Our small party met with a
most hostile reception that day in one part of the city, and the crowd
were very menacing until addressed by our fat old interpreter. The
reason of this is very simple. Chinamen have invariably
chocolate-coloured eyes, so the great distorted wooden figures of
devils so commonly seen outside temple gates are always painted with
light eyes, in order to give them an inhuman and unearthly appearance
to Chinese minds. It so happened that the Flag-Captain, the
Flag-Lieutenant, the midshipman and myself, had all four of us
light-coloured eyes, either grey or blue, the colour associated with
devils, in the Chinese intelligence. We were unquestionably
foreigners, so the _prima facie_ evidence of satanic origin
against us was certainly strong. We ourselves would be prejudiced
against an individual with bright magenta eyes, and we might be
tempted to associate every kind of evil tendency with his abnormal
colouring; to the Chinese, grey eyes must appear just as unnatural as
magenta eyes would to us. We were inclined to attribute the hostile
demonstration to the small snottie, who, in spite of warnings, had
again experimented with cheroots. His unbecoming pallor would have
naturally predisposed a Chinese crowd against us.
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