Karl Gützlaff (1803-1851), a Prussian Protestant missionary, lived in Siam and in 1831 sailed north aboard a Chinese junk from Bangkok, dressed as a Chinese and working as a doctor while handing out Christian tracts. He reached Tianjin and then Jinzhou in Liaodong, on the southern fringe of Manchuria, before winter drove the junk south. This corpus copy is the small Canton edition of 1832, first printed in the Chinese Repository. Despite the title, he saw only the Liaodong coast and says little about the Manchus themselves.
How they knew
Part eyewitness
Who “Tartar” means here
'Mantchou Tartary' is Manchuria, homeland of the ruling Qing Manchus, and 'Mantchou Tartars' are the Manchus, many of them bannermen living on imperial pay. 'Western Tartary' means the Qing's Central Asian frontier, where a war was then going on.
Why read it
A short eyewitness glimpse of how 'Tartary' looked from the deck of a trading junk in 1831: Manchus hardly different from Chinese in appearance, granite towns and heated brick beds.
Watch out
Gützlaff writes as a zealous missionary and judges Chinese religion harshly. He stayed only in the port and relied on what people told him about Mukden and the Manchus inland, as the catalogue caution warns.
Editorial contextGützlaff found Kin-chow small and plain. Its houses were built of the local granite, with few comforts apart from brick sleeping platforms warmed by a fire lit underneath (the kang). It is a precise, humble picture of domestic building on the edge of 'Tartary'.
Kin-chow itself has very little to attract the attention of visitors ; it is not a large or handsome place. The houses are built of granite ( which abounds here) ; and are without any accommodations, except a peculiar kind of sleeping places, which are formed of brick; and so constructed, that they can be heated, by fires kindled beneath them.
Editorial contextArriving at the harbour of Kin-chow (Jinzhou), about fifteen leagues from Mukden (Shenyang), Gützlaff was told the Manchus of the area were numerous but lived idly, mostly in the direct or indirect employ of the emperor, a description of the hereditary banner garrisons. He adds that there seemed little jealousy between them and the Chinese labourers, and that the Manchus looked little different from the Chinese.
The Mantchou Tartars who live hereabouts are numerous, and lead an idle life, being principally in the employ of the Emperor, either directly or indirectly. There seems to be but little jealousy between them and the labouring class of Chinese.