U.S. Consul in Amoy, Edward Bedloe, on Cemeteries

Bill Brown ... Xiamen University

Ancient Amoy Cemeteries
Bedloe, Edward, M.D., U.S. Consul, reporting in “Weekly Abstract of Sanitary Reports,” Supervising Surgeon-General M.H,S., Government Printing Office, Washington, 1893

January 1, 1881 Public health reports (1881(, v, 2, 1887; U.S. Consul Edward Bedloe, M.D., reported,

The city [Amoy] is built on the edge of a mountainous island and is exceedingly old. Inscriptions on ancient tombs run back as far as the beginning of the Christian era, and coins found in accidentally discovered graves date to dynasties from 500 to 1000 B.C.

During all this period the hillsides of the city have been used as burying grounds. As the population increases, the houses encroached upon the cemetery land until finally the two became hopelessly intermixed.

The United States consulate is regarded as a very superior locality, but it is surrounded by over a hundred tombs. A score of the large blocks of granite used in and about it are old tombstones. On the hill immediately behind the residence of F. Malcampo, esq., the graves touch one another at every point and form a solid white surface of rock, brick, porcelain, and cement, covering more than a million square feet. Near the lam-paw-do Joss-house [Nanputuo Temple] 30,000 bodies are said to have been buried vertically to save space. They lie or stand in a plot of land of as many square feet. Amoy proper and its suburbs have a living population of about one million, and a dead one of four and a half times as many.

The city is a relic of the past. It is walled the same as it was in the time of Confucius.

Note: Amoy wasn’t walled until 2000 years after Confucius' death. And I doubt Amoy has any graves that old. But other than that.... Bedloe had some fascinating points.


www.amoymagic.com