns at the various masts’ heads. In short, everything
looked black and dismal, and I felt very much like going back to school
after the holidays; but it don’t do to give in, and very soon after I got on
board I was sleeping as sound as the rats in my cabin and bed, and an army
of mosquitoes which had flocked on board, would let me. When I woke
next morning we were hard and fast aground in the estuary; a thick fog had
come on in the night, and the captain, missing his course, had run upon one
of the many treacherous shoals of the great river. The tide took us off again
at about eleven, and we went on without further accident.
I had one fellow-passenger, an officer of the purveyor’s department of the
army, on his road to Peking to seek employment under the Imperial
Government.
We had a strong head wind against us at first and very dirty weather on
Friday night. But in spite of wind and weather the little Yuen-tse-Fee
justified her name, which a Chinaman interpreted for me as “walkee all the
same Fly,” and she kept up a good average of eight knots and a half.
On Sunday morning we were off the Shantung promontory, a fine broad
headland with a rough, jagged outline. Notwithstanding the haziness of the
atmosphere we had a good view of the coast and of the Rocky Islands
which make this sea so dangerous. Passing Cape Cod, we left to the
westward the spot where the unlucky Race Horse was lost, and arrived at
Chihfu at about five o’clock the same evening.
For a town which really has some little commercial importance, Chihfu is
certainly one of the most wretched dens I ever saw. It consists of one long
narrow street of untidy stone and brick houses, the peculiarity of which is
that they have no apparent front or back, so that it is a mystery how the
inhabitants get into or out of them. Two or three European houses, the
office of the Chinese officer of Customs, a few godowns more or less
empty, and here and there a hovel built up of mud, seaweed, and bamboo
matting, complete the town. Its only ornaments are the flags of the consul
and of the Chinese officer. It is prettily situated at the foot of a range of low,
but picturesquely tossed-about hills, and the harbour with its fleet of junks
and ships looks very well from the town. The type of the inhabitants is
different from that of the southern Chinese, the Tartar features are very
prominent among them, and it seemed to me that they were stronger and
finer men. I certainly never saw a better boat’s crew than the six men who
rowed me on shore. Whether they would have the pluck to “stay” against an
English crew I cannot say, but their short spurt was admirable.
In spite of its mean appearance there is sufficient trade carried on at
Chihfu to induce some seventy Europeans to reside there. It is, moreover,
likely to become popular as a sea-bathing resort and sanatorium.
In former days it was a great port for the junks, and there are still many
of them running there; but the junk trade has been very much knocked on
the head by foreign ships and steamers, which the Chinese see the
advantage of chartering, although they continue to build their own clumsy
and unwieldy craft. The principal exports of Chihfu are peas and bean cake,
and a little manufactured silk; there is besides a small import trade of
shirtings and opium.

17th May.
The best part of Monday was occupied in discharging our cargo, and we
did not get up steam until five o’clock. A strong wind had sprung up from
the north-west, and the harbour, which is very much exposed on that side,
gave signs and tokens which led us to expect a very squally night outside;
however, the wind dropped suddenly and gave place to a thick fog, so we
escaped being tossed about, at the expense of a few alarms of running on to
the rocks; which is not at all a pleasant look-out, for even if our lives would
not have been in actual danger, there was the certainty that if we had struck
a rock we should have lost all our baggage, and passed a very
uncomfortable night. We took up another passenger at Chihfu, an
interpreter, bound for Tientsing—apparently a very popular gentleman, for
the captain had to turn out neck and crop a company of friends who had
come to see him off, and who were inclined to prolong that ceremony,
which involves much sherry and brandy drinking, until long past the hour
fixed for our departure.
On Tuesday morning we took up our pilot for the Peiho River. He
reported having come across a junk wrecked and without masts—all hands
had evidently been lost; and on fishing about the cabin with a boat-hook in
order to get the papers if possible, he found two or three dead bodies in a
fearful state of decomposition. It is supposed that she must have been
wrecked more than a month ago.
We are absolutely suffering from cold here. The thermometer is 55° in
my cabin—a serious contrast after the 90° and 95° I have been accustomed
to. My warmer clothes are in the hold, so I am forced to wear a greatcoat.
We expect to find it warmer at Tientsing.
It was late in the afternoon on Tuesday when we arrived at the entrance
of the River Peiho.
Here are the famous Taku Forts, the scene of the disaster of 1859, when
Sir Frederick Bruce went up to get the treaty ratified, and our vessels were
beaten back with the loss of two gunboats, which were sunk. The two forts
stand on either side of the mouth of the river, and are occupied—that on the
north by the French, and that on the south by the English. A company of
infantry suffices to garrison each. They are about to be evacuated. A little to
the east of the British Fort there still lies one of our sunken gunboats; the
Chinese have recovered and appropriated her guns. I cannot conceive a
more dismal lot than that of garrisoning Taku. Besides the forts, which in
themselves are dreary enough, there are but a few Chinese mud huts and an
hotel, principally patronised by pilots; and the French are cut off even from
these by the Peiho, than which no more filthy little stream ever defiled a
sea. Its banks at the mouth are vast plains of mud, lying flush with the
water, and so bleak and sad-looking that one almost wonders that the very
wild-fowl should be induced to stop there. Mud forts, mud houses, mud
fields, and muddy river—everything is mud.
Higher up stream, although the banks are very flat and uninteresting,
there is no lack of verdure. The trees are insignificant, but there are green
fields and gardens cultivated with vegetables and fruit-trees. The
neighbourhood of Tientsing is said to be the garden of China, and in the
season a peach only fetches three cash, of which one thousand or more,
according to the exchange, go to make up the dollar.
We soon had an experience of the difficulty of navigating the Peiho,
which is no broader than the Thames at Eton, and as tortuous as Cuckoo
weir. Over and over again we were on the point of running aground, and
when on one occasion we did stick, it was a labour of great difficulty to get
off again. A boat’s crew had to be landed, and a line fastened to a stout tree
on the bank, by which means and by backing with all our force we floated
off, the sailors on shore improving the occasion by stealing onions and
vegetables from the gardens on the bank. Nor was the shallowness of the
water our only impediment, for we did not reach Tientsing without several
brushes and collisions with junks, in one of which our screw was broken.
I found Tientsing in a great state of excitement. It was the last day of the
races, and to my great joy I found my colleague Saurin staying at the
Russian consulate. Of course we agreed to make the journey to Peking
together, and the Russian consul, by way of making things pleasant, most
kindly volunteered to put me up.
The races really showed some very good sport. Tientsing cannot boast of
such a meeting as those of Hong-kong and Shanghai, where English
thoroughbreds are run, and for which such horses as “Buckstone,” since
dead, and “Sir William” are imported; the horses are but Mongol ponies, the
bona fide hacks of their owners and riders, yet they accomplished the three-
mile race in seven minutes and forty seconds. They are very plucky, strong
little beasts, and run till they drop. The races were an additional stroke of
luck for me, for I was able at the end of the day to buy a capital pony for
fifty dollars. The Chinese crowd showed the greatest possible interest in all
the proceedings, and the course had to be kept vi et flagellis, which latter
were not spared by the native police. Perhaps they feared spoiling the
Chinaman, who is proverbially a child.

19th May.
I must own that I was agreeably disappointed in Tientsing. So many
travellers have abused it, and inveighed against its filth and its beggarly
crowd, that I expected to be shocked in one or other of my senses at every
step. It certainly is very dirty, but not much more so than other Chinese
towns, or, for that matter, than many in Europe; and who that has travelled
in the sunny South has not seen rags and tatters, vermin, foul diseases, and
deformities paraded as stimulants to charity? There is one drawback to
Tientsing which is really insufferable. All the wells are salt, and the
inhabitants are obliged to drink the loathsome water of the river. In order to
cleanse it, it is first placed in large jars that the impurities may settle at the
bottom, and then filtered. But nothing can purge it so as to convince one
that the disgusting matter, which forces itself upon one as one sails up the
stream, has been entirely got rid of.
We went to see some of the curiosity shops. There was a great deal of
porcelain to which the dealers and local connoisseurs assigned wonderful
dates and fine titles, but nothing that would be cared for in England; and the
prices were simply outrageous, for the merchants will pay any mad sum that
is asked by the rascally dealers. There were some very fine specimens of
cloisonné enamel, but if the sums demanded for the porcelain were high,
the enamels were ten times dearer. I saw a quantity of Chinese picture-
books; they were not fit to buy, although some had great merit for delicacy
of drawing. They each represented a story, generally the “Harlot’s
Progress,” from a Chinese point of view, very coarse, and without
Hogarth’s grim retribution at the end. Of course, where such drawings are
openly exposed for sale there is no great strictness of morals, and Tientsing
is famous, or rather infamous, even in China, for every bestial and
degrading vice.
The European settlement of Tientsing is about two miles distant from the
Chinese city. There are some fairly good houses built by the side of a broad
bund or quay, and they command fabulous rents. The same municipal
system which obtains at Shanghai has been established here; and, on the
whole, the community shows signs of prosperity, although the port has been
a disappointment to those who expected that it would reach an importance
such as to crush Shanghai and its other rivals, or, at all events, to divert a
considerable portion of their trade. For the first year or two after its
establishment the business done was very great, and large fortunes were
made; one merchant, for example, is just retiring with a fortune of £5000 a
year, accumulated since 1861. But the Chinese, cunning in trade, very soon
found out that it answered their purpose better to charter steamers, and have
consignments made to themselves directly, than to buy from the agents of
the great houses; consequently, as the trade is entirely import, the
Europeans are finding less and less to do. The Yuen-tse-Fee, although she
hails from Glasgow, and is nominally owned by Messrs. Trautmann and
Co., a German firm, is in reality chiefly, if not entirely, the property of a
dirty little Chinese comprador, whom I saw, and to whom the whole of her
cargo was consigned.
 LETTER IV
P , 23rd May 1865.
W left Tientsing early on Friday morning the 19th, by which means we
had the tide in our favour, and were able to get quicker clear of the hideous
sights and smells of the river as it runs through the town. We each had a
boat; Saurin’s was the drawing-room, mine the dining-room, and his servant
occupied the third as kitchen. They were capital roomy boats, covered in
with hoods of bamboo and rattan matting, and with a sort of dresser in each
upon which we spread our beds. Each had a crew of three men, and in
Saurin’s, which was the biggest, there was a boy besides. They were very
cheery, hard-working fellows, and indeed they had no sinecure, for although
the wind was ostensibly in our favour, still the river winds round such sharp
twists and elbows that in every other reach it was dead against us, and we
had to proceed laboriously by dint of towing and punting. But the harder
they worked the better humoured the crew seemed to be, and the boy
especially distinguished himself by zeal equalling that of an unpaid attaché.
The shoals are innumerable, and we were constantly crossing the river
backwards and forwards, along a course marked out by twigs stuck in the
mud. There is no scenery to enjoy, nothing but interminable fields of millet,
and here and there a little wood. There is not a hillock to be seen, and we
were lucky in being as short a time as possible over what must be a very
dull journey. We reached Tungchou at three o’clock on Sunday afternoon.
Here we found our horses, with an escort which had been sent down with
them to meet us.
Tungchou was very busy. A fleet of junks had come in with grain, and
the quay was alive with crowds of coolies, many of them as naked as they
were born, discharging cargo, sifting corn, and carrying it into granaries.
Our appearance produced some astonishment, for “foreign devils” are
hardly yet quite familiar objects so far north. Tungchou was the place where
the unfortunate English prisoners were taken in 1860, and where Wade and
Crealock, carrying a flag of truce and demanding to parley with the
commander, were fired upon and narrowly escaped with their lives. It is
fortified, as all the northern cities are, but its walls would only be a security
against native warriors. The roads in this part of the world are miracles of
badness, and it is not difficult to conceive the tortures that the English
prisoners must have suffered when they were conveyed along them in
native carts without springs, and having their hands and heels tied together
behind them with cords tightened by water. Every inch of the road to
Peking is famous from the events of that time. Some way outside Tungchou
we rode over the bridge of Palikao,[5] where the Chinese crossed their spears
with the French bayonets, and held their own for half an hour. From this
bridge the Général de Montauban takes his title. Its kylins and stone flags
still bear traces of shot and shell. Riding through dust over one’s pony’s
hocks, and raising a cloud at every step, is very dry work, and I was glad
when we struck off the main road, and, coming upon a tea-house in a shady
nook, stopped to rest and refresh. The people received us with the utmost
bonhomie and civility, and brought us delicious tea, without milk or sugar,
in bowls, hard-boiled eggs, and a sort of roll-twist fried instead of baked.
We soon had ten or twelve yellow gentlemen round us, eagerly asking all
sorts of questions about ourselves, our ages, and belongings. Murray talks
Chinese fluently, and Saurin has also some knowledge of it, so we got on
capitally. Our ages always puzzle Chinamen. They neither wear beard nor
moustache until they have reached the age of forty, so they think that all
Europeans who wear such appendages must have passed that age. A single
eye-glass is, however, the possession which commands the most
astonishment. They are familiar with spectacles and double eye-glasses, for
they themselves wear them of portentous size, and mounted in thick brass
or tortoise-shell rims. But a single glass is indeed a marvel, and provokes
much laughter. Though the peculiarities of foreigners amuse the Chinese as
much as theirs do us, it is singular how their natural courtesy prevents their
showing it in the offensive manner that every Englishman has experienced
in some foreign countries. I had expected to find the country on this side of
Peking flat, ugly, and barren. Flat it certainly is, but there are plenty of trees
and rich fields, and it cannot be called ugly. The villages and graves argue
an immense population. It is not till one is under the very walls of the town
that one sees Peking. The walls are high, ruinous, battlemented, and
picturesque, of a fine deep gray colour. They are capped at intervals by
towers of fantastic Chinese architecture, and, with their lofty gates, make a
strange and striking picture. As a means of defence against modern artillery
the walls of Peking are probably absurd. However, before I tell you
anything about Peking I had better know something myself. At present I
only know that I was very hot, very tired, and as dusty as the oldest press in
the Record office, when I rode into the court of Her Majesty’s Legation,
where I received the warmest welcome from Wade, the chargé d’affaires.
We have received bad Chinese news. Sangkolinsin, the Mongol chief
who commanded at the Peiho in 1859, and was temporarily disgraced for
not being able to beat off the allies in 1860, has been killed by the rebels in
the province of Shantung, some 400 miles hence. He was reputed a brave
soldier and an honest man. Although the Chinese affect to disregard the
importance of the intelligence, there is no doubt that it is very serious. The
fire is burning everywhere, and they cannot or will not take the proper
means to put it out.
Note.—I should wish to add here one word of admiration and respect for the memory of Sir
Thomas Wade, my first chief in China. He had been Lord Clyde’s adjutant, but gave up the army for
diplomacy. A great student and master of many languages, his Chinese scholarship won the
admiration even of the learned mandarins with whom he had to deal. During the two Chinese Wars
he distinguished himself, not only by his great abilities as a negotiator, but also by the most dauntless
courage. Generous and self-sacrificing to a fault, he was one of the greatest gentlemen I ever met.—
1900.
 LETTER V
P , 1st June 1865.
W Wade was in England last year Lord Stanley said to him:
“Peking’s a gigantic failure, isn’t it? not a two-storied house in the whole
place, eh?” To Lord Stanley’s practical eye, no doubt, it might be a failure,
but an artist would find much to admire and put on paper.
Pe-king, which means the northern capital, as Nan-king means the
southern, consists of two cities, the Chinese and the Tartar, and within this
latter, again, is the Imperial city, which contains the palace and precincts of
the court. Both cities are surrounded by walls of dark-gray brick; those of
the Tartar city are fifty feet high, forty feet wide at the top, and about sixty
feet below; the walls of the Chinese city are less important, being only
thirty feet high. These walls have battlements and loop-holes for guns. That
of the Chinese city has fallen into decay, but that of the Tartar is more
carefully repaired. At intervals are lofty watch-towers standing out against
the sky. High towers stand also above the gates, which are closed at sunset,
after which time ingress and egress are forbidden.
The streets are broad roads, in most cases unpaved, and in all uncared for.
They are flanked on each side by shops and low houses, but their breadth is
lessened by the countless stalls and stands of hucksters of all sorts that take
them up often in quadruple rows. In this region of dust and dirt the streets
are equally filthy summer and winter. Both in the Chinese and Tartar cities
there are large open spaces and buildings standing in their own grounds,
covering areas of many acres. In the former city these are the temples of the
Buddhist and Taoist religions, in the latter they are the palaces of the
Emperor and persons of distinction. These grounds, planted as they are with
lofty trees, give a great beauty to the town, and often in the heart of either
city there are spots which are pictures of village life. Standing among these
groves of trees the brilliant colours and fantastic designs of the Chinese
architecture have a wonderfully pleasing effect. The wall of the imperial
palace, covered with highly glazed yellow tiles, with towers at the corners
shining like gold in the sun, is especially striking. Whichever way one turns
there is something grotesque and barbarous to be seen, and the signs of
decay and rot do not detract from the picture. In fact Peking is like a vast
curiosity shop, with all the dust and dirt which are among the conditions of
bric-à-brac. It would be pleasant-looking and admiring were it not for the
difficulties of riding through the city owing to the enormous crowds which
block the way—carts, porters, camels, chairs, pedlars, beggars, lamas,
muleteers, horse-copers from Mongolia, archers on horseback, mandarins
with their suites, small-footed women, great ladies in carts, closely veiled to
keep off the gaze of the profane vulgar. In short, every variety of yellow and
brown humanity, not to speak of dogs and pigs, get into one’s path at every
moment, and raise clouds of dust, which fill eyes, ears, hair, mouth, and
nose, and temporarily destroy every sense save that of touch. It is as if the
dust of all the Derby days since the institution of that race (by the bye I
wonder what horse has won it this year) had been borne by the winds to
find a permanent home here. A dust-storm in the north of China is a natural
phenomenon. Clouds draw over the sky as if a thunderstorm was going to
burst. In my inexperience the first time I saw this I expected rain to fall, but
instead of rain there came a fine dust penetrating everything and not to be
shut out by door or window. This nuisance, which comes to us from the
great Mongolian deserts, besides hurting the eyes as common dust by filling
them with extraneous matter, has chemical properties which produce a
smarting and burning pain. Dust-storms are sometimes so thick that men
lose their way as in a London fog. It is indeed “a darkness that may be felt.”
The distance round the walls of Peking is something like twenty-three
miles, of which fifteen must be given to the Tartar city, which is square in
shape and lies to the north of the oblong Chinese city. Tradition, and the
mystery which for so many years hung over the capital, have assigned to it
an exaggerated population. The Chinese affected to believe it contained two
million souls, and that no capital in the world could compete with it. This
may have been the case in the time of the Emperor Chien-Lung, who
reigned from 1736 to 1795 a.d. But nowadays, judging from the enormous
empty spaces, and from the gardens and courtyards, which no gentleman’s
residence is without, and even allowing for the dense crowding of some
quarters, it probably does not reach a million. It is impossible to form any
precise estimate of the numbers of the “Doors and Mouths.” Doctors
disagree, and I have heard the people of Peking reckoned at various figures,
from six hundred thousand to a million and a half. Until Peking was opened
to Europeans the southern Chinese used to stick at no lie about it. For
instance, if they were told of some great scientific invention such as
railways, the electric telegraph, or the like, they would say at once with the
utmost coolness, “Have seen! Have seen! Have got plenty Peking side!”
And in like manner they lied about its size and population. The country
round about Peking seems to be very thickly peopled. I was prepared to find
it so, but nevertheless I had hardly expected to see so many human beings
and their traces, which are often very unpleasant, especially in China.
Our Legation is situated in the southern part of the Tartar city. We occupy
a most picturesque palace called the Liang Kung Fu, or Palace of the Duke
of Liang, which, like all Chinese buildings of importance, covers an
immense space of ground. There are courtyards upon courtyards, huge
empty buildings with red pillars, used as covered courts, state approaches
guarded by two great marble lions, and a number of houses with only a
ground floor, each of us inhabiting one to himself. When the Legation first
came to live here the whole place was put into repair, and redecorated in the
Chinese fashion with fluted roofs of many colours, carved woodwork,
kylins of stone and pottery, and all the thousand and one fancies with which
the Chinese cover their buildings. Unfortunately the repairs were badly
executed, and nothing further has been done to keep matters straight, so the
Legation, which ought to be as pretty as possible, is really a disgrace to us.
The gardens are a wilderness, the paving of the courts is broken, the walls
are tumbling down, and the beautiful place is going to rack and ruin. In this
climate of extreme heat and cold a stitch in time saves ninety-nine.[6] Fancy
a residence in the heart of a great and populous city where foxes, scorpions,
polecats, weasels, magpies, and other creatures that one expects to find in
the wild country, abound. That will give you an idea of how space is wasted
in Peking. The great drawback to our palace is its situation. We have more
than an hour’s ride before we can escape from the city and its stinks, to
breathe a breath of fresh air. It requires an immense exercise of energy to
face an hour’s ride through the streets of Peking in order to get a canter in
the open; and I am often half tempted to sell my pony and dismiss my
groom, but this would be tantamount to shutting myself up for good in the
Legation, for walking at Peking is even more disagreeable than riding.
His Imperial Highness the Prince of Kung, President of the Council,
Chief of the Board of Foreign Affairs, Prime Minister, and what not