A few days afterwards, I put the villa Li the hands of a firm of auctioneers, telling them to sell the furniture; and then I went home to Oakhurst At first, I was a little restless, but after a time, I settled down to my old way of life.
During the first year of Frances’ marriage she wrote to me occasionally; then her letters ceased; and I thought I should never again either hear from, or see my old sweetheart. I fancied she had passed out of my life.
XVII
A couple more years passed. During the whole period, I had amused myself in various ways, but I had never set up another establishment in St. John’s Wood, or anywhere else. When in England, I had lived chiefly at Oakhurst, but I often travelled on the Continent; I had also made a tour round the world, and as I was in no hurry, I had taken eight months to complete the journey, I did not meet with any startling adventures, but I saw some queer phases of life, and I embraced many women of various nationalities. I had started westward on the trip, and while passing through the United States, I poked American girls in all the big cities from New York to San Francisco.
In the Hawaiian Islands I had seen a bevy of dusky, nearly naked damsels dance the “hula-hula”; and when the lascivious performance was over, I fucked one of the dancers on a mat in a native hut.
I stayed for some time in Japan; and when in Jeddo, I paid a couple of visits to the “Voshiwara”; on each occasion poking one of the highly-painted, wonderfully got-up girls. But I preferred going to the tea houses in the country, and amusing myself with the “geishas,” and the pretty little, olive-skinned “mousmies,” all of whom were full of fun, and up to every kind of trick. On one occasion, however, I astonished a “mousmie.” She was a very young and particularly plump little creature, with whom I was playing while she was in a state’ of complete nudity.
After the usual toying, I suddenly laid her across my knees, and smartly spanked her fat, round little bottom. She was utterly amazed; hardly knowing whether to laugh or cry; such a thing had never been done to her before, though she was well acquainted with all the other ways by which men excite themselves with women.
When I put her on her feet, she stood gazing at me, with her black eyes full of tears, at the same rubbing her bottom with both her hands. Then, as the smart gradually passed off, she began to smile, and finally she burst out laughing. Then I poked her!
When in China, I spent several days in the city of Canton, and visited two or three “flower boats” on the river. But I did not fancy the small-footed, almond-eyed, yellow-skinned Chinese girls, so I only poked one; and I did it merely that I might be able to say I had “had” a Chinawoman.
In India I tried the merits of various Hindoo, and Mohammedan girls; and in Ceylon I sampled the Cingalese damsels. And I will here state, that in my opinion there is no better poke in the world, than a young, clean, healthy English girl.
During my stay in Canton, I managed to see the bamboo applied to a culprit. The Chinese “boy” whom I had employed as a guide was an intelligent fellow named Ah Wan. He could speak “Pidgin” English; and after we had visited all the sights which are usually shown to foreigners, the “boy” asked me one day, if I would like to go to the execution ground, and see, as he expressed it: “Two pieccy pilate mans head chopped off.”
Two pirates he meant to say, but the Chinese can’t pronounce the letter R. They always turn it into L.
I replied that I did not care to see that sight. But I told him that I had a great wish to see how the bamboo was used; and I added that I should like, if possible, to see a female culprit punished. Then I asked him if he could manage that for me. Not a sign of surprise showed on Ah Wan’s impassive countenance, when he heard what I had said. He nodded his head, saying, “Alice light. My can do that pidgin velly easy, along Mandalin cote. One pieccy day, my takey you.”
By which he meant: “All right. I can easily manage that business for you at the Mandarin’s court. I will take you some day.”
The Mandarin’s court is somewhat analogous to an English Police-court; but the Mandarin’s power is far more absolute than that of a police magistrate in this country.
A couple of days after my talk with Ah Wan, he made his appearance at my hotel, with a chair and two coolie bearers.
“Come along a me,” he said briefly.
I got into the chair; he gave the coolies some directions and we started off; Ah Wan walking beside the chair. In about half-an-hour we reached the court house which was a large wooden building, to which the public appeared to have free access. The Mandarin sat at a sort of high desk, surrounded by soldiers and other officials; and there were a number of people of all sorts and conditions in the court.
Ah Wan interpreted, as well as he could, all the proceedings, end I saw several prisoners sentenced to various punishments by the Mandarin; but not one received the bamboo, and I was beginning to think of going away, when a woman was brought in to receive her sentence.
Ah Wan informed me that she was a boatwoman who had been detected setting fire to a boat A very serious crime in Canton where thousands of families live in boats on the river.
The culprit being a working woman, was not “small-footed.” she was a stout, strong-looking wench about twenty-five years old, and not bad-looking for a Chinawoman of the lower orders.
She was neatly dressed in the usual loose, blue cotton jacket, coming down over her hips; with wide trousers of the same colour and material; and her long, coarse, black hair was twisted in elaborate coils, and secured with four long, broad, brass hairpins which stuck out a couple of inches on each side of her head.
The Mandarin sternly addressed the culprit, who stood stolidly gazing at him; but after he had spoken a short time, a look of intense fear came to the woman’s face; she burst out crying, and stretching out her hands, made what I supposed to be a piteous appeal for mercy.
Ah Wan whispered to me: That piecey woman catchee plenty bamboo.”
The Mandarin made a sign, and three of the soldiers seized the wailing culprit and laid her face downwards on the floor, with her arms stretched out at right angles to her body. Two of the men squatted down, each holding one of the woman’s arms; the third man, also squatting down, held her ankles tightly together.
A fourth man drew her loose jacket up to her shoulders; then putting his hands under her belly, be untied the strings of her trousers, and pulled them down to her heels; thus laying bare the lower half of the woman’s person to the gaze of the people in the Court.
The pig-tailed spectators looked on stolidly. To them it was no uncommon sight. Women were often flogged publicly in Canton.
The culprit had a broad bottom, with large fleshy cheeks, her thighs were very big, and her legs were thick. Her skin was smooth, and of a yellow tint which was not pretty to a European’s eye.
But after all, it was a feminine bottom; and it was going to be flogged; that was enough for me; and as I gazed at the naked, fat, albeit yellow posteriors, my cock stiffened slightly.
Two men, holding in their hands the bamboos, now knelt down, one on each side of the culprit. The instruments of punishment were pieces of split bamboo about two feet long, and three inches broad; and the strokes were administered with the rounded side. At a signal from the Mandarin, the punishment commenced, one man beginning at the upper part of the woman’s bottom and flogging downwards; while the other man began at the middle part of her thighs and dogged upwards. The strokes were inflicted with considerable force; each one, as it fell on the woman’s plump flesh, making a resounding smack, and marking her yellow skin with a broad red stripe. She wept and screamed, and struggled violently; but the men who were holding her, kept her in position; and the men who were flogging her, laid on the strokes in rapid succession; so that the two bamboos soon met in the middle of her bottom, and by that time the whole surface of her skin had become crimson.