"Crusoe visits Pekin" for Daniel Defoe's "Adventures of Robinson Crusoe" (1863-64)

Crusoe visits Pekin (page 360) — the volume's ninety-first composite wood-block engraving for Defoe's The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner. Related by himself (London: Cassell, Petter, and Galpin, 1863-64). Part II, The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, Chapter XIII, "Arrival in China." Full-page, framed with a nautical rope border: 13.8 cm high x 21.4 cm wide. Running head: "On Shore in China" (p. 351).

Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham. [You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]

Passage Illustrated: Crusoe visits the imperial capital

At length we arrived at Pekin. I had nobody with me but the youth whom my nephew had given me to attend me as a servant and who proved very trusty and diligent; and my partner had nobody with him but one servant, who was a kinsman. As for the Portuguese pilot, he being desirous to see the court, we bore his charges for his company, and for our use of him as an interpreter, for he understood the language of the country, and spoke good French and a little English. Indeed, this old man was most useful to us everywhere; for we had not been above a week at Pekin, when he came laughing. “Ah, Seignior Inglese,” says he, “I have something to tell will make your heart glad.” — “My heart glad,” says I; “what can that be? I don’t know anything in this country can either give me joy or grief to any great degree.” — “Yes, yes,” said the old man, in broken English, “make you glad, me sorry.” — “Why,” said I, “will it make you sorry?” — “Because,” said he, “you have brought me here twenty-five days' journey, and will leave me to go back alone; and which way shall I get to my port afterwards, without a ship, without a horse, without pecune?” so he called money, being his broken Latin, of which he had abundance to make us merry with. In short, he told us there was a great caravan of Muscovite and Polish merchants in the city, preparing to set out on their journey by land to Muscovy, within four or five weeks; and he was sure we would take the opportunity to go with them, and leave him behind, to go back alone. [Chapter XIII, "Arrival in China," page 350]

Commentary

Thanks to the Anglo-French wars in China, much more so that previous illustrators such as Thomas Stothard and George Cruikshank, the Cassell illustrators in the 1860s would have had far more visual material about China to draw upon — and China was definitely featured in the Illustrated London News throughout the latter half of the 1850s. The Second Opium War (otherwise called "The Second Anglo-Chinese War," "The Second China War," "The Arrow War," or "The Anglo-French expedition to China," involved the technologically-superior United Kingdom aligned with the French Empire against the Qing dynasty of China, from 1856 to 1860. In October of that year, as the British press reported, at the conclusion of hostilities in the Second Opium War, the British and French troops entered the Forbidden City in Beijing, which is the building to the left in the illustration. Chinese authorities, acknowledging the humiliating defeat, signed two treaties on behalf of the Qing government with Lord Elgin and Baron Gros, who represented Britain and France respectively. The image of China in the popular consciousness might well have been that on the Elgin Monument depicted as one of four bas-reliefs (Jamaica, Canada, China, and India) representing Elgin's diplomatic service abroad in the Illustrated London News in 1869. The China medallion is the only one to feature Elgin, who is evidently negotiating with a mandarin, with their respective men on each side, and a section of the Great Wall of China in the background. A Chinese man kneels on the right, unfurling the flag of China at Elgin's feet.

The illustrators for this section, William Leighton Leitch (1804-83) and Percy William Justyne (1812-83), were both watercolour landscape painters, but Leitch also had a considerable career as an illustrator for the Illustrated London News (1849 and 1850), the London Graphic, the London Journal, the National Magazine, the Floral World, and the Building News. He illustrated the Art Journal catalogues of the International Exhibitions in 1851 and 1862. The two between them had the inclination and ability to do the kinds of exotic landscapes and buildings required in this portion of Crusoe's adventures.

Related Material

References

Defoe, Daniel. The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner. Related by himself. With upwards of One Hundred Illustrations. London: Cassell, Petter, and Galpin, 1863-64.

Last modified 13 April 2018