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 THINGS CHINESE
 
 OTHER WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 'Cantonese Made Easy,' 3rd Edition. 
 ' How to Speak Cantonese,' 2nd Edition. 
 'Headings in Cantonese Colloquial.' 
 
 ' The Cantonese Made Easy Vocabulary,' 2nd 
 Edition. 
 
 'An English-Cantonese Pocket Vocabulary,' 2nd 
 Edition. 
 
 1 Easy Sentences in Hakka, with a Vocabulary.' 
 
 'Hakku Made Easy,' Part I. 
 
 ' How to Write the Radicals.' 
 
 ' How to Write Chinese,' Part I. (out of print). 
 
 'The San Wui Dialect.' 
 
 'The Tung Kwuii Dialect' (out of print). 
 
 ' The Hong Shan or Macao Dialect.' 
 
 'The Shun Tak Dialect.' 
 
 ' The English - Chinese Cookery Book.' 2nd 
 Edition (in the press).
 
 THINGS CHINESE 
 
 OR 
 NOTES CONNECTED WITH CHINA 
 
 BY 
 
 J. DYER JBALL, M.R.A.S. 
 
 H.M. CIVIL SERVICE, HONGKONG 
 
 AND 
 
 AUTHOR OF 'CANTONESE MADE EASY,' 'HOW TO SPEAK CANTONESE, 
 
 'HOW TO WR.ITE CHINESE,' ' HAKKA MADE EASY,' 
 
 AND OTHER WORKS 
 
 FOURTH EDITION 
 REVISED AND ENLARGED 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 NEW YORK 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 153-157 FIFTH AVENUE 
 1904
 
 COPYRIGHT AT STATIONERS' HALL, LONDON 
 
 Registered in accordance with the Provisions of Ordinance No. IO 
 of 1888, at the Office of the Registrar-General, Hongkong. 
 
 [Printed in Great firttaiit.}
 
 PREFACE 
 
 NEARLY forty years spent in China have given the author 
 many opportunities of observing and studying the Chinese 
 in almost every aspect of their life and character, and, while 
 indebted to other writers as well, he has largely availed 
 himself of these personal observations and experiences in 
 the production of this book. 
 
 The first appearance of Mr Basil Hall Chamberlain's 
 ' Things Japanese ' gave rise to the idea of ' Things 
 Chinese,' until now, in the words of that author in the 
 Preface to his Fourth Edition of ' Things Japanese ' 
 {for edition after edition of it and ' Things Chinese ' 
 have been issued nearly pari passii), ' In the un- 
 likely event of anyone instituting a minute comparison 
 between this edition and its predecessor, he would 
 find minor alterations innumerable here a line erased, 
 there a paragraph added, or again a figure changed, 
 a statement qualified, a description or a list brought 
 up to date, even a score (or two or more) of completely 
 new articles inserted. But take it altogether, the book 
 remains the same as heretofore.' So the same may be 
 said of this Fourth Edition of ' Things Chinese.' A 
 word here, a line there, now a clause, then a term struck 
 out, a phrase deleted, or sentence altered all have had 
 their share in making it necessary to put the word ' revised ' 
 on the title-page. As regards the companion word, 
 
 vii
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 'enlarged,' the additional headings consist mostly of short 
 articles, occasionally only a few lines, or a sentence, or a 
 paragraph ; but though mostly short, this defect, if it be 
 one, has, the author hopes, been atoned for by their 
 number. 
 
 Two paragraphs from Mr J. B. Coughtrie's pen are 
 included under the heading of Art, and several emenda- 
 tions in the same article are due to his critical acumen and 
 artistic taste. The advice of Mr Charles Ford, F.L.S., was 
 sought on several points connected with the short article 
 on Botany. The author has also pleasure in acknowledging, 
 as regards this edition, the kindness of Dr J. C. Thomson 
 in reading over the articles on Acupuncture, Beri-beri, 
 Doctors, Leprosy, Mosquitoes, Plague, and Vaccination, as 
 well as for some suggestions made by him ; and to any 
 others English or Chinese from whom a suggestion may 
 have been received, or a fact gleaned, the author desires 
 to express his best thanks. 
 
 Since this book first issued from the press, China has 
 indeed been the theatre in which the leading European 
 Powers have passed rapidly over a corner of the stage ; and 
 in the minds of many residents in the Far East the question 
 is whether all this military display has resulted in any good 
 commensurate with the efforts put forth. Not that the 
 raising of the dastardly siege of the Legations and the 
 invasion of North China was not necessary, but whether 
 more lasting good to China, and more stability in the 
 relationships between the foreign residents in that land 
 and the Chinese themselves, should not have resulted 
 from it. 
 
 The grim tragedy enacted by the massacres and war, 
 what has seemed the farce in which many of the blood- 
 stained instigators and perpetrators enjoy a peace with 
 
 viii
 
 Preface 
 
 honour, followed by the usual comedy of an indemnity or 
 compensation for losses, drawn from the pockets of those 
 (the Westerners, in the shape of tariff charges) to whom 
 it is eventually to be paid for thus it has ever been with 
 China of late : the expenses of our punitive wars have 
 been recouped to us from the purses of our own merchants ; 
 or, if a new departure has been made on this occasion, 
 wrung from the unwilling hands, and filched from the 
 purses of a populace distant in many cases from the 
 seat of outrages, and who are entirely innocent of them. 
 Filched, we say, because much of the money ostensibly 
 taken for the purposes of the indemnities is diverted to 
 the bottomless money-bags of the greedy and avaricious 
 officials, who are only too glad, under the pretext of buying 
 off the ' foreign devil,' to have the grand opportunity of 
 making their own fortunes rapidly, while all the oppro- 
 brium is shunted off on to the shoulders of the outside 
 barbarian all these things would seem to hold out little 
 hope of a betterment of things in the future. 
 
 And yet the war for war it was against the de facto 
 government of China, notwithstanding all the diplomatic 
 attempts to deny it brought out more than one good trait 
 in China's best men ; and more good still might have been 
 educed out of the evil, or in spite of the evil, could the 
 opportunities only have been seized to strengthen further 
 those who have the good of their misgoverned country 
 really at heart. Amidst all, and perhaps in consequence of, 
 the crushing defeats inflicted on the progressive party by 
 the reactionists, many a foreign writer is apt to forget the 
 latent power for good and progress still inherent in the 
 ' new party ' ; and though some of the ancient ' things 
 Chinese' the corruption, overweening pride, and self- 
 sufficiency, etc., of the ' old party ' may not be swept away 
 
 ix
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 for many a long year, yet still this new force which has 
 arisen of late years, with its new-born and fresh-inspired 
 patriotism (a growth of only some three or four years), 
 is bound to increase as knowledge increases, and as 
 knowledge increases, its power will make itself felt in 
 increasing proportions. 
 
 It is a mistake to look only on this mighty empire 
 which is beginning to bestir itself and respond to Western 
 influences with the official goggles of Peking, and prophesy 
 jeremiads of woe alone. Strife and commotions, upheavals 
 and rebellions, will, doubtless, agitate and agitate in the 
 future as they have done in the past; but with further 
 enlightenment and years, the elements of good will gain 
 more power, and tell in the long run. 
 
 Let us consider that a hundred years ago there was 
 not a Protestant Christian in China, and that now there 
 are a hundred thousand, and that the great mass of these 
 have been enrolled during the last fifty years. If they 
 progress during the next century in the ever-multiplying 
 numbers of a geometrical progression, as they have done 
 in the past, before long, this new section of the body politic 
 will necessarily make itself felt in the counsels of China. 
 This ever-increasing element of Christianity, under whose 
 fostering care nearly all the material progress the country 
 has ever made in recent years has had its inception, is 
 not to be despised nor overlooked in prognostications 
 of the future. It is a factor that, as it increases in 
 strength which no one who has watched its progress 
 can doubt it is bound to do will demand, along with 
 the moderate section of the progressives, a voice ; their 
 adherents will occupy foremost positions in time, and have 
 their share in the government of the country. 
 
 The evolutionary forces are at work : Western nations
 
 Preface 
 
 are surrounding the ancient centre of the Far East, and 
 conditioned by its new environments, the foremost men 
 are yearning for progress towards a higher plane of exist- 
 ence for their native country and themselves. These 
 aspirations of the best of her sons are not those of hordes 
 of Huns led by an all-world conqueror. True progress 
 does not always consist in the conquering of other nations, 
 nor in holocausts of human victims offered to the God of 
 War. The Chinese as a nation have been a peace-loving 
 people. 
 
 The little white stone of Western progress and 
 Christianity has been cast into the well-nigh stagnant pool 
 of Chinese thought, and it has sunk deep into its very 
 heart, unseen to a great extent in its progress ; but its 
 influence is making itself visible on the surface in ever- 
 increasing ripples, which are extending far and wide, and 
 have not yet reached their limit. The point of impact of 
 this disturbing element seems but small, compared with 
 the vast mass of old-world traditions and modes of thought, 
 and the influence, at first sight, may be considered to be 
 but superficial, hastened only to waste its efforts on the 
 sandy shore of the arid desert of Chinese literature (as 
 some have described it), which apparently bounds all 
 Chinese mental effort and movement ; but, though hidden 
 to a great extent from those who only look on the 
 surface, it is making itself felt at the heart of the 
 nation, and will continue to do so, more and more, as 
 it sinks deeper and deeper into the centre of the 
 vital existence of the country. In other words, let us 
 not take a pessimistic view of everything connected 
 with China, for the influences that are at work are 
 greater than many would think ; and though the visible 
 
 outcome is but comparatively small at present (as 
 
 xi
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 compared with the hoary mass to be moved), yet they 
 are bound to extend in the future, and to exert even 
 more influence in time to come, and to achieve more 
 in the days of to-morrow in that land where the 
 to-morrows are so long of coming than it has ever 
 done in the yesterdays of the long ago. 
 
 J. DYER BALL. 
 October 1903. 
 
 XII
 
 THINGS CHINESE 
 
 ABACUS. The abacus, or counting-board, is as much 
 a necessity in a merchant's office, or shrofFs counting-room, 
 as his account-books ; without the abacus he would be at a 
 complete loss to make up his accounts, and his books would 
 therefore be unnecessary. Arithmetic forms no part of a 
 school- boy's work : no little heathen Chinee ever has to 
 sing 
 
 ' The rule of three, it bothers me, 
 And fractions drive me mad,' 
 
 as both the one and the other are utterly unknown to him. 
 Not even the simplest knowledge of arithmetic will ever be 
 learned by him as a lesson, unless he is destined for a 
 mercantile life, or to be a tradesman, or hawker, etc.; even 
 then he learns only just as much as it is absolutely 
 necessary for him to know and that as a part of his business 
 training. What little idea of figures he does possess, he 
 picks up when bargaining for food or toys, or when staking 
 a few cash for sweetmeats at the wayside stall. The 
 ordinary Celestial is content to get through life with as 
 scanty a ' knowledge of addition, subtraction, multiplication, 
 and division as would serve an English youngster of six or 
 eight years of age.' A very little goes a long way with 
 him, but nearly every man can finger the abacus to a 
 greater or lesser extent ; and those who have much to do 
 with accounts get very dexterous in the use of it, going 
 through the calculations most rapidly. We once had the 
 curiosity to time a Chinese accountant from a native 
 shipping office when turning different items expressed in 
 taels and their decimals items of four, five, and six figures 
 
 i A
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 into dollars and cents, and we found he worked these 
 sums out in from ten to fifteen seconds. 
 
 The modus operandi is as follows : Putting his abacus 
 down on the table before him, and his books a trifle more 
 to the left, the accountant commences his calculations, using 
 the thumb and forefinger of his right hand to flick the 
 little balls up or down as he requires, only using his other 
 three fingers, when, his sum done, he sweeps the upper 
 balls to the top of the board, and the lower ones down to 
 the bottom the positions they occupy when not in actual 
 use. The principle is simply that of the framework of 
 wires with coloured beads used in England for teaching 
 children to count With the Chinese, however, the counting- 
 board is an oblong tray with bars running from top to 
 bottom, and a transverse partition running from one side 
 to the other, dividing the board into two unequal divisions. 
 On each bar are seven balls, two in the upper division and 
 five in the lower ; each of those below stands for one, each 
 of those above, for five ; so, if one is to be represented, one 
 of the lower ones is pushed up against the cross-bar, or if 
 two, two are placed in the same position, and so on till 
 four, after which all the lower balls are pushed back again, 
 and one of the upper ones is brought down to the middle 
 partition to stand for five. If six is to be represented, one 
 of the lower balls is pushed up to the cross-bar, on the 
 other side of which is the upper ball, for five and one make 
 six. The other lower balls are added one after the other 
 to represent seven, eight, and nine respectively, while for 
 ten, one on the next bar to the left is used, the calculation 
 going on in the same way as before. The operator fixing 
 then on one of the upright bars as representing units, the 
 next bar to the left stands for tens, the next one for 
 hundreds, the next for thousands, and so on, while in the 
 opposite direction, to the right hand, the decimals tenths, 
 hundredths, thousandths, and so on, are represented on the 
 consecutive bars. 
 
 The great defect of the abacus is, that it simply 
 represents the process of calculation as it proceeds, for, 
 
 2
 
 Abatement 
 
 as can readily be understood, each step in the calculation 
 calls new combinations of balls into play, and has the effect 
 of obliterating the previous step ; so that, if a mistake has 
 been made, the whole process has to be gone over again. 
 The abacus is simply used, therefore, to record the results 
 of the mental calculations as they proceed. The processes 
 by which these results are produced are not shown, and, 
 while each new operation is being recorded on the board; 
 it naturally follows that the balls which have been used 
 for the last answer being taken as the reckoning goes on to 
 show the new answer as each computation is gradually, or 
 quickly, set down as it goes on, so, as it proceeds, part 
 passu, the preceding answer is as gradually, or as quickly, 
 as the case may be, effaced. 
 
 The Chinese merchants or traders so habituate them- 
 selves to the use of the abacus that they become quite 
 dependent on it, and it is amusing to see the utter help- 
 lessness they often display in trying to add two simple 
 numbers together without an abacus. 
 
 When, at daylight, the shutters are taken down from 
 the shop-fronts in Canton, the shopman ensures, as he 
 thinks, good luck for the day by shaking the balls of the 
 abacus to and fro ; at first slowly, but gradually increasing 
 in speed until finally a continuous sharp clicking sound is 
 produced. 
 
 ABATEMENT. Nearly every Chinese tradesman, or 
 merchant, states the price of his goods with a view to an 
 abatement being made. The only exceptions amongst 
 purely native establishments are tea, cake, and druggists' 
 shops, for at such places there is no need to haggle. 
 Exception must also be made in favour of the shops 
 dealing almost exclusively with Europeans, where many 
 are beginning to conform to foreign customs and have a 
 fixed price. 
 
 A Chinese will take as much as he can get, but as a 
 general rule it is quite safe to suppose that he is asking a 
 quarter or a third more than he expects to receive ; conse- 
 
 3
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 quently offer him half of what he asks, then, while he 
 gradually falls in his price, as gradually rise in the offer 
 made to him until neutral ground is reached, when split 
 the difference and he will probably be glad to take what 
 you give him. But this must all be done with a perfect 
 nonchalance ; no eagerness to obtain the object must be 
 shown ; no words of praise must fall from your lips ; any 
 little defects in it must be pointed out: ' It is naught, it 
 is naught, saith the buyer : but when he is gone his way 
 then he boasteth.' 
 
 When in doubt as to the value of anything, a very good 
 plan is to go about beating down the price in several 
 different shops. A pretty shrewd guess may then be made 
 as to what is a fair value for the article ; for when a shop- 
 man sees a customer on the point of leaving his shop, he 
 will come down to nearly, if not quite, as low a figure as he 
 is prepared to accept. 
 
 A Chinaman dearly loves a bargain, and he finds a 
 positive pleasure in chaffering over the price, which the 
 foreigner (to whom time is money) can scarcely ap- 
 preciate. Looked at from a Western standpoint, it is 
 simply appalling to think of the hours, days, weeks, 
 months, and years, which must be wasted in the aggregate 
 in China over the carrying out of this Eastern trait of 
 character. 
 
 There is an amusing skit, translated by Giles in his 
 ' Historic China and other Sketches,' which is an admirable 
 parody on the language of the market and the shop, and 
 holds up this custom of the Chinese to ridicule. It is 
 styled ' The Country of Gentlemen,' and represents an 
 ideal state of society where the tables are turned the 
 buyer cracking up the goods he is purchasing, and offering, 
 and insisting on the seller taking, a higher price than is de- 
 manded for them, while the latter depreciates his wares, 
 asking far too little for them, the two haggling over the 
 price at great length as in the every-day world in China 
 the only difference being that buyer and seller have 
 changed places. 
 
 4
 
 Aboriginal Tribes 
 
 ABORIGINAL TRIBES. The present race of 
 Chinese is supposed to have come into the country some 
 four thousand years ago. They were not the first occu- 
 piers of the soil, however, and it has been only very 
 gradually that they have succeeded in driving out the 
 aborigines, for large tracts of country in the south and 
 south-west of the eighteen provinces are still possessed by 
 the former inhabitants, who hold their own against the 
 Chinese, and are reported in some parts to even have 
 thousands of the latter as slaves in their inaccessible fast- 
 nesses, thus retaliating on their aggressors, who some 
 centuries since exposed them to the same treatment. 
 
 The provinces in which these representatives of former 
 races are found, are Kwei-chau, Sz-chuen, Yun-nan, Kwang- 
 tung, and Kwang-si, and the island of Hai-nan. 
 
 In Sz-chuen a considerable portion of the west and 
 south-west of the province is sparsely inhabited by some 
 forty or fifty native tribes, of whom little is known : some 
 are very warlike, and constant depredations are committed 
 by them. They have their own chiefs, languages, customs 
 and manners. The late Mr. Colborne Babsr, of the Consular 
 Service, obtained a specimen of the written language of the 
 Lolos one of these tribes. It is a most peculiar sort of 
 caligraphy, and presents no point of resemblance to the 
 Chinese language or any other that one is familiar with. 
 Dr. Henry, of the Imperial Maritime Customs Service, has 
 gathered together an immense amount of information 
 about these people, hitherto so little known, and intends 
 to publish the results of his researches and long-continued 
 inquiries. 
 
 In Kwei-chau they appear to be scattered all over the 
 province ; and the same may be said of Yun-nan, where 
 about two-thirds of the ' inhabitants consist of various tribes 
 of Lo-lo, Li-su, Mu-su, Man-tzu, and Miao-tzu.' In Kwang- 
 tung they are located in the north-west of the province, and 
 in Kwang-si in the north-east. 
 
 In the island of Hai-nan, the aboriginal Le tribes have 
 maintained their independence against the Chinese for 
 
 5
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 nearly two thousand years, having been driven from the 
 coast into the mountains in the interior. They are divided 
 into civilised and uncivilised Les, and are physically strong 
 and well developed. They have the art of writing, which 
 is described by the Chinese as ' like the wriggling of worms.' 
 There is so great a difference in some of the languages 
 spoken by the different tribes, that they converse with each 
 other in Chinese. The women are tattooed and wear skirts. 
 There are also some of the Miao-tsz amongst them ; these 
 Miao-tsz being found largely in other parts of China. 
 
 It will thus be seen that they occupy large districts in 
 many parts of the country, especially in the mountainous 
 and hilly regions of some of the provinces. As has been 
 already said, in some portions of the empire the aborigines 
 retain their former possessions, but from other tracts they 
 have been driven to upland fastnesses, as the ancient 
 Britons were forced to retire to Wales. 
 
 To show the number and extent of these remnants of a 
 former race and civilisation in China, it may be pointed out 
 that in the provinces of Hu-nan, Kwei-chau, Kwang-si, 
 Yun-nan, and Sz-chuen, the aboriginal tribes Miau-tsz 
 and others occupy an area of country equal to that of 
 France, and are some millions in number, representing 
 numerous tribes ; as many as one hundred and eighty 
 being mentioned, though perhaps not so many are in 
 existence now. They are supposed to have come through 
 Burmah into China. As is the case with most of these 
 aboriginal inhabitants of China, the dress of the women is 
 more distinctive than that of the men. 
 
 Out of the 11,000,000 inhabitants of the province of 
 Yun-nan, two-thirds are ' cultivated savages,' i.e. Lo-lo, 
 Li-su, Mu-su, Man-tzu, and Miao-tzu. 
 
 In the Lin-chau prefecture of the Kwang-tung province, 
 and the south of the Hu-nan province are to be found the 
 lu tribes, who were brought in the twelfth century from the 
 Kwang-si province, and settled on the mountains. Their 
 hair is worn long, they are short in stature, and have scanty 
 beards. They, as well as other aboriginal tribes, wear cloths 
 
 6
 
 Acupuncture 
 
 bound round their legs from the knee to the ankle. No 
 foreigner is allowed by the Chinese to penetrate into their 
 haunts, which are now restricted in extent from what they 
 were originally, for the more civilised Chinese have con- 
 fined them within recent times to the high and inaccessible 
 mountains. They have no written language, and their 
 speech is quite distinct from the Chinese. Their number 
 is perhaps 50,000. 
 
 It has been suggested that the Japanese arc descendants 
 of the Man or Miau tribes, who crossed over from the south 
 of China to their future island home. At the time of their 
 emigration they were the only inhabitants of the south of 
 China. 
 
 So little is known about many of these communities of 
 primitive man scattered here and there throughout China, 
 their mountain homes are so inaccessible, the accounts of 
 their curious customs, simplicity, origin, and peculiarly 
 written languages when they have such, the harsh and 
 cruel treatment they have received from the Chinese, their 
 patriotic stand for hearth and home against these invaders : 
 such, and many other reasons, all combine to make these 
 people objects of interest to the man of science, the 
 traveller, the philanthropist, and the missionary. 
 
 Books recommended. 'Travels and Researches in Western China,' by 
 E. Colborne Baber, chapters 4 and 5. 'Ling Nam,' by B. C. Henry, chapters 
 9, 20-25, contain interesting notices of them. Several articles have also ap- 
 peared in the China Review, and Essays in the ' Records of the Missionary 
 Conference held at Shanghai, 1890.' In a paper in the Chinese Repository, 
 republished in the Chinese and Japanese Repository for October 1883, a 
 number of tribes and customs are noticed. A very interesting work is 
 extant in manuscript in Chinese, profusely illustrated with coloured pictures 
 showing the costumes, etc. 
 
 ACUPUNCTURE. Acupuncture is one of the nine 
 branches of practice recognised in medical science among 
 the Chinese, and is of most ancient origin, having been in 
 use from time immemorial. If we are to believe tradition, 
 the Emperor Hwang-ti was the originator of it. In the 
 sixth century B.C., Pien Ts'iao was skilled in its applica- 
 tion ; and there is extant to this day a work, written in the 
 
 7
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 third or fourth century B.C., which treats of it. Some six 
 hundred or more years ago, i.e., during the time of the 
 Sung dynasty, it may be said to have been ' reduced to a 
 science ; for one of two copper figures of the human body, 
 made in 1027 A.D. by order of the then ruling Emperor, 
 with markings to illustrate its principles, still exists.' 
 There are 367 of these markings, every square inch on the 
 surface having its own name 'and being assigned some 
 relationship, purely imaginary, with the internal parts.' 
 Acupuncture is extensively treated of in the medical works 
 of the Chinese, and is a very common remedy. Many 
 directions are given as to the manner of its use, and the 
 user is cautioned against wounding the arteries, for which 
 purpose he should know the position of the blood-vessels. 
 ' The operator has a manikin full of holes, and by close 
 study of this he learns where to drive his needle,' the latter 
 being inserted ' in parts of the body which may be pierced 
 without fatal results.' ' Sometimes heat is applied to the 
 outer end of the needle, and this is called hot acupuncture ; ' 
 but it ' is never heated before insertion.' In some cases the 
 needle has been known to break in the body of the patient, 
 and has had to remain there till extracted by the skill of 
 the Western practitioner. 
 
 The needle used looks ' very much like a sewing-machine needle, 
 but is longer and coarser than that. Some of the Chinese doctors 
 have needles two feet long, and are supposed by ardent admirers to be 
 able to drive these instruments entirely through the patient's body ; 
 but the great size of the needles is in reality intended to represent the 
 greatness of the owner's skill and reputation. The needles used are of 
 nine forms as follows : The arrow-headed, blunt, puncturing, spear- 
 pointed, ensiform, round, capillary, long, and great. The point of 
 insertion, the depth, and the direction are all important . . . and the 
 method is usually to drive them through the distended skin by a blow 
 from a light mallet. They are frequently made red-hot, and occasion- 
 ally are left in the flesh for days together.' 
 
 It is considered to be a universal panacea. It was 
 carried over ' from China to Japan before the dawn of 
 history ' ; scarification and acupuncture being the peculiar 
 forte of these two nations. Dr Lockhart says that 
 acupuncture ' is very dexterously performed by the 
 
 8
 
 Adoption 
 
 Chinese. It is largely resorted to tor rheumatism, deep- 
 seated pains of all kinds, sprains, swelling of the joints, 
 etc.' It was introduced into Europe from China by a Dutch 
 surgeon named Ten-Rhyne in the seventeenth century. 
 
 Books recommended. A long account is given of the practice in 
 R^musat's ' Nouveaux Melanges Asiatiques,' Tome I., pp. 358-380. On 
 page 229 of 'The Chinese As They Arc,' by Tradcsoant Lay, woodcuts are 
 given of the instruments used for this purpose by the Chinese. Lock hart's 
 'Medical Missionary in China.' See also a paper in the China Medical 
 Missionary Journal for December 1892, by Dr J. C. Thomson, entitled 
 ' Surgery in China. ' 
 
 ADOPTION. It is a matter of the first importance 
 that a man should have a son to offer sacrifices at the 
 Ancestral Hall and to worship at his tomb. The cry with 
 a Chinese is not ' Give me children, or else I die,' but 
 ' Give me a son, or I cannot die in peace,' and, failing a 
 son of his own, he adopts one. It is impossible, with our 
 ideas on the subject, to understand what a matter of prime 
 importance this is with a Chinese. To show how it enters 
 into the very essence of family life in China, we quote from 
 the learned and interesting brochure by Parker on ' Com- 
 parative Chinese Family Law,' as follows : 
 
 'The Chinese adoption of agnates is ... not a matter of 
 choice . . . , but of compulsion. The brother, when living, may 
 demand a nephew, and, when dead, a nephew is given to him unasked. 
 It is not only in his interest, but in that of the whole family, that the 
 succession should be continued. So unfortunate are those considered 
 who have no heirs, that in each town there is a public lararium 
 dedicated to orbate persons deceased, and the officials sacrifice 
 periodically to their manes! 
 
 ' Again, there is absolutely no distinction between such adopted 
 son and a natural-born son. He cannot be disinherited, at least for 
 any reason not equally applicable to a natural son ; he mourns for his 
 adoptive father as a natural son would mourn, and for his natural 
 father as a nephew.' Once adopted, he cannot be adopted by another. 
 'It is a family arrangement, and needs no magisterial authority.' 
 What seems a curious feature in it, to our ideas, is, that 'it may be 
 made without the knowledge of the deceased adopter, whether he is 
 married or not (provided he is over sixteen years of age 1 ) and even 
 after his death.' 
 
 But this curious feature is explained when we re- 
 member that the adoption does not take place for the 
 1 A Chinese is of age at sixteen. 
 
 9
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 individual adopter in China, but for the benefit of the 
 family the family being the unit of society, and the 
 individual no one, except a fractional part of the smallest 
 integer of society the family. 
 
 'In treating of adoption in China, it is important to distinguish 
 between the adoption of persons bearing the same surname and those 
 bearing a different surname. If a Chinese has no son, he adopts, if 
 possible, a nephew, who is the son of one of his brothers. If there 
 are no nephews, then he adopts the grandson of one of his uncles, or 
 the great-grandson of one of his grand-uncles. In other words, he 
 endeavours to obtain a pure agnate. If there are no agnates of a 
 suitable generation, or if there are agnates of a suitable generation, 
 but not of a suitable age, he next looks to the children of his sisters, or 
 the grandchildren of his aunts. It is generally only when neither 
 agnates nor cognates of suitable age and generation are accessible 
 that he adopts a perfect stranger, and, even then, he endeavours to 
 find one of the same surname. . . . Adoption of an agnate is generally 
 effected during the lifetime of the adopter, who is considered entitled 
 to choose any nephew (except the eldest son of the next brother), 
 before an assembly of agnates, and an entry is made in the genealogical 
 register of the family. A rich man, of course, in practice, finds it 
 easier to obtain the object of his choice than a poor one, and the 
 handsome son of a rich brother is similarly less easy to secure as an 
 heir than the plain son of a poor brother. . . . Each elder brother can 
 continue to adopt the sons of his younger brethren until he finds an 
 heir who will live ; and elder brothers are in duty bound to give a son 
 in posthumous adoption to a younger brother who has died childless. 
 . . . An adopted agnate or cognate takes his place before natural sons 
 subsequently born to the same father. An adopted stranger is liable 
 ... to exclusion by the agnates of his deceased adoptive father.' 
 
 About five per cent, of Chinese families, it is considered, 
 adopt children; seventy per cent, of them being males. In 
 some provinces and districts strangers are frequently 
 adopted, and in Amoy the traders have a peculiar custom 
 of adopting a son to act for them as a commercial agent 
 abroad. In adopting strangers, the child is generally 
 purchased from parents too poor to keep their own off- 
 spring, while sometimes kidnappers make a profit by the 
 sale of the poor innocent victims they have inveigled into 
 their toils. 
 
 There is a secondary species of what might be termed 
 pseudo-adoption. As true adoption amongst the Chinese 
 is generally due to a certain amount of superstition con- 
 nected with ancestral worship, so the spurious adoption, 
 
 10
 
 Adoption 
 
 as a rule, is even more dependent upon the superstitious 
 beliefs of this credulous people. There are different 
 varieties of this, the parties to one kind being sometimes 
 called godparents and godchildren by Europeans. 
 
 The custom has its foundation in the superstition that 
 it is possible to cheat the malignant spirits to whose evil 
 machinations are due the death or illness of children. If 
 the parents, then, are afraid that they will not be able to 
 bring up a child, or that, falling short of that, disease may 
 attack it, or ill-luck fall to its lot, they hit upon the ex- 
 pedient sometimes suggested by the fortune-teller of 
 this semi -adoption. Presents are made by the child's 
 parents to the so-called adopter, and return presents are 
 received. The adoptive parent takes a considerable 
 interest in his or her adopted child, presents and visits 
 being made by both sides on the respective birthdays 
 of the primarily interested parties, and at feasts, etc.; but, 
 beyond this, there are no definite duties incumbent on the 
 so-called godparent. The child still remains in its natural 
 parents' house, and, in the event of its parents dying, the 
 so-called godparent is not bound to take the child into his, 
 or her, keeping, even if left destitute. On the other hand, 
 the child, if its so-called godparent dies, is bound to wear 
 mourning, not deep, as in the case of its own parents, but 
 only half-mourning. It is supposed that the spirits will be 
 deceived into the belief that the child has really been 
 adopted into the new family, and the disease, death, 
 disaster, or ill-luck, that would otherwise ensue, are 
 effectually prevented, while at the same time the boy's or 
 girl's family retain their child, and, if an eldest son, will 
 have an heir to sacrifice to them after death. 
 
 Sometimes this spurious adoption takes place between 
 families that are friendly, merely with the object of draw- 
 ing them nearer to each other, but it is oftener the result 
 of the superstitious belief already mentioned. 
 
 This superstition gives rise to other varieties of false 
 adoption, such as giving a child in adoption to a banyan 
 tree, or a bamboo, or to a bridge, or an idol, or a stone 
 
 ii
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 lion in front of a temple. (These stone lions are objects of 
 worship by barren women in the hopes of obtaining off- 
 spring.) In all these cases it is believed that the spirits 
 inhabiting these several objects their guardian deities 
 will take the child under their protection and insure it 
 immunity from the ' ills that flesh is heir to.' On a small 
 piece of red paper is written : ' Given in adoption,' then 
 follows the word ' male ' or ' female,' and the surname 
 and name of the child. This is pasted upon the object 
 which is selected, and three incense sticks, joss paper, wine, 
 pork, chicken, and cooked rice are offered ; offerings are 
 also made at the end of the year for protection rendered, 
 as well as at the New Year, and, in the case of idols, on 
 their birthdays. The piece of red paper once put up is 
 not renewed, as the spirit is thus supposed to be sufficiently 
 informed by the one notice. The mother of the child, or 
 sometimes a ' praying woman/ as she is called, performs 
 the ceremony, offering up a prayer, informing the spirit 
 that the child is placed under its protection. These pro- 
 ceedings are sometimes undertaken at the instigation of 
 the fortune-teller. 
 
 When an idol is selected, it is generally that of some 
 favourite god, or goddess, such as Kwun Yam The 
 Goddess of Mercy, or Kwan Tai The God of War, or 
 T'fn Hau The Goddess of Heaven, or Man Ch'ong 
 The God of Literature, or even the Tutelary Spirit 
 (Lares) of the Bridge, or the Tutelary Spirits placed at 
 the two entrances to a village, but not those of the house. 
 In the case of a god being selected, part of his name (i.e., 
 one of the characters forming his title or designation) is 
 combined with that of the child, forming a new name for 
 the latter, which is, however, only used by the parents. 
 The god selected is worshipped on his birthday, and styled 
 ' the adopted father.' 
 
 The bamboo is preferred to other trees, as it is a prince 
 amongst trees (the Chinese do not know the bamboo as a 
 grass), and is so useful. Were no other proof available of 
 the slight esteem in which girls are held by the Chinese, 
 
 12
 
 Agriculture 
 
 it would be shown by the difference in the estimated per- 
 centage of those of each sex who are the subjects of this 
 false adoption ; for in the extreme south of China it is 
 believed that 50 per cent, of boys are thus subjected to 
 adoption, and only 10 per cent, of the girls. 
 
 AGAR-AGAR. Amongst curious objects mentioned 
 in books on China appears Agar-agar. 
 
 It is 'the Malay name for a species of marine alga, the Fucus 
 saccharinits of botanists ; growing on the rocky shores of many of the 
 Malayan islands, and forming a considerable article of export to 
 China. ... It is esculent when boiled to a jelly, and is also used by 
 the Chinese as a vegetable glue.' ' Of late years it has been largely 
 adopted in the European cuisine as a substitute for isinglass with 
 which to make jellies, etc., though wanting somewhat in delicacy and 
 taste. The principal place of production is Pulo Pangkor Laut 
 (Dindings) opposite Perak.' The Chinese name for it is Shek f;i ts'of. 
 
 AGRICULTURE.' The glory of the farmer is that, 
 in the division of labours, it is his part to create. All trade 
 rests at last on his primitive activity.' Thus Emerson be- 
 gins his ' Essay on Farming,' and it might have been written 
 by a Chinese ; for it is with a feeling of this nature that the 
 Chinese have classed the tillers of the ground as next to 
 the scholar, and before the merchant and the artisan : 
 these being the four estates into which the people are 
 divided by them. ' From the earliest dawn of legendary 
 history, agriculture has been regarded ' by the Chinese ' as 
 a high and ennobling calling.' This all, of course, from a 
 theoretical point of view on paper, in books, documents, 
 proclamations, precepts, and exhortations while in actual 
 everyday life, the boor (in the original meaning of the 
 word), i.e., the rustic, clownish countryman, sinks to a 
 subordinate position as compared with that of the relatively 
 more cultivated town resident, the wealthy citizen and 
 merchant, who elbow the farmer from the van, and relegate 
 him to an inferior position ; the official, being the apotheosis 
 of the scholar, takes, of course, the first position. Yet, 
 notwithstanding this, a high idealistic position for the 
 cultivator of the soil is fostered by not a few of the institu- 
 tions and habits peculiar to the Chinese. As an instance 
 
 13
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 of this, there is the example set by each Chinese Emperor 
 of ploughing in the Temple of Agriculture in Peking at 
 the Spring Equinox every year, thus inaugurating the 
 commencement of the farming season. The Emperor 
 takes the field, not as a warrior, but as a farmer, and, as an 
 example to his subjects, he walks behind the plough, and 
 thus dignifies the toil of his meanest field-labourer, or 
 rather the public ennobling of agriculture in this manner 
 adds dignity to the office of this great ruler of mankind. 
 The viceroys or governors of the different provinces per- 
 form the same ceremony annually. The following short 
 account of the performance of these acts by Li Hung-chang 
 in Canton in 1900, when Viceroy of the Two Kwang pro- 
 vinces, will give some idea of what is done on such occa- 
 sions : 
 
 'On the 9th ultimo, between 8 and 9 A.M., H.E. the Viceroy 
 Li Hung-chang and all the principal Chinese officials went in court 
 dress by chair to the Temple of Shen Nung beyond the East Gate, 
 and worshipped the patron saint of agriculture, and the spirits of land 
 and grain, after which they proceeded on to a bamboo stage, lined with 
 flags on two sides, and seated themselves. Then came an old man 
 leading an ox to the front of the stage, followed by two husbandmen 
 carrying a pair of hoes and two sets of harrows, and twelve boys 
 representing the signs of the Zodiac. The Provincial Governor, the 
 Tartar General, the Judge, and the Magistrates descended from the 
 stage, and assisted at the ceremony of tilling and harrowing by 
 handling the hoes and harrows, and scattering seeds, while the twelve 
 boys sang songs to the accompaniment of music. This ceremony of 
 agriculture is performed once a year by the officials three days after 
 the tomb festival.' 
 
 An object lesson is thus given to the people throughout 
 the empire and a ' deep sense of the importance of agricul- 
 ture to the public welfare' typified. Important it is in a 
 threefold sense : Firstly, because of its regular supply both 
 of food and labour to the people ; secondly, the needs of 
 the Government are met by moderate taxes, although, 
 unfortunately, owing to faulty administration and probably 
 to the rapacity of the officials, they are frequently increased 
 to six times the nominal assessment ; thirdly, an agricul- 
 tural population, it has been found, is governed with greater 
 ease than a purely mercantile or warlike community.
 
 Agriculture 
 
 Not only does the Son of Heaven show an example to 
 the meanest agricultural labourer by guiding the plough 
 with his royal hands ; but the Chinese Government poses 
 as a benefactor of the humble farmer, and to a great 
 extent carries into benevolent action the fostering of this 
 most important branch of labour. With this end in view, 
 the taxes imposed are in relative value to the productive- 
 ness of the soil under cultivation ; the reclamation of fields 
 on the river banks or the sea-shore is easily effected, ' the 
 terms not being onerous ' ; and waste land, whether on the 
 hill-sides or level ground (if poverty of soil requires a 
 lengthened time for the recouping of the industrious 
 farmer for capital expended), is untaxed until ample time 
 has elapsed for his labours to prove remunerative with an 
 assessment superimposed, five harvests being allowed to 
 the farmer who thus ' reclaims from a state of nature.' 
 And yet with all this encouragement to tillage many tracts 
 of country still lie waste, some of it the most fertile in the 
 country ; partly because the people have not the skill and 
 capital to drain and render it productive, partly because 
 they have not sufficient prospect of remuneration to 
 encourage them to make the necessary outlay, and some- 
 times from the outrages of local banditti making it unsafe 
 to live in secluded districts. 
 
 If we are to believe the Chinese accounts, agriculture 
 was the invention of Shin-nung, the Divine Husbandman, 
 for he it is who is credited not only with the invention but 
 also with the introduction of husbandry amongst the Chinese. 
 This mythical or semi-mythical monarch reigned B.C. 2700. 
 
 Professor Rein commences his magnificent work on 
 ' The Industries of Japan,' as follows : 
 
 ' In contrast with the nomadic races of Central Asia, the in- 
 habitants of the monsoon region have for thousands of years been 
 tied to the soil. They are intensely devoted to agriculture, especially 
 in China and Japan. Little opportunity is left in these countries for 
 cattle raising ; and since meadows and pastures are wanting, milk, 
 butter, and cheese the principal food of the nomadic Mongolian 
 peoples were unknown to the Chinese and Japanese. Eggs, and the 
 products of fishing and the chase, play a far more important role 
 than the flesh of domestic animals. . . . Since sheep were but seldom 
 
 15
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 found in China . . . wool was formerly of small consideration in the 
 matter of clothing. Hemp and cotton goods, and silk among the 
 rich, especially in the winter, are the stufis with which the population 
 is clothed.' 
 
 As would naturally be expected, the diverse climatic 
 conditions of such a vast empire extending from the 
 plains of Manchuria to the mephitic vales of Yun-nan, and 
 from the sea-coast provinces to the high mountains and 
 great table-lands of Tibet result in various and dissimilar 
 products from the different regions embraced under the 
 name of China ; but diverse as these productions are, the 
 large proportion of them are cultivated for food purposes. 
 Cotton, hemp, indigo, and mulberry for silk are almost the 
 only important plants which are grown that are not alimen- 
 tary. The basin of the Yang-tsz forms the great cotton 
 region ; ' Hemp is largely cultivated north of the Mei-ling, 
 and it also grows in Fuh-kien ' ; the southern provinces 
 produce in large quantities the rice which forms the staple 
 of food for millions of Chinese ; while the northern, colder 
 regions are more suited to the maturing of millet and corn. 
 Again the tea plant is unknown in the northern provinces, 
 the sunshine and the moist temperature to be found between 
 the twenty-third and thirty-fifth degrees of latitude suiting 
 it better ; the sugar-cane is only to be seen growing in the 
 south and south-eastern parts of China ; and the poppy is 
 unfortunately fast extending its area of cultivation through 
 different provinces east, west, north, and south, and 
 actually constituting a third of the whole cultivation of 
 the province of Yun-nan. 
 
 The memorable sentence of Arthur Young's, so often 
 quoted in the West in favour of small farms and peasant 
 proprietors ' Give a man the secure possession of a rock, 
 and he will turn it into a garden,' is equally applicable to 
 the Chinese farmer. 
 
 The never -tiring industry of the Chinese is fully 
 exemplified in the unremitting toil of the farmer : in the 
 sweat of his brow does he earn his daily bread ; ' week in, 
 week out, from morn till night,' is he to be found now with 
 
 16
 
 Agriculture 
 
 his primitive plough upturning the soil, now with unsavoury 
 concoctions of manure assisting the growth of the plant, 
 (for Chinese manuring is applied more to the growing 
 plant itself than to the soil) ; now with the assistance of 
 his son working the tread-mill waterwheel to fill his arti- 
 ficial water-channels, or with quick step, or half trot, wend- 
 ing his way with water buckets (gigantic watering-pots) 
 between his rows of vegetables, and supplying artificial 
 rain to his crops. Nor do his ingenious contrivances 
 for irrigation stop here ; for natural brooklets are deflected 
 from their wanton course and trained here and there down 
 the hill-sides, reviving the thirsty terraced fields as they go, 
 artificial channels being formed, first large, then smaller 
 ones, leading to every little plot tiny rills carrying moisture 
 to every bit of parched ground ; large wheels with buckets 
 fixed to them turn slowly and raise some hundreds of tons 
 of water each day from the streams, which, while giving the 
 motion to these wheels, are thus assisting in each revolution 
 to rob themselves of their watery treasures ; well-sweeps 
 (the shddftfoi Egypt) ladle out the contents of pools con- 
 structed for the gathering of rain-water ; and even a pail 
 or shallow vessel, with ropes attached to each side, is used 
 to scoop up the precious fluid from the running brook, a 
 man standing on each bank and with a swinging motion 
 skimming the vessel just enough under the surface to take 
 up sufficient water, when it is raised and with a jerking 
 motion emptied, this all being done with a remarkable 
 rapidity and smoothness of motion. Thus a perfect net- 
 work of minute streamlets and water-courses penetrate 
 to each lilliputian field, to be turned off or on at the 
 will of the Chinese farmer, who, when the ground has 
 had enough moisture, closes the little aqueduct with a 
 lump of mud. Man's labour is thus utilised and supple- 
 mented in various ways by different contrivances ; even 
 the cattle are sometimes employed to turn the water- 
 wheel, and, as we have seen, the stream itself is yoked 
 into the same service. All this obtains in the southern 
 provinces. 
 
 I 7 B
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 1 In the north of the country, where wheat, millet, and other 
 grains are largely grown, the rain supply in summer and the snow 
 in winter furnish all the moisture which the farmers require in 
 ordinary years.' 
 
 Few, if any, carts are to be seen in the farmyard in 
 the southern or eastern provinces of China ; man is 
 essentially the beast of burden, aided, of course, by woman, 
 though in some districts, women are not employed in 
 field-labour at all. 
 
 The convenient carrying-pole with a bucket, or pail, or 
 basket, or bamboo loop, as the exigencies of the case may 
 require, suspended from each end, serves all purposes of 
 porterage, and is amply sufficient for conveying root-crops, 
 grass, water, manure, and anything else that may require 
 to be transported short or long distances. To such an 
 extent does man perform labour, which is relegated to the 
 horse or ox in other lands, that the Chinese farmer may 
 even be seen carrying his plough off from, or on to, the 
 field, though the buffalo (water-buffalo) is yoked to it when 
 it is used to scrape the soil ; the same animal pulls the 
 harrow in its course over the surface of the ground or as it 
 stirs up the miry bottom of the semi-aquatic rice-field. 
 These uncouth, unwieldy-looking animals are driven to 
 and from their work, as well as guided in it, by boys, and 
 it is interesting to see the complete control which these 
 tiny youths have over these huge, ungainly, and stupid- 
 looking beasts. 
 
 Primitive, indeed, as well as ingenious, are the tools of 
 the Chinese farmer : content he has been to follow in the 
 wake of the first inventive genius amongst his progenitors, 
 who used the ubiquitous bamboo, spraying out its end as 
 a rake, or who, sticking a piece of iron on a pointed stick, 
 was satisfied with the achievement, and yoked his bullock 
 to this rudimentary plough a coulter serving to turn over 
 only a few inches of soil ; for the agricultural implements of 
 the Chinese are few in number as well as of simple con- 
 struction. In all probability, if not invented by the re- 
 doubtable Shin-nung himself, these tools of the farmer 
 
 18
 
 Agriculture 
 
 have been in use for centuries with no alteration or im- 
 provement effected in them. One writer thus describes 
 the Chinese plough and harrow : 
 
 'The plough is made of wood, except the iron-edged share, 
 which lies flat and penetrates the soil about five inches. The whole 
 invention is so simple and rude that one would think the inventor 
 of it was a labourer, who, tired of the toil of spading, called the ox 
 to his aid and tied his shovel to a rail ; fastening the animal at one 
 end and guiding the other, he was so pleased with the relief, that he 
 never thought of improving it much further than to sharpen the spade 
 to a coulter and bend the rail to a beam and handle. The harrow is 
 a heavy stick armed with a single row of stout wooden teeth, and 
 furnished with a framework to guide it ; or a triangular machine, 
 with rows of iron teeth, on which the driver rides to sink it in the 
 ooze.' 
 
 These two instruments are employed in rice cultiva- 
 tion. A broad hoe is used in the dry fields and soft 
 lands, the impetus of the blow being increased by the 
 weight of its large wooden blade edged with iron, or by 
 a blade made entirely of iron. The spade is but sparingly 
 had recourse to, as compared with its constant employment 
 in Western lands. As the seed is not sown broadcast, the 
 farmer is able with busy hoe to loosen the soil and keep 
 his fields beautifully clear of weeds. No machinery, except 
 such as has already been named, is found in the farm-yard. 
 Besides the above there are mattocks, rakes made of 
 bamboo, bill-hooks which do duty for scythes, pruning 
 knives, and sickles. Flails are used on thrashing floors 
 (made of chunam and containing a few square feet each) 
 for thrashing rice, peas, mustard, turnips, and other seeds 
 from the stalks, or unshod oxen are employed for the same 
 purpose. Winnowing machines are also used, which, it is 
 said, have been copied in the West. A small wheel, hand- 
 turned and within the machine, separates the chaff from 
 the grain by creating a strong wind, which meets the grain 
 as it falls from the hopper into which it is fed, and blows 
 the light husks away from the heavier seeds. 
 
 The Chinese farmer, as a general rule, is more a peasant 
 proprietor, or, if not that, a peasant farmer rather than 
 a farmer in our sense of the term, though here and there 
 
 19
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 large farms are to be met with on the frontier provinces 
 and up north. So minute are the sub-divisions, that at 
 times a ridge or two of potatoes, or vegetables, in a field 
 will belong to one person and the rest of the field will be 
 parcelled out in equally small portions. In this connection, 
 the following extract from a report on Agriculture in 
 China, published by the Department of Agriculture at 
 Washington, will be of interest : 
 
 ' Thus in Kwong Tung . . . one-sixth of an acre will support one 
 person, and the proprietor of two acres of good land, having a family 
 of five, can live without work on the produce of his little property. 
 Seven acres constitute wealth, as it is reckoned in China, and few 
 landowners have a hundred acres.' Emigration 'and infanticide 
 . . . alone prevent such overcrowding as would render existence on 
 the land impossible for the population as a whole. In the north, 
 where the soil is less fertile, the holdings are larger, and the standard 
 of comfort among the people is higher. In Manchuria, farms of 500 
 acres are not uncommon, and there are some much larger estates ; 
 but the great farms are cultivated in common by families, some of 
 which consist of two hundred members. Even in the north, it is 
 said that a family of six or seven persons can live on three acres of 
 land, and that five acres constitute comfort, or what is so considered 
 among people satisfied with the bare necessities of existence.' 
 
 The authority for the statement as to the Kwong-tung 
 province seems to be an account by Miss Fielde of farming 
 matters in the Swatow district, and this same authoress 
 also says : 
 
 'At this rate of production and consumption, the arable land in 
 the State of New York, with a reduction of one-half its returns on 
 account of its more northern latitude, would support the total 
 population of the United States at the present time ; and the occupied 
 arable land of the United States, with its producing power diminished, 
 on account of climate, to one-half that of land at Swatow, would feed 
 a population equal to that of the whole world, or over 1,400,000,000.' 
 
 Another author says : 
 
 ' The Chinese are rather market gardeners than farmers, if 
 regard be had to the small size of their grounds. They are ignorant, 
 too, of many of those operations whereby soils naturally unfruitful 
 are made fertile, and the natural fertility sustained at the cheapest 
 rate by proper manuring and rotation of crops ; but they make up for 
 the disadvantages of poor implements by hard work.' 
 
 The hill-sides are often terraced for rice, and places 
 which would otherwise only be waste land are utilised for 
 
 20
 
 Agriculture 
 
 the production of this useful cereal as well as other plants ; 
 but it is erroneous to suppose that the whole of China is a 
 vast garden, or that every hill is cut into a succession of 
 steps from base to summit, Rice, being the staple of food 
 in the South, is largely cultivated, the fields lying under 
 water for a considerable portion of the year on that account. 
 Little footpaths, only wide enough for one pedestrian at a 
 time, divide these rice-fields from one another. The flat 
 low grounds formed from the alluvial deposits of rivers are 
 a favourite and suitable situation for such fields, large 
 retaining banks protecting the chess-board mass of fields 
 from the incursions of the river. Another footpath (wider 
 than those in the centre of the fields) runs along the tops 
 of these banks, and the sloping sides are utilised for the 
 cultivation of fruit-trees, such as plantains, lychees, wham- 
 pees, etc. Two or three crops of rice are produced in one 
 year, as well as a crop or two of fish, which latter, introduced 
 in a young stage into the enclosed water lying on the 
 fields, are grown to a size fit for food in a short time. In 
 some districts of country, pea-nuts, sugar-cane, and native 
 tobacco are cultivated. A numerous variety of vegetables 
 is also to be seen. These are mostly of a poorer quality 
 than European vegetables, and are often of a kind unknown 
 to the Western world. Much of Chinese agriculture consists 
 in rearing them. The sweet potato, the yam, taro, beans, 
 cucumbers, pumpkins, squashes, water-melons, vegetable 
 marrows, brinjals, etc., all engage the attention of the 
 Chinese agriculturist, and provide him and many of his 
 fellow-countrymen a relish to take with their plain-boiled 
 rice ; a small modicum of salt, or fresh fish, or meat some- 
 times, giving a little additional savouriness to their daily 
 fare. For on such frugal diet, or on even a scantier one, 
 do the Chinese farmers and millions of the labouring 
 classes perform their daily tasks. 
 
 The patient care and unremitting toil, so characteristic 
 of the Chinese, reveal themselves no less in the open field 
 than in the narrow limits of the city shop where, for 
 instance, the workman produces those marvels of carving, 
 
 21
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 the wonder and admiration of all beholders. 'The 
 cultivation of the soil is marked by extreme care and 
 attention to details.' The fields are clean and well kept. 
 The labourer is at his task from early morn till dewy eve, 
 or at all events till the hour for the evening meal. Nothing 
 is wasted ; nothing lost in China. ' Fertilising materials 
 are collected from all conceivable sources . . . and thus 
 the productiveness of the soil is maintained, while its 
 condition is kept up to the mark by the most laborious 
 industry.' Continuous manuring while the plants are 
 growing (supplied in a liquid form) would seem to obviate 
 the necessity for a constant rotation of crops in the eyes 
 of the Chinese ; for they are adepts at manuring, and keep 
 up the character of the soil in this way, though a 
 rotation of crops is also said to be always practised in 
 some parts of China. The night-soil of the cities nay, of 
 every little hamlet even, and the contents of the primitive 
 wayside urinals, are carefully husbanded and utilised, to 
 the disgust of the olfactory nerves of those unaccustomed 
 to such an ancient mode. Pots and pans and crocks and 
 broken sherds are placed at every convenient, as well as 
 every inconvenient, spot for the collection of this liquid 
 manure, at times regardless of all Western ideas of decency. 
 This is deluged with water and poured on the growing 
 plants with a ladle from buckets in the morning and 
 evening hours. Other materials are gathered for the same 
 purpose, the motto in China being to waste nothing, and 
 nothing almost seems to come amiss : mud from the rivers, 
 canals, and tanks a splendid fertiliser in a country like 
 this, where the rivers act as main sewers and dust-bins, 
 and their tributaries feed the main channels with sufficient 
 material pilfered from the crumbling banks to form rich 
 alluvial deposits the sweepings from the streets, hair from 
 the barbers' shops, the refuse paper, etc., from fire-crackers 
 after being exploded, lime and plaster with years of wood 
 soot impregnating it, gathered from kitchens and old 
 buildings, soot itself, old bones, the refuse of fish and 
 animals, castings from animals and fowls all are eagerly 
 
 22
 
 Agriculture 
 
 gathered from every spot and made use of; and so also is 
 vegetable rubbish which is charred under turf, ' the residue 
 is a rich black earth, which is laid upon the seeds them- 
 selves when planted ; the refuse left after expressing the 
 oil from ground-nuts, beans, vegetables, tallow, tea, and 
 cabbage seeds, etc., is likewise mixed with earth and made 
 into cakes, to be sold to farmers.' 
 
 Captain Gill, though considering that Chinese agri- 
 culture had been overestimated, yet says that in one 
 respect it is 'peculiar, namely in the care which is taken 
 with ground once under cultivation to see that nothing is 
 lost.' The economy of the minute is exemplified in farm- 
 ing in China as in most other callings in that great land, 
 so made up of the savings of what would be despised as 
 trifles in other lands of smaller size. 
 
 Agriculture in China is a petit culture. 
 
 To one accustomed to fields laid down in grass and 
 clover, it is curious to notice the absence of these features 
 so common amongst us ; what might be pasture or meadow 
 lands, such as the bottom of valleys and flat land, are used 
 for rice and other crops. 
 
 The spring and summer in the South are characterised 
 by a relatively high temperature, light winds, dampness, 
 and frequent rains alternating with dry spells, but the 
 early winter is the dry season in which for several months 
 clear skies prevail, accompanied by a cold temperature 
 which increases as the winter progresses and the new year 
 comes in, till in January, February, and March, the 
 temperature is keen, and is rendered intensely disagreeable 
 by the dampness which is apt to be present to a con- 
 siderable extent in the shape of rain, mists, and fogs. The 
 typhoons which bring torrents of rain in their train are 
 often frequent visitants in the summer months when the 
 south-west monsoon is blowing, the north-east monsoon 
 being the winter wind. Vegetation and agriculture, of 
 course, depend largely upon these climatic conditions, the 
 copious rains, bright sunshine, and mountain mists, all have 
 their share in producing the rapid growth of the plant ; 
 
 23
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 but Nature tends her own products with a careful hand, 
 for fogs and mists, followed by April showers, commence 
 the irrigation of the land, parched and dried with the 
 moistureless year-end ; these lighter showers are succeeded, 
 as the hardened earth is gradually moistened, and better 
 able to drink in the heaven-sent floods, by heavier thunder- 
 storms and drenching rains, to be again succeeded by the 
 torrential downpours, following in the wake of the dreaded 
 cyclonic typhoon. No frosts of any appreciable influence, 
 as a rule, occur in the neighbourhood of Hongkong and 
 Canton ; but the case is different further north in higher 
 latitudes. 
 
 The cost and difficulty of transport no doubt exerts a 
 deterrent effect on the development of Chinese agriculture. 
 
 The Chinese farm-house is not, as a general rule in the 
 South, to be found in the centre of the ground which the 
 farmer has under cultivation, but at some distance, perhaps, 
 from the fields, forming with all the other farm-houses of 
 the neighbourhood a little hamlet or village, from which 
 the men issue at early dawn to proceed to the scene of 
 their labours, and to which they return when their work is 
 over. This economises space and affords more security to 
 the denizens of the little communities from the attacks of 
 robbers, though it is a wonder what temptation can exist 
 for attacks from such, when the farmers are so little re- 
 moved themselves from the abject depths of poverty. The 
 small holdings and farms are sometimes rendered still more 
 fractional in size with the death of each proprietor, as on his 
 demise his possessions are often divided amongst his 
 family, such being the general outcome of the law of succes- 
 sion. Disputes as to the inheritance of land give rise to 
 many feuds and crimes. Such family quarrels often form 
 the principal incident on which the stories in many a 
 Chinese novelette hinge. 
 
 ' To find a parallel to the agricultural condition of the country, we 
 must look to our Colonial Empire, where settlers apply for uninhabited 
 lands, and receive the rights over them in exchange for small annual 
 payments. This is the principle on which lands have been appro- 
 
 2 4
 
 Almonds 
 
 priated in times past, and still are leased out to farmers. As a rule, 
 the land so let is taken up by a clan, the members of which cultivate 
 it much on the principle of the village communities. . . . Ten families 
 constitute, as a rule, a village holding, each family farming about ten 
 acres. To such a community is allotted a common village plot, which is 
 cultivated by each family in turn, and from which the tribute grain is 
 collected and paid. The surplus, if any, is divided between the 
 families. Towards the end of the year a meeting is held, at which a 
 division of the profits is made on one condition. Any farmer who is 
 unable to produce the receipt for the income-tax on his farm ceases to 
 be entitled to any benefit arising from the village plot." 
 
 The following appreciative notice of Chinese farming is 
 from the pen of Mrs. Hales, late of Amoy : 
 
 ' It is doubtless true, as asserted, that irrigation, as practised in 
 Japan and China to-day, is crude and unsystematic, but it would be a 
 mistake to assume that we have nothing to learn from those countries 
 in these matters. People who have depended for centuries upon arti- 
 ficial methods of watering a large part of their artificial lands ought to 
 have gained some valuable experience, and it is our business to profit 
 by studying what they have accomplished. It may freely be admitted 
 that the methods of the Chinese and Japanese are not modern, and 
 that they fail to avail themselves of many of the contrivances by which 
 people in the Western world would carry on agricultural pursuits ; but, 
 at the same time, we must not shut our eyes to the fact that the 
 Chinese accomplish results which make the intensive farming of the 
 French seem slipshod efforts when a comparison is made. Recent 
 investigators of the subject have expressed the opinion that if the same 
 degree of skill were applied to make the soil of England produce farm 
 products that is expended upon the land of China, Great Britain would 
 be independent of foreign nations for its food supplies, and could sup- 
 port a larger population than the census now shows. Or a still more 
 forcible comparison is made by pointing out that if China had made 
 no better use of her soil than the most skilful European peoples had 
 made of theirs, the empire would not be able to support one-half its 
 present population.' 
 
 Books recommended. Williams's 'Middle Kingdom,' vol. ii. pp. 1-14. 
 Douglas's 'Society in China,' pp. 120-136. Lay's 'The Chinese as They 
 Are,' chap, xii., 'Husbandry of the Chinese.' 'A Corner of Cathay,' by 
 Miss Fielde, chapter on 'Farm Life in China.' Jour. Ch. Br. R.A.S. 
 New Series, vol. xxiii., No. 2, 1888. See Articles in this book on Buffalo, 
 Land Tenure, Silk, Tea, and Rice. For an account of the Emperor ploughing, 
 see the Hongkong daily papers for the 24th and 25th of April, 1893. 
 
 ALMONDS. The Chinese are fond of almonds. One 
 of the chief native restaurants in Hongkong is known by 
 the name of the ' Almond Blossom.' Almonds are used 
 in cakes, etc., and in the preparation of what is known as 
 ' almond tea,' sold in the streets at night, and considered 
 
 25
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 good for coughs, etc. The best of these kernels coming 
 from Chihli and Shansi, the supply failed during the last 
 war up North (1900-1901), so dinner parties amongst 
 the Chinese in Hongkong had perforce to do without 
 them, being at first reduced to one or two a guest, 
 bought at exorbitant rates. The Chinese confound 
 apricot and peach kernels with the almond, and they 
 'are found promiscuously supplied under the common 
 term Jiung yun' 
 
 Book recommended. 'Contributions towards the Materia Medica and 
 Natural History of China,' by F. Porter Smith, M.B. 
 
 AMUSEMENTS. The Chinese, though a hard-work- 
 ing and industrious people, are not behind other nations in 
 their love of amusements, and enter with great zest and 
 gusto into the enjoyment of them, most heartily assisting, 
 in the French sense of the term, at shows, processions, etc. 
 It needs but a saunter through the crowded and busy 
 streets of a Chinese city to see that, though there is much 
 bustle and unceasing toil, there is, on the other hand, an 
 unfailing provision for the relaxation of the tired workers 
 and the delectation of the younger members of society. 
 Theatres are crowded, though the performances last for 
 long weary hours, if not days. The various birthdays of 
 the gods, or religious festivals, are hailed with delight, for 
 then the streets are matted over and hung with puppets, 
 gorgeously dressed in mediaeval costume, representing 
 historical scenes ; while glittering chandeliers, ablaze with 
 light, shed a bright radiance on the erewhile gloomy 
 streets, and transform them into a dazzling vision of light. 
 All these illuminated streets converge to one centre, where, 
 in front of the temple in honour of whose god the exhibi- 
 tion is being held, a grand temporary structure, towering 
 in height above all the other surrounding buildings, is 
 erected, gorgeous with painted scenes in many-coloured 
 hues, brilliant with clusters of crystal lights, and all the 
 magnificence of ceremonial, gaudy show, and paraphernalia 
 of heathen worship. Here all the grandeur is centred, 
 
 26
 
 Amusements 
 
 radiating out through all the surrounding streets, and 
 here it is that the crowd is at its thickest a compact 
 mass, open-mouthed, gazing to their hearts' content, 
 enjoying to the full all the entrancing sights, the celestial 
 music of clashing cymbals, twanging guitars, harsh flageo- 
 lets, and shrill flutes. 
 
 The annual Regattas of the Dragon Boat Feast give an 
 outing to many a child and lady, who, attired in their 
 holiday best, line the banks of the rivers, and watch the 
 narrow snake-like boats dashing up and down in im- 
 promptu races and spurts with their rivals from neighbouring 
 villages. (See Article on Dragon Boats.) 
 
 Another great outing is that on the day for ' Ascending 
 on High ' ; many, who can afford the time, go to the summit 
 of some high mountain, or lofty hill, in remembrance of the 
 deliverance of a family in olden times from destruction by 
 a similar action. (See Article on Ascending on High.) 
 
 The Full Moon Festival is kept gaily, when indigestible 
 moon-cakes are seen at all the confectioners' stalls and 
 shops. Every boat hangs out one or more tasteful paper 
 lanterns, which, suspended from bamboo poles, make a 
 general illumination over the dark waters of the deep and 
 murky river, and, overhead, the full-orbed moon in harvest 
 splendour shines down from the clear sky on a scene of 
 tropical, Oriental beauty. The faint glimmer of the tiny 
 craft is eclipsed anon by boats, all ablaze with one glow of 
 light from innumerable lamps. These larger vessels slowly 
 float down the stream in the distance. 
 
 Visits to flower-gardens give a variety to the monotony 
 of everyday life, and even the sombre worship at the 
 tombs, after the prescribed ceremonials are through, is 
 transformed into pleasant picnics and happy family re- 
 unions. 
 
 Besides these outdoor entertainments, there are dif- 
 ferent games of cards, dominoes, chess, etc., the two former 
 being almost invariably associated with gambling. (See 
 Article on Gambling.) Numerous other games are played, 
 whose whole end and object is gambling pure and simple, 
 
 27
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 amongst which may be noted games with dice, encounters 
 of fighting crickets, and quail matches. The jeunesse doree 
 of a literary or artistic taste also amuse themselves and 
 while away the passing hour by wine parties, at which 
 capping of verses takes place. Their leisure moments are 
 sometimes beguiled by making pen-and-ink sketches on 
 fans, or inscriptions on the same articles of necessity for a 
 warm climate, or by the composition of antithetical sentences, 
 which are inscribed on scrolls and presented as souvenirs 
 to friends. 
 
 Outdoor sports are not in vogue with the Chinaman. 
 When one sees anything approaching the kind going on, 
 there is almost always sure to be some utilitarian object in 
 view, as in archery, which is practised for the military 
 examinations. (See Article on Army, and Article on 
 Examinations.) The gymnastic exercises with heavy 
 weights are undertaken with the same object. Very rarely 
 one may see a few young Celestial swells, paddling together 
 in a canoe, but this is uncommon enough not to be a 
 typical sight. 
 
 As to out-door games, the most violent in which 
 adults engage is shuttlecock. (See Article on Shuttlecock.) 
 A more sedentary pastime is that of flying kites (See 
 Article on Kites) in which grown-up men indulge, while 
 youngsters stand by and look on. Very ingenious are the 
 different forms and shapes of kites made, and some, like 
 birds, are so well manipulated, when in the air, as to 
 deceive one at first sight 
 
 Blind singing girls perambulate the streets at night, 
 ready to accompany their song with the guitar (p'e'i-p'a), 
 itinerant ballad-singers of the other sex can be hired by 
 the day. Story-tellers are pretty sure to get a good crowd 
 round them while interesting episodes in Chinese history 
 are recounted to their listeners. In any open space, or 
 lining the broader streets, are peep-shows, the more crude 
 native production being replaced in many cases, during 
 the last twenty or thirty years, by stereoscopic views. 
 Jugglers, and Punch and Judy shows, performing 
 
 28
 
 Amusements 
 
 monkeys, as well as gymnasts, are always certain of a 
 circle of admiring spectators. 
 
 The ladies join in a few of these amusements, as has 
 already been pointed out, but are debarred from the great 
 majority of those which cannot be enjoyed in the privacy 
 of their dwellings. They kill time by playing cards and 
 dominoes, occasionally going to the theatre, gossiping, and 
 visiting when they are quickly carried in closed chairs 
 through the narrow streets, invisible to every one, and 
 every one and everything nearly invisible to them. 
 
 As to children's toys and sports, though one writer in 
 an English periodical very sapiently (?) remarks that there 
 are no toys in China, yet it needs but a few steps in a 
 Chinese city, in the South at all events, to show the 
 absurdity of the statement. Besides taking their share in 
 the enjoyments of their elders, they have more especially 
 for their benefit, tops, paper lanterns in the shape of fish, 
 iron marbles, toy cannon and weapons, and a thousand and 
 one different games and toys with which the ingenuity of 
 the caterers for their amusement fills the toyshops, and 
 covers the stalls at the street corners. 
 
 As yet no borrowing of modern Western outdoor sports 
 has taken place. The boys who congregate round the 
 cricket-ground in Hongkong may be seen playing a street- 
 boy's game of cricket where any stick does for a bat and 
 anything round for a ball ; and in Singapore a few Chinese 
 have begun to play this essentially English game, many of 
 them being babas, i.e., Straits-born Chinese : but it will 
 probably be many a long day before English sports and 
 games are introduced into China itself to any appreciable 
 extent among the natives. They are too violent for respect- 
 able Chinese to engage in, and consequently not dignified 
 enough in their character, looked at from an Oriental 
 standpoint. The Chinese school-boy is not brought up in 
 an atmosphere of athletics and physical education as 
 English youths are. If with us such a training is some- 
 times carried to an excess, there can be no doubt that the 
 Chinese err in the opposite direction. The motto drummed 
 
 29
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 into the Chinese youngster is that ' Play is of no benefit 
 at all.' 
 
 ANCESTRAL WORSHIP. Ancestral worship is 
 filial piety gone mad. True to their practice of retaining 
 customs and habits for centuries and milleniums, the 
 Chinese nation has not given up this most ancient form 
 of worship ; and the original worship of ancestors, like 
 the older formation of rocks on the earth's surface, is strong 
 as the everlasting hills, and, though overlaid by other cults, 
 as the primary rocks are by other strata, is still at the 
 foundation ; nearly all the other methods of worship being 
 later additions and accretions. ' The worshipping of 
 ancestors thus underlies most of their religion, and many 
 of their everyday acts and deeds. ' Social customs, judi- 
 cial decisions, appointments to the office of prime minister, 
 and even the succession to the throne are influenced by it.' 
 A magistrate, for instance, will pass a much lighter sentence 
 on a criminal if he is the eldest or only son, in case one or 
 both of his parents have recently died, than he otherwise 
 would, for fear of preventing him sacrificing to the dead. 
 An Emperor on accession to the throne must be younger 
 than his predecessor, in order to worship him. Ancestral 
 worship has been defined as including 'not only the direct 
 worship of the dead, but also whatever is done directly or 
 indirectly for their comfort ; also all that is done to avert 
 the calamities which the spirits of the departed are sup- 
 posed to be able to inflict upon the living, as a punishment 
 for inattention to their necessities.' Under such a descrip- 
 tion as this, the actions which it gives rise to will be found 
 to permeate nearly every phase of Chinese life : concubin- 
 age, adoption, house-building (both of private dwellings 
 and clubs), the institution of the Tung-wa Hospital, the 
 laying out of streets, modes of revenge, and methods of 
 capital punishment, all are partly due to the same cause. 
 The consuming desire to have sons, and the despising of 
 daughters centre in this, and many of their superstitions 
 and beliefs take their motive force from it. This worship is 
 
 30
 
 Ancestral Worship 
 
 the only one that is entitled to the name of the National 
 Religion of China, as the dead are the objects of worship 
 of poor and rich, young and old, throughout the length and 
 breadth of this immense empire. The Chinese are willing 
 to relinquish every other form of worship and religion, 
 but this is so interwoven into the texture and fabric of 
 their everyday life, and has such a firm hold on them, that 
 scarcely anything, short of the miraculous, forces them to 
 give it up, with such tenacity of purpose do they cling to 
 it. The Roman Catholics, with more worldly wisdom than 
 piety, allowed their converts at one time to retain this 
 worship though not now ; the Protestant missionaries 
 find it the most formidable obstacle to the introduction of 
 Christianity; the Mohammedans in China do not allow it ; 
 and it is one of the strongholds of opposition to all Western 
 progress and science. 
 
 Believing that the spirits in the next world stand in 
 need of the same comforts and necessities as the inhabitants 
 of this world, they hold it is consequently the bounden 
 duty of friends and relatives of the deceased to forward 
 these to them ; but with that curious trait of the Chinese 
 mind which believes in large promises, but small fulfil- 
 ments in great show and little reality the articles sent 
 into the spirit world for the use of their departed relatives, 
 instead of being the veritable articles used in this stage of 
 existence, are, like so many things Chinese, shams. For 
 houses, boats, clothes, sedan-chairs, bills of exchange, mock- 
 silver dollars, and every conceivable object of use in this 
 mundane sphere of existence, have paper and bamboo 
 models made of them. Expense, of course, is not spared 
 in the production of these objects, but still it will readily 
 be understood that articles made of such flimsy materials 
 cannot be worth a tenth, or a hundredth, nor even some- 
 times a thousandth part of the genuine article. These are 
 forwarded into the next world by being burned. They 
 proceed even further, for they send supplies to the beggar 
 spirits, who may have been neglected by living relatives, or 
 who may have no relatives living, and to the spirits of 
 
 31
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 those who have died at sea, in war, of starvation, or abroad. 
 ' They believe that nearly all the ills to which flesh is heir, 
 such as sickness, calamity, and death are inflicted by these 
 unfortunate and demoniacal spirits.' 
 
 The usual, if not universal, belief with the Chinese, is 
 that a man possesses three souls. After death one goes 
 into the Ancestral Tablet prepared for it, where it receives 
 the worship of the man's descendants at proper and stated 
 times ; at such times also, worship is paid at the grave to 
 another soul ; while the third goes into the nether world to 
 receive the rewards or punishments of the deeds done in 
 this, finally to return to the upper world again as a god, a 
 man, a beast, a bird, or a reptile, according to his merits. 
 This third soul can also be worshipped at the City Temple, 
 the god of which is the ruler of departed spirits, and has 
 an entourage of officials, lictors, and attendants, like the 
 Governor of a Chinese City. Bribery and corruption reign 
 rampant there amongst the spirits, just as in the venal 
 world of China. 
 
 The Ancestral Tablet is generally a plain, oblong piece 
 of hard wood, split nearly the whole way up, and stuck 
 into a small transverse block of wood. On one of the 
 inner surfaces and on the front outer surface, are written 
 the name and age of the deceased with other particulars. 
 Incense is burnt night and morning before the tablet, and 
 the near relatives prostrate themselves before it for forty- 
 nine days. 
 
 The following is the story of the origin of the custom : 
 
 'The custom of erecting a tablet to the dead is said to have 
 originated during the Chau dynasty (B.C. 350) when one Ka"i Tsz-chui, 
 attendant on the sovereign of Tsin, cut out a piece of his thigh and 
 caused it to be dressed for His Majesty, who was fainting with hunger. 
 Kai Tsz-chui, not being able to continue his march from the pain he 
 suffered, concealed himself in a wood. This prince on his arrival at 
 the state of Tsi sent soldiers to take care of him, but they, being 
 unable to discover him, set fire to the wood, where he was burnt to 
 death. The prince, on discovering the corpse, erected a tablet to his 
 manes, which he begged to accompany home, and there caused 
 incense to be offered to him daily.' 
 
 The tablets used by the boat people in Canton are 
 
 32
 
 Ancestral Worship 
 
 smaller, and differ in other respects also from those used 
 on shore. Immediately after death, plain ones are in 
 vogue amongst the floating population, but after three 
 years or so they are ornamented and painted. A very 
 curious custom also prevails amongst this tdn-kd people in 
 connection with this matter. Images are made of deceased 
 members of the family, and, what is still more curious, 
 there are images of the children who have died curious, 
 because children are not ancestors, and the Chinese do 
 not erect tablets to anyone under twenty years of age who 
 has not been married. The boys are usually represented 
 in these cases as riding on lions or white horses, and the 
 girls on white storks. 
 
 The Man-tsz Aborigines, in Western Sz-Chuen, take an 
 unburnt piece of wood from the funeral pyre; on the smooth 
 surface they picture a rude likeness of the head of the 
 family who has been there cremated, and place this in 
 the house as the Ancestral Tablet. 
 
 ' It is computed that the public worship of ancestors 
 costs the Empire ,6,000,000 annually; and the private 
 worship 24,000,000. ' 
 
 When a Chinese directs in his will that a certain 
 portion of his estate is to be reserved for the carrying out 
 of ceremonies at his grave, in accordance with the 
 principles of ancestral worship, English Courts of Law, in 
 the cases that have come before them, have decided that 
 such a bequest is void, as tending to a perpetuity ; for 
 money cannot be bound up for an indefinite period, which 
 is not intended for a charitable purpose. (See cases of 
 Yip Cheng Neo v. Ong Cheng Neo, L. R. 6 P. C, Appeals 
 381 ; also Hoare v. Osborne, L. R. I Eq. 585. The latest 
 decision is, ' In the matter of the estate of Tso Wing Yung 
 (Judgt.},' reported in China Mail of 6th May 1891.) 
 
 'Ancestral land is land that has been originally set apart for 
 ancestral worship, and is increased by purchase from time to time in 
 the name of the deceased ancestor, in whose name also the Govern- 
 ment taxes are paid. The rent of ancestral lands is devoted to the 
 upkeep of the ancestral temple, to the education of the members of 
 the clan, to the worship of ancestors, to the relief of poor members of 
 
 33 c
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 the clan, to the marriage expenses of those who require assistance, 
 and to the funeral expenses of those whose relatives are poor. Such 
 land is always held in the name of the ancestor who bequeathed the 
 property, the land being nearly always leased to members of the clan, 
 who cultivate it and pay a yearly rent. Sometimes the different 
 branches of a clan cultivate the land in rotation, the branch in 
 occupation of the land being held responsible for the payment of the 
 expenses incurred on account of the objects for which the land was 
 originally transmitted. Clan land cannot be alienated without the 
 consent of the representatives and elders of the whole clan. The 
 rent roll is kept by a committee of the clan.' 
 
 Hooks recommended. 'An Essay on Ancestral Worship, ' by Rev. M. T. 
 Yates, D.D. , dealing with it generally, and another, 'The Attitude of 
 Christianity toward Ancestral Worship,' dealing with it historically. 
 
 ANTIQUITIES. There are far fewer antiquities in 
 this venerable land of such a hoary age than at first would 
 be supposed. Some inscriptions are to be found here or 
 there on boulders ; but these are mostly of a modern date, 
 according to Chinese ideas. 
 
 The houses and temples are built of such perishable 
 materials, and the climate, typhoons, and insect life all 
 militate against their preservation for more than two or 
 three centuries, without extensive repairs which often 
 constitute a virtual rebuilding. A stone dwelling of 
 ancient times has been discovered in the North ; and were 
 an archaeological society in existence and conditions of life 
 in China somewhat different from what they are at present, 
 more of such remains of antiquity might be unearthed. 
 
 The old stone drums of the Chow dynasty are amongst 
 some of the most venerable relics of antiquity handed 
 down to the present time. Finds of ancient coins buried 
 in the earth or as heirlooms, passed on from generation to 
 generation, reward every now and then the enthusiastic 
 numismatist, as well as curios of one sort or another, the 
 general collector ; but on the whole, barring such instances, 
 the study of antiquities in China is disappointing. 
 
 ' Bricks and tiles of the Tsing and Han dynasties have always 
 been highly prized and considered as relics. In the neighbourhood 
 of a small hamlet, a little west of Kiang-ying, a rare discovery was 
 made of this kind of bricks, manufactured centuries ago, at an ancient 
 grave. Exposure to the weather had somehow caused a part of the 
 mound to slide down and thus lay bare the inner casement of the 
 
 34
 
 Architecture 
 
 tomb built up of this kind of bricks. There are over two thousand 
 bricks in all. In size they are a little larger than the ordinary bricks, 
 but on the four corners of each there are impressions of old coins. 
 Besides the bricks a vase was also unearthed. As to the date of these 
 relics only experts and antiquarians can determine.' 
 
 Books recommended. Sec Articles on Primitive Man and Porcelain. 
 
 APPLES. The apple and pear tree 'grew wild in 
 Europe and Asia in prehistoric times.' The apple-tree 
 now grows in North China, the climate in the South is 
 too hot for it. Judging from the specimens that reach 
 Canton, the fruit is inferior to that produced in Europe. 
 
 ARCHITECTURE. The Chinese have made but 
 small advances in architecture: they have not proceeded 
 beyond the first steps of architectural construction. The 
 first principle which they have acted upon appears to 
 be that of raising two side-walls to support the beams 
 of the roof. The length of these beams, in buildings of any 
 size, necessitates the adoption of rows of pillars to support 
 them. To obviate the too great multiplicity of these 
 pillars, what has been described as ' a very pretty system 
 of "king" and "queen" posts have been contrived, by which 
 the pressure of several beams is transmitted to a single 
 pillar.' These are often beautifully carved, and there is 
 much scope for variety. Tradescant Lay, from whom we 
 have already quoted, further says : 
 
 'A lack of science and of conception is seen, . . . but fancy seems 
 to have free license to gambol at pleasure, and what the architect 
 wants in developing a scheme, he makes up by a redundancy of 
 imagination.' Williams says : 'In lighter edifices, in pavilions, rest- 
 houses, kiosks, and arbours, there is, however, a degree of taste and 
 adaptation that is unusual in other buildings, and quite in keeping 
 with their fondness for tinsel and gilding rather than solidity and 
 grandeur.' Another sinologue says: 'Their ornamentation is often 
 beautiful. But, even in their ornamentation, the Chinese rarely, if 
 ever, exhibit congruity of detail. The details are often perfect, but 
 they are seldom in such full harmony with other details as to 
 present to the spectator the pleasing aspect of a harmonious work 
 of art.' 
 
 Their construction is bad ; very little regard is paid to 
 outline, except in pagodas, roofs of temples, and bridges, 
 
 35
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 but the ornamentation is the pleasantest feature, on which 
 the greatest care is bestowed. 
 
 We have often heard from an old resident in China a 
 description of the impressions produced by the first sight 
 of Canton. Before reaching China, accounts had been 
 received of the destruction by fire of a Chinese theatre, 
 and the loss of life of thousands of natives. Arrived in 
 front of the city, a remembrance of the frightful catastrophe 
 led the newcomer to suppose that the torn-down look of 
 the houses and sheds was the result of the destructive 
 element ; the idea never occurring that the usual habita- 
 tions of the citizens of an enormous city like this were such 
 as these. The magnificent churches and cathedrals, the 
 stately edifices, the superb mansions, are all wanting in a 
 Chinese city ; instead of the broad streets, spacious avenues, 
 and large squares congeries of narrow lanes, a maze of 
 alleys (scarcely one entitled to the name of a street, 
 according to our acceptation of the term) ; and the few 
 open spaces in front of the temples not worthy to be 
 dignified with the title of squares. Lining both sides of 
 the way, if in a family street, the walls are formed of 
 bluish-grey bricks, neatly pointed in mortar with granite 
 foundations, reaching several feet above the surface of the 
 ground. Two or three long steps of granite, extending 
 from wall to wall of the house, lead up to the front, which, 
 with the exception of the door in the centre, presents a 
 blank wall to the passer-by. There are no windows, only 
 a plain, massive, double-leaved door of thick planks fastened 
 by two wooden bolts. These doors are often left open 
 during the day, and the privacy of the inmates ensured by 
 two outer, lighter constructed doors, also of wood, only 
 reaching a little more than half-way up the doorway. The 
 side-walls of the house project a couple of feet or so, and 
 support the eaves, which are carried out a corresponding 
 distance, and shelter the few feet in front of the entrance. 
 The walls are generally the thickness of the length of a 
 brick, and after eight or ten courses, a course of bonders is 
 laid. The door once entered, over the high wooden 
 
 36
 
 Architecture 
 
 threshold, one finds one's self under a small introductory 
 roof, which shelters the porter's room, and facing one is a 
 row of large doors, made of boards, in sets of three pairs or 
 so, reaching from wall to wall ; beyond these is a small court, 
 open in the centre to the sky, where some green glazed pots of 
 ornamental flowers, or plants, are standing on similar flower- 
 stands. The whole house is now before one, the separate 
 apartments being under different roofs, the foremost being 
 the reception hall ; for a Chinese residence is a collection 
 of small buildings, except amongst the poorest classes. 
 
 A ground floor is all that many houses can boast of, 
 and this is generally tiled with red flooring-tiles, a foot 
 square and an inch in thickness. Marble tiles are occasion- 
 ally laid on the ground, but they are not highly polished. 
 If there are first floors, they are usually under one or more 
 of the inner roofs. 
 
 In some of the houses (more especially in the hongs 
 and godowns fronting the river in Canton) there are as 
 many as six, eight, ten, or twelve separate roofs, one 
 behind another, all in a row, with courtyards between 
 each, and covered passages on each side of these open 
 spaces ; the latter serve the double purpose of giving light 
 and ventilation, taking the place of windows, which are 
 mostly confined to the interior of the houses, where they 
 open on the courtyard. 
 
 The tent, it has very generally been thought, has 
 furnished the model for the construction of the roof in 
 kiosks and other buildings ; but one or two writers have 
 lately dissented from this opinion. 
 
 Ceilings are but seldom seen in Chinese houses, nor are 
 the walls plastered or papered. The roof-tiles are laid in 
 alternate rows of roll and pantile (or small semi-cylindrical, 
 and broad, slightly concave ones), the traces, it has been 
 pointed out, of early, split-bamboo roofing, and not of the 
 tent structure. In good roofs, a second layer of these is 
 put on above the other, or even a third on the top of all. 
 
 The habitations of the poor are often the merest hovels, 
 and many workmen, as well as the poorest classes, live in 
 
 37
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 matsheds, the framework of which is made of bamboo, and 
 the walls and roofs of oblongs formed of bamboo leaves 
 fastened together. These matsheds, built of the 'attap,' 
 as it is called by the Malays, are very convenient, since 
 they are easily and quickly put up without a single nail, 
 the bamboo poles being tied together with long strings of 
 split rattan, and even more easily taken down when done 
 with, for the fastenings are cut instead of being untied. 
 They are largely used as temporary structures for religious 
 festivals and for many other objects, one of the most curious 
 being the construction of one over a house in the course of 
 erection to protect it, and the workmen, from the heavy 
 tropical rains. 
 
 Along the banks of the rivers, over the mud-flats, are 
 found many of the poorest sheds and shanties, of a non- 
 descript character old boats often forming the foundation, 
 and the superstructure made of anything and everything, 
 reminding one of Mr Peggotty's famous ark, as described in 
 ' David Copperfield.' 
 
 The houses of the better classes have much ornamenta- 
 tion about them. Stucco-work, representing human figures, 
 birds, animals, and flowers, is often found over the front of 
 a house, as on a frieze, and below the projecting roof; or 
 the same kind of decoration is found on inner walls, and 
 affords a pleasant relief to the plain monotony of the other- 
 wise bare, brick walls. In Swatow, the whole front wall is 
 often adorned by six or seven large medallion-like pictures 
 which lend a brightness to the otherwise plain surface. In 
 fact, ordinary buildings are more highly ornamented up the 
 coast than is the case further south. Variety is also given 
 by the octagonal, circular, and pear - shaped doorways, 
 which pierce the walls in the suites of apartments, and in 
 gardens, and rockeries of the superior class of houses ; a 
 quaint picturesqueness is added to the general effect by 
 the geometrical patterns of the combination of door and 
 window in one, the rows of which serve as screens or 
 partitions between the different rooms, as well as by 
 the fixed open-work partitions of like construction. Carv- 
 
 38
 
 Architecture 
 
 ings of fruit and flowers and gaudy paint-work also add 
 their bizarre attractiveness to the toute ensemble. 
 
 The roofs of shops are built like those of private houses, 
 the shape being that of a V turned upside down ; but in- 
 stead of sheltering themselves behind a plain, brick wall, as 
 in the case of the dwelling-houses, they are quite open to 
 the street, and often have an upper storey supported in the 
 front by a broad breastsummer. The whole shop is open 
 to the street, and is closed up at night by shutter-doors. 
 (In Swatow the shutters over the counter are transverse and 
 not upright ; they fold up from the counter and down from 
 the roof, meeting in the space in the centre.) A granite 
 counter occupies a portion of the space in front, and a hard- 
 wood counter runs at right angles to it back into the shop. 
 Behind the shop proper is the counting-room. The sign- 
 boards, though not strictly speaking an architectural feature 
 of the buildings themselves, add much, by the brilliancy of 
 their reds and greens and gilding, to the picturesqueness of 
 the business streets, and relieve the sameness which would 
 otherwise result from the want of architectural decoration. 
 The largest ones are ten or even more feet in length, 
 and are suspended at each side of the shop front ; some 
 are set in stone bases, others hang over the entrances or in 
 the shop itself. A glance down a street full of shops with 
 its scores or hundreds of many-coloured signboards is 
 quite kaleidoscopic, as the glare of the tropical sun flashes 
 on their variegated hues ; while in the softer shades of the 
 covered-over streets they serve to lighten up the semi- 
 religious gloom. 
 
 In the construction of the temples and public buildings 
 where space is not so restricted, the main structures two or 
 three in number stand isolated, with stone-paved paths and 
 steps leading up to terraces of the same material on which 
 they are built, venerable trees shading the otherwise open 
 spaces. The dwellings of the abbots and monks, or the 
 subsidiary buildings, are at the sides or behind, with 
 numerous corridors leading to the apartments or suites of 
 rooms. Most of what has been written above applies to 
 
 39
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 Canton and its neighbourhood, for of the inhabitants of the 
 various provinces (sometimes even of districts) of China, it 
 may be said with truth, to a greater or lesser extent, ' hi 
 omnes lingua, institutis, . . . inter se differuntj and 
 their dwellings, though in the main constructed on the same 
 general outlines, have peculiarities of their own in different 
 parts of the country ; for instance in Amoy, many of the 
 houses have an upward curve at each end of the top of the 
 roof, quite foreign to the extreme south of China. 
 
 4 There is nothing more incomprehensible to a foreigner than an 
 official residence, with its gates, folding doors, halls, side-rooms, 
 balconies, carved and frescoed pillars, lattices, and matted ceilings. 
 . . . The frescoes are gaudy, and represent every conceivable 
 subject, from genii walking among clouds to a moth upon a peach. 
 The roof is a tangled mass of Asiatic glory. The Sz-chuanese nouses 
 excel in their exterior decorations ; the ridges, gateways, and corners, 
 are beautifully trimmed with broken bits of blue and white porcelain, 
 which, at a distance, have a most pleasing effect. . . . The houses, 
 except in the large cities, are flimsy affairs, with walls of pounded 
 earth, and roofs thatched with straw.' 
 
 The principal material for house construction in Swatow 
 and its neighbourhood is earth, or river sand, or decomposed 
 granite, mixed with lime in the proportion of seven parts of 
 the former to three of the latter. This is rammed in be- 
 tween boards, hardens, and appears to be most durable. 
 
 The roof has been considered the chief feature of Chinese 
 architecture ; and there is no doubt that a great amount of 
 decorative art is expended on the massive roofs of the 
 larger and finer temples and public buildings. ' The light- 
 ness and grace of the curve of these heavy roofs is worthy 
 of all praise ; ' they are sometimes constructed double, or in 
 such a manner as to give the appearance of two roofs. 
 The object of ' this is to lend an air of greater richness and 
 dignity.' The roof, it will thus be seen, does not occupy, in 
 public buildings and temples, the subsidiary position that 
 such a part of the structure takes in the West : it is the 
 most striking object in this class of buildings, and with the 
 numerous varnished timbers and posts, the green-glazed tiles 
 and glazed dragons, pearls, etc., and unhidden by plastered 
 ceilings, it looks most picturesque. On the other hand, the 
 roofs of private dwellings are simply for use. The im- 
 
 40
 
 Architecture 
 
 portance of the roof to the Chinese is shown by 
 the curious practice, often seen, of putting up the ridge- 
 pole before the rest of the house is built. It is then 
 supported on a framework of poles, a promise of the 
 building that is to rise to its height in the future. 
 
 It would naturally be expected that in such an ancient 
 land as China, the whole land would be full of old ruins. 
 Such is, however, not the case ; even the Great Wall has 
 been reconstructed once or twice. There are some 
 structures still standing that have stood for more than a 
 thousand years ; but to find older ones than this, it is 
 necessary to excavate the mounds the tombs of ancient 
 cities where a few stone buildings may be found : one, 
 built seventeen centuries ago, was recently discovered. 
 Cave and rock dwellings are also to be seen in some 
 parts. The great majority of buildings are modern, in the 
 sense that that word has when applied to anything in 
 China ; for many things that are classed under that 
 category would be considered to be mediaeval or ancient 
 in the West. The reason for this paucity of relics of 
 antiquity is not far to seek : much of the material 
 employed is not fitted to withstand the ravages of ages, 
 and, when it is, the flimsy style of construction does not 
 ensure that durability which it might otherwise hope to 
 attain ; added to which the humidity of the climate, and the 
 insidious attacks of insects, all militate against handing 
 down to posterity the works of its forefathers ; furthermore, 
 the glance of the Chinese has always been a retrospective 
 one back to the hoary ages and the tendency has not 
 been to build for future times. A very curious feature in 
 Chinese building-construction is that so little stone has been 
 employed. The streets are paved with it ; the city walls are 
 partially built of it ; the foundations of houses are con- 
 structed of it ; so are the end-counters in shops, as well as 
 some of the outer columns in temples ; but otherwise it is a 
 rare thing to find it entirely used in the building of any 
 structure, except commemorative arches and bridges. ' The 
 Chinese have been acquainted with the arch from very 
 
 41
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 early times, though they make comparatively little use of 
 it.' Many elegant bridges have been constructed in 
 different parts of the empire, some of great length. 
 
 Commemorative arches, as these peculiar quaint 
 portals may be styled, are generally put up by imperial 
 command or permission, to commemorate the virtuous and 
 brave. They consist of a large centre and two smaller side 
 gateways, the material employed in the south of China 
 being generally granite, and, in the West, soft, grey sand- 
 stone. There is a considerable amount of ornamentation 
 about them, usually in the way of carving, etc. ; ' in the 
 west of China the flowers and figures carved in relief are 
 of marble, delicately fitted and highly polished.' In the 
 streets over which they are erected, they at all times form a 
 pleasant contrast to the otherwise common lack of 
 architectural adornment. They are embellished with 
 inscriptions, setting forth the virtues of the individuals 
 whose deeds are immortalised by their erection. The 
 pagoda is one of the most graceful specimens of Chinese 
 architecture. (See Article on Pagodas.) 
 
 The cupola or dome is almost entirely unknown. 
 Mohammedan architecture deserves some mention, and it 
 is possible that the superiority of the Ming architecture 
 may be traced to it. 
 
 Books recommended. 'The Chinese As They Are' liy Tradescant Lay. 
 Chap, on 'Architecture.' Jour. C. Br. R. A.S. New Series, vol. xxiv., 
 No. 3. Article on ' Chinese Architecture ' by Dr. Edkins, and Article 
 in the same number, by S. R. von Fries on ' The Tent Theory of Chinese 
 Architecture,' and the Report of the Discussions on the two Papers in the 
 same number. ' L'Art Chinois,' heading of ' Architecture ' by M. Palelogue. 
 iSame subject in Williams's ' Middle Kingdom' and in most text-books on China. 
 An account of Cave Dwellings is found in Williamson's ' Travels in North China. ' 
 
 ARMS. To find a counterpart to the arms which the 
 Chinese have used in the past, and which are still not 
 obsolete amongst them, one must turn to some of the 
 weapons employed by us in the West in the times, for 
 instance, of the Tudors, the Stuarts, and the Common- 
 wealth ; for the antiquated spears, pikes, and halberds, like 
 those of mediaeval Europe, are still modern instruments of 
 
 42
 
 Arms 
 
 warfare amongst this ancient people, and, though fast being 
 superseded, they have not yet been entirely laid aside. 
 
 Of spears, there are a number of varieties ; among which 
 may be noticed one similar to the partisan of the time of 
 James I., called a kik ; another is like the pike of the time 
 of Cromwell, called a /'/// / and yet another, somewhat like 
 a voulge or boulge, of the time of Henry VII. 
 
 Of halberds, there are several different kinds, known 
 as tin fa fit ; some of which resemble the halberds of the 
 times of Henry VIII., Charles II., and the double-axed 
 halberd of the period of Charles I.; while another variety, 
 known as the piin yiit fit, from the crescent on one 
 side, resembles one of the time of Henry VII.; another, 
 also called a kik, is like one used during the reign of 
 William III. 
 
 All these halberds and spears, with the exception of 
 the voulge and the pike, are also ancient weapons amongst 
 the Chinese. It seems curious that there should be such 
 a similarity between the ancient weapons of nations so 
 widely separated by distance from one another. A trident, 
 a formidable weapon, is also amongst the arms of the 
 Chinese. 
 
 Swords and daggers are thus distinguished in China : a 
 sword (klnt) is two-edged ; a dagger (to) has only one edge. 
 Further, swords are always single, while daggers may be 
 single or in pairs ; in the latter case, one side of each 
 dagger is flat, so that the two may lie close together and 
 fit into one scabbard or sheath ; thus occasionally a Chinese 
 dagger would, by us, be termed a sword. The common 
 Chinese sword is like that of the Roman soldier, but 
 probably a little longer. At one time the Chinese officers 
 carried swords, while the men were armed with daggers. 
 A second kind of sword, but coming under the category of 
 daggers, has a flat belly, or blade, which tapers away to a 
 sharp point. The sword would seem to be guardless, 
 having a transverse bar simply, the hand, grasping the short 
 hilt above it, being entirely unprotected, while in the flat- 
 bellied sword mentioned above, and in many daggers, a 
 
 43
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 guard runs from the bar at the hilt, forming a semi-circle 
 with the rest of the handle ; this cross piece being only on 
 the edge side. 
 
 Bows and arrows also form part of the equipment of 
 those soldiers who are not armed with Western weapons of 
 precision, though it is said that in modern times they are 
 more for show at examinations than for use in battle. The 
 bows are made of horn and bamboo. Cross-bows have 
 also been employed by the Chinese in warfare. 
 
 Dr. Williams thus describes the matchlock and 
 cannon : 
 
 'The matchlock is of wrought iron and plain bore ; it has a longer 
 barrel than the musket, so long that a rest is sometimes attached to 
 the stock for greater ease in firing ; the match is a cord of hemp or 
 coir, and the pan must be uncovered with the hand before it can be 
 fired, which necessarily interferes with, and almost prevents, its use 
 in wet or windy weather. The cannon are cast, and, although not 
 of very uniform calibre from the mode of manufacture, are serviceable 
 for salutes.' 
 
 The cannon in use before recent years were all muzzle- 
 loaders, some on the city walls in Canton being more than 
 two hundred years old. Of late, breech-loaders and rifles 
 of modern European construction have been coming into 
 use, as portions of the Chinese army are being provided 
 with them (See Article on Army) ; but many of the 
 Chinese mandarins are wedded to their old style, and when 
 reverses occurred in the recent war with Japan, believing 
 that they were due to the use by their own soldiers of rifles 
 and modern arms, they proceeded to cast thousands of 
 gingals, so as to provide their army with them and ensure 
 victory. Gingals, or jingals, are long tapering guns, six to 
 fourteen feet in length, borne on the shoulders of two men 
 and fired by a third. They have a stand, or tripod, remind- 
 ing one of a telescope. By means of a single support, they 
 are set in the bulwarks of boats, when employed in naval 
 warfare, or for the protection of peaceful merchantmen, 
 and being less liable to burst than cannon, they form the 
 most effective gun the Chinese possess. 
 
 Two-men jingals 'are a little over ten Chinese feet long, and are 
 of large bore. When ready to be fired, the front-rank man grasps 
 
 44
 
 Army 
 
 hold of the middle of the barrel as it rests in the hollow of his right 
 shoulder, while the rear man takes aim and draws the trigger. 
 Formerly the flash- pan was used, but with the introduction of 
 percussion caps, the jingals have been fitted with nipples. These 
 weapons are claimed to have conquered China, being introduced by 
 the Manchus when they invaded the empire of the Ming dynasty, and 
 with jingals, Chinese Turkestan was conquered by the Emperor Chicn- 
 lung's armies in the seventeenth century. The ordinary charge for 
 a jingal of this sort is a good handful of gunpowder, with a two-and- 
 a-half ounce bullet. Sometimes on the battlefield, the jingals are 
 loaded with an extra allowance of gunpowder, and three bullets 
 often four are rammed in to create as much destruction as possible.' 
 
 Another weapon of attack used in naval warfare, and 
 especially by pirates, is what is known amongst English- 
 speaking people as the stink-pot : 
 
 ' This unsavoury name conveys a wrong impression, as the article 
 so described bears but little resemblance, in shape or material, to its 
 namesake used some centuries ago by pirates on the Atlantic side. 
 The proper name for them is " hand-bomb," or " hand-grenade." 
 They are simply earthen pots, large enough to contain from two to 
 three pounds of powder ; the opening at the top is very small, and 
 after they are filled with gunpowder, the lids are cemented on with 
 chunam, which renders the whole air-tight and impervious to damp- 
 ness. Around the pot, and on the lid of it, a lot of slow match is 
 attached. The man who throws the " hand-bomb," stands on the 
 yard of the foresail, at the foremast head, in the same way as a 
 leadsman does with a hand lead when taking soundings. At the right 
 moment he lets it go, so that it will fall amongst the men on the 
 opposing vessel. The concussion, when it strikes, causes it to break, 
 when the powder comes into contact with the burning match and ex- 
 plodes. Junks defend themselves against these "hand-bombs" by 
 spreading a fishing-net or something similar, tightly drawn about seven 
 feet above the deck. When the "hand-bombs" strike the net, its 
 elasticity causes them to rebound, and fall overboard before they explode. 
 The only smell observable in the explosion of these " hand-bombs" is 
 that of ordinary gunpowder. The powder used contains more charcoal 
 and less saltpetre than ordinary powder, hence it explodes with less force 
 and rapidity. The special virtue of these " hand-bombs" in defence and 
 attack, is that in exploding, they throw the pieces of the pot about with 
 great force, the hot fragments inflicting severe wounds and burns on 
 anyone within range. They are a mild kind of bombshell, being much 
 slower in operation and less deadly in effect than the ordinary shell. 
 The deadly smell supposed to be connected with them is all a 
 fiction.' 
 
 Books recommended. See next Article. 
 
 ARMY. The military elements, which ma}' be grouped 
 together under the general term of th'e Chinese army, are 
 
 45
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 various in number and different in composition. It has 
 been well said that 
 
 'The enormous and complicated military power of the Chinese 
 Empire is of a nature to defy any detailed description on a brief scale. 
 The ramifications of the various systems relating to its origin, constitu- 
 tion, and control, have no cohesion with each other. Each province of 
 the Empire has a separate force at the disposal of its Governor.' 
 
 The three main, but quite distinct, divisions are : 
 
 (1) The eight banners, comprising ' all living Manchus 
 
 and descendants of the Mongolian and Chinese 
 soldiery of the conquest' (A.D. 1644.) These 
 furnish guards for the palace and garrisons in 
 various chief cities and other places. 
 
 They are described as ' untrained, ill- 
 disciplined, and cowardly.' 
 
 (2) The Chinese provincial army of the ' Green Standard,' 
 
 comprising the land and marine forces. The 
 former numbers 400,000 or 500,000 and is ' an 
 effete organisation discharging the duties of 
 sedentary garrisons, and local constabulary.' 
 Orders were issued by the Central Government 
 at Peking to disband this force in 1898, and use 
 the funds thus saved for soldiers trained in 
 European methods ; but these commands were 
 disobeyed by the Viceroys. 
 
 (3) The braves or irregulars, enlisted or disbanded as 
 
 required, and used for actual warfare. No 
 approximate guess can be made of their numbers. 
 Of late years a fourth division should be added, 
 in which should be classed those trained on 
 European lines, some 10,000 in number. After 
 the Japanese War, thirty-five German instructors, 
 under Captain Reitzenstein, were engaged to drill 
 these troops. 
 
 A return from a native newspaper gives the following 
 as the troops garrisoned in the eighteen provinces of China 
 Proper, not counting those in the Manchurian and Mongolian 
 provinces, and the New Dominion ; but it must be re- 
 
 46
 
 Army 
 
 membered that in China, returns on paper as to numbers 
 of troops in existence are very different from the reality, 
 or, in other words, the soldiers for whom pay is drawn are 
 considerably more in number than those who actually 
 receive the money, for here, as in every branch of the 
 Chinese service, peculation by the officials is to be found. 
 We give the numbers, however, for what they are 
 worth : 
 
 Chih-li . 
 Shan-si . 
 Kiang-su 
 Kiang-si 
 Che-kiang 
 Hu-nan . 
 Kan-su . 
 Kuang-tung 
 Yun-nan 
 
 42,532 
 
 Shan-tung 
 
 25.534 
 
 Ho-nan . 
 
 50.134 
 
 Ngan-hui 
 
 13.832 
 
 Fu-kien . 
 
 39,009 
 
 Hu-peh . 
 
 35,590 
 
 Shen-si . 
 
 55. 8 '9 
 
 Sze-chuen 
 
 69,052 
 
 Kuang-si 
 
 42,549 
 
 Kwei-chow 
 
 20,174 
 13,835 
 8,728 
 
 63,304 
 22,740 
 42,260 
 
 33,188 
 
 23,408 
 48,490 
 
 Making a total of 650,178 
 
 We learn from still another authority, that the Chinese 
 army in time of peace is supposed to number 300,000 men ; 
 that there are 500 in a camp, and that from three to fifteen 
 camps are to be found in the neighbourhood of a city or 
 village with generals in command. A later authority (1900) 
 gives the Chinese standing army as 680,000. It has also 
 been stated that there is a reserve of 858,000 men. 
 
 Bodies of the troops are being trained, as stated above, 
 in the European style of warfare, at Peking and other im- 
 portant centres ; the bugle-call is now heard in the north 
 at Tientsin, as well as in the heart of the empire at Hankow, 
 and in the south it is also making itself familiar to ears 
 which, a few years since, only knew the sound of the gong 
 and drum ; but the number so drilled form, as yet, but a 
 small proportion of the whole armed force of China. Match- 
 locks, gingals, bows and arrows, spears and lances, are still 
 the weapons of many. Sometimes foreign arms are put 
 into the hands of the soldiers without proper instruction, 
 and at other times costly weapons rust and are rendered 
 ' completely useless from neglect." 
 
 It is said, that for five years previous to 1892, 50,000 
 
 47
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 men with European weapons were stationed on the coast of 
 the Gulf of Chihli, and that part of the number were 
 instructed by European officers, who were mostly German. 
 
 The foreign officers, however, are not, as a rule, 
 employed for any other purpose than to teach the soldiers 
 their drill and the use of their weapons : as a German writer 
 remarks, ' kein fremder Offizier erhalt ein Commando oder 
 die Befugnisse eines Generalstabs-Offiziers oder Ad- 
 jutanten.' The notable exceptions have been the cases of 
 Generals Gordon and Mesny. 
 
 The old-fashioned native forts which mostly do duty 
 throughout the length and breadth of the land, and which 
 until lately were the only fortifications to be found, are 
 ridiculous, looked at from a European military standpoint. 
 Long rambling walls of brick are to be seen climbing up 
 the hill-sides (as at the old Bogue Forts at the entrance to 
 the Canton River), crenellated for the muzzle-loading 
 cannon, a few specimens of which perhaps do duty in time 
 of peace, to be hastily supplemented in time of war by 
 others ; or at other places, on more level ground, smaller 
 square forts may be seen, which would perhaps have done 
 well enough in the mediaeval ages for the purposes for 
 which they were built, being strong enough, doubtless, for 
 the internal well-being of the country, and as a protection 
 against Chinese rebels armed with native weapons. On 
 the coast, at the different treaty ports, as well as at some 
 other places, such, for one example, as at the Bogue, already 
 mentioned, fortifications after the European style have 
 been constructed, and breech-loading guns, of modern 
 European make, have been provided. Krupp guns, it was 
 stated several years ago, were being made in Yun-nan, and 
 as time goes on the establishment of more arsenals will 
 probably be of use in meeting the present wants of the 
 Chinese soldier in the way of arms. 
 
 ' The Chinese . . . have several batteries of breech-loading artillery 
 attached to their Manchu forces distributed over the Empire. Every 
 province has a contingent of foreign-drilled troops, who have been 
 taught by native instructors who learned their drill from German 
 soldiers.' 
 
 48
 
 Army 
 
 A late account credits 15,000 artillery amongst the 
 Peking field force, and besides these there were said to be 
 nearly thirty-six gun field batteries. 
 
 There is unfortunately, however, but little hope, for the 
 present, of military reform being carried out in China on 
 any large enough scale, at all events, to be of utility in the 
 defence of the country against wanton attacks in the 
 future. Since the Japanese war, the question of the 
 reorganisation of the army has naturally been supposed to 
 be one of the first steps that would be taken. That there 
 was a necessity for it seemed patent to every eye. After 
 such a severe blow it was thought by many that China 
 would take immediate steps to bring herself into line with 
 her more warlike neighbour, and thus, by a visible readiness 
 against attack, provide against such a contingency. How- 
 ever, no effective steps would appear to have been taken 
 yet with this end in view. There is no national army in 
 China in the modern sense of the term, and no common 
 arm provided for the various provincial forces, nor is the 
 training uniform, nor their organisation on the same basis. 
 Decentralisation is the order of the day with regard to 
 those small forces which are armed with modern weapons 
 of precision. A few of the Viceroys, more progressive than 
 the old school of Chinese officials, engage officers to instruct 
 small bodies of men ; but there is ' no uniformity of purpose 
 in the matter, and the same Viceroy will sometimes engage 
 instructors from different countries who, of course, have 
 been trained in different schools.' As to their troops, there 
 is no commissariat, and there are no stores of ammunition 
 or other necessaries. 
 
 ' Until soldiering generally is more respectable and more respected 
 in China, it will be difficult to organise a practical army, and almost 
 impossible to form a corps of officers.' 
 
 It is possible that there is more hope to be indulged 
 for a late scheme (1901), which is as follows : 
 
 The different provincial armies (one for each province) are to be 
 ' entirely organised, drilled and modelled after the best foreign methods.' 
 It is the intention to have in five years an army having 'a grand 
 
 49 D
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 aggregate of at least 600,000 well-disciplined and well-armed men of 
 all arms, led by experienced and educated officers, graduated from 
 the military academies of the various provinces/ 
 
 And again (1902) we are told : 
 
 ' Viceroy Yuan Shih-k'ai has been granted Tls. 6,000,000 a year 
 to train a new army of 100,000 men. He has already engaged 
 several Japanese officers.' 
 
 The uniform of the common Chinese soldier consists of 
 a loose jacket and loose trousers : the former brown, yellow, 
 or blue, with a wide facing, on the edge, of another colour ; 
 the trousers are usually blue. In a big circle, on both front 
 and back of the jacket, are Chinese characters, denoting 
 the branch of the service he is connected with, etc. The 
 common cloth shoes and a conical, small, bamboo hat com- 
 plete the outfit. 
 
 The pay of the soldiers is very small : insufficient in fact 
 to support the men, and they are forced, in order to provide 
 the necessaries of life, to engage in civil employment or 
 private work, though in the expenditure of the empire is 
 put the sum of 2 1 ,600,000 Taels, being the pay of 600,000 
 infantry, at the rate of ' three Taels a month, half in money 
 and half in rations,' and 11,616,000 Taels for the pay of 
 242,000 cavalry ' at four Taels a month ; ' but, with all the 
 peculations that take place before it reaches the hand of 
 the private soldier, and the months of pay he is often in 
 arrears, the reality does not come up to the statements on 
 paper. There does not appear to be a uniform rate of pay, 
 for in important places where the soldiers are under foreign 
 methods of instruction, as at Tientsin, Foochow, and the 
 Bogue, a higher rate prevails, ranging from $12 to $20 a 
 month, and it is more regularly given. The soldiers in the 
 retinue of a Viceroy are also better paid, but the ordinary 
 Chinese private gets very little. A dollar may be given to 
 him once every ten days, being at the rate of ten cents a 
 day, while another ten cents is held over by the Mandarin 
 and perhaps given to him in a lump sum at New Year's 
 time, or at the different festivals. It may be interesting to 
 compare the pay of the Chinese soldier with that of the 
 
 So
 
 Army 
 
 British and German private in English money. The 
 German soldier gets 4d. a day; the British soldier, is.: 
 and the Chinese, when he gets what is due to him, as above, 
 say about 3id., and supposing also all his deferred pay to 
 be given to him, often a most unlikely thing, the whole 
 may amount to the rate of about /d. a day. It must be 
 remembered that the 3^d. a day supplies him with all the 
 food he gets. No pension nor invalid allowance is provided, 
 nor is there any medical staff corps nor army medical 
 corps, and the sufferings the Chinese soldier undergoes 
 in the field, not only from the horrors of war, but also 
 from malaria and disease, are dreadful to contemplate. 
 
 In imitation of the Civil Service examinations in vogue 
 in China there has been introduced during the present 
 dynasty, a series of examinations for the army. A grada- 
 tion similar to those for the literary degree has been estab- 
 lished, the successful candidates at the higher of which are 
 awarded the same titles of Sii'i-ts'ai, Kii-jin, and Tsin-ss ; 
 the highest degree is also competed for at Peking. (See 
 Article on Examinations.) No knowledge of Letters in 
 general is required of the candidates, though the Literary 
 Chancellor, before conferring the title of Sh'i-ts'ai on them, 
 ' tests them on their literary attainments.' What is required 
 for a successful pass is muscle, as shown in the lifting of 
 heavy weights, swordsmanship, and skill in archery. The 
 latter is shown both on foot and on horseback. A straight 
 trench, a foot or two in depth and wide enough for a pony 
 to run in comfortably, is dug in the parade ground, and, 
 mounted on horseback, the aspirant for military honours 
 gallops or trots at a brisk pace along this. As the pony 
 has simply to go straight along the trench, the horseman is 
 able to devote his whole attention to his archery. Provided 
 with a sufficient number of arrows he thus swiftly passes the 
 targets, three in number, and about fifteen or twenty feet 
 distant from him as he passes, and lets fly an arrow at each, 
 the distance between them being so fixed as to give him 
 time to pull an arrow from his quiver and fix it on the 
 string. A gong is beaten at each target, on a successful hit 
 
 51
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 being made, to apprise the examiner who is seated in a 
 pavilion at the end of the course. 
 
 Though the successful candidates are rewarded with the 
 same degrees, if one may be allowed to use the term, as 
 those conferred on civilians, yet, as it is merely by bodily 
 strength and a quick eye that they gain them, the people, 
 who most wisely do not value military distinctions, attach 
 but little honour to such, and a military officer is considered 
 to be of a much inferior grade to a civil one. The naval 
 officers are selected from the same successful candidates. 
 As one writer has well said : ' No knowledge of tactics, 
 gunnery, engineering, fortifications, or even letters in general, 
 seems to be required of them ; and this explains the in- 
 efficiency of the army, and the low estimation its officers are 
 held in.' An acquaintance with the theories of Sun-tsz, 
 Wu-tsz, Sz-ma, and other venerable and antique authors, is 
 expected of candidates for a military degree. ' These are a 
 study for the philosopher and disciplinarian rather than for 
 the tactician.' 
 
 The Chinese is not a fighting animal. Pitted against 
 Europeans, his tactics have been often like those of the 
 native dog much bluster, but little done, and easily driven 
 off. It is said Chinese soldiers are brave in flight, for the 
 word ' brave ' is written on the back of their jackets ; but it 
 is also written in front, and when properly drilled, armed, and 
 led, they are not wanting in courage, as the Ever Victorious 
 Army, under General Gordon, gave proof. 
 
 'The Chinese army of 1876-7, which reconquered Eastern Tur- 
 kestan, acknowledged to have been a most brilliant achievement, was 
 officered and led by Chinamen. They conquered Kashgar with an 
 army, armed with European weapons, and showed considerable science 
 in the art of war. Their soldiers were drilled according to foreign 
 methods and inarched in obedience to officers trained in European 
 principles, and their Generals manoeuvred their troops in accordance 
 with the teaching of the most advanced military authorities.' 
 
 Besides, their history is as full of brave deeds and 
 desperate valour on the field of battle as that of any other 
 people. The Chinese nation possesses the raw material to 
 turn out what are known as good soldiers ; but they 
 
 52
 
 Army 
 
 possess scarcely any, or but very few, native officers 
 capable of developing this raw material into efficient 
 warriors, fit to stand before an army trained in Western 
 warfare ; and further, the whole Chinese system, or rather 
 want of system, added to the corruption in the ranks of 
 those who pretend to lead them, militates entirely against 
 the Chinese Tommy Atkins being anything but a coward 
 before the Western foe, and a desperado and robber in the 
 piping times of peace amongst his own countrymen. The 
 quiet and peace-loving, home-abiding Chinaman, may well 
 say, ' Defend us from our defenders.' Martial law prevails 
 in the Chinese army, and very summary justice is dealt out 
 to any soldier detected in any flagrant crime ; for he has 
 short shrift, his superior officers having the power of life and 
 death in their hands, without the necessity of referring to the 
 Emperor for confirmation of the sentence. The Chinese 
 soldier thus holds his life in his hand in times of peace as 
 well as in times of war. 
 
 The following estimate of the qualities of the Chinese 
 as soldiers may prove of interest in this connection : 
 
 ' The old notion is pretty well got rid of, that they are a cowardly 
 people when properly paid and efficiently led ; while the regularity 
 and order of their habits, which dispose them to peace in ordinary 
 times, give place to a daring, bordering upon recklessness, in times of 
 war. Their intelligence and capacity for remembering facts make 
 them well fitted for use in modern warfare, as do also the coolness 
 and calmness of their disposition. Physically, they are on the average 
 not so strong as Europeans, but considerably more so than most of 
 the other races of the East ; and on a cheap diet of rice, vegetables, 
 salt-fish and pork, they can go through a vast amount of fatigue, 
 whether in a temperate climate or a tropical one, where Europeans 
 are ill-fitted for exertion. Their wants are few ; they have no caste 
 prejudices, and hardly any appetite for intoxicating liquors. Being 
 of a lymphatic or lymphatic-bilious temperament, they enjoy a re- 
 markable immunity from inflammatory disease, and the tubercular 
 diathesis is little known amongst them.' 
 
 The unit of number in the Chinese army is the ' ying,' 
 or battalion of 500 infantry or 250 cavalry. These are, 
 however, subdivided into two or three companies. 
 
 The soldiers are often employed in China in duties 
 which would be considered by Western military authorities 
 as outside their proper functions. Construction of the 
 
 53
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 Government railway in Formosa, building walls, and even 
 scavenging, may be given as examples of the extra military 
 labours which they are called upon to perform at times. 
 
 ' Lastly, it may be pointed out that the army has no regular trans- 
 port, commissariat, or medical service whatsoever, everything of this 
 nature being left entirely to chance.' 
 
 'The Chinese arsenals are now capable of manufacturing their 
 own small-arm ammunition, including a smokeless powder.' 
 
 There are several arsenals in different parts of the 
 empire. 
 
 Books recommended. Mayer's 'Chinese Government.' 'Account of 
 the Army of the Chinese Empire,' by Sir Thos. Wade, in Chinese Repository, 
 vol. xx., pp. 250, 300, and 363. ' Me"moires sur les Chinois,' Tom. VII., 
 gives a translation into French of the Chinese text-books for military 
 candidates, accompanied by remarks upon movements, adorned with 
 numerous engravings, illustrating both arms and armed array. ' Die 
 Chinesische Armee, von Major a. D. Pauli, an article in Schorer's 
 Familieriblatt, Heft 7, 1892. 'China, von einem friiheren Instructeur in der 
 Chinesischen Armee,' Leipzig, 1892, a small pamphlet, containing some ten 
 pages on the Chinese army. The China Mail of 22nd July 1892, contains 
 an account of scavenging by soldiers, and the Hongkong Daily Press of llth 
 October 1893, notices the praying to the spirits to direct the aim of the guns. 
 'The Chinese Soldier, and other Sketches,' by A. Cunningham. (See Article 
 on Arms.) 
 
 ART. Painting is still in a backward stage in China : 
 the laws of perspective, and light and shade, are almost un- 
 known, though the former is occasionally honoured with a 
 slight recognition. Height usually represents distance in a 
 Chinese painting, that is to say, distant objects are put at 
 the top of the picture, and nearer ones below them, while 
 but little difference is made in the size. As regards light 
 and shade, no shading is put into many Chinese landscapes, 
 though M. Paleologue states that native artists have some- 
 times attained to the expression of the most artistic and 
 delicate effects of light and shade, instancing the grand 
 landscape school of the T'ang dynasty as producing 
 perfect works under this class. The arrangement of objects 
 and the grouping of persons in natural attitudes, would 
 appear not to be taught, according to our ideas on the 
 subject. Symmetry is the object aimed at ; the subsidiary- 
 parts are treated with as much care as the principal ; the 
 smallest details are elaborated with as much minuteness as 
 
 54
 
 Art 
 
 the most important. Figures are nearly always represented 
 full-faced ; and the heads are often stuck on at a forward 
 angle of forty-five degrees to the rest of the body ; this 
 being the scholar's habitual attitude and one indicative of 
 much study. What the Chinese delineator considers of 
 prime importance is the representation of the status occupied 
 by the subject : as his rank in the official service, or grade 
 in the literary corps, or social position. The presentation 
 of a living, feeling soul, revealed in its index, the face, sinks 
 into utter insignificance in comparison with the exposition 
 of the external advantages of rank and fortune, or of the 
 tattered rags of the old beggar fluttering in the breeze. 
 Rough outline sketches, in ink, of figures and landscapes 
 are much admired. In these, impossible mountains, 
 chaotic masses of rock, flowers, trees, and boats, are depicted 
 in such a manner as to call forth but little enthusiasm from 
 the Western observer. 
 
 'As draughtsmen, their forte lies in taking the portrait of some 
 single portion of Nature's handiwork. Many of these they have 
 analysed with great care, and so well studied as to hit off a likeness 
 with a very few strokes of the pencil. . . . There is a peculiarity 
 among the Chinese which has risen from the command they have 
 over the pencil they hold it in nearly a perpendicular direction to 
 the paper, and are therefore able, from the delicacy of its point, to 
 draw lines of the greatest fineness, and, at the same time, from the 
 elastic nature of the hairs, to make them of any breadth they please. 
 The broad strokes for the eyelash and the beard are alike executed 
 by a single effort of the pencil.' 
 
 It has been pointed out that the exigencies of Chinese 
 writing demand an education of the eye and hand, ana- 
 logous to that required in designing. The handling of the 
 hair brush the Chinese pen every day gives a facility and 
 readiness of touch and expression. 
 
 The Chinese artist has learned a lesson which has only 
 within the last few years been understood by us in our 
 natural history museums he copies all the parts of a bird 
 in detail, and then, it has been aptly said : 
 
 ' He studies the attitudes, and the peculiar passions of which atti- 
 tudes are the signs, and thus represents birds as they are in real life, 
 . . . though they may be rudely executed in some of their details. 
 Nor is this fidelity confined to birds alone, neither is it a new advance 
 
 55
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 in their art, as we find it recorded of Ts'ao Fuh-hing, a famous painter 
 of the third century, that, having painted a screen for the Sovereign, 
 he added the representation of a fly so perfect to nature that the 
 Emperor raised his hand to brush the fly off.' 
 
 We ourselves have seen a cat go up to examine a bird 
 which was drawn standing on a spray in a most natural 
 manner. These stories point out one of the most striking 
 characteristics of certain Chinese painting its graphic 
 character and remind us of Apelles's horse which the 
 living horses neighed to, as well as the other famous story 
 of a horse trying to eat a sheaf of corn on the canvas. 
 With equally minute care they faithfully copy flowers, 
 bamboos, and trees, noting carefully the minute ramifica- 
 tions of branches, as well as the action of each particular 
 kind of wind on the objects painted ; while, however, all 
 these points are being attended to with a patience worthy 
 of the highest commendation, as it produces a sort of 
 fidelity to nature, yet at the same time ' the whole perchance 
 is vastly deficient in correspondence and proportion.' This 
 entering into the mysteries of nature and the reproduc- 
 tion of some of them with an approach almost to photo- 
 graphic fidelity, scarcely to be expected from them, judging 
 by some of the other productions of their pencils, is of 
 interest and use to the botanical student, since the illustra- 
 tions in such a native work, for instance, as the great 
 Materia Medica, the Pen Ts'ao, give a far better idea from 
 their, in many instances, great truthfulness, than the mere 
 letter-press would convey to the foreign student. Their 
 attempts at depicting animal life result in rude, uncouth 
 forms, but the conventionality of the attitudes of the human 
 figure frequently lends a charm which does not attach to 
 many of their products. The proportion and grouping to- 
 gether of the component parts of a picture are defined by 
 a conventional canon, to the rigid adherence of which is due 
 much of the unreality so conspicuous in their attempts at 
 portraying the human passions, and they have remained at 
 the same imperfect development of this branch of their art 
 for many centuries (this stage has been compared to that of 
 Italian painting in the time of Giotto and Simone Memmi) ; 
 
 56
 
 Art 
 
 added to which is their entire ignorance of anatomy, the 
 result of this ignorance being often a caricature of the 
 human body. At the same time all praise must be given 
 to the delicacy of their colouring, which, without any 
 scientific laws to guide them, they seem intuitively to know 
 how to apply. They are very fond of their works of art, 
 and the mansions of the wealthy are hung with scrolls, 
 depicting landscapes and sprays of flowers, with birds, and 
 insect life, etc. Even the poorer classes adorn their 
 humbler dwellings with cheaper specimens of pictorial art, 
 and scarcely a boat of any pretensions on the Canton 
 River but is ornamented with a few pictures, while the 
 sellers of sketches in black and white find a ready sale 
 for their wares in the streets. 
 
 It is necessary, however, to remember that our commen- 
 dation is awarded to purely native art, the bastard produc- 
 tions of those daubers who seem to thrive in Hongkong and 
 some of the Treaty Ports being altogether beneath contempt. 
 
 The Chinese, in some localities, are clever at fresco or 
 encaustic painting, which they employ upon their temples 
 and better-class houses in the form of panels and friezes 
 both inwardly and externally. (See Article on Archi- 
 tecture.) Never, so far as we can learn, have they made 
 any use of oil as a medium for their pigments ; ' but it must, 
 of course, be remembered that the latter addition to the 
 painter's resources was equally unknown in Europe down 
 to the fifteenth century.' 
 
 The native pigments are very primitive, and their 
 cakes, or sticks, of water-colour are on a par with the very 
 cheapest toy outfits of an English juvenile. Their Chinese 
 ink, however, is admirable and superior to any other in the 
 world. Their pencils and brushes, also, leave little to be 
 desired, being exactly adapted to their manner of work. It 
 would be impossible, however, for an English water- 
 colourist to produce his effects with such tools, and it would 
 be idle to expect the Celestial to make any advance in art 
 until he throws over his conservatism and adopts the paper, 
 colours, and brushes of modern Europe. 
 
 57
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 Religion, nature, history, and literature, have all inspired 
 the Chinese artist with a more or less varying degree of 
 success. 
 
 If implicit credence were to be given to the accounts of 
 the Chinese themselves, painting was -first practised B.C 
 2600, but the art in China has quite a venerable enough 
 antiquity without ascribing to it such a hoary one. Mural 
 decoration appears to have been the first application of it, 
 and the Chinese Emperors frequently had the walls of their 
 palaces so adorned. In the third century before the 
 Christian era, paintings were made on bamboo and silk, 
 whether pen and ink sketches, or in colour, it is difficult to 
 say ; but a great impetus was given to the art when, in the 
 first century of our era, paper was invented. 
 
 ' The first painter of whose labours we possess any 
 definite record,' belongs to the third century of the 
 Christian era, ' over six hundred years after the period 
 of Zeuxis,' though Dr. Anderson, from whom we quote, in- 
 forms us, that ' a passing allusion to a portrait is found in 
 the works of Confucius.' The same authority says that 
 the Chinese must have attained to some proficiency in the 
 art of drawing before the Buddhist era : ' it is probable that 
 the higher development of painting in China was due to the 
 influence exercised by specimens of Indian and Greek art 
 introduced with the Buddhist religion.' At the head of the 
 list of Chinese painters stands then the name of Ts'ao Fuh- 
 hing (the memory of those who preceded him having been 
 lost), a retainer of the Emperor Wii Sun K'iian (A.D. 240- 
 251). He was ' famous for Buddhist pictures and sketches of 
 Dragons,' and he is the hero of the marvellous story of the 
 fly. Another story is that of a dragon which was painted by 
 him and preserved until the Sung dynasty, when it pro- 
 duced rain in a time of drought. The second artist whose 
 name has been preserved is that of Chang Sang-yfu. He 
 painted Buddhist pictures for the ' devout monarch Wu Tf ' 
 (A.D. 502-549). Anderson thus writes concerning him : 
 
 ' It is doubtful whether any of his works are now in existence, but 
 his style has been handed down by followers, amongst whom are 
 
 58
 
 Art 
 
 numbered many famous masters of the brush.' Another wonderful 
 dragon story is narrated of him. It 'credits him with the delineation 
 of a dragon of such miraculous semblance to " nature" that with the 
 final touches the pictured monster became suddenly inspired with life, 
 and in the midst of sable clouds and deafening peals of thunder, burst 
 through the walls to vanish into space.' 
 
 The second epoch commences some time after the intro- 
 duction of Buddhism into China. This religion exerted a 
 beneficent effect on the stagnant state of ancient art with 
 the new vistas it opened out, and the new fields for fresh 
 achievements. Buddhism was vigorous in those days, and 
 Buddhist monasteries were multiplied to such an 
 enormous extent, that in A.D. 845 there were more than 
 four millions of them. They were schools of literature and 
 art, and many paintings were executed on long rolls of silk 
 illustrative of the life and death of the founder of Buddhism 
 and Buddhistic subjects. 
 
 Other schools arose which also devoted themselves to 
 religious, as well as other kinds of art. Between A.D. 265 
 and A.D. 618, Chinese authors mention about five hundred 
 painters of celebrity, in addition to those of the religious 
 school. Besides the subjects belonging more especially to 
 the latter, the delineation of the human face, of the animal 
 creation, and of landscape, engaged the attention of the 
 artist. One example alone may be mentioned as an in- 
 stance of the high position which art held at that period : 
 One of the members of Mo Ti's (A.D. 502-550) Privy 
 Council was appointed to adorn the Imperial Temples with 
 paintings. 
 
 When we come to the seventh century, we find two 
 brothers, famous painters, named Yen Li'-teh and Yen Li- 
 pun, ' the latter of whom is especially remembered for a 
 series of historical portrait-studies of ancient paragons of 
 loyalty and learning.' 
 
 Wii Tao-tsz is the name which merits most attention in 
 the eighth century. He attracted the notice of the 
 Emperor Ming Hwang, ' with whom he remained in high 
 favour till his death. His style is said to have been formed 
 upon that of Chang Sang-yfu, whose spirit was believed to 
 
 59
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 have reappeared upon earth in the person of his follower." 
 His chief renown was won in religious art, ' but his land- 
 scapes were remarkable for picturesque feeling and strength 
 of design, and of his lifelike portraitures of animals.' 
 
 Also worthy of mention, though not of such renown, are 
 the names of Wang Wei, a landscape painter holding high 
 rank in court (A.D. 713-742), and Han Kan, a protege" of 
 the last, remembered chiefly for his painting of horses. 
 Amongst other names, famous during the T'ang dynasty as 
 painters, may be mentioned Li' Tsien and his son Li Chung- 
 ho, ' noted for drawings of figures and horses ; ' Yuen Ying, 
 ' best known for his minutely drawn representations of insect 
 life ; ' Kiang Tao-yin and Li Cheng, landscape painters. 
 
 ' The artistic appreciation of natural scenery existed in 
 China many centuries before landscape played a higher 
 part in the European picture than that of an accessory.' 
 
 The third epoch of Chinese art commences with the 
 T'ang dynasty (A.D. 618-960) and ends with that of the 
 Sung. At the beginning of this period, Chinese painting 
 divides itself into the northern and southern schools, so 
 named from the respective parts of the country in which 
 those belonging to them resided, the chief distinction be- 
 tween the two being that the southern was less trammelled 
 by the canons of art to which the northern school rigidly 
 adhered. To the former belonged Ouan Mo-kie, described 
 as one of the most original artists of China. Like many of 
 China's artists, he was not painter alone, but poet and 
 musician too, for the beauties of the landscapes, which 
 were his special forte, were not only interpreted by his brush, 
 but sung by his muse as well. He reduced his methods to 
 writing, and for two centuries afterwards, viz., the eighth 
 and ninth, they led the artistic world to go direct to Nature 
 as their mistress and model. ' The most brilliant painter of 
 this epoch is Au To-huan.' Mountains with pagodas, con- 
 vents, and Buddhistic scenes were what he delighted to paint. 
 During the ninth and tenth centuries, the painting, in all 
 their various movements, of animals and flowers, occupied 
 the attention of all the artists, but at the same time the 
 
 60
 
 Art 
 
 Buddhist school still pursued its course and produced works 
 of great merit. In the tenth century, two artists of the 
 first rank deserve mention King Hao and Hoang Tsuan. 
 There are two specimens of the latter's style in the British 
 Museum. 
 
 The fourth epoch is that of the Sung dynasty, and is 
 marked by a rejuvenescence of literature and art after the 
 troubled periods which immediately preceded it ; but 
 owing to the disfavour under which Buddhism fell, the 
 religious school of art also lapsed into a state of decadence 
 in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, though a few artists 
 of great ability are still to be found in this branch. The 
 Sung dynasty ' was rich in famous artists.' We may call 
 attention to Muh Ki, Liang Chi, Kwoh Hi, the Emperor 
 Hwei Tsung, Li Lung-yen, Ma Yuen, Hia Kwei, Yuh Kien, 
 Hwui Su, and Mih Yuen-chang. ' Ngan Hwui, who lived 
 in the thirteenth century, is usually associated with the 
 great painters of the Sung dynasty.' The school of land- 
 scape artists, started on the right track under the former 
 epoch, rose to the ' highest point of art.' The beauties of 
 springtime with its joyous bursting of bud, leaf, and flower ; 
 the sweets of summer ; the sadder traits of autumn, and 
 the snow-clad beauties of winter, all engaged their brushes. 
 Amongst the masters of this style may be mentioned the 
 two Li Cheng, one the chief of the northern school, and 
 the other belonging to the southern ; the former was 
 followed by numerous artists during the eleventh, twelfth, 
 and part of the thirteenth centuries, but unfortunately, in 
 the devotion to their master, they began to copy the style of 
 the man rather than to follow him in his sincere admiration 
 of Nature herself. In conjunction with ' a new tendency,' 
 which ' manifested itself, each school, each studio,' took as a 
 speciality the production of a certain 'picturesque detail, 
 and ceased to see landscape in its whole.' As examples of 
 this tendency may be instanced the two brothers, Ma 
 Yuen and Ma K'on, who confined themselves to ' pines, 
 cypresses, cedars, and steep rocks ' ; another only cared to 
 reproduce 'the effects of snow'; others confined their 
 
 61
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 attention to the feathery bamboo with its stiff stems, tender 
 green leaves, and the graceful curves of the topmost 
 boughs ; another speciality was ' clusters of flowers in the 
 spaces between glazed tiles on a roof,' surely a singular 
 taste ; ' bullfinches, bamboos, and rocks ' are named as the 
 objects on which Lf Ti exercised his brush ; snow-laden 
 pines and clumps of trees were what another artist loved to 
 reproduce ; while ' plum-trees and flowers ' were what Chong 
 Jen singled out as worthy of his skill ; other painters had the 
 good sense not to confine themselves to one speciality. 
 Some wonderful productions of birds, lifelike and natural, 
 were painted during this period. 
 
 The fifth epoch is that of the Yuan, or Mongol dynasty. 
 The Mongol conquest of China stirred up the comparatively 
 stagnant pool of Chinese native life, and introduced a stream 
 of vivifying influence from the more Western nations. 
 Other styles of art were introduced to the Chinese, who had 
 for some centuries seen but little from outer lands to inspire 
 their genius, or spur on their adaptive efforts. These 
 influences from abroad, more felt in other branches of art, 
 did not make such an impression on painting as one might 
 suppose, though some traces of such influence are to be 
 found. Coupled with this, there was also a renaissance of 
 Buddhism, which the tide of Mongol rule brought in with it, 
 and which made itself felt in the artistic world, as 
 well as elsewhere. The divisions, which we have noted 
 in the Sung period, still continued. The characteristic of the 
 painters under the Yuan dynasty is ' the taste for bright and 
 brilliant colours.' A tiger and cubs, executed by one of the 
 artists of this dynasty, is to be seen in the British Museum. 
 
 The sixth epoch is that of the Ming dynasty (A.D. 
 1368-1643). Painting benefited in the first years of this 
 dynasty by the improvements in technical art which took 
 place, though again not to such an extent as in some of the 
 other branches of art, and it, during this period, began to 
 decline from about the middle of the dynasty. Conse- 
 quently, it is convenient to divide this epoch into two 
 portions, lasting respectively from A.D. 1368 to 1488, and 
 
 62
 
 Art 
 
 from 1488 to 1643. The style of this first period of Ming 
 dynasty art may be characterised as without much 
 originality, but with other characteristics of first import- 
 ance : a style of art ' without great eminence, but without 
 decay.' 
 
 ' There were, however, as late as the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, 
 many painters of great merit ; but the best of these, including Lin 
 Liang and Lii Ki, were avowed imitators of the older masters. The 
 one exception to the general decay in later centuries was a style which, 
 so far as we are aware, numbered only two important followers 
 Ch'eng Chung-fu and Lf-kin Kii-sze. . . . These artists, seeking 
 better results in the painting of portraits, than had been found attain- 
 able by pursuing the caligraphic ideal, ventured to represent the 
 outlines and shadows of the face as they saw them.' 
 
 In the second period of this epoch 'begins the decline 
 of Chinese painting.' The causes of this decadence 
 commenced centuries previously, when, for a study them- 
 selves at first hand, was substituted a servile imitation 
 of some master-hand, whose inspiration was derived from 
 the faithful communion with Nature herself, which his 
 disciples neglected. That snare of the Chinese in so 
 many branches of their learning and knowledge, the blind 
 following of set rules and canons, again showed itself in 
 their reproduction of the phases and aspects of Nature in 
 her revelations to man, for instead of lifting up their eyes 
 and seeing the fields ripe for a harvest, ready for those who 
 would reap it, they contented themselves with the achieve- 
 ments of the past, and let the golden opportunities 
 slip. 
 
 The difference between these two periods (the first and 
 second halves of the Ming dynasty) is marked, and the 
 beginning of a new style is seen, which prevailed in the 
 seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. 
 
 The seventh epoch is that of the present dynasty, and 
 under it the decadence, previously foreshadowed and com- 
 menced in the preceding dynasty becomes tin fait accompli. 
 The absence of inspiration is seen and for it is substituted 
 the use of certain illustrated works, which serve as diction- 
 aries for the aspirant to fame from which the painter 
 
 63
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 copies the different figures or objects, already prepared for 
 his use in all possible situations of ordinary Chinese life ; 
 he has degenerated into a copyist, for it only remains for 
 him to group them. Under the third Emperor, Yung 
 Ching (A.D. 1723-1736), there was a tendency towards 
 improvement, but the bounds of tradition were not burst : 
 it stopped short of a renovation of the whole art. The 
 Jesuit missionaries at Peking attempted to introduce the 
 principles of Western art as applied to painting, but, though 
 they executed numerous works, the Chinese were not far 
 enough advanced to adopt such a complete reversal of all 
 their preconceived ideas and canons of art. In the South, 
 George Chinnery, an English artist, who painted many 
 scenes of Chinese life, exerted, in the first half of the 
 present century, some influence on the painters patronised 
 by the foreign residents of Canton and Macao ; and the 
 copying by these of foreign portraits has doubtless modified 
 their modes of expression and improved their style to 
 some extent, but the body of Chinese painters has not 
 been affected thereby. 
 
 In conclusion, to sum up the whole matter, we perhaps 
 cannot do better than supplement the quotations we have 
 already made from Anderson by another one : 
 
 ' There is, perhaps, no section of art that has been so completely 
 misapprehended in Europe as the pictorial art of China. For us the 
 Chinese painter, past or present, is but a copyist who imitates with 
 laborious and indiscriminating exactness whatever is laid before him, 
 rejoices in the display of as many and as brilliant colours as his 
 subject and remuneration will permit, and is original only in the 
 creation of monstrosities. Nothing could be more contrary to fact 
 than this impression, if we omit from consideration the work executed 
 for the foreign market work which every educated Chinese would 
 disown. The old masters of the Middle Kingdom, who, as a body, 
 united grandeur of conception with immense power of execution, 
 cared little for elaboration of detail, and, except in Buddhist pictures, 
 sought their best effects in the simplicity of black and white, or in 
 the most subdued of chromatic harmonies. Their art was defective, 
 but not more so than that of Europe down to the end of the thirteenth 
 century. Technically, they did not go beyond the use of water- 
 colours, but in range and quality of pigments, as in mechanical 
 command of pencil, they had no reason to fear comparison with their 
 contemporaries. They had caught only a glimpse of the laws of 
 chiaroscuro and perspective, but the want of science was counterpoised 
 by more essential elements of artistic excellence. 
 
 64
 
 Art 
 
 ' In motives they lacked neither variety nor elevation. As land- 
 scape painters they anticipated their European brethren by over a 
 score of generations, and created transcripts of scenery that for 
 breadth, atmosphere, and picturesque beauty can scarcely be 
 surpassed. In their studies of the human figure, although their 
 work was often rich in vigour and expression, they certainly fell 
 immeasurably below the Greeks ; but to counterbalance this defect, 
 no other artists, except those of Japan, have ever infused into the 
 delineations of bird life one tithe of the vitality and action to be seen 
 in the Chinese portraitures of the crow, the sparrow, the crane, and 
 a hundred other varieties of the feathered race. In flowers the 
 Chinese were less successful, owing to the absence of true chiaroscuro, 
 but they were able to evolve a better picture out of a single spray of 
 blossom than many a Western painter from all the treasures of a 
 conservatory. 
 
 ' If we endeavour to compare the pictorial art of China with 
 that of Europe, we must carry ourselves back to the days when the 
 former was in its greatness. Of the art that preceded the T'ang 
 dynasty we can say nothing. Like that of Polygnotus, Zeuxis, and 
 Apelles, it is now represented only by traditions, which, if less precise 
 in the former than in the latter case, are not less laudatory ; but it 
 may be asserted that nothing produced by the painters of Europe 
 between the seventh and thirteenth centuries of the Christian era 
 approaches within any measurable distance of the great Chinese 
 masters who gave lustre to the T'ang, Sung, and Yuen dynasties, 
 nor to draw a little nearer to modern times is there anything in 
 the religious art of Cimabue that would not appear tame and graceless 
 by the side of the Buddhistic compositions of Wu Tao-tsz, Li Lung- 
 yen and Ngan Hwui. Down to the end of the Southern Empire in 
 1279 A.D., the Chinese were at the head of the world in the art of 
 painting, as in many things besides, and their nearest rivals were 
 their own pupils, the Japanese. . . . Japanese culture has lent 
 many elements of poetry and grace to the parent art [/>., in Japan 
 itself, not in China], in the Shi-jo school it added something in touch ; 
 and chiefly through the Yamato and U Kiyo-ye schools it contributed 
 numberless original features in motive ; but in strength the palm 
 must still rest with the Middle Kingdom, and China may claim as its 
 own ever)' main artistic principle that guided the brushes of Kanaoka, 
 Meicho, and Motonobu. It is, indeed, often difficult for any but an 
 expert to distinguish a work of the earliest Japanese leaders of the 
 "Chinese school" from a Chinese picture, and many a design that 
 adorns the modern porcelain and lacquer of Japan is to be traced 
 almost line for line to a Chinese original of eight or nine centuries 
 ago. ... In the last hundred years, while the Chinese have 
 been content to rest upon the achievements of their forefathers 
 who would despise them for it could they live again the energy of 
 their quondam pupils has brought Japan before the world as the 
 sole heir to almost all that is most beautiful in the art of the great 
 Turanian race.' 
 
 Books recommended. The Chapter on Art in Tradescant Lay's 
 'The Chinese As They Are.' Most of the text-books contain articles more 
 or less meritorious, but one of the most interesting and appreciative accounts 
 is to be found in 'L'Art Chinois,' by M. Paleologue, to which we are 
 
 65 E
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 indebted for much of the information given above. A moat interesting 
 monograph on Chinese Art is to be found in the magnificent volume 
 entitled 'The Pictorial Arts of Japan ' by W. Anderson, F.R.C.S. 
 
 ASCENDING ON HIGH. This half-feast, half-holi- 
 day brings itself more prominently into the notice of the 
 foreign resident in Hongkong than is the case with some 
 of the other semi-religious observances of the Chinese. 
 Ages ago, a Chinese received a warning that a dreadful 
 catastrophe would happen to him and his family. To avert 
 it he escaped to the heights ; and in commemoration of 
 this event, on the ninth day of the ninth moon, many 
 Chinese take a holiday, or an excursion of a few hours, to 
 some neighbouring hill, or mountain. The Peak tramway 
 in Hongkong, providing a convenient mode of reaching a 
 summit, is largely availed of, to the wonderment of the 
 English traveller, who is at a loss to understand why such 
 an exodus of natives from the town is taking place. About 
 3000 usually take advantage of this convenient mode of 
 ascent, though on a wet day (such as occurred in 1894) the 
 number may be reduced to one-half of that, trams 
 running continuously throughout the day for their 
 accommodation. Dressed in their gala-day best, with silks 
 and satins galore, and with happy faces, family groups may 
 be seen wandering along the mountain roads, while troops 
 of friends and acquaintances may be noticed chatting their 
 loudest and enjoying the treat of a whiff of fresh air after 
 months of confinement in narrow streets and close shops. 
 Up at the Peak itself, the base of the flag-staff is black 
 with human beings, who, from the distance, look like ants 
 on a lump of sugar ; and on the road slowly meandering 
 their zigzag course up the hill are clusters of pedestrians ; 
 other black specks on the path are home-bound wanderers 
 wearily wending their downward course, though many 
 patronise the tram again and besiege the empty cars, like 
 excursionists in England, the disappointed ones, who 
 have to wait for the next trip, nearly blocking the station. 
 
 This Ch'ung Yong festival is looked upon more as a 
 partial holiday than as a feast in the strict sense of the 
 
 60
 
 Asiatic Society 
 
 term. Many Chinese, though perhaps not five per cent, of 
 the whole population, avail themselves of this opportunity 
 for a little relaxation from business ; those who do so being 
 such as are blessed with leisure, or who desire an outing, or 
 who are specially superstitious. In connection with its 
 celebration a few fly kites from these elevated positions. 
 The writer, himself, has seen remnants of kites at the Peak 
 and the block-house ; he has also seen joss-paper lying 
 about, though, on the whole, few make it a day of worship. 
 
 ASIATIC SOCIETY (CHINA BRANCH OF) was 
 started in Hongkong in 1848, and continued in existence 
 until 1859. Before it was defunct, a 'Shanghai Literary 
 and Scientific Society ' was commenced in 1857, which was 
 shortly after changed into the ' North China Branch of the 
 Royal Asiatic Society ' ; a few years since the word ' North ' 
 was dropped out of the title. The Transactions^ published 
 by these societies, form a set of some scores of thick and 
 thin brochures full of most interesting and valuable informa- 
 tion on China and Chinese subjects, the result of much re- 
 search and study. The present ' China Branch of the 
 Royal Asiatic Society ' holds its meetings in Shanghai, at 
 which papers are read and discussions follow some of 
 these papers appear in the Transactions ; the member- 
 ship is considerable ; the subscription is five dollars a year, 
 which may be commuted by a payment of fifty dollars, en- 
 titling the subscriber to be a life member. Those who 
 wish to belong to the Society should apply to the Secre- 
 tary in Shanghai. Members receive the 'Journal of the 
 China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society ' free, and have 
 the privilege of purchasing back numbers at a reduction of 
 40% on the published prices, while the public are allowed a 
 discount of 10% if a complete set of the 'Journal,' 
 as far as can be supplied, is purchased. The annual sub- 
 scription to the latter, for the 'Journal,' is $5. A classified 
 index to the articles in the 'Journal ' of the N. C. Br. of the 
 R.A.S., from the formation of that Society to the 3ist 
 December 1892, is to be found in the 'Journal, New Series/ 
 
 6;
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 Vol. XXIV. There is a museum in Shanghai in connec- 
 tion with the Society, and a library. 
 
 ASTROLOGY. Astrology is largely believed in by the 
 Chinese. One of the commonest inscriptions (carved or 
 written on a red-painted board, or written on red paper and 
 posted up on a wall) is, ' May a lucky star auspiciously 
 shine (on us).' The planets, or stars, are supposed to exert 
 a beneficent or malevolent influence on the destinies of 
 mortals, and the Chinese almanacs contain particulars of 
 these. The good stars are termed ' kut sing,' the evil ones 
 ' hoong,' or ' shut sing.' 
 
 AUDIENCE. During recent years the audience by the 
 Chinese sovereign of foreign ambassadors, envoys, etc., has 
 been one of the burning questions of the day in the Far East. 
 The following appeared in the Times a few years since : 
 
 ' Perhaps, in course of time, they [the Chinese] will begin to see the 
 absurdity of shutting up their Emperor from the foreign ministers 
 accredited to him. There may have been good and substantial 
 reasons, from the Chinese point of view, in refusing to present foreigners 
 to the Empress Dowager when she acted as Regent ; but there is no 
 reason whatever even a Chinese reason for persisting in keeping 
 the Emperor and the foreign ministers apart. In the last century the 
 Emperor of the present dynasty received foreigners, and condescended 
 to be instructed by them. The present Emperor receives his own 
 ministers in audience every day, and is not treated as a semi-divine 
 being, on whose face ordinary mortals may not look, as the Mikado of 
 Japan was in former times. There is no reason in principle or 
 Chinese practice why the sovereign should not receive the ministers at 
 his Court, and, not to speak of earlier Emperors, there is the prece- 
 dent of T'ung Chi, his predecessor, who granted an audience to the 
 Corps Diplomatique. It is the absence of reason about the business, 
 the obstinate persistence in withholding this usual mark of mutual 
 respect, that renders it so irritating.' 
 
 To get some idea of what the Chinese standpoint of 
 view was, it must be remembered that through ages past it 
 has been the theory a theory well sustained by practice, 
 and where practice failed to support it, well bolstered up by 
 Chinese historians that China was the Suzerain State, and 
 all other kingdoms its vassals, who, if they did not pay 
 tribute, were in a state of rebellion, and should present 
 this open and visible sign of fealty. All presents from other 
 
 68
 
 Audience 
 
 sovereigns were styled ' tribute ' ; and to such a length was 
 this carried, that when China was divided by two reigning 
 houses, and when the so-called vassal kingdom was in 
 reality the leading state in China, and the so-called Imperial 
 family ruled over but a small moiety of the Empire, yet all 
 presents from the more powerful state were classed as 
 tribute in history, while those from the Emperor, which, as 
 given to a more influential state by a weaker and inferior 
 one, were in reality more entitled to the name of tribute, 
 were classed as presents. It must further be remembered 
 that China has been the leading nation of Eastern Asia for 
 many centuries past, while the rest of the world was com- 
 paratively unknown ; all surrounding nations have been 
 their inferiors, who have looked up to the Middle Kingdom 
 as the centre from which their letters, literature, knowledge, 
 art, and science have all originated and emanated. It is 
 owing to all these causes, and for all these reasons that the 
 preposterous claim of the Chinese has been founded. 
 
 The receiving of all their envoys and ambassadors at 
 the Courts of Europe, to which they have been accredited 
 fora quarter of a century, was not sufficient, in face of these 
 antiquated views, to move them from their position ; for, 
 judged from the same standpoint, it was only to be expected 
 that China's envoys should be received with every mark of 
 respect and honour nay more, their theories would naturally 
 lead them to expect that they should be received with that 
 homage accorded to them by their neighbours, such, for in- 
 stance, as by Corea in past times a homage rendered to them 
 as representatives of the Son of Heaven a homage given 
 by virtue of the claim of the latter to universal sovereignty. 
 
 Whatever may have been the private opinion of the 
 handful of enlightened officials, the belief held by the ma- 
 jority of them, namely, the theory already enunciated above, 
 had to be upheld at every cost ; for such beliefs die hard in 
 China. And if the pressure of foreign opinion rendered 
 necessary some show of alteration, plausible excuses were 
 put forward, or subterfuges resorted to ; and eventually we 
 find the representatives of the most powerful nations on the 
 
 69
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 earth received twice long ago once, and again in 1891, after 
 years of a refusal to grant it in an Audience Hall, 
 especially reserved for the audience of tributary 
 nations, with only a statement on the last occasion, that 
 such should not be the case again. The Emperor, by a 
 decree of the I2th December 1890, expressed his intention 
 of fixing a day every year for the reception with honour of 
 all the Foreign Ministers resident in Peking. After the 
 general reception, mentioned above, the Austrian-Hun- 
 garian Minister was received in another out-building, which 
 was also associated with humiliation. 
 
 Count Cassini, the Russian Minister, insisted, in 1892, 
 on presenting his credentials personally to the Emperor, a 
 bold stand, and the only one which carries the day with 
 Chinese officials. 
 
 The Chinese seemed indisposed, to put it mildly, to 
 receive Foreign Ambassadors in the Imperial Palace; out- 
 buildings were made to do duty for these functions. The 
 point, of course, was that until the Chinese Emperor received 
 Foreign Ambassadors on exactly the same footing that our 
 Sovereign receives the Chinese accredited to the Court of 
 St. James, and until every disposition to shirk this proper 
 mode of dealing with the Audience Question was gone, it 
 would still remain unsettled. The future only will reveal 
 whether the reservations, equivocations, and evasions of 
 the past will be resorted to again ad nauseam. At the 
 same time it is worthy of note, as a sign of progress, that 
 the humiliating ceremony of 'kow-tow' was not demanded 
 at the last receptions given prior to a complete change in 
 the system, for the very good reason, doubtless, that the 
 Chinese were well aware it would not be performed. And 
 as a straw showing a slight change in the current of the 
 stupid pride and arrogance of the past, it was pleasing to 
 see that the Czarewitch, on his visit a few years since, to 
 the high officials in Canton, had an Imperial-yellow sedan- 
 chair provided for him an honour never previously granted 
 to a European, and an honour only reserved in China for 
 the reigning family. 
 
 70
 
 Audience 
 
 The Audience Question appeared to be approaching a 
 satisfactory solution latterly. As indicative of some of the 
 first signs of this change, for the better, were to be noticed the 
 fact that the late British Minister to Peking (Mr. O'Connor) 
 presented his credentials in person to the Emperor in the 
 Cheng Kuang-tien and not in the ' Hall of Tributary 
 Nations.' The Austrian Ambassador had previously also 
 been received in a proper manner, and the other representa- 
 tives of their respective countries were afterwards accorded 
 receptions more befitting the nations whose interests they 
 had in hand than had been the case for many years past. 
 
 'The Russian and French Ministers refused audience except within 
 the Palace walls ; when China was being defeated by Japan then the 
 right was conceded of audience within the Palace Wall to all the nations. 
 The Hall selected for it was the Wen Wa Tien.' They feared the 
 Japanese would attack Peking ('the Chinese dreaded two of the Powers 
 in the event of the attack on Peking and the overthrow or weaken- 
 ing of the dynasty) and they wished to conciliate the Great Western 
 Powers ; and by granting this important but inevitable concession, 
 to secure their mediatorial influences in suspending or averting the 
 threatened descent on the capital and in the bringing about of peace.' 
 
 On the defeat of China by Japan, the Foreign Ministers 
 were received in audience within the Palace (1894). 
 
 In this connection, the two following newspaper cuttings 
 from periodicals published in 1898 are interesting: 
 
 'The Chinese authorities have been much perplexed over the 
 question of Prince Henry's suitable reception by the Emperor, and after 
 considerable hesitation, it has been decided that for the first time in 
 Chinese History, His August Majesty will stand to receive his guest. 
 The officials are as yet in much too great trepidation to discuss the 
 details of the return visit.' 
 
 'Prince Henry of Prussia has paid his state visit to the Emperor of 
 China in Peking. He was admitted to an audience at the Summer 
 Palace on terms of equality never before granted.' 
 
 In 1 899 (and repeatedly since), the Empress Dowager 
 gave audience to the foreign ladies from the legations in 
 Peking. 
 
 Amongst the reforms which will be forced on China by 
 this last war (1900) will surely be the placing of the diplo- 
 matic intercourse between foreign nations and herself on 
 a proper footing ; and thus will close a chapter full of dis- 
 grace to China, brought on herself, and discreditable to the 
 
 71
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 foreign Powers, who submitted too tamely to the insults 
 heaped on their representatives by an insolent mandarinate. 
 Since writing the above, this apparently has been ac- 
 complished, for the Ministers of Great Britain, Germany, 
 France, Russia, Japan and Portugal were received in 1902 
 in audience in the Hall where the Emperor receives his 
 own officials every morning. Thus then at last the 
 Audience Question seems to be set at rest. 
 
 AWETO. The aweto has well been termed the 
 strangest insect in the world ; for, were the fact not well 
 vouched for by scientists, it would be incredible that a 
 caterpillar should blossom out into a plant. The vegetable 
 fungus which takes root in the neck of the caterpillar grows 
 upward even to the height of six or eight inches and down- 
 ward in the body of the buried aweto until vegetable matter 
 has supplanted all the animal tissues within the outer skin 
 of the insect the form of the latter being perfectly re- 
 tained ; this accomplished, it dies, or (shall we say?) they 
 die ; for both plant and animal die, becoming dry and hard 
 and of a brown colour. This odd combination then looks 
 like a wooden caterpillar with a big horn sticking out of its 
 neck. The Chinese have in their Materia Medica what 
 would appear to be exactly the same creature as the above. 
 It is produced, if our Chinese authority is reliable, in 
 Sz-chuan, as well as in New Zealand. It is known as the 
 toong ctioong hah ts'o, ' winter-worm summer-grass,' or more 
 commonly as the toong ctioong ts'o, ' winter-worm grass.' 
 It is considered to be a tonic, and is boiled with pork for 
 that purpose ; the soup thus produced, and the aweto itself, 
 being taken. There is an inferior kind which is said to 
 come from Japan, but is stated to be of no use. 
 
 BAMBOO. China would not be the China we 
 know, were the bamboo wanting. Existence would 
 well-nigh seem impossible to the Chinese without it 
 ' a universal provider ' for a nation's endless wants. 
 What iron is to the English, such is the useful 
 
 72
 
 Bamboo 
 
 bamboo to the Chinese. Not by any means that the 
 use of iron is unknown in China, far from it ; it is largely 
 used for many purposes ; but bamboo is even more exten- 
 sively employed, not only for the purposes that iron is ill 
 fitted for, but also for many for which that metal is well 
 adapted. Pages might be filled with a mere list given of 
 the uses to which it is put. Bamboo has been called the 
 universal material. There are few things which cannot be 
 made of it. The question is not what it is used for, but 
 what it is not used for; and, after a lengthened residence in 
 China with the discovery every now and then of some fresh 
 article made of bamboo, the answer, with but little reserva- 
 tion, would appear to be that it is used for nearly every- 
 thing. To the Chinese it is, perhaps, the most valuable 
 product of their land. They excel in manufacturing it into 
 different articles. The last thing that one would suppose 
 it to be fit for is food : the hard silicious culms look any- 
 thing but tempting to an epicure. It is, however, not these 
 in their hardened mature state, but the fresh young sprouts 
 as they come out of the ground that, cooked till tender, 
 form a fine vegetable, or, otherwise treated, make a pickle, 
 or comfit. The graceful slender stems strong, but light 
 serve an infinitude of purposes : the framework of mat- 
 sheds is almost entirely constructed of them, whether they 
 be the gigantic temporary structures erected for religious 
 festivals which tower above all the other buildings (See 
 Article on Amusements) ; or the more modest dwellings of 
 the poorer classes ; or the complicated network of scaffold- 
 ing round the rising house or the building under repair. 
 Their long tubular structure adapts them admirably for 
 water-pipes when the thick septum at each joint has been 
 broken through. The street-coolie, or the chair-coolie, 
 would be badly off without the bamboo : it provides carry- 
 ing-poles for the first, whilst the whole framework of the 
 sedan-chair, and the shafts are often of this material. The 
 boatman's pole for his boat, the ribs for the sailor's mat- 
 sail, and the sampan woman's awning for her small craft, 
 are all constructed of the bamboo. Could the bamboo age 
 
 73
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 that now reigns in China be suddenly abolished by some 
 magician's enchantment, the whole of the fairies that ever 
 peopled Fairyland would find their hands more than full 
 to provide substitutes for all the household articles, the 
 agricultural implements, the toys for the children, and the 
 innumerable objects of everyday use which are made of this 
 ubiquitous plant The roots make the divining blocks 
 lying on every temple altar, while the divining sticks 
 that keep them company are slender slips of bamboo 
 contained in a bamboo vase ; the mats for the worshippers 
 to kneel on are made of its dried leaves ; the incense sticks 
 have a thin slip of bamboo, round the upper part of which 
 adhere the fragrant spices brought from Araby the Blest 
 and the Sandal-wood Islands (Sandwich Islands). We can 
 scarcely keep our eyes off bamboo in China whether in-doors 
 or out. Rain-hats or sun-hats, large sized and small (the large 
 ones having the spread of an umbrella, of which the handle 
 is the man or woman who uses it, or when a youngster claps 
 one on his head, we have a walking mushroom, so over- 
 shadowed is he by his gigantic head-gear), the policeman's 
 or soldier's conical small hat, constructed to ward off strokes 
 and parry blows these are all made of bamboo. The 
 native umbrella, handle and ribs and spring, is ingeniously 
 constructed of it as well, while oiled paper serves in the 
 place of silk or cotton. The Robinson Crusoe-like rain- 
 coat of the extreme South is made of leaves a garment of 
 leaves of this gigantic grass sewn together. The old 
 man's staff, the blind beggar's stick, the sewing woman's 
 pole to which to fasten her seam, the washerwoman's 
 clothes-lines, are bamboo. The rake of the farmer, the 
 foot-rule of the carpenter and tailor, the measures of the 
 rice-shops, and many chop-sticks are made of it. Rags are 
 too precious in China to be wasted on the manufacture of 
 paper, for when the decent garment begins to show the 
 wear and tear of the merchant prince, it descends in the 
 social scale, serving in turn the shopman and coolie, and 
 finally, when all respectability is gone out of it, forms a 
 covering for the wretched beggar, if any ability to cover 
 
 74
 
 Bamboo 
 
 remains in it at all. In lieu of rags, the bamboo, soaked 
 for a length of time and reduced to pulp, then dried and 
 made into sheets, furnishes paper for the student's class- 
 book, the merchant's account-books, and the author's 
 scribbling paper. The latter writes with a pen, the handle 
 of which is a fine bamboo tube ; the vase for holding his 
 pens is of the same material. Chairs, tables, stools, couches, 
 ornaments, stands, images, lantern-handles, canes, instru- 
 ments of torture, handles of spears, cages for birds, hen- 
 coops, musical instruments (such as flutes and fifes and 
 fiddles, etc.), pillows, dutch-wives, ladders, lattice-work, bars 
 of doors and windows, primitive-looking lamps and lanterns, 
 nutmeg-graters, pepper-dusters, floats, watering-wheels, rafts, 
 bridges, watch-towers, tobacco and opium-pipes, ropes, 
 window-blinds, curtains, brooms, brushes, baskets of all and 
 every kind, cricket-traps, snares to catch game, combs, 
 tallies for checking cargo, summonses for secret society 
 meetings, the framework and handles of fans, are all of 
 this cane ; but we must stop, or we should have to make an 
 inventory of much that is in common use by John 
 Chinaman, and which he would sadly want were he de- 
 prived of his bamboo. It even supplies him with medicine 
 in the shape of tabasheer, a silicious concretion found in- 
 side the stems ; while the green outer surface of the young 
 bamboo is scraped off and used as a cooling drink (being 
 boiled with water) for fever, in combination with other 
 medicines, or alone. The green buds (of the leaves) are 
 also employed in the same way and for the same purpose. 
 Order is maintained throughout the whole empire by it, 
 and a sprig of it is borne in the van of the funeral 
 procession. 
 
 ' The numerous plants which common parlance lumps 
 together under the general name of "bamboos" really form 
 three distinct genera, known to Botanists as Bambusa, 
 Arundinaria, and Phyllostachys, and each including many 
 species.' 
 
 ' Throughout life the Chinaman is almost dependent upon it for 
 support, nor does it leave him until it carries him to his last resting 
 
 75
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 place on the hill-side, and even then in company with the cypress, 
 juniper, and pine it waves over and marks his tomb.' 
 
 Wallace would scarcely regard the bamboo as a tropical 
 plant, while Rein calls the monsoon district the old home 
 of many kinds, where the largest and most beautiful are 
 cultivated, and from whence some varieties the hardiest 
 doubtless have crossed the tropic of Cancer and colonised 
 both in Japan and China far beyond. The idea that such 
 regions are too raw and cold for such delicate plants is 
 fallacious. The bamboo is hardier than its slender stalks, 
 tender green leaves, and graceful swaying masses of 
 feathery tufts would at first glance lead one to suppose, for 
 it holds its own and, if properly protected, will winter 
 through snows amidst the cold of Mid-China. Chambers's 
 ' Encyclopaedia ' informs us that a few species of bamboo 
 are found in the Himalayas at an altitude of 12,000 feet. 
 
 The bamboo is one of the most rapidly growing plants 
 in existence six feet or more in a single night is a record 
 performance in plant growth, while at the other end of the 
 scale is the slow growing tree, taking a year to accomplish 
 the same height. 
 
 Among the curiosities of the bamboo world are the 
 purple bamboo, the tortoise-marked bamboo, the Sampan 
 wood bamboo (bright red when young), the purple or 
 black bamboo, the golden bamboo, the solid bamboo 
 (which ' is not a species, not even a variety, but merely a 
 sport ' ), the square bamboo, the Dragon's beard (scarcely a 
 foot high, with needle-like stems, while at the other extreme 
 is the bamboo the stem of which is nearly ij ft. in 
 diameter), striped bamboos, forked bamboos, and the 
 bamboo of filial obedience, which last a Chinese author 
 thus describes : It ' has long and slender stems, forming 
 a large clump. In the summer its sprouts come from the 
 inside and produce coolness, which they transmit to the 
 parent bamboo. In the winter they come up outside and 
 afford protection to the parent plant by covering it up. 
 This is why it is called " loving filial-affection." ' It is 
 natural that such a filial-hearted plant (hollow-hearted 
 
 76
 
 Bamboo 
 
 though it is) as the bamboo appears to be, should respond 
 to filial piety in the human species, and one variety of this 
 estimable member of the vegetable kingdom bears in Japan 
 the name of one of the twenty-four paragons of Chinese 
 filial piety, who for his sick mother, longing for soup made 
 from bamboo shoots in winter, wept so copiously in a bamboo 
 plantation that his tears, like the warm rains of spring, 
 softened the hard wintry ground and caused the tender 
 shoots to burst forth, in reward of his pious affection. The 
 ingenious Japanese has produced artificial varieties of the 
 bamboo, such as the ' Hundred Leaved Bamboos,' and 
 bamboos with crooked stems. These are the result of re- 
 moving the sheaths and cutting the stems. 
 
 There are many varieties of the bamboo ; some twenty 
 or more in the south of China ; one Chinese writer 
 describes sixty varieties. They are of different sizes and 
 colours green, yellow, and black with large and small 
 leaves, from the tiny dwarf bamboo which, when full grown, 
 is only large enough to form a low hedge, and is glorified 
 with the name of the 'Goddess of Mercy Bamboo,' up to the 
 larger sizes, whose feathery sprays rise to a height of fifty 
 or even sometimes seventy feet. It is a most graceful 
 object, touching with rare beauty every few yards of the 
 Chinese landscape, and has inspired many a poet and 
 artist. If the bamboo is kind to the Chinaman, he returns 
 it with interest, as some of his best work is bestowed upon 
 it, and it forms the motif In numerous works of art. What 
 would many a hideous carving be but for its ' saving grace ' ; 
 the artist would be lost but for its lines of beauty, while its 
 tawny yellow or bright green stems and waving top plumes 
 of duller green, the whole object, ' so delicate in tint and 
 shape, soft of hue, . . . indefinite in outline, . . . like 
 wonderful grey-green lace against the opalescent sky,' 
 appeals not only to the most aesthetic side of the Celestial's 
 nature, but also to that of the matter-of-fact Western traveller. 
 
 Baden Powell says : 
 
 ' I always think bamboos in a landscape add just that finish which 
 a spray of maidenhair gives to a bouquet.' 
 
 77
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 In two recent years, has the bamboo flowered in Hong- 
 kong, though ordinarily one may live many years in China 
 without noticing it. A spray of it in flower looks some- 
 what like a head oi oats, but much smaller. 
 
 'The flowering of the bamboo is considered to be a very rare 
 occurrence. Once in eighteen, twenty, and even twenty-five years does 
 it flower, and still less seldom does it produce seed.' 'Externally the 
 seed resembles a pear in shape, and is of a deep olive-green colour, 
 gradually changing to a dark or rifle-green. On opening the seed 
 longitudinally, a thick coat of coriaceous matter is found covering the 
 germinal centre. It has a strong vegetable smell.' 
 
 Of late the bamboo has been introduced as an ornamental 
 plant into gardens in England, with great success. In a 
 garden in the Midlands, some fifty species flourished ex- 
 ceedingly well, though not attaining the size they do 
 where the climate was more favourable for their growth. 
 It was previously unknown out of doors in England, though 
 well known on the Mediterranean. Rein tells us in his 
 magnificent work, ' The Industries of Japan,' that Bambusa 
 arundinacea was introduced into hot-houses in England in 
 1730, and until 1813 was the only kind there. 
 
 Books recommended. 1 Ling Nam,' by Rev. B. C. Henry, M.A., D.D., pp. 
 Ill, 135, 136. 'The Middle Kingdom,' by Rev. S. Wells Williams, LL.D., 
 vol. i. pp. 358-360. An interesting' account appears in the China Mail and 
 Hongkong Daily Press, of the 9th and 10th June, 1893, respectively, of an 
 eccentric mandarin who was about to build a house and furnish it with 
 nothing but articles made of bamboo. 
 
 BANKS AND BANK-NOTES. There are no 
 chartered banks in China, but private banks are very 
 common. If we include branches of the same establish- 
 ment, there were, a few years since, 300 in Tientsin. Their 
 number ' is large in proportion to the business of a town,' 
 their capital, in many cases, also being small, amounting to 
 a few thousand taels. The native banks do not appear to 
 have hit upon the device of cheques ; a foreign bank in 
 Hongkong, the National Bank of China, having been the 
 first to introduce these convenient orders for money to the 
 Chinese in their own language in that Colony. The native 
 banks, however, ' issue circular letters of credit to travel 
 through the Empire, and the system of remittance by
 
 Banks and Bank-Notes 
 
 drafts is as complete as in Europe ; the rates charged are 
 high, however.' Promissory Notes are largely availed of by 
 the native banks and their customers in their dealings with 
 each other. A very curious feature in these transactions is 
 that the interest is often not stated in the note itself, but is 
 written on the envelope in which the note is enclosed, though 
 in the ordinary promissory note it is inserted in the note. 
 
 As cash, the common copper mite and for long only 
 known coin amongst the Chinese, is heavy and difficult to 
 transport in any quantities, it was only natural that, keen 
 merchants as they are, the Chinese should have early 
 invented bank-notes. ' The date seems to have been about 
 A.D. 800.' The earliest specimen known to exist in any 
 country was purchased in 1890 by the British Museum, 
 where it may be now seen by anyone in the King's Library, 
 placed under a glass case. The label to it states that it 
 was issued 300 years earlier than the establishment (at 
 Stockholm) of the first European bank which sent out notes. 
 This wonderful note is about the size of a piece of foolscap 
 paper and is almost blackish in colour. It was issued 
 during the reign of Hung Wii, A.D. 1368-1399. Each 
 money shop has its own device, though the general 
 features are the same : an ornamental border surrounds the 
 oblong paper, and since the Chinese printing is in columns, 
 the greatest length is from top to bottom, and not from 
 side to side as in the English bank-note ; the name of the 
 bank or shop issuing it is put in large characters, 
 transversely, as a heading ; below this are several rows of 
 characters, the centre one often being somewhat to this 
 effect ' On production of this note pay - - cash,' and the 
 other columns containing necessary particulars, such as the 
 number of the note and date, etc. ; besides which, some 
 moral sentences very often form an adornment. 
 
 'The check on over-issue of notes lies in the control exercised by 
 the clearing-house of every city, where the standing of each bank is 
 known by its operations. The circulation of the notes is limited in 
 some cases to the street or neighbourhood wherein the establishment 
 is situated ; often the payee has a claim on the payer of a bill for a 
 full day if it be found to be counterfeit or worthless a custom which 
 
 79
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 involves a good deal of scribbling on the back ... to certify the 
 names. Proportionally few counterfeit notes are met with, owing 
 more to the limited range of the notes, making it easy to ask the bank, 
 which recognises its own paper. . . . Their face value ranges from 
 one to a hundred tiao t or strings of cash, but their worth depends on 
 the exchange between silver and cash, and as this fluctuates daily, 
 the notes soon find their way home.' 
 
 A tiao is 1000 cash, but the author possesses a set of 
 cancelled Foochovv notes ranging in value from 100 cash 
 to 1000 cash and $i. Great inconvenience is sometimes 
 caused by the failure of the firms which have issued this 
 paper money. 
 
 These bank-notes are not used in the extreme south 
 of China, though they are very common at Foochow and 
 in the North. 
 
 The issue of these notes at the present day is due 
 entirely to private enterprise, but the Government have 
 acted as bankers more than once in this one respect. 
 Marco Polo, the celebrated Venetian traveller, was in 
 China at such a time and, speaking of Kublai Khan's 
 purchases, he thus describes them : 
 
 ' So he buys such a quantity of those precious things every year 
 that his treasure is endless, while, all the while the money he pays 
 away costs him nothing at all. If any of those pieces of paper are 
 spoilt, the owner carries them to the mint, and by paying three per 
 cent, on the value he gets new pieces in exchange.' 
 
 The total issue during Kublai Khan's reign of thirty- 
 four years, amounted, it is estimated, to the sum of 
 $624,135,500. This, however, was carried too far by 
 the subsequent Mongol Emperors, and added fuel to the 
 flame of discontent felt by the Chinese against their 
 foreign rulers, yet the new Chinese dynasty (the Ming) 
 which succeeded to the throne, was obliged at first to 
 issue notes for nearly a hundred years. The present 
 dynasty of Manchus has also had recourse to them during 
 the great T'ai-p'ing rebellion, but their circulation did 
 not extend beyond the metropolis. 
 
 Books recommended. Williams's 'Middle Kingdom,' vol. ii. pp. 85, 86. 
 The Wtsleyan Methodist Magazine, July 1896, contains a woodcut of a 
 Chinese bank-note. See also Holcombe's 'The Real Chinaman,' pp. 343-346. 
 
 80
 
 Beche de Mer 
 
 BASKETS. Baskets are made largely of bamboo. 
 There are numerous kinds used for domestic purposes or 
 for the market or in daily toil, and different parts of the 
 country have them of different shapes and sizes. The 
 plain material is sometimes used ; at other times it is 
 varnished over ; while again some baskets are gaudily 
 painted in glaring colours. 
 
 BATHING. The Chinese, as a people, are not addicted 
 very much to bathing. As a general rule, with multitudes 
 of them, a wash of the face and hands with hot water once 
 a day or so constitutes the sum total of their ablutions. 
 This is called ' wiping the face and hands,' and how perfunc- 
 torily it is performed the water-marks on dirty ears and necks 
 is sign enough. Others, however, amongst them are very 
 cleanly ; especially is this the case sometimes with one's 
 chair-coolies, who, after their day's labours, have buckets of 
 hot water and wash themselves all over. In the neighbour- 
 hood of Foochow, there are sulphurous springs to which, 
 Tseng Ki-tong tells us, the well-to-do people repair in 
 summer to bathe. 
 
 BATS. Bats are emblematical of happiness ; and con- 
 stantly appear in paintings, carvings, and decorative designs. 
 
 Large specimens are allowed in great number to con- 
 gregate in and haunt some official buildings. A superstition 
 prevails in the South that the hair will fall off the head of 
 those who touch them. 
 
 Dr. Porter Smith says of bats : 
 
 'This animal is very common in China, being a frequent visitor of 
 foreign houses, in quest of mosquitoes, which it devours most satis- 
 factorily. As it is supposed* to feed upon the stalactites which are 
 frequently met with in the caves it is wont to hybernate in, its medical 
 properties are rated at considerable value by the Chinese. From its 
 asserted extreme longevity and its excellent sight, this curious creature 
 is credited by the Chinese with the power of conveying these desirable 
 qualities to those who consume the disgusting preparations made from 
 all parts of its body.' 
 
 Book recommended. Dr. Dobson's exhaustive monograph on Asiatic 
 Chiroptera, published by Taylor & Francis, London, 1876. 
 
 BECHE DE MER. Called in Malay, tripang : in 
 
 Si K
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 Portuguese, foV//0-afc- war = sea- worm ; it is known by the 
 name of sea-cucumber in England, its appearance and shape 
 being like that vegetable ; but it is, however, a dirty brown. 
 It is found in the seas of the Malay Peninsula and 
 Archipelago. 
 
 And ' in the upper part of the Gulf of Siam, and is so abundant on 
 the northern coast of Australia that the people of Celebes, receiving 
 advances from the resident Chinese, have been long in the habit of 
 making annual voyages thither in quest of it. Gutted, dried in the 
 sun, and smoked, it is considered cured, and fit for its only market, 
 that of China, to which many hundred tons are yearly sent for the 
 consumption of the epicures of that country. The fishery of the 
 tripang is to China, what that of the sardine, tunny, and anchovy is to 
 Europe. It is, for the most part, caught by hand, for it has little 
 power of locomotion, but in deep water it sometimes dives.' 'The 
 tripang, or sea-slug, is of several varieties. The greater portion is 
 caught in shallow water, where it can be picked up off the bank without 
 diving.' 
 
 ' They lie apparently motionless on sandy ground. Out of water, 
 they die immediately and become a shiny mass. They must, therefore, 
 be cut up at once, the digestive canal being taken out, and then they 
 are dipped in boiling water and dried in the air.' 
 
 These banks on the Aroe Islands of pearls and tripang 
 are often several miles in width, intersected by deep 
 channels. The Chinese know this esculent holothuria by the 
 name of hoi shunt, or 'sea ginseng.' Its culinary prepara- 
 tion is as follows : It is soaked for a couple of nights, and 
 becomes soft, when it is washed, and then steamed with 
 water and pigeon or duck. Instead of simple water, that 
 in which pork bones have been boiled is sometimes used. 
 It has a sweet taste. 
 
 BED. The Chinese bed commonly consists of two 
 thickish boards laid side by side on two trestles, with a 
 woven mat instead of mattress ; blankets and cotton wadded 
 coverlets being used for warmth in winter. Large wooden 
 bedsteads of slighter constructions and of more framework 
 style than amongst us are also used. In the North, with 
 the severe winters experienced there, the people sleep on 
 kangs, which are built of bricks, and hollow inside for fires ; 
 in fact, the northern Chinese sleep on stoves. Residence 
 in the Far East affords a perpetual commentary on the 
 
 82
 
 Bells 
 
 customs mentioned in the Bible; and it is no uncommon 
 sight in China to see a man take up his bed and walk, i.e., 
 he rolls up his blankets, earthen-ware, leather, or wooden 
 pillow, and coverlet all inside his mat, and shoulders it, or 
 carries it under his arm, and thus takes his bed with him 
 and goes where he likes. 
 
 Much pity has been wasted and much useless indignation 
 expended respectively on Chinese servants, and ' old China 
 hands,' who have taken these domestics with them when on 
 a visit to their native lands, and knew the absurdity of 
 providing their amahs, or ' boys,' with the unappreciated 
 and useless luxury of iron bedsteads and spring mattresses. 
 
 BEES. The busy bee in Hongkong keeps up its re- 
 putation, starting to work at 7 or 8 o'clock in the morning 
 and going on till 6 o'clock in the summer, or stopping 
 earlier in winter. They are better able to be handled than 
 those in England, so much so is this the case that it has 
 been thought they did not sting at all, or had no sting ; 
 but this is wrong, for they can and do sting. They are 
 smaller than the English bees. Wild bees are also found. 
 The natives smoke them and thus capture them, wrapping 
 them up in a cloth, and take them home to rear. The 
 hives are curious-looking objects : some are like hour- 
 glasses about two feet long, while others are not so willow- 
 waisted, but more cylindrical in shape ; both sorts are 
 fastened high up horizontally against walls of buildings, or 
 over the front-door. The entrances to the hour-glass ones 
 are at the ends, and to the cylindrical ones at the side in the 
 middle. These apertures, of which there are several, are 
 very small, being only large enough for the tiny insects 
 to push through one at a time. 
 
 Honey is used by the Chinese, but is often adulterated : 
 it is eaten as an article of diet, but is more often taken 
 medicinally. 
 
 BELLS. All temples have bells hung in them, some 
 several centuries old, as can be seen from the inscriptions on 
 
 83
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 them. They are beaten as part of the religious ceremony. 
 The bell has no clapper ; but is struck with a piece of 
 wood, a round, smooth surface generally being prepared on 
 the surface of the bell for that purpose. Foreign visitors to 
 Chinese temples often strike the large, sonorous bell, hung 
 up at the side of the idol's shrine. It might be as well 
 if they followed the good advice to ' touch not . . . handle 
 not ' in this respect, and remember what would be thought 
 if a 'heathen Chinee' visited one of our churches and 
 took liberties with the different objects in them as his 
 fancies prompted him. 
 
 Bells are one of the Chinese antiques found on sale in 
 curio shops. 
 
 Bells formed ancient musical instruments, singly, or in 
 numbers suspended in frames. 
 
 Bells are not used in domestic life as amongst us ; there 
 being no door-bells to houses, visitors have to hammer 
 and bang at the doors with stick, umbrella, or hand, and 
 shout themselves hoarse till heard. Nor are bells used for 
 summoning servants, nor employed in factories, or boats, or 
 ships. 
 
 BERI-BERI. Beri-beri, a Malay name for a common 
 disease in the East, known as kakke in Japan, which has 
 hitherto been an obscure, mysterious complaint, baffling the 
 doctors by its different phases, and claiming as its victims 
 many of the inhabitants of the Malay and Eastern 
 Archipelagoes, India, China, and Japan, and other 
 countries. But it is now better known, as facts in connec- 
 tion with it have been carefully studied, so that in doctor's 
 parlance it is authoritatively described as 
 
 'A specific form of multiple peripheral neuritis, occurring endemi- 
 cally, or as an epidemic, in most tropical and sub-tropical climates, and 
 also, under certain artificial conditions, in more temperate latitudes. 
 The mortality is considerable, sometimes very high, death being usually 
 dependent on heart paresis.' Dr. Manson further says of it : ' My 
 idea about the matter is ... that beri-beri is a germ disease ; that the 
 germ resides in the soil, in the houses and surroundings of beri-beri spots ; 
 there it distils a poison which, on being absorbed by man, produces 
 neuritis much in the same way that alcohol does. . . . And this 
 
 84
 
 Betel-Nut 
 
 toxin, being inhaled or swallowed by man, produces in him a specific 
 neuritis,' and he can carry this germ inside him from one place to 
 another. ' So far as I have been able to interpret them, this is the 
 only hypothesis which fits in with all the facts of the case.' 
 
 Amongst the many different things that beri-beri has 
 hitherto been ascribed to, are damaged grain, damaged fish, 
 rain, wind, heat, cold, rheumatism, and malaria. Beri-beri 
 is fostered by damp, by great heat, and most often attacks 
 those who sleep on or near the ground. Overcrowding is 
 favourable to it, consequently it frequently breaks out 
 amongst prisoners in gaols, children in schools, miners in 
 camps, labourers in plantations, soldiers in armies, and the 
 crews of ships. Large cities, villages, as well as jungle 
 lands are all subject to it. 
 
 One patient will appear dropsical and another emaciated 
 and reduced to a skeleton, and the same patient will 
 present these different aspects at different periods of the 
 disease. A man who has every appearance of being very 
 ill will recover, while another who looks as if he had very 
 little the matter with him will rapidly develop dangerous 
 heart symptoms and almost suddenly die out of hand. 
 
 As one of the marked features of the disease is an in- 
 ability to use the legs properly, ' ankle-drops ' being also one 
 of the symptoms, and hence the Chinese term it kbk hay, or 
 ' feet vapours.' 
 
 P,ooks recommended. ' Tropical Diseases : A Manual of the Diseases of 
 Warm Climates. ' Second Edition. By Patrick Manson, M.D., LL.D. ' Beri- 
 Beri,' by Pekel having. Translated by James Cantlie, M.B., F.R.C.S. 
 
 BETEL-NUT. All betel-nuts in China, as far as we 
 are aware, are imported. Not so with the leaf. 
 
 ' The fruit of the Areca palm, a tall, graceful tree, sometimes 
 reaching a height of 60 ft. The nuts are surrounded by a yellow, 
 tough fibre, enclosed in a thickish green rind. To prepare them for 
 use, the entire fruit is split, and the halves dried in the sun. When 
 dry, the nut is separated from its envelope and is sold for chewing 
 with sirih leaf and lime. Its use communicates a blood-red colour to 
 the lips and gums, and the same hue to the saliva which the natives eject.' 
 
 The taste is astringent. (See next Article.) 
 
 85
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 BETEL-VINE, OR SIRIH. A leaf used to chew with 
 the betel-nut and lime. The plant is cultivated in China, 
 for the leaf. A dab of the prepared lime is smudged on to 
 the leaf and the betel-nut is then wrapped up in it, put in 
 the mouth and chewed. From this circumstance the leaf 
 gets its name, pun long lai'i, 'betel-nut wrapper.' It is 
 used medicinally, both for outward application, when the 
 leaf is rubbed on, and taken internally in cases of accident. 
 
 BETROTHAL. Betrothals are generally negotiated 
 for they are matters of business and not of sentiment by 
 the go-betweens, who are mostly women, and who make it 
 their business to find out a suitable parti. They are 
 commissioned by the parents, the parties themselves 
 having, as a general rule, no voice in the matter, often 
 being of too tender an age to understand what it means. 
 Unborn infants are even sometimes informally betrothed, 
 i.e., the parents agreeing that the children when born, if of 
 opposite sexes, shall in future life be husband and wife ; 
 this is carried so far that married couples occasionally 
 promise that if they ever have children of different sexes 
 they shall be given in marriage to one another ; but the 
 usual age for betrothals in many parts of the country is 
 ten, twelve, or even older. 
 
 The go-betweens are generally women of the status of 
 elderly servants who have the free entree into the houses 
 of those desirous of contracting matrimonial alliances, in 
 the same manner that an ordinary broker would in fact 
 they are marriage brokers. Sometimes they are specially 
 sent for by the parties desirous of their services, and at 
 other times they visit families unsolicited, on account of 
 information received. These go-betweens have a hand in 
 the matter from beginning to end, and are responsible 
 for the proper conduct of the whole affair ; they are 
 not employed only to bring the families contracting 
 marriage together. The first ceremonials consist in the 
 go-between being commissioned by the young man's 
 family to obtain from the girl's family her name and the 
 
 86
 
 Betrothal 
 
 moment of her birth ; this is done that the horoscope of 
 the two may be examined by a fortune-teller in order to 
 ascertain whether the proposed alliance will be a happy 
 one. These particulars are written on paper, and should 
 the fortune-teller give a favourable reply to the inquiries, 
 the second ceremonial takes place, that of sending the go- 
 between back with an offer of marriage. The assent in 
 writing is asked for, and forms the third ceremonial. 
 Fourthly, presents are sent to the girl's parents. Fifthly, 
 the go-between requests them to choose a lucky day for 
 the wedding. The preliminaries are concluded by the 
 bridegroom going in a procession to bring the bride home. 
 The Chinese speak of three covenants and six ceremonies, 
 which may be stated to be as follows : 
 The three covenants are : 
 
 The Contract of Marriage, 
 
 The Receipt of Betrothal Money, 
 
 The Deed of the Delivery of the Bride. 
 The six ceremonies are : 
 
 The Small Presents, 
 
 The Inquiry for the Name of the Bride, 
 
 The Payment of the Betrothal Money, 
 
 The Request to fix the Day, 
 
 The Sending of a Goose, 
 
 The Fetching of the Bride. 
 
 Betrothal presents are called cttd lai, tea presents, or 
 ceremonials. They consist of a present of tea, cakes, betel- 
 nuts, and money, given by the future husband's family to 
 the family of his future wife. The go-between takes, or 
 accompanies, these presents (to the girl's family) which are 
 carried in hop, or round flat boxes made of wood. A few 
 dollars are also put into the boxes. With concubines, 
 money alone is most generally given. The Chinese have 
 a phrase, shik yan ch l d lat, which means that these 
 ceremonial presents have been accepted and eaten, and 
 consequently that the daughter is betrothed. If there are 
 no presents, there is no betrothal. 
 
 Betrothals are most binding ; and it would seem that 
 
 87
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 on the woman's side they cannot be broken without the 
 consent of the man, accompanied by a money salve. No 
 misconduct, however flagrant, on the side of the youth at 
 least, is held to be a release from the covenant. 
 
 ' From the time of engagement until marriage, a young lady is 
 required to maintain the strictest seclusion. Whenever friends call 
 upon her parents she is expected to retire to the inner apartments, 
 and in all her actions and words guard her conduct with careful 
 solicitude. She must use a close sedan whenever she visits her 
 relations, and in her intercourse with her brothers and the domestics 
 in the household maintain great reserve. Instead of having any 
 opportunity to form those friendships and acquaintances with her own 
 sex, which among ourselves become a source of so much pleasure at 
 the time, and advantage in after life, the Chinese maiden is confined 
 to the circle of her relations and her immediate neighbours. She 
 has few of the pleasing remembrances and associations that are 
 usually connected with school-day life, nor has she often the ability or 
 opportunity to correspond by letter with girls of her own age. 
 Seclusion at this time of life, and the custom of crippling the feet, 
 combine to confine women in the house almost as much as the 
 strictest laws against their appearing abroad ; for in girlhood, as 
 they know only a few persons, except relatives, and can make very 
 few acquaintances after marriage, their circle of friends contracts 
 rather than enlarges as life goes on. This privacy impels girls to 
 learn as much of the world as they can, and among the rich their 
 curiosity is gratified through maid-servants, match-makers, peddlers, 
 visitors, and others. Curiosity also stimulates young ladies to learn 
 something of the character and appearance of their intended hus- 
 bands, but the rules of society are too strict for young persons to 
 endeavour to form a personal attachment, though it is not [absolutely] 
 impossible for them to have a look at each other if they wish.' 
 
 As to relations with the betrothed, there are none. The 
 two are as utter strangers to each other as any other man 
 or woman, if not more so : no courting ; no moonlight 
 rambles; no gradually getting better acquainted with each 
 other and thereby getting better fitted to live together. It 
 is simply a business transaction in almost all cases, the 
 active parties in which are the parents, while the most 
 interested parties are simply passive. The children are 
 supposed never to meet or speak to each other, and it would 
 be unpardonably bad taste were the parents representing 
 the one side ever to discuss the subject with those of the 
 other side. Under these circumstances there are, of course, 
 no engagement rings, nor for that matter is a wedding ring 
 worn by Chinese ladies when married. 
 
 88
 
 Bibliography 
 
 What has been stated above is in regard to the 
 betrothal of a chief or legitimate wife. With concubines, 
 or secondary wives, it is quite different. In their case a 
 go-between may be employed or not. In such a betrothal, 
 all that generally takes place in Canton is for the woman 
 to pour out a cup of tea for her future husband to drink, and 
 a parcel of money, wrapped up, of course, in red paper and 
 containing two, or three, or ten dollars or so, is placed on the 
 tray for her ; but in other places there may not be so much 
 ceremony about it as that. The bargain money may even 
 be paid right into her own hands, but this is only the case 
 with very low people, as it is not thought the right thing for 
 either party to have direct dealings with one another. 
 
 In the Macao district of country the course of 
 procedure with regard to concubines is as follows : A man 
 taking a fancy to a domestic slave for her good looks or 
 for her capacity for work, etc., approaches her owner on 
 the subject through a go-between or a mutual friend, who 
 sees the master, if he is a man, or the mistress, if she is 
 a woman (for men and women, as a general rule, have 
 no dealings together in China). The friend may even 
 commission his wife, if she knows the mistress, to transact 
 the business ; preliminary enquiries first being made, the 
 bargain money then passes through the hand of the friend 
 to the master or mistress. Should the money required be 
 $100 then the bargain money would be $10. This is really 
 a purchase, though disguised under the name of bargain, 
 or earnest money. In' the Macao district, the tea pour- 
 ing-out takes place occasionally, but is not a regular 
 practice. 
 
 Book recommended. "NVilliams's 'Middle Kingdom,' vol. ii. pp. 785, 
 786. (See Article on Marriage.) 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY. Mollendorff's 'Manual of Chinese 
 Bibliography' is a most valuable work of reference with 
 regard to European books, essays, and articles on China 
 down to the year 1876: it contains 4639 titles. There is 
 also the encyclopaedic work of M. Henri Cordier, 
 
 89
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 ' Bibliotheca Sinica : Dictionnaire Bibliographique des 
 Ouvrages Relatifs k 1'Empire Chinois,' in two large volumes 
 of 1396 pages, with supplement ; it is a perfect storehouse 
 of information on books relating to China. The China 
 Review, published in Hongkong once every two months, 
 contained a list of books and magazine articles on China, 
 under the heading of ' Collectanea Bibliographical As to 
 native works, Wylie's ' Notes on Chinese Literature ' is 
 invaluable: it treats of 1/45 Chinese books. For an 
 account of the immense compendiums of former works, 
 made by authority of different Emperors, one should refer 
 to Mayers's 'Bibliography of the Chinese Imperial Collec- 
 tion of Literature,' published in the China Review, vol. vi. 
 pp. 223-286. 
 
 BIRDS' NEST SOUP. Birds' nest soup is even more 
 of a luxury in China, than turtle soup is in England. An 
 old resident in China thus writes of it : 
 
 ' Perhaps the costliest dainty of the Chinese cuisine, and is as much 
 prized by Chinese gourmands as turtle is in England. It is not nasty, 
 but it is, to a European palate, exceedingly insipid ; it is a white, soft, 
 slippery substance, not unlike a badly made junket, or flummery, and 
 the taste for it is certainly an acquired one.' 
 
 The nests from which the soup is prepared are not like 
 an ordinary nest made up of sticks and twigs, hay and 
 grass, but are of a gelatinous substance, secreted by the 
 bird itself for the purpose, or, as it has been wittily put, the 
 bird makes them ' all out of its own head.' Darwin puts it 
 in plain English : ' The Chinese make soup of dried saliva ' ; 
 in scientific language, they are described as being produced 
 from the ' inspissated mucus from the salivary glands.' 
 
 Birds' Nests of this kind have been described as : 
 
 ' Externally resembling ill-concocted fibrous isinglass, and of a white 
 colour, inclining to red ; their thickness is little more than that of a 
 silver spoon, and their weight from a quarter to half an ounce. When 
 dry, they are brittle and wrinkled ; the size is rather larger than a 
 goose-egg ; the dry, white, and clean are the most valuable.' 
 
 ' These nests are constructed in caves on the sea-shore, 
 the swiftlet, which makes them, being a native of Malaya 
 
 90
 
 Birth 
 
 and Ceylon. Gomanti are the largest birds' nest caves in 
 the world . . . from which there is an out-turn of over 
 $15,000 worth yearly." The nests are gathered at con- 
 siderable risk, and the best quality commands a high 
 price, ranging from three to thirty dollars a pound, while 
 the inferior grades are mixed more or less with twigs, etc. 
 The Chinese consider it strengthening and stimulating, and 
 it forms the first dish at all grand dinners. Here is a 
 receipt for preparing Potage mix Nids c? Hirondclles, trans- 
 lated from the Chinese : 
 
 'Take clean white birds' nest shreds, or birds' nests, and soak 
 thoroughly. Pick out all feathers. Boil in soup or water till tender, 
 and of the colour of jadestone. Place pigeons' eggs below, and add 
 some ham shreds on top. Boil again slowly with little fluid. If 
 required sweet, then boil in clear water till tender, add sugar-candy, 
 and then eat. This is a most clear and pure article, and thick (or 
 oily) substances should not be added. It should be boiled for a long 
 time ; for, if not boiled till tender, it will cause diarrhoea.' 
 
 BIRTH (CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH). There are 
 quite a number of superstitions connected with the birth 
 of children. As an instance of them it may be noted that 
 certain coins are worn by women before the event, as they 
 are thought to ensure an easy delivery. Mid wives are 
 nearly always in attendance ; they are utterly ignorant 
 women, and sad are the tales that many a foreign doctor 
 could tell of the wretched plight Chinese women have been 
 reduced to under their unskilful treatment, or want of 
 treatment. They are engaged a month beforehand, except 
 in very poor cases. 
 
 Shortly before birth, when the birth-pangs come on, 
 the mother-in-law and midwife worship all the household 
 gods (all the gods that may be in the house) and the 
 ancestral tablets, but there is no going to the Temple or 
 Ancestral Hall for the purpose. These acts of worship 
 consist in burning incense before the objects of adoration, 
 and extempore prayer (there being no form of prayer for 
 the purpose) for a quick and happy delivery, and for the 
 welfare of child and mother ; the woman herself does not 
 offer any prayer. 
 
 91
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 Many people have a charm ready procured from a 
 temple, and some, on the birth of the child, at once fasten 
 it to the body or round the neck, or a piece of cypress is tied 
 to the body, either alone or in addition. A piece of raw 
 ginger is hung up at the street door to keep off evil spirits 
 and strangers, as it is feared the advent of the latter may 
 cause the death of the child, the supposition being that the 
 stranger's birthday will, or may, clash with that of the child ; 
 and it is for the same reason that the characters which repre- 
 sent the hour and date of birth of bride and bridegroom are 
 handed to a fortune-teller, so that he may find out whether 
 they do or not. If they do, the bride or bridegroom might 
 die. To return to the new-born infant a piece of fern (or 
 cyclas revoluta, we think) is hung up by a red cord, in order 
 to avert evil consequences and keep off bad spirits. This 
 is also suspended at the street door on other occasions as 
 well, but the use of the ginger, we have mentioned already, 
 is confined to the birth of a child. 
 
 One of our informants tells us that, from his experience, 
 the new-born infant is washed with warm water at once 
 (whether this is due to foreign influence or not we cannot 
 say), while from other sources we learn that such an idea is 
 scouted. No dainty little baby garments are ready for the 
 stranger, worked with the expectant love of the mother, or 
 given by friends in anticipation of the interesting event, 
 but his tender little limbs and body are wrapped up in 
 swaddling bands, which consist of old warm clothes both of 
 men and women a little bundle of old clothes, awkward 
 and ungainly for the tiny mite inside it. After this, the 
 new-born babe may probably not be washed again 
 thoroughly (if he has ever yet been subjected to such an 
 operation) for the first month, for fear the child should get 
 cold ; he, or she, may be wiped over with a cloth ; but after 
 that time, the luxury of an occasional wash, such as it is, 
 may be indulged in. A special kind of fine little cake, 
 sweet and delicate in taste, is sometimes the only food the 
 little stranger is regaled with for the first few days. For 
 the first month, the mother must have ginger and vinegar 
 
 92
 
 Birth 
 
 with everything she takes. She eschews her ordinary food 
 chicken boiled with ginger and vinegar, or (if too poor to 
 afford the fowl, cheap enough though it be in China), ducks' 
 eggs boiled with the same condiments, and pig's feet boiled 
 with the same articles form her diet : and these she eats 
 twice or thrice a day. Such a dietary is considered to be 
 tonic, and after the month is up, she returns to her ordinary 
 food. 
 
 And now comes a most important event the shaving 
 of the child's head. A lucky day is selected for it. It 
 must not be after the thirtieth day, but it may be before or 
 on the day itself, i.e., the shaving takes place on the 
 completion of the month (the month, of course, has some- 
 times 29 days and sometimes 30 days) if that should prove 
 to be a lucky day ; if not, an earlier day is selected, never a 
 later one. After the shaving is over (on the same day 
 never before the operation), the ancestors first are 
 worshipped and then the household gods, thanks being 
 offered to them for the addition to the family, and prayers 
 for the prolongation of the life newly bestowed. Either 
 the Temple or Ancestral Hall, or both, are often also 
 visited for the same purpose by those who are making a 
 great fuss over the event. Offerings are, of course, made. 
 The mother-in-law, or some relative, goes to perform these 
 religious acts, and not the father or mother : it is very 
 rarely, if ever, that the mother goes on these occasions. 
 The child, however, dressed in its best, is carried in the arms 
 when this worship takes place. On the first occasion when 
 a child is shaved, which necessary operation from a Chinese 
 standpoint takes place, as we have already seen, when the 
 baby is either a month or nearly a month old, eggs, dyed 
 red, are sent round to relatives, friends and acquaintances. 
 The number to be sent is not fixed by custom, nor is it 
 necessary for any written communication to accompany 
 them ; a verbal message that they are from so-and-so is 
 sufficient. The recipients are expected to give a present to 
 the child on its being a month old, when a feast is held, to 
 which they are invited. These red eggs are sent, in the 
 
 93
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 South of China, irrespective of the sex ; whether a 
 distinction exists in the North and only a boy is entitled to 
 them, and of the boys of a family, only the first born, we 
 are unable to say ; but Prof. Giles in his ' Chinese Sketches,' 
 p. 1 59, states that such is the case amongst the Chinese. 
 The custom amongst the Cantonese is as stated above ; so 
 that it is possible Prof. Giles's remarks simply refer to the 
 North, since customs differ so widely in China. 
 
 The Chinese have almost as great a love for dinners as 
 the English, and it is only natural that a feast should take 
 place when the child is a month old, called kong ts'b, ginger 
 and vinegar. Cards of invitation are issued to this kong 
 chok, or ginger dinner, to which the guests are both friends 
 and relatives. Unless the family is poor, the male friends 
 go to a restaurant for their feast ; if poor, and there are only 
 two or three relatives, it may be given in the house. The 
 women's repast, on the other hand, is spread in the 
 house. 
 
 If, however, there are many friends and relatives, two 
 feasts are held : the first is for the relatives, and is at the 
 house, even if they are males ; the second is for friends, and 
 is at a restaurant. In such cases the relatives are invited on 
 the day of the shaving, even if it takes place before the 
 month is up ; the invitations are sent out the day before, or 
 to those at a distance, earlier ; and the friends also, whether 
 invited at the same, or another time, may also be asked 
 as well before the month is up. The feast may be held at 
 another time than the shaving date, either for relatives, or 
 friends, or both ; the chief thing seems to be to celebrate 
 the event by a feast. Two dishes are on the tables : the 
 one containing the pickled ginger which gives the name 
 to the entertainment, and the other red eggs dyed \\ii\\ytn 
 cht, Chinese rouge, or with foreign dye-stuffs. The invited 
 guests make presents of gold and silver jewellery, or 
 articles of clothing, to the infant, accompanied with lai-shi 
 (cash or silver folded within red paper) ; the latter is given 
 if nothing else is, more presents, of course, being given to a 
 boy than to a girl. 
 
 94
 
 Birthdays 
 
 The swaddling bands being discarded, the little mani- 
 kin (or the ' little wifie ' to a lesser extent) comes out 
 gorgeous in scarlet and red bright with colours ; amulets 
 and charms adorn him and safeguard him from evil spirits 
 and demons : a tiny mirror flashes, perchance, from the 
 front of his forehead, to dismay the ugly devils by a sight 
 of their hideousness ; a row of gilt deities benignly encircle 
 his brow, to guard him ; silver locks and chains bind him, 
 so that no harm may befall him : many and wonderful are 
 the means used to protect him by such and other 
 mysterious and occult expedients and devices from all 
 injury, while common-sense rules of health and cleanliness 
 are unknown and ignored. The tribute paid by childhood, 
 from the very moment of birth and onwards, to the 
 insanitary conditions that surround it must be enormous, 
 not only in the immediate sacrifice of life, but in the way 
 of sowing seeds of future disease and weakness. It is 
 wonderful that so many children escape with a fair amount 
 of health to carry on the increasing round of human life 
 and toil in this populous land of China. Out of every 1000 
 Chinese children born in Hongkong only 72 live beyond 
 twelve months or so. 
 
 BIRTHDAYS. As a general rule it may be said that 
 the principle of topsy-turvydom comes into play in the 
 difference in observing birthdays in China and England : 
 here in China the ' grown-up's ' birthdays are kept and the 
 child's almost entirely ignored, while with us, in our own 
 lands, the contrary is more commonly the case. A 
 mother, however, in the Shun Tak district of the Canton 
 Province will give a steamed fresh fowl's, or a fresh or 
 salt duck's, egg to her child on its birthday, to eat, the 
 idea being that as the yolk of these eggs is what the 
 Chinese call red, in their loose way of designating colours 
 in their common speech, so the child's heart may be red 
 or sum hoong, as it is termed ; and this is equivalent to the 
 phrase fat fun, which means zealous, or enthusiastic, or 
 diligent. Some parents, and sometimes others as well, in 
 
 95
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 the same district will give a present of new clothes or toys, 
 etc., on a birthday. 
 
 But the great day in a child's life is when it is a month 
 old. The first anniversary of the birthday is kept also in 
 Canton, and presents are also given by the parents, and 
 sometimes by friends. These presents, however, only 
 consist of eatables ; though, at times, different articles are 
 placed before the child on that day, such as books 
 and pens, an abacus, or different tools, and what the child 
 picks up shows, it is believed, that in after life he will 
 follow the profession, calling, or trade which uses the 
 articles selected. 
 
 No notice is taken of the birthday when a youth or 
 maiden attains his or her full age, shing ting, as it is called, 
 which is at the early age of sixteen in China. Few males 
 marry before this age, but girls often marry earlier, even 
 at fourteen, which is really thirteen according to our 
 mode of reckoning. The Chinese generally reckon by the 
 years, or parts of years, in which anyone has lived : thus 
 a child born on the last day of the year is two years old 
 on the next day ; and as each New Year arrives, all the 
 inhabitants of this populous empire add a year to their 
 lives. We might therefore almost say that New Year's 
 Day serves as a birthday to all the 400,000,000 people of 
 China, and consequently it is not worth keeping. If one 
 desires to know accurately the exact age of any Chinese, 
 it is necessary to enquire the year, month, and day in 
 which he was born. 
 
 After a man is married, his birthday assumes more 
 importance, and his father-in-law or mother-in-law send 
 him presents of eatables or clothing ; whether his own 
 father or mother do so or not is left to their own fancy. 
 
 With the Chinese it is not considered the proper thing 
 for those nearly related to make presents ; the utmost 
 extent to which it is thought well to go in this respect is to 
 say, for example, to a near relative, ' Do you like this? If 
 you do, I'll give it to you.' There is a saying, Chee-ts'un 
 mb inun, i.e., ' There is no ceremony between those most 
 
 96
 
 Birthdays 
 
 nearly related.' The presentation of gifts partakes accord- 
 ing to their ideas of the ceremonious. 
 
 All the sons and daughters have to prostrate them- 
 selves on the ground (the kowtow} before their parents on 
 their birthdays, and this is universally done, except perhaps 
 by the very lowest dregs of society. This is the practice 
 on New Year's Day as well. On the birthdays it is called 
 pie show; and on these birthdays, in the Shun Tak district, 
 it is the custom of the children to put their cash together 
 and buy sweatmeats, such as sugared kam-kwats, dried 
 sweet persimmons, sugared citrons, etc. etc., boil them in 
 water, and present this water to the parents to drink. 
 Sometimes clothes, etc., are given ; but this latter is not a 
 fixed custom custom is inexorable in China. 
 
 When grown-up, the children give a wine-party to their 
 parents on their birthdays, inviting relatives on both sides 
 of the family to it. Fowls and vegetables are cooked in 
 fact, a feast is prepared. 
 
 The birthdays when a man attains the age of 21, 31, 
 and so on to 91, are considered of more importance than 
 the others. This is owing to a man's life being dominated 
 by the mysterious and mystical yong principle, by which 
 the first years in the decades are considered as of importance 
 as entering on the first of the new decade. This prevails 
 throughout China. With women, though, in other parts of 
 China it is the same, and in the Kwongtung province this 
 is also the case to a great extent ; yet others have a local 
 custom of keeping the even tens of their ages as important 
 birthdays, such as 20, 30, and so on. This is on account of 
 the equally mysterious and mystic yum principle, pertain- 
 ing to women, inclining to these even years. The principle 
 of these two, t\\e yum andyong, pertaining to the even and 
 the odd, is laid down in that abstruse classic, the Yik King, 
 or Book of Changes. 
 
 It will be noticed from the above that the first thing 
 the Chinese give on birthdays is food, the second in 
 importance is clothing. 
 
 The birthdays of many gods are kept, and are called 
 
 97 G
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 tahn. The idols are worshipped by their votaries on 
 these anniversaries, either in the people's own houses or 
 in the temples of the gods, and offerings of food, etc., 
 are presented to them. The worshippers say the spirits 
 thus worshipped take the spiritual portion or ethereal 
 essence of the eatables, and they, the worshippers, then 
 feast on the remains, which to human eye and taste are 
 in precisely the same condition as they were before 
 being offered. All the absurdities this gives rise to are 
 clearly perceived by the Chinese, who say p'ung shun loh 
 shik, which means using the excuse of worshipping the 
 gods to get food for themselves. There is another 
 similar saying, sow ching ng tsong meeoo, which refers 
 to subscriptions being obtained to repair temples and 
 then the money being diverted to the bellies of those 
 who have collected it. One could almost fancy these 
 swindlers saying that the spiritual essences of the silver 
 satisfied the gods, while they took, like those who offered 
 food, the substantial portion themselves. 
 
 BOATS. Leaves floating on the water first suggested 
 the idea of boats to the Chinese, so some native writers 
 inform us ; other accounts ascribe their origin to the 
 sight of drift-wood, or to a natural development from 
 the more primitive raft. Whether or not fallen leaves 
 ' the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown ' were 
 the first hints of future possibilities, the boats of China 
 might almost be compared to the leaves of the forest 
 in number, and their varieties are about as great as that 
 of the foliage of China. Boats large and small, boats long 
 and short, boats broad and narrow, boats for hawkers, boats 
 for fishing, boats for pleasure boats ready for any and 
 everything ; boats for smuggling, boats for pirates, boats 
 for honest tradesmen, boats for lepers, boats for beggars, 
 boats for everyone ; boats for passage, for ferries, for 
 bridges, for marriages, for feastings, for theatres, or rather 
 for theatrical troupes and their properties. Is there 
 anything that boats are not provided for in China? 
 
 98
 
 Boats 
 
 It has been said there are more boats, in China than in 
 all the rest of the world put together. The extensive sea- 
 board, and the innumerable rivers and streams are a 
 sufficient reason for this multiplicity of craft of one kind 
 or another. 
 
 If we credit what the natives themselves say, boats were 
 first built in the third century before the Christian era. 
 
 'One account ascribes the invention to Ho Sfn Kwii, a pious 
 woman, who became one of the eight Taoist genii. Her first 
 craft was a mere raft, without means of propulsion. But one day 
 when she was washing clothes in the river, she took a hint from 
 a fish that was rowing with its fins and steering with its tail, and 
 she then put oars and a rudder upon her boat.' 
 
 In mediaeval times the Chinese not only held their own, 
 but took the lead in adventurous voyages to distant shores 
 (See Article on Chinese Abroad), which awaken the 
 surprise and admiration of those who have investigated 
 the subject ; but gradually these voyages have been 
 discontinued ; and even in modern times, within the 
 memory of the author, they have shrunk into short 
 passages between different seaports on the coast of China 
 and closely adjacent countries, the voyages in native 
 craft to the Straits Settlements and neighbouring lands 
 and islands being but few, while the long trips to India, 
 and other distant lands, in the large old junks carrying 
 from three to ten and twelve sails (the present sea- 
 going junks seldom have more than three or four sails) 
 and a crew of 250 or more men, mentioned by the 
 mediaeval travellers, Friar Jordanus, Ibn Batuta, and 
 Marco Polo, are now entirely a thing of the past. 
 The old must die out before the new, and the modern 
 steamship is running, in fact has run, the heavy lumbering 
 junk off many of its old established sea-routes ; even a 
 commencement has been made in inland waters in the same 
 direction, and eventually the picturesque clumsy old craft 
 is bound to disappear in the world's march of progress, 
 which even now influences distant Cathay. Notwith- 
 standing their uncouth shape and clumsy-looking sails, 
 they undoubtedly are picturesque objects, and look as 
 
 99
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 if they had been, commenced in some antediluvian age 
 and never finished off. Their bizarre hulls, high sterns 
 further augmented by the gingerbread work, the divergent 
 rake of their masts, their large nut-brown matting sails, 
 topped sometimes with a gay red pennant, all lend a 
 distinct charm and piquant flavour of their own to the 
 junk, and make it a sui generis not to be found anywhere 
 else in the wide world. They offer very effective objects 
 for the painter's brush : whether as brown sails speckled on 
 the sun-lit sea ; or whether the diverse style of their build 
 with their queer-shaped hulls are more carefully studied ; 
 or whether, all tattered and torn, the ragged sail of the 
 weather-beaten craft on its return voyage suggests a 
 conflict with stormy winds, while a more forlorn appearance 
 still is apparent when, dismantled, they are undergoing 
 repairs, or when heeled over on the sand for breaming, 
 or when cast high and dry on the beach, or stranded on 
 the rocks, with their bare poles of masts and gaping sterns, 
 out of which stick their queer-shaped enormous rudders. 
 Still more picturesque is the sight of a squadron of war- 
 junks, with brightly painted hulls and many-coloured 
 banners, of all shapes and sizes, and streaming pennants 
 like the old mediaeval galleys of Europe, lying ready to 
 start on an expedition to subdue the rebellious subjects of 
 His Imperial Majesty the Emperor of China. 
 
 A book, nay scores of books, might be written on the 
 many-featured sides of life to be found on boats in China : 
 their history from earliest times to the present ; their shapes 
 and sizes and builds and rigs, from the curious Hakka boats, 
 with their nine or a dozen sails spread fan-like on an 
 improvised framework of bamboo poles, down to the 
 tiny fisher's canoe. 
 
 What interesting chapters could be indited anent 
 thousands and millions of human beings, whose whole 
 lives are spent on the rivers and canals which flow past, 
 or cut through, so many Chinese cities inhabiting dwell- 
 ings without foundations (and for which the occupants 
 pay no ground-rent), as the flowing stream supports them 
 
 joo
 
 Boats 
 
 in more senses than one ; the strange and varied ex- 
 periences to be found in travelling by boat will still afford 
 material for many a volume of novel adventure in the 
 future as they have in the past ; the origin of some of 
 the boat populations, their curious customs, habits and 
 superstitions these all have been but lightly touched 
 upon as yet, and present an interesting field to be worked 
 by the ethnologist, the comparative mythologist, and the 
 lover of folklore. 
 
 The following extracts from consular reports, by Mr. 
 Byron Brennan, are interesting as showing how an attempt 
 has been made to copy the paddle-wheel in one species 
 of boat in Canton, and how steam-launches are making 
 their way into use : 
 
 'The evolution of the Chinese passenger-boat is proceeding 
 cautiously. Twenty years ago sails and sweeps were the powers 
 used ; then came stern-wheel boats worked by manpower, these are 
 still extensively used. The next stage was a towboat lashed along- 
 side a passenger-boat, and the next, it may be hoped, will be the 
 amalgamation of the tug and the tow. 
 
 'The stern-wheel passenger-boats are a striking feature on the 
 busy river at Canton. They are long, low, box-looking craft, the 
 largest being of about 100 tons measurement. The inside of the box 
 is divided into compartments into which the passengers lie down or 
 squat, for there is not head room. The roof is flat, and on this sit 
 a crowd of passengers sheltered from the weather by stiff bamboo 
 mats. At the stern is the compartment where the men work. The 
 largest kind of boat has twenty-four men. The machinery on a large 
 boat consists of four shafts laid across the boat at a distance of 3 
 feet from each other. At each of these shafts six men work a sort of 
 tread-mill ; they hold on to a cross-bar above with their hands, while 
 their feet work the three wooden pedals which are fixed on three iron 
 arms radiating from the centre ; there is thus an angle of 120 degrees 
 between two pedals. The pedals along the shafts are so dispersed 
 that the six men do not keep step. As No. i puts his foot on one 
 pedal, No. 2 is already half-way through his step, and so on. These 
 series of tread-mills are connected with the stern paddle-wheel by 
 means of cranks, so that one revolution of the tread-mill makes one 
 revolution of the stern-wheel. The stern-wheel is 8 feet in diameter 
 and has 8 floats, and when the men are working easy it makes 16 to 
 1 8 revolutions a minute, and the speed attained is 3-; miles to 4 miles 
 an hour. On a long journey the men rest in turn, three working to 
 one resting, and in this way the boat is kept going during the whole 
 of the day. 
 
 'The number of native-owned steam-launches running between 
 Canton and the numerous towns of the Delta is constantly increasing. 
 Besides their use by officials, and in the customs, likin, and salt 
 
 IOI
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 preventive services, they are constantly employed to tow passenger- 
 boats ; but, in this case, only to and from fixed stations. The 
 launches engaged in towing are taxed, and ply under severe pains 
 and penalties. However, since the opening of the West River in 
 1897, steam traffic on the Canton waterways has been placed under 
 the control of the Imperial Maritime Customs.' 
 
 At Swatow and other places in China, such as between 
 Soochow, Hangchow, and Shanghai, steam-launches are 
 plying as passenger-boats, and it is hoped that, as time 
 goes on, they will be increased, as notwithstanding the 
 multiplicity of boats and the magnificent rivers in many 
 parts, intercommunication is slow. The use of the steam- 
 launch has increased very much ; they are to be found 
 on the Poyang Lake and in other parts of Central China, 
 and there is scarcely now a navigable stream in connection 
 with the Canton River, at all events in the Delta, which 
 is not traversed daily by steam-boats. ' For every ten 
 persons who travelled ten years ago there are a hundred 
 to-day' (1901). 
 
 There are three Chinese companies running large 
 launches between Hankow and Changsha, which carry 
 passengers and tow other boats. 
 
 There are eighteen launches running from Amoy inland 
 to distances of sixty miles, twenty-six, thirteen, and ten, 
 carrying in 1900 some 600,000 passengers, an increase of 
 10% on 1899, though the fares had been doubled. 
 
 The traffic represented by steam-launches at Wuchow, 
 under the Chinese flag, amounted in tons to 24,138 in 
 1900. At Samshui, launches have increased in numbers 
 in 1900. 
 
 In the neighbourhood of Canton, steam-launches made 
 132,972 trips in inland waters in 1900, 'or a daily average 
 of about as many trips as there are days in the year." 
 
 BOOKS ON CHINA. The books written on China are 
 numerous, and are constantly being added to (See Article 
 on Bibliography). Nearly every one who has taken any 
 interest in the country or people has written about one or 
 both ; more especially is this the case lately, as the siege of 
 
 102
 
 Books on China 
 
 the legations in Peking and the last operations in the 
 North seem to have awakened interest in China in an un- 
 precedented manner. Missionaries, merchants, military 
 and naval men, scholars, professors, teachers, interpreters, 
 consuls and vice-consuls, ambassadors and diplomats, 
 statesmen, travellers and globe-trotters, the literary man, 
 reviewers, novelists and poets, as well as the Chinese them- 
 selves, have all contributed their quota to instruct Europe 
 and America as to things Chinese; and the views presented 
 from such varied standpoints are naturally diverse. The 
 books produced range through all branches of the subject : 
 the languages and peoples, the history, geography, natural 
 history, government, customs and manners, books, arts and 
 industries, religions, politics and commerce all come in 
 for their full share of attention. 
 
 We do not propose to give a complete list of the best 
 books on China, but the perusal or study of the following 
 ten will give a very good idea of this interesting people : 
 
 (i.) William's ' Middle Kingdom.' To those who wish 
 to get a general idea of the Empire, and all that concerns 
 it and its people, there is not a better book. It is a perfect 
 repository of information for the general reader, and the 
 last edition, which has been brought up to date, will doubt- 
 less maintain its position as a text-book on the subject for 
 many years to come. 
 
 (2.) Archdeacon Gray's ' China.' A book in two 
 volumes, profusely illustrated by Chinese drawings and 
 giving much information, not in the style of a text-book, 
 but in the form of a personal narrative of what the author 
 himself saw during his long residence in China. 
 
 (3.) ' Historic China, and other Sketches,' by Professor 
 Giles of Cambridge. An octavo volume of 400 pages, 
 containing short sketches of the different historical periods, 
 and essays, all written in a light and pleasant sytle, and 
 containing much information. 
 
 (4.) Doolittle's ' Social Life of the Chinese.' A book 
 full of all the curious superstitions, strange ceremonies, 
 
 103
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 and customs of the Chinese, more particularly those per- 
 taining to Foochow. 
 
 (5.) ' Ling-nam,' by Rev. B. C. Henry, M.A., D.D. A 
 pleasant, brightly-written book of travels in the Canton 
 province, with descriptions of its beautiful scenery, fine 
 rivers, and thickly populated districts. 
 
 (6.) Miss Gordon Cumming's ' Wanderings in China,' is 
 light, pleasant reading, and gives the general reader a 
 good idea of the coast ports. 
 
 (7.) 'Journeys in North China,' by the late Dr. 
 Williamson, contains an immense amount of reliable in- 
 formation, principally about that portion of China. 
 
 (8.) Professor Douglas's ' Society in China ' is even 
 better than his former work, ' China,' which we recommended 
 in a former edition as being well fitted to give a good 
 general idea of China and its people, within compact 
 limits. 
 
 (9.) 'Journals of the North China Branch of the Royal 
 Asiatic Society.' (See Article on Asiatic Society.) 
 
 (10.) Professor Legge's 'Chinese Classics ' contain the 
 Bible of the Chinese nation, which every school-boy is 
 taught to learn by heart, and on which the government of 
 the whole empire and the fabric of Chinese society is 
 based. 
 
 The above books might be increased to ten times ten 
 easily enough ; nor, by placing these first, do we intend to 
 imply that many of the others would not equally claim to 
 be mentioned with them. With such an embarras de 
 richesses it is difficult to know where to begin. Of books of 
 travel, we may instance ' Old Highways in China,' by Mrs. 
 Williamson, as a light and readable book, containing a 
 good deal about the women and children. Another book 
 interesting to young people is ' Children in Blue and What 
 They Do,' by Florence I. Codrington. ' The Real 
 Chinaman,' by C. Halcombe, is a very readable book. 
 To those who want to know the why and wherefore of 
 
 104
 
 Books on China 
 
 things Chinese, there is Professor Giles's 'Glossary of 
 Reference.' ' Among the Mongols,' by the Rev. J. Gilmour, 
 M.A., gives a true picture of these nomads. 
 
 Quite a literature is springing up on Western China ; 
 Mrs. Bryson's ' Child Life in China ' treats of Hankow and 
 the neighbourhood of the Yang-tsz, so does Rev. W. A. 
 Cornaby's ' A String of Chinese Peach Stones,' in the way 
 of tales and folklore, finally ending in a story of the 
 Rebellion of Rebellions in modern times in China, the 
 great T'ai P'ing Rebellion ; E. Colborne Baber's ' Travels 
 and Researches in Western China,' published as a supple- 
 mental paper of the Royal Geographical Society, vol. i. pt. 
 i., 1882; Hosie's ' Travels in Western China,' and Rev. V. 
 Hart's 'Western China' these are all most interesting 
 books and well worthy of perusal. In this connection there 
 is also Mr. Little's ' Yang-tsz Gorges ' and his more recent 
 work, ' Mount Omi and Beyond: A Record of Travel on the 
 Thibetan Border.' Mrs. Little's ' Intimate China : Chinese 
 as I Have Seen Them ' should also be mentioned, and one 
 of her latest, ' The Land of the Blue Gown.' 
 
 Still treating of particular parts of China is Baron 
 Richthofen's splendid work, which deals with the northern 
 part of the empire, and contains much valuable informa- 
 tion by a traveller ' of great scientific ability,' whose ex- 
 plorations have been described as ' at once the most 
 extensive and the most scientific of our age.' It is written 
 in German. 
 
 Peking is treated of in ' Peking, Histoire et Description 
 avec 524 Gravures anciennes et nouvelles, reproduites on 
 execute's par des Artistes chinois d'apres les plus precieux 
 documents,' by A. Favier. 
 
 Concerning Canton, one may read Archdeacon Gray's 
 ' Walks in the City of Canton,' which, besides giving much 
 information, is also useful as a guide-book. Mention should 
 also be made of the Rev. Hilderic Friend's ' The Willow 
 Pattern,' written by one who lived amongst the people, and 
 took the greatest interest in all their habits and customs ; 
 it is consequently a very truthful picture of Chinese life, told 
 in the guise of a tale. 
 
 105
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 Macao has been treated of in a book, now rare and out 
 of print, viz : Sir Andrew Lungstedt's ' Macao and China,' 
 over the production of which the author spent much labour 
 and research. There is also a German book lately published 
 on this interesting old European settlement in the Far East , 
 viz., ' Macao: Der Erste Stiatzpunkt Europaischen Handels 
 in China,' by Max Kutschera. 
 
 Swatow customs, people, and folk-lore, are treated of in 
 a trio of books by Miss Fielde, entitled ' Pagoda Shadows,' 
 ' A Corner of Cathay,' and ' Chinese Nights' Entertainment.' 
 
 Archdeacon Moule's ' New China and Old,' has some- 
 thing to say of Ningpo, Hangchow, and Shanghai ; besides 
 treating of Chinese subjects in general. 
 
 Besides numerous magazine articles, the large island of 
 Hainan has been admirably treated in a new book 
 in French, ' L'Empire de Chine. Hai'-nan et la c6te conti- 
 nentale voisine,' by C. Madrole. Here may be mentioned a 
 recent work, styled ' European Settlements in the Far 
 East,' which not only deals with all the Treaty Ports in 
 China, but of the similar spots in the adjacent countries as 
 well. A few books deal with separate provinces, such as 
 Mayer's ' Kwong Tung,' and Armstrong's ' Shan Tung.' 
 
 The transition from these to a lighter class of reminis- 
 cences of olden days, may be made by the reading of an 
 old resident's recollections of earlier days, under the names 
 of ' Bits of Old China,' and ' The Fan-kwai in Canton.' 
 
 A vast amount of learning, erudition, and research are 
 shown in many of the books published on China, especially 
 in the China Review, Transactions of the N.C. Br. of the 
 R.A.S., already mentioned, and in the twenty volumes of 
 the Chinese Repository. Any one who will take the 
 trouble to make himself acquainted with most of the 
 Articles and Notes contained in these three periodicals, to 
 say nothing of Notes and Queries on China and Japan, 
 and The Chinese Journal and Missionary Recorder, and 
 Journal of the Peking Oriental Society, will find that there 
 is scarcely a subject connected with China that has not 
 been most learnedly discussed in these pages. 
 
 Here may also be mentioned a number of interesting 
 
 1 06
 
 Books on China 
 
 brochures issued from the Jesuit press at Shanghai, under the 
 general name of ' Varietes Sinologiques.' One of the latest 
 of these is ' Inscriptions Juives de K'ai Fong Fou.' 
 
 To those who are fond of the marvellous, treated in a 
 sober manner, let us recommend ' Mythical Monsters,' by 
 Charles Gould, son of the gifted and renowned ornithologist ; 
 to those who wish a light story-book on the same subject, 
 there is Professor Giles's ' Strange Stories from a Chinese 
 Studio.' 
 
 From myths to worship is an easy transition, and here 
 we have a whole host of books, especially if under this 
 category we include books dealing with the philosophical 
 systems. 'The Dragon, Image, and Demon; or, the 
 Three Religions,' by the Rev. H. C. du Bose, will give an 
 idea of the multiplicity of objects of worship : it deals 
 primarily with the neighbourhood of Soochow, though 
 much is applicable to all parts of China. Edkin's 
 ' Religion in China,' and his ' Chinese Buddhism,' Legge's 
 ' The Religions of China,' and Beal's ' Buddhistic Literature 
 in China,' treat fully of these subjects. Also to be noticed 
 as worthy of the highest commendation is De Groot's 
 ' Religious Systems of China.' To those who are con- 
 tent with comparatively short essays, there is Douglas's 
 ' Confucianism and Taouism,' containing two admirable 
 monographs on these two religions, or philosophies. 
 Then there .are the works of Dr. Faber, noted for 
 sound scholarship; 'The Mind of Mencius ; or, Political 
 Economy, founded upon Moral Philosophy,' and 'A 
 Systematic Digest of the Doctrines of Confucius,' besides 
 his other works in both German and English. And the 
 Bible of the Taoists, ' The Tao Teh King,' translated by 
 the learned sinologue, Dr. Chalmers ; there are besides two 
 translations of the Taoist philosopher, by Balfour and 
 Giles respectively, and latest of all, Professor Legge's transla- 
 tion in the ' Sacred Books of the East ' Series. 
 
 There are numbers of volumes containing short papers, 
 or essays, amongst which we may mention the admirable 
 ' Hanlin Papers; or, Essays on the Intellectual Life of the 
 Chinese,' in two series, by Dr. Martin ; Balfour's ' Leaves 
 
 107
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 from my Chinese Scrapbook ' ; and Sir Walter Medhurst's 
 ' The Foreigner in Far Cathay ' ; amongst these also might 
 be classed the interesting work, ' Chinese Characteristics,' 
 by A. H. Smith, and the later work, ' Village Life in China : 
 A Study in Sociology,' by the same author. Watters's 
 ' Essays on Chinese Literature ' is a valuable work. The 
 gift to see ourselves as others see us will be granted by a 
 perusal of ' Those Foreign Devils ' : a Celestial on England 
 and Englishmen, translated by W. H Wilkinson of H.M.'s 
 Consular Service, and the later work by T. G. Selby, ' As 
 the Chinese See Us.' ' John Chinaman,' by E. H. Parker, 
 is a book just out 
 
 For the Historical student there are Boulgers's ' History 
 of China, 1 in two large volumes, and his ' Short History ' in 
 one volume ; ' Ross's History of the Manchus,' and the 
 same author's ' Corea,' which necessarily deal largely with 
 China. There is also Dr. Mirth's learned brochure, ' China 
 and the Roman Orient : Researches into their Ancient 
 and Mediaeval Relations as represented in old Chinese 
 Records ' ; Parker's ' A Thousand Years of the Tartars ' ; 
 the same author's recent work, ' China : Her History, 
 Diplomacy and Commerce from the Earliest Times to 
 the Present Day ' ; Rev. J. Macgowan's ' History of China,' 
 and his ' Pictures of Southern China ' ; Mrs. Bishop's 
 ' Korea and Her Neighbours ' ; and Professor Giles's 
 ' Biographical Dictionary.' The terrible siege of the 
 foreign legations in Peking has produced a number of 
 books ; amongst these ' The Siege in Peking : China 
 Against the World,' by an Eye-witness, W. A. P. Martin, 
 President of the Chinese Imperial University, will be 
 found most interesting and well written. There is also 
 Sir Robert Hart's ' These from the Land of Sinim.' 
 
 Dealing with the Government of China are Mayer's 
 'Chinese Government,' and 'List of the Higher Metro- 
 politan and Provincial Authorities of China,' compiled 
 by the Chinese Secretaries, H.B.M. Legation, Peking, 
 corrected to March 1899, by C. W. Campbell, Assistant 
 Chinese Secretary. 
 
 On legal matters may be instanced Staunton's ' Penal 
 
 1 08
 
 Books on China 
 
 Code ' and Alabaster's ' Notes and Commentaries on the 
 Chinese Criminal Law/ etc. 
 
 Those who are interested in the part that different 
 European nations have played in the Far East, and in 
 the political outlook in that part of the world, will 
 doubtless find the following books to their taste, viz. : 
 ' Problems of the Ear East,' by the Rt. Hon. G. N. 
 Curzon ; ' The Peoples and Politics of the Ear East,' 
 by Mr. H. Norman ; ' The Problem in China and British 
 Policy' ; ' China in Decay,' and ' Russia in Asia : A Record 
 and Study,' 1558-1899, by A. Krausse. One of the latest 
 of this class of books is ' The Englishman in China during 
 the Victorian Era,' as illustrated in the career of Sir 
 Rutherford Alcock, by A. Michie. 
 
 A pleasant taste of Chinese literature may be obtained 
 from Professor Giles's ' Gems of Chinese Literature,' being 
 gleanings from all times and periods, and his latest work, 
 1 A History of Chinese Literature,' and Dr. Martin's ' Lore 
 of Cathay.' 
 
 Those fond of poetry will find it treated of in Sir 
 John Davis's monograph on the 'Poetry of the Chinese'; 
 also more interesting is Professor Giles's ' Chinese Poetry 
 in English Verse ' ; and those delighting in rhymes will find 
 Stent's ' Entombed Alive, and other Songs and Ballads 
 from the Chinese,' a lively book to beguile a pleasant half- 
 hour ; ' Pidgin-English Sing-song,' by Chas. G. Leland, is 
 amusing. Two most interesting illustrated books by 
 Professor Headland are ' Chinese Mother Goose Rhymes,' 
 and ' The Chinese Boy and Girl.' 
 
 Freemasons and those interested in Secret Societies 
 will find Schlegel's ' Thian Thi Hwui,' of great interest. A 
 small book has also been lately published, Stanton's ' Triad 
 Society,' etc. ' A Collection of Chinese Proverbs,' by \V. 
 Scarborough, will suit another class of readers. The 
 translation of the Ch'eng Yii K'ao, ' A Manual of Chinese 
 Quotations,' by the Hon. J. H. Stewart Lockhart, C.M.G., is 
 another work of value. 
 
 Philologists have their tastes provided for in Edkins's 
 
 109
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 ' China's Place in Philology,' and ' The Languages of China 
 before the Chinese,' by Professor Terrien de Lacouperie. 
 
 The Collector of China has had some aids provided in 
 Dr. Mirth's ' Ancient Porcelain : A Study in Chinese 
 Mediaeval Industry and Trade,' and Dr. Bushell's ' Chinese 
 Porcelain before the Present Dynasty.' It is a pity that 
 the illustrations of this last work could not have been 
 reproduced ; but his larger book is splendidly got up and 
 illustrated. Another book is ' Chinese Porcelain,' by W. 
 G. Gulland. Numismatists will find their tastes catered for 
 in the Hon. Stewart Lockhart's ' The Currency of the Farther 
 East, from the Earliest Times up to the Present Day.' 
 
 Collections of photographs with more or less of letter- 
 press, may be instanced as another class of books on 
 China, amongst which we may notice ' Chinese Pictures : 
 Notes on Photographs,' by Mrs. J. F. Bishop, as one of 
 the latest. 
 
 Not a few books in French have been issued from the 
 press, dealing with China, and ranging from the learned 
 works of Julien to the recent light literature by Tcheng Ki 
 Tong. The other principal languages of Europe have 
 all been requisitioned to describe this people and their 
 country, such as German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, 
 Russian, and even Latin. 
 
 There is also a literature growing up dealing with 
 China and the Chinese from the Missionary standpoint. 
 One of the latest of these is Dr. Gibson's ' Mission Problems 
 and Mission Methods in South China' (Swatow). Also in 
 this connection may be mentioned a number of biographies 
 of eminent missionaries. 
 
 But we have already occupied more than enough space 
 in this rapid survey of books treating of China and the 
 Chinese, and have necessarily left many works unnoticed. 
 We cannot, however, close without a passing reference to 
 Marco Polo, the celebrated Venetian traveller of the Middle 
 Ages, the pioneer of the army, which, with ever-increasing 
 numbers, has visited the ere-while Kingdom of the ' Grand 
 Khan,' Kublai Khan ; but the present itinerants, unlike 
 their great predecessor, who resided for years in the 
 
 no
 
 Books for Learning Chinese 
 
 country, are content to ' do ' China in a few days or 
 months, and then hasten to instruct the ignorant world in 
 books and pamphlets, which, often amidst interesting and 
 sprightly narratives of stirring events, contain a mass of 
 crude and undigested second-hand information of the 
 people they scarcely know, and of the country they have 
 skimmed through, ' or rather passed by,' so rapidly. 
 
 Books recommended. ' Bihliotheca Sinica: Dietionnaire Bibliographiqne 
 des Ouvragcs Relatifs a 1'Empire Chinois,' par Henri Cordier. 'Manual of 
 Chinese Bibliography,' being a list of works and essays relating to China, by 
 P. G. & 0. F. von MollenaorH'. 'Collectanea Bibliographies,' appearing of 
 late years in the China Review. 
 
 BOOKS FOR LEARNING CHINESE. Beginners 
 are often at a loss to know what books to get to learn the 
 different so-called dialects, or rather spoken languages of 
 China ; and we often have enquiries made on this subject. 
 We therefore give some directions as to the books to 
 procure : 
 
 AMOY. For a phrase-book, get Macgowan's ' Manual 
 of the Amoy Dialect,' and for Dictionaries, English-Amoy : 
 the same author's ' English-Chinese Dictionary in the 
 Amoy Dialect,' price $10. For Amoy-English Dictionary, 
 1 Chinese-English Dictionary of the Vernacular or Spoken 
 Language of Amoy, with the principal variations of the 
 Chang Chew and Chin Chew Dialects,' by Rev. Carstairs 
 Douglas, M.A., LL.D. Besides these books, there is a large 
 assortment the largest in the country of Romanised 
 Colloquial books prepared by the missionaries. 
 
 CANTONESE. For learning the language properly, 
 get ' Cantonese Made Easy,' 4th edition. ' The Cantonese 
 Made Easy Vocabulary,' ' How to Speak Cantonese,' 2nd 
 edition, price $5, and ' Readings in Cantonese Colloquial,' 
 price $3 all by the present author. The two varieties 
 of Dictionaries required, are Eitel's Cantonese-English 
 Dictionary, price $IO; and Chalmer's 'English-Cantonese 
 Dictionary,' price $3, or so. For a mere smattering 
 for the acquisition of a few phrases there is a small book 
 specially prepared, freed as much as possible from all 
 difficulties ; it is ' An English and Cantonese Pocket 
 
 1 1 1
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 Vocabulary/ 2nd edition, also by the present author, 
 price 75 cents. 
 
 FOOCHOW. Maclay's ' Manual of the Foochow 
 Dialect,' and Maclay and Baldwin's ' Chinese-English 
 Dictionary.' 
 
 HAINAN. The Gospels in Romanised Colloquial. 
 
 HAKKA. The present author's 'Easy Sentences in the 
 Hakka Dialect, with a Vocabulary,' 2nd edition, price $i ; 
 this is prepared simply for those who wish to acquire a 
 mere smattering of Hakka ; for others there has also been 
 prepared by the same author, ' Hakka Made Easy,' Ft. I., 
 price $2. There are also the Romanised Colloquial books 
 prepared by the German Missionaries, as well as the New 
 Testament, and part of the Old, in Character Colloquial. 
 
 MANDARIN (PEKINGESE). Sir Thomas Wade's 
 'Tzu-Erh-Chi' (Colloquial Series), price $15. Giles's 
 ' Chinese without a Teacher,' price $i. Edkins's ' Mandarin 
 Grammar,' price $3. A new book, highly recommended, 
 is Dr. Mateer's ' Mandarin Lessons,' price, in one vol., 
 89-50. There is also one by a Japanese, Goh called the 
 'Kuan Hua Chih Nan,' price $i ; and a translation by 
 L. C. Hopkins, called ' The Guide to Kuan Hua,' price $2. 
 This book has been translated into Cantonese by the 
 Hon. F. H. May. Dictionaries. Stent's ' A Chinese and 
 English Vocabulary in the Pekingese Dialect,' price $6 ; 
 and Williams's ' Syllabic Dictionary of the Chinese 
 Language,' price $15. There is also the grand new 
 Dictionary by Professor H. A. Giles, costing $35, and 
 containing, as well as the Mandarin pronunciation, that 
 of a number of the so-called Dialects. 
 
 NlNGPO. Morrison's ' Anglo-Chinese Vocabulary of 
 the Ningpo Dialect' : and many Romanised books. 
 
 SHANGHAI. Dr. Edkins's ' Grammar of the Shanghai 
 Dialect,' price $2 ; and also his vocabulary in English- 
 Chinese, price $2. 
 
 SOOCHOW. Lyon's ' Introductory Lessons in the 
 Soochow Dialect,' price 50 cents. 
 
 SWATOW. The simplest is Professor Giles's 'Hand-book 
 of the Swatow Vernacular Dialect, with a Vocabulary,' 
 
 112
 
 Books for Learning Chinese 
 
 price $r. A very good phrase-book is Lim's ' Hand-book 
 of the Swatow.' For an English-Chinese Vocabulary, get 
 ' P'nglish Chinese Vocabulary of the Vernacular or Spoken 
 Language of Swatow,' by Rev. W. Duffus, price 85. The 
 only Chinese-English Dictionary is Miss Fielde's, but un- 
 fortunately the English spelling of the Chinese words is not 
 the same as in the other books, price $8, unbound. For 
 a combination of phrase-book and grammar, there is 
 'Primary Lessons in Swatow Grammar' (Colloquial), by 
 Rev. W. Ashmore, D.D., price $i, unbound. 
 TAI-CHOW. Book of Psalms. 
 
 To read Chinese. A good knowledge of the Colloquial 
 should precede all attempts to learn the Book Language, 
 except for scholars in America or Europe, who simply 
 learn Chinese as they would Latin, Greek, Hebrew, 
 Sanscrit, or any other language for which they have no 
 colloquial need. 
 
 The present author's ' Readings in Cantonese Colloquial,' 
 leads from pure and simple colloquial by easy stages to a 
 semi-mixed style of colloquial and book language. 
 
 A very good book is Williams's ' Easy Lessons in 
 Chinese.' Another aid to beginners will be found in the 
 ' Chinese Chrestomathy,' an old book, which, with all its 
 faults, is an excellent one in many respects. Both these 
 books are out of print. 
 
 An admirable way to learn the Book Language is to 
 follow the plan of Chinese school-boys by going through 
 the school-books, commencing with such as the Third, 
 Fourth, and Fifth Character Classics, reading aloud after 
 the teacher so often that whole pages of the books can be 
 repeated off by heart. A translation of the two first-named 
 by Professor Giles is to be had : and Dr. Eitel has also more 
 lately published translations of them. Some knowledge 
 might be acquired of the ' Four Books ' and ' Five Classics,' 
 the ' Four Books,' at all events ; if there is time for it, 
 learned in the same manner as the simple school-books, 
 mentioned above. Legge's ' Chinese Classics ' should be 
 used here. Those published with Chinese text, English 
 
 113 H
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 translation, and notes, etc., are five volumes in number. 
 The ' Li-Ki/ without the Chinese text, is published in the 
 same series in two volumes, and the Yik King in one volume. 
 For those who are to be connected with the Consular 
 Service, nothing can be better than a thorough mastery of 
 Wade's ' Tzu Erh Chi,' Documentary Series. For those in 
 the Imperial Maritime Customs Service, there is, further, 
 the admirable series of papers and documents collected by 
 Dr. Hirth, entitled ' Text Book of Documentary Chinese.' 
 Besides these two compendiums there is the ' Text Book of 
 Documentary Chinese,' by G. T. Hare, which contains many 
 Chinese documents, such as petitions, bills, agreements, 
 memorials, letters, etc. etc., with English tables of contents. 
 Hirth's ' Notes on the Documentary Style ' is also a very use- 
 ful book. After going through the whole, or a portion of the 
 books mentioned above, the learner will know pretty well 
 what is best adapted for his requirements should he intend 
 to proceed further. We might also mention Professor 
 Bullock's ' Progressive Exercises in the Chinese Written 
 Language,' for those who cannot obtain a native teacher. 
 
 Writing. To learn how to form the Character in the 
 correct way, there is the present author's ' How to Write 
 Chinese,' Part I., price $2. 
 
 BOTANY. There is still a great deal for Botanists to 
 do in China, in the way of collecting, examining, and 
 making known to the world the result of their labours, 
 for there are yet vast regions unexplored. 
 
 'The Chinese flora is extremely rich. Forests, in the European 
 sense, are rare ; but evergreens, flowering shrubs, and especially 
 resinous plants, are found in great variety. Proceeding southwards, 
 the transition is very gradual from the Manchurian to the tropical 
 flora of Indo-China. Hence in some of the central districts there 
 is a remarkable intermingling of species belonging to different zones, 
 the bamboo flourishing by the side of the oak, while wheat and 
 maize crops are interspersed with paddy-fields, sugar, and cotton planta- 
 tions. In general, the cultivated species are everywhere encroaching on 
 the wild flora.' 
 
 We quote the above from A. H. Keane's ' Asia,' edited 
 by Sir Richard Temple. 
 
 114
 
 Botany 
 
 Owing to the monsoons, there is 'a more regular 
 distribution of the rainfall,' and a rainy season in spring ; 
 the result is an ' extremely regular succession of seasons, 
 which ... is favourable to a careful garden -like agri- 
 culture.' In the North, wheat and millet are cultivated, while 
 in the South, rice, sugar-cane, mulberries, the tea-plant, and 
 oranges are grown. Cotton and indigo are also produced 
 in China. 
 
 One of the most marked differences, noticeable to the 
 new arrival in China, especially in the South, is the absence 
 of meadows and pasture-lands. ' Hongkong, in its more 
 sheltered valleys and ravines, presents an extraordinary 
 varied flora,' closely connected with that of Sikkim, Assam, 
 Khasia, and North-East India, 'and will probably hereafter 
 prove to be connected with it by a gradual transition across 
 South China.' Many other species are more tropical, like 
 those of the Indian Archipelago, Malayan Peninsula, and 
 even Ceylon and Africa. ' Northwards of Hongkong the 
 vegetation appears to change much more rapidly. Very few 
 of the species known to range across from the Himalayas to 
 Japan are believed to come much further south than Amoy, 
 where, with a difference of latitude of only two degrees, 
 the tropical features of the Hongkong flora have (as far as 
 we know) almost entirely disappeared.' It is quite wonder- 
 ful what a ' very large total amount of species are crowded 
 upon so small an island ' as this little colony of Hongkong. 
 There are over 1,000 species, and 550 genera of phanero- 
 gamic plants described in Bentham's ' Flora Hongkongensis.' 
 Since this was published, about 240 additional species have 
 been discovered in Hongkong, bringing the total number 
 of indigenous plants in this island up to about the same 
 number as is known in the whole of the British Islands. 
 
 In a new work (now being published in separate parts 
 as the papers appear in the Linnxan Society's Journal) en- 
 titled ' Index Florae Sinensis,' there are over 129 orders, more 
 than 1,000 genera, and about 5,000 species. The book 
 when completed will probably contain some 7,000 or more 
 species, representing, with a supplement, the whole number
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 of plants at present known to exist in China. The number 
 is being constantly added to by zealous botanists in different 
 parts of the country, as many as a thousand, or even more, 
 having been discovered in six years. 
 
 We give a list of some of the genera most numerous in 
 species : 
 
 Clematis, 31. 
 Anemone, 16. 
 Ranunculus, 15. 
 Nasturtium, 9. 
 Stellaria, 16. 
 Camellia, 14 or more. 
 Ilex, 20. 
 Euonymus, 19. 
 Vitis, 24. 
 Acer, 15. 
 Crotalaria, 14. 
 Indigofera, 14. 
 Astragalus, 21. 
 Desmodium, 25. 
 Prunus, 21. 
 Spiraea, 19. 
 Rubus, 41. 
 Potentilla, 26. 
 Rosa, 17. 
 Pyrus, 14. 
 Saxifraga, 20. 
 Sedum, 28. 
 Eugenia, 14. 
 Viburnum, 27. 
 Lonicera, 34. 
 Hedyotis, 21. 
 Vernonia, 12. 
 Aster, 31. 
 Artemisia, 22. 
 Senecio, 35. 
 Saussurea, 28. 
 Lactuca, 21. 
 Rhododendron, 65. 
 Primula, 43. 
 Lysimachia, 35, 
 Ardisia, 18. 
 
 Symplocos, 18. 
 Jasminum, 15. 
 Ligustrum, 14. 
 Cynanchum, 24. 
 Gentiana, 57. 
 Ipomaea, 26. 
 Solanum, 13. 
 Veronica, 14. 
 Pedicularis, 94. 
 Plectranthus, 18. 
 Scutellaria, 17. 
 Amarantus, 9. 
 Chenopodium, 9. 
 Polygonum, 63. 
 Rumex, 1 1. 
 Aristolochia, 10. 
 Piper, 9. 
 
 Chloranthus, 1 1. 
 Machilus, 16. 
 Litsea, 23. 
 Lindera, 20. 
 Wikstrcemia, 13. 
 Elaeagnus, 12. 
 Loranthus, 14. 
 Euphorbia, 23. 
 Phyllanthus, 1 1. 
 Glochidion, 10. 
 Mallotus, 13. 
 Ficus, 42. 
 Pilea, 20. 
 Elatostema, 9. 
 Boehmeria, 1 1. 
 Betula, 10. 
 Quercus, 58. 
 Castanopsis, 13. 
 Salix, 31. 
 
 116
 
 Botany 
 
 Some of the orders numerous in species are : 
 
 Ranunculacaea, 107. Gentianacae, 81. 
 
 Leguminosae, 301. Convolvulaceae, 49. 
 
 Saxifragaceae, 70. Scrophularineae, 200. 
 
 Umbelliferae, 56. Acanthaceae, 51. 
 
 Caprifoliaceae, 78. Verbenaceae, 56. 
 
 Rubiaceae, 106. Labiat.'e, 136. 
 
 Compositae, 325. Polygonaceae, 80. 
 
 Ericaceae, 79. Laurineae, 73. 
 
 Primulaceae, 97. Kuphorbiaceae, 131. 
 
 Oleaceae, 52. Urticaceae, 120. 
 
 Asclepiadeae, 59. Cupulifene, 101. 
 
 Besides these, there are many species of Solanacea: 
 Amaryllidese, Liliaceae, Aroideae, Orchideae, Labiatae, and 
 Coniferae. Many gramineous and alliaceous plants are 
 cultivated for food ; but we must stop, for if we once 
 enter on the food products of China, volumes might be 
 written on its extensive economic botany. We cannot 
 pass from Chinese plants without a notice of the bamboo in 
 its many varieties, useful for food, for dress, for furniture, 
 for boat- and ship-building, for the erection of houses, and 
 for almost everything that man needs or human ingenuity 
 can apply it to. (See Article on Bamboo.) Worthy also 
 of mention are the fan palms of the South of China, from 
 which so many of these articles of necessity in a warm 
 climate are manufactured (See Article on Fans) not only 
 for home consumption, but for extensive exportation to 
 America and other countries. The pea-nut (See Article on 
 Pea-nut) and the plant from which the cool grass-cloth is 
 manufactured are largely cultivated. 
 
 Chinese botany, if the thing is worthy of such a 
 scientific name, is quite unscientific in its methods. Some 
 of the illustrations in botanical works are so truthful that, if 
 the genera are known, they afford a means of ready 
 identification ; but no pains are taken to specially represent 
 the seed-vessels and flowers, so that it is well-nigh im- 
 possible to tell what species a plant so depicted belongs to. 
 unless it is already known. The plants are not divided 
 
 117
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 according to their orders, genera, or species, but the 
 classification is more of this style : 
 
 Five divisions of the Vegetable Kingdom, viz. Herbs, 
 Grains, Vegetables, Fruits and Trees. These are again 
 sub-divided into families, though the plants grouped under 
 a family are very dissimilar. The same word is used for 
 the lowest division, and at times might signify a genus, a 
 species, or even a variety. Herbs are divided into nine 
 families : ' Hill-plants, odoriferous, noxious, scandent, or 
 climbing, aquatic, stony and mossy plants, and plants not 
 used in medicine.' This will give some idea of the mode 
 of classification, for we cannot follow them through the 
 other four grand divisions. 
 
 Books recommended. There are numerous books and articles which treat 
 more or less of the botany of China or parts of it. Bretschneider's 'Botanicon 
 Sinieum.' Bentham's 'Flora Hongkongensis, and Supplement.' ' Index Flora 
 Sinensis : An Enumeration of all the Plants known from China Proper, For- 
 mosa, Hainan, Corea, the Luchu Archipelago, and the Island of Hongkong, 
 together with their Distribution and Synonymy.' By F. B. Forbes, F.L.S., 
 etc., and W. B. Hemsley, F.R.S., F.L.S., etc., Keeper of the Herbarium of 
 the Royal Gardens, Kew. 
 
 BRONZE. The Chinese appear to have possessed the 
 art of both making and ornamenting bronze-work from a 
 high antiquity ; for even at the time of the Shang dynasty, 
 (B.C. 1783-1 134) the work bore evidence of having arrived at 
 an advanced stage. It was intimately connected with their 
 ancient beliefs, for bronze vases and other vessels were in 
 use in those most primitive of cults, which have still full 
 sway over the Chinese mind : the worship of Nature in its 
 visible manifestations of heaven and earth, the stars, winds, 
 streams, and mountains, formed the official religion of the 
 Chinese, and confined, as a State religion, to the governing 
 classes ; it was supplemented in the case of individuals and 
 families by the worship of ancestors. Unfortunately the 
 rigid cast of the Chinese worship of antiquity and of set 
 forms, has so bound them down to a faithful copy of all that 
 has been done by their predecessors, that these bronze 
 vessels are copied to the most minute particular at the 
 present day, and have been for a score or more centuries. 
 
 118
 
 Bronze 
 
 The artistic mind was thus hampered and confined to a 
 reproduction of what have been considered the masterpieces 
 of antiquity; play of individual taste and fancy has been 
 restricted and shut up within its own country, with but 
 little, if any, inspiration from external sources ; Chinese art 
 thus remained till the first century, when a new influence 
 exerted a beneficial effect on it. 
 
 But before passing on to a consideration of the influence 
 of Buddhism, it is interesting to notice the presence of a 
 decorative design, which in the West has been styled ' the 
 Greek,' on account of its being found in Greek and Etruscan 
 art. The questions naturally present themselves as to 
 whether : (ist.) This design has been copied by the Chinese 
 from the Greeks ; and the answer is that this seems 
 improbable. (2nd.) Whether the design has been arrived 
 at independently by both nations ; and the answer is that 
 this is not improbable, for the design of the Chinese seems 
 slightly different from that of the Greeks, and it has been 
 suggested that it has arisen from the representation of the 
 two pervading principles of Nature, the Yin and the Yang. 
 (3rd.) Whether the design is of such remote antiquity that 
 it may have been carried from some cradle of the human 
 race, and thus been common originally to both ; it would 
 appear, in our present state of knowledge, that this question 
 must be left unanswered. 
 
 At first, animal forms were the original models for the 
 Chinese in their sacrificial vessels, but they were not con- 
 fined to the representation of animals, for vases of curious 
 and antique forms are found, and libation vessels like a re- 
 versed casque mounted on three feet. Ancient bronze work 
 was made for other purposes besides the two already named, 
 being used by the Emperor for bestowal as presents. 
 
 Buddhism, which we have already referred to, introduced 
 in its train objects of virtu and art for the native Chinese 
 to copy ; and it served as an incentive in presenting a 
 broader field for the Chinese art-worker to roam over, less 
 fettered than the narrow limits confined him to. Many of 
 the treasures of art, which owe their origin to its inspira- 
 
 119
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 tion, have doubtless perished in the iconoclastic persecu- 
 tions which this religion has met more than once since its 
 establishment in China ; for the human figure now formed 
 a subject for the Chinese artist, and gods and goddesses 
 innumerable were depicted, and it is here that the best 
 samples of Chinese art are to be found, the finest specimens 
 being produced about A.I). 1426, and from A.D. 1621 to 
 1643, reaching their highest excellence under the reign of 
 K'ang Hi, A.D. 1662. 
 
 Taoist idols and symbols have had their share in 
 providing objects of art for the Chinese bronze-worker. 
 Arabian, or Persian art, has also, in the time of the Mongol 
 rulers of China, exerted some influence on Chinese bronze 
 art, by giving it certain beauties of form which it had not 
 previously possessed, as well as new decorative and orna- 
 mental designs ; and in this connection one must mention 
 the bronze astronomical instruments in Peking, made for 
 the Observatory there, during the time of Kublai Khan, 
 and now taken to Berlin. We can only refer en passant to 
 the incrustations of gold, or the beautiful ornamentation 
 ' with delicate scrolls and flowers in niello work of silver or 
 gold wire, inserted into grooves cut in the metal ' on bronze 
 work, which greatly enhances its beauty ; nor can we do 
 more than call attention to the damaskeen work, probably 
 introduced from India, as well as the gilded bronze, due 
 to Buddhist influence on Chinese art. 
 
 Book recommended. ' L'Art Chinois,' by M. Paleologue. 
 
 BUDDHISM. China presents the unique spectacle of 
 three powerful so-called religions, holding sway con- 
 currently over the teeming millions of its inhabitants ; and 
 though strong opposition has been shown to the younger 
 members of this trinity of religions by the older one Con- 
 fucianism yet there is now an outward pax. Each of 
 them is a complement of the other, and attempts to meet a 
 different want in human nature : Confucianism appeals to 
 morality and conduct ; Taoism is materialistic ; and 
 Buddhism, metaphysical. Two only are indigenous ; 
 
 1 20
 
 Buddhism 
 
 Buddhism is foreign, introduced in A.D. 61, for the 
 Emperor dreamt of a gigantic image of gold, and sent to 
 India in search of the new religion; but some believe it 
 was known in China before that. The first centuries of its 
 arrival were marked by the translation into Chinese of 
 numerous Buddhistic works ; and there was considerable 
 progress in making proselytes, for in the fourth century 
 nine-tenths of the inhabitants of China were Buddhists. It 
 is impossible to give an estimate of the number at the 
 present day, as every Chinaman, who is not a Mohammedan 
 or Christian, is a Buddhist, as well as a Taoist and a Con- 
 fucianist, often at one and the same time. The eclectic 
 nature of the Chinese, and the mutual adaptation of the 
 systems a give and take to one another, in the course 
 of centuries of combined occupation of the Chinese religious 
 mind, have rendered the outcome more of an amalgamation, 
 or rather a mechanical combination of the three ; for their 
 partnership is not of that intimate character that it can be 
 compared to a chemical union, where the different elements 
 combine to produce a new substance. All three are like- 
 wise established faiths in China : their sages and divinities 
 are admitted into the state pantheon and honoured by 
 state patronage. One is tempted to illustrate this com- 
 bination of the three, so intimately are they sometimes 
 blended together, as a tripartite union of body, soul, and 
 spirit : Confucianism, with its ever-present essence, permeat- 
 ing the whole body politic and social system, forming the 
 soul ; but here the comparison must stop, for it cannot, 
 with any approach to truth, be carried further, except to say 
 that there are two other members of this partnership. 
 
 Buddhism is divided into two great branches, the 
 Northern and Southern. The Buddhism of China, 
 Nepaul, Tibet, Mongolia, Corea, Japan, and Cochin 
 China belong to the Northern ; that of Ceylon, Burmah, 
 and Siam to the Southern. There are several points of 
 difference between them : the sacred books amongst the 
 Northern Buddhists are either in Sanscrit, or translated 
 from it ; while amongst the Southern, Pali is the sacred 
 
 121
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 language. The Northern Buddhists have the story of the 
 Western Paradise, perhaps evolved from the human mind 
 as the result of longings for some tangible residence of 
 future bliss, which the doctrine of Nirvana does not satisfy 
 with its absorption into a passionless state. In this 'pure 
 land of the West,' the saints are ' exempt from suffering, 
 death, and sexual distinction,' surrounded by the most 
 beautiful scenery, and ' live for aeons in a state of absolute 
 bliss.' The Goddess of Mercy, who takes very much the 
 same place as the Virgin Mary amongst Roman Catholics, 
 belongs to this division of Buddhism. 'In the Southern 
 branch the Hindoo traditions in respect to cosmogony and 
 mythology are adhered to more rigidly ; while in the 
 Northern branch a completely new and far more extensive 
 universe, with divinities to correspond,' is believed in. 
 
 Though these three, especially Taoism and Buddhism, 
 are so blended and mixed together, the latter obtrudes itself 
 more on the view than the other two. Its temples, as well 
 as its priests, are more numerous. It is very interesting to 
 notice the various phases which this wide-spread form of 
 religion has developed in different lands. In China, it is 
 polytheistic, and has borrowed and adopted deities from 
 Taoism. In fact, Buddhism has adapted itself to circum- 
 stances, and finding certain beliefs prevalent amongst the 
 Chinese, instead of combating them, has taken them under 
 its wing, and thus gained by accretion, not only beliefs, but 
 numbers. 
 
 Nor does Buddhism seem only to have borrowed from 
 Taoism, and in this connection the following extract from 
 a paper by Professor Max Miiller in the Fortnightly Review 
 for July 1896, may be interesting : 
 
 ' Hue and Gabet, while travelling in Tibet felt startled at 
 the coincidences between their own ecclesiastical ritual and' that 
 of the Buddhist priesthood in Tibet. They pointed out, among other 
 things, the crosier, the mitre, the dalmatic, the cope, the service with 
 two choirs, the psalmody, exorcism, the use of censers held by five 
 chains which shut and open by themselves, blessings given by the 
 Lamas in extending their right hand over the heads of the faithful, 
 the use of beads for saying prayers, the celibacy of the priesthood, 
 spiritual retreats, worship of saints, fastings, processions, litanies, 
 
 122
 
 Buddhism 
 
 holy water enough it would seem to startle Roman Catholic mission- 
 aries. They ascribed them to the devil who wished to scandalise 
 
 pious Roman Catholics who might visit Tibet We cannot 
 
 escape from the conclusion that this large number of coincidences 
 proves an actual historical communication between Roman Catholic 
 and Buddhist priests. And such a channel through which these old 
 Roman Catholic customs could have reached Tibet can be shown to 
 have existed. It is an historical fact that Christian missionaries, 
 chiefly Nestorians, were very active in China from the middle of the 
 seventh to the end of the eighth century. Their presence and activity 
 in China during these centuries are attested not only by the famous 
 monument of Hsian-fu, but likewise by various Chinese historians, 
 and we have no reason to doubt their testimony. The Nestorian 
 Christians had monasteries and schools in different towns of China 
 and were patronised by the Government. We know that one of the 
 monks in the monastery at Hsian-fu was at work under the same roof 
 with a well-known Buddhist monk from Cabul, trying to translate a 
 Buddhist Sanscrit text into Chinese. The prosperity of the Nestorian 
 missions in China lasted till the year 841, when the Emperor Wu-tung 
 issued his edicts for the suppression of all Buddhist and likewise of all 
 Christian monasteries. While Buddhism recovered after a time, 
 Christianity seems to have been rooted out, and when Marco Polo 
 visited Hsian-fu, he tells us that the people were all idolaters.' 
 
 Referring to many of the ethics of Buddhism being 
 identical with the precepts in the Holy Scriptures, it has 
 been pointed out that it is erroneous to suppose that 
 Christianity has borrowed them from the Buddhists, as 
 they were freely taught by Moses and the Prophets cen- 
 turies before Buddha existed : 
 
 ' The ethics of Buddhism were evidently derived from those nations 
 with whom the inhabitants of India had commercial and other rela- 
 tions, including the Jewish, which was in its greatest prosperity 500 
 years before Buddha was said to have existed. . . . Evidence has 
 been given by Strabo and other ancient writers to the great com- 
 mercial intercourse existing, in the tenth century B.C., between India, 
 Persia, Parthia, Media, and the countries south of the Euxine, as well 
 as the ancient traffic by sea which recent research had shown to have 
 existed . . . carried on from India round Ceylon and up the Red 
 Sea, the ships being mostly manned by those intrepid mariners, the 
 Phoenicians.' 
 
 On the other hand, Roman Catholicism seems to have 
 borrowed a little from Buddhism, Buddha himself having 
 been made a saint. 
 
 The Buddhism of the first few centuries of the Christian 
 era in China was a vigorous immigrant, fresh and lusty 
 with life ; eager to attempt great things in its new chosen 
 home, with strength and vigour, prepared to spread its 
 
 123
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 principles ; and ready to endure the fiery baptisms of 
 persecution through which it had later on to pass. A very 
 different thing to the emasculated descendant that now 
 occupies the land with its drones of priests, and its temples ; 
 in which scarce a worthy disciple of the learned patriarchs 
 of ancient days is to be found. Received with open arms, 
 persecuted, patronised, smiled upon, tolerated, it, with the 
 last phase of its existence, has reached not the halcyon 
 days of peace and rest, but its final stage, foreshadowing its 
 decay from rottenness and corruption, for it has long 
 passed its meridian. It was at the zenith of its power in 
 the tenth and twelfth centuries, not only being popular, but 
 exerting great literary influence. It excites but little 
 enthusiasm at the present day in China ; its priests are 
 ignorant, low, and immoral ; addicted to opium ; despised 
 by the people ; held up to contempt and ridicule ; and the 
 gibe and joke of the populace. The nuns likewise hold a 
 very low position in the public estimation. The belief in 
 the transmigration of souls ; the desire for the merit of 
 good works in charity bestowed on priests, and gifts to the 
 large monasteries, so frequent throughout the length and 
 breadth of the land ; as well as the superstitious beliefs in 
 charms and masses for the dead ; faith in the worship of 
 the Goddess of Mercy, and a trust in the efficacy of other 
 gods : all these may be looked upon as the strong 
 supports of Buddhism in China at the present day ; but the 
 scoff of the infidel, and the sneer of the atheist is slowly 
 undermining some parts of this religious structure ; and a 
 better religion and a purer, which will stand true to its 
 colours, will have more chance of success in future than 
 Buddhism has had in the past. ( The Light of Asia ' is 
 setting in obscure darkness, while the first glimmering rays 
 of ' The Light of the World ' are chasing that darkness 
 away, and ' The Sun of Righteousness ' is arising ' with 
 healing in His wings.' 
 
 Books recommended. Rhys David's ' Buddhism,' published by the Society 
 for Promoting Christian Knowledge, gives the best account for the general 
 reader of Buddhism, as a religion. Eitel's 'Three Lectures on Buddhism ' 
 give in a popular form, and in a few pages, an account of Chinese Buddhism, 
 
 I2 4
 
 Buffalo 
 
 which is more lengthily treated of in Edkins's ' Chinese Buddhism ' ; Beat's 
 ' Buddhism in China ' is interesting and smaller than the last. Edkins's 
 ' Religion in China ' contains much on Buddhism. Beat's ' Buddhist 
 Literature in China ' treats of works translated into Chinese. Eitel's ' Hand- 
 book for the Student of Cliine.se Buddhism ' is a dictionary of the Sanscrit 
 terms used in Chinese, their translations into the latter, with an account of 
 their meanings. For an interesting account of a paper dealing with the 
 ethics of Buddhism, see ' Hong Kong Telegraph, 1 1/th Feb. 1896. Also 
 see 'Chips from a German Workshop,' vol. iv. pp. 445-458, for a strange 
 account of the canonisation of Buddha himself as a Roman Catholic saint. 
 
 BUFFALO (WATER BUFFALO). This animal is 
 called by the Chinese the water-ox, or cow ; by naturalists, 
 Bos bubalus, Crauford and Dr. Dennys thus describe 
 it: 
 
 ' The same useful, powerful, ugly, sluggish, and unwieldy animal 
 which exists in all the warm countries of Asia, and which was 
 introduced into Greece, Egypt and Southern India in the Middle Ages. 
 It is only, however, within ten or twelve degrees of the equator that it 
 is found of great size, strength and vigour. . . . The flesh of this semi- 
 aquatic animal is coarse. . . . The wound inflicted by an enraged 
 buffalo is fearful. The victim is generally gored in the thigh, the 
 femoral artery being ripped open.' 
 
 The buffalo is a dangerous animal for Europeans to 
 approach, as it has a repugnance to strangers, but with its 
 friends is thoroughly docile, and in perfect control of the 
 little boys who have the task of driving them to and from 
 the fields, and of guiding them when pulling the harrow 
 and plough, often riding on their backs. So common is 
 this sight that the metaphor of a lad astride a buffalo's 
 back, blowing the flute, frequently enters into Chinese 
 descriptions of rural life, and the buffalo with the herd-boy 
 thus engaged appears in paintings and is used for 
 decorative designs, etc. 
 
 The buffalo can scarcely be said to be covered with 
 hair, a few straggling ones being all that Nature has vouch- 
 safed to it ; one author describing it as having ' a hairless 
 hide.' Through this scanty pretence for a covering the 
 light black colour of the skin shows without any conceal- 
 ment. Each horn is nearly semi-circular, and bends down- 
 ward, while the head is turned back so as almost to bring 
 the nose horizontal. This peculiar carriage of the head 
 enables the animal to submerge nearly the whole of the 
 
 125
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 body and head under the surface of the water in the pools 
 and ponds in which they delight to lie, to cool themselves 
 or to get rid of the gnats. It is very curious to see a herd 
 of them thus immersed with only the tips of their noses 
 showing. The habits of this animal make it cheap to 
 keep him in good condition, while he can do more work 
 than the ox. The milk of the buffalo-cow in the South of 
 China is richer than that of the cow in that part of the 
 world. 
 
 CAMPHOR. This useful drug is the product of the 
 camphor tree, a species of laurel, which grows abundantly 
 in Fuh-kien and Kwong-tung, and is met with as a timber- 
 tree in Kiang-si, Hu-peh, and other provinces to some 
 extent. The tree attains a large size, is of much use, and 
 gives employment to many carpenters, shipwrights and 
 boat-builders, the wood being valuable for the manufacture 
 of trunks and chests-of-drawers. The odour of the wood 
 is pleasant, and when fresh and strong of some utility in 
 keeping away moths and insects from clothing, the wood 
 itself not being subject to the attack of white ants, etc. 
 Vessels are constructed partially or wholly of it as well. 
 
 The drug is employed medicinally by the Chinese, and 
 another use they make of it is for thinning lacquer ; but 
 the Chinese are not careful in the preparation of the former, 
 and the result is very impure. Williams thus describes the 
 process as follows : 
 
 ' The gum is procured from the branches, roots, leaves, and chips by 
 soaking them in water until the liquor becomes saturated ; a gentle 
 heat is then applied to this solution, and the sublimed camphor 
 received in inverted cones, made of rice-stra\v, from which it is 
 detached in impure grains, resembling unrefined sugar in colour.' 
 
 Dr. Porter Smith tells us: 'It is met with in granular lumps or 
 grains, of the colour of dirty snow, and having a strong terebinthinate 
 odour, and a warm, bitter, aromatic taste, with an aftertaste somewhat 
 cooling. It is not so strong as the English drug, but it is more 
 volatile. Very good camphor is brought from Tsiuen-chau fu in 
 Fuh-kien.' 
 
 Rein says : ' Japanese camphor is much purer and more valuable, 
 and therefore commands a higher price than Chinese.' 
 
 More than one variety of camphor is procurable in the 
 
 126
 
 Cannibalism 
 
 Chinese drug shops ; the common dirty stuff, sold at a 
 cheap rate, being of little use. The better qualities are 
 either from abroad, or have had more care taken in the 
 preparation. ' A variety called icicle-flakes is procured 
 from a different species of tree, is said to come from 
 Chang-chau fu, in Fuh-kien, and the tree yielding it 
 ... is described as growing in Canton province.' 
 
 Since the loss of the Island of Formosa, the Chinese 
 production of camphor is confined to that of the mainland. 
 In a British Consulate Report from Foochow -occurs the 
 following passage : 
 
 ' Camphor trees grow in this neighbourhood, and I cannot but 
 think that if the Chinese were sufficiently long-sighted to take proper 
 care of the existing trees, and to plant young ones, a considerable 
 trade in camphor might be fostered. Heretofore Formosa has been a 
 camphor-producing country. Now that this has been transferred to 
 Japanese rule, the Chinese, unless they take measures to prevent it, 
 will lose the camphor trade entirely.' 
 
 The Japanese in 1899 made camphor a Government 
 monopoly, in Formosa. 
 
 Camphor has risen enormously in value lately. It has 
 been erroneously thought that this was due to the extended 
 use of it in the manufacture of smokeless powder ; but it 
 was only employed experimentally at first for that purpose, 
 which could not have affected the market value. It is, 
 however, extensively used in the manufacture of celluloid. 
 
 ' Cabinets made of camphor-wood are much esteemed, not only for 
 the fine grain and silky sheen of the wood, but for its efficacy against 
 the attacks of insects. The camphor-laurel ranks among the stateliest 
 of trees, frequently attaining to an enormous height and girth.' 
 
 'The total yearly consumption of camphor is estimated at about 
 5,000,000 catties, of which 4|- million catties are produced in Formosa and 
 in the interior of Japan, thus nearly the whole supply of the world 
 being the Japanese product. It is stated that there are camphor trees 
 in South China, but the yield is very poor as compared with Japan.' 
 
 ' The Chinese yield has never exceeded 220,000 Ibs.' 
 
 Care should be taken in the damp climate of the South 
 of China that camphor-wood chests-of-drawers and boxes 
 are well-seasoned before use. 
 
 CANNIBALISM. It is but rarely that cannibalism 
 
 127
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 as such, is practised in China, though a horrible practice of 
 eating the gall, and sometimes taking the blood of 
 criminals, who have paid the penalty for their crimes with 
 their forfeited lives, is common enough, the idea being that 
 the courage of the victim will enter into the individual 
 who thus consumes the seat of courage, the gall. If such 
 a practice can be called cannibalism, then it may be said 
 in general terms that it is almost wholly confined to this 
 species of semi-cannibalism. It would, however, be burk- 
 ing the truth to entirely overlook the intermittent 
 occurrence at rare intervals of cases in which the whole 
 body has been devoured by savage men, infuriated by the 
 passion of war. Such cases are, however, most uncommon. 
 An atrocious instance of its perpetration is narrated in the 
 China Mail of the 3ist August 1895, which, summarised, 
 was as follows : Disputed water-rights, a prolific source of 
 trouble between Chinese villages, caused an internecine war 
 between two of them, Pien Chheng and Tang Chheng, 
 seven miles from Ty Sami in the Kwong-tung province. 
 Reprisals followed the cutting of a sea embankment which 
 let in the water and destroyed the rice crops of one village, 
 a small war lasted for a month, different villages were 
 involved in the struggle, and a large number of deaths 
 ensued. Three prisoners on one side and four on the 
 other were taken alive, killed and eaten' every eatable 
 portion was consumed, most of it being given to the 
 children of the respective villages. . . . Though not 
 unprecedented in that district, such an act of cannibalism 
 is unusual.' Were justice available at the courts of law, 
 such village fights would not occur ; and it is further a 
 forcible illustration of the evil results of the officials 
 leaving the villagers to manage their own affairs. Of 
 course, when matters get to such a pass, the mandarins step 
 in. Again the Hongkong Daily Press of 22nd January 
 1896 contains the following : 
 
 ' There is probably not a foreigner in Formosa but knows of the 
 custom of eating portions of the bodies of savages by the Chinese, and 
 who is not aware of the markets in settlements of Formosa, containing 
 
 128
 
 Capital Cities 
 
 the human flesh of the savage for sale. During the savage outbreak 
 of 1891, so great was the loss of life that savage flesh was brought in 
 and sold like pork in the open market.' 
 
 Another curious feature of Chinese life is shown in the 
 custom of filial children cutting out a portion of their own 
 living flesh and cooking it for their sick parents, who are 
 to partake of it, not knowing the source whence it comes. 
 Such cases are by no means rare, and generally meet with 
 the applause of the people, the encomium of the mandarin, 
 and the approval of the government. 
 
 It will thus be seen that, horrible as it may seem, such 
 a thing as cannibalism is not entirely unknown in China. 
 
 CAPITAL CITIES. The country now included in 
 China has been the scene of so many different states in 
 ancient times, due to the vicissitudes incident to conquest 
 and war, as well as to other causes, that various cities have 
 been the capital of the empire at different periods of its 
 existence. 
 
 Hangchow is one of the most famous of these. Marco 
 Polo waxes eloquent in his praise of it : ' The noble and 
 magnificent city of Kin-sai, a name that signifies "the 
 celestial city," and which it merits from its pre-eminence 
 to all others in the world, in point of grandeur and beauty, 
 as well as from its abundant delights, which might lead an 
 inhabitant to imagine himself in paradise.' All writers 
 agree in praising its situation, and the beauty of the 
 surroundings, as well as the richness of the city, though 
 they do not go into the ecstasies of the mediaeval Italian. 
 Hangchow was the metropolis during the latter part of the 
 Sung dynasty (A.D. 1129-1280), when the northern part 
 of the empire was in the hands of the Kin Tartars. 
 
 The ancient capital of Shan-tu, rendered famous by 
 Coleridge's exquisite poem, ' In Xanadu did Kublai 
 Khan,' is now in ruins. 
 
 The chief city of Shang-tung is Chi-nan-fu, once the 
 capital of the ancient state of Tsi (B.C. 1 100-230). 
 
 Kai-fung-fu, or Pien Liang, had the honour of being the 
 metropolis from A.D. 960 to 1 129. 
 
 129 I
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 The After Hans had their capital at the chief city of 
 Sz-chuan, where their rule extended over the West of China. 
 
 Si-ngan-fu ' has been the capital of the empire for more 
 years than any other city.' 
 
 Nanking, i.e. t the Southern capital, has been the 
 metropolis of China several times during long periods of 
 her history, once from A.D. 317 to 582. It was here that 
 the seat of government was established in the former part 
 of the Ming dynasty, A.D. 1368-1403, though Hung Wu, 
 the founder of that dynasty, intended Hwui-chow to be the 
 capital. The famous porcelain tower was at Nanking, and 
 here it was too that the T'ai P'ing rebels made their head- 
 quarters for many years. The Southern Mandarin was 
 the Court language of China, owing to Nanking being the 
 capital, until displaced by the Northern. 
 
 Peking is the Northern capital, and has been so for 
 many centuries, but it was not the capital of the whole of 
 China until the time of Kublai in A.D. 1264. On the fall 
 of the Mongol dynasty, the centre of government was 
 transferred to Nanking until A.D. 1411, when Peking again 
 became the metropolis, and has remained so ever since. It 
 is owing to Peking being the capital that the Northern 
 Mandarin is spoken in Peking, and is the Court language 
 of China, otherwise it would be an insignificant dialect. 
 
 Books recommended. In 'Notes and Queries on China and Japan," 
 vol. i. p. 60, there is a list of Capital Cities. See also the interesting Article 
 in China Mail of 3rd September 1892, on ' Some Chinese Capitals.' 
 
 CARVING. Carving seems to be an art just designed 
 for the patient persevering toil of a Chinaman ; for no labour 
 is too great to bestow on the most minute undertaking, and, 
 in a country where time enters so little into the essence of 
 life, days and months are lavishly spent on what would be 
 thought elsewhere to be unremunerative work. 
 
 Over the fronts of certain shops, such as eating-houses, 
 it is common to have a broad piece of woodwork highly 
 decorated with carvings of figures, houses, flowers, richly 
 gilded, all in alto-relievo ; and in private dwellings there is 
 some carving to be found on the large doors which serve as 
 
 130
 
 Carving 
 
 partitions. There is also an amount of it to be found in 
 certain boats, especially on the so-called flower-boats, which 
 have a screen of carved woodwork, rising to considerable 
 proportions, over the entrances of the larger ones. 
 
 Bamboo vases for holding pens are a common article 
 for the decorative artist to exercise his skill on. 
 
 Wood, bamboo, stone, ivory, and seeds, all form fit 
 subjects for the untiring industry of the Chinese ; but all 
 this carving in wood, bamboo, and olive seeds, is, according 
 to Western ideas, often rendered grotesque in the extreme 
 by a rigid adherence to the canons of Chinese art ; for 
 perspective is ignored, and the harmony of proportion 
 between the different objects is lost sight of. 
 
 Religion causes the production of countless numbers 
 of carved images, in wood and stone, in all attitudes and 
 positions, decked out in all the different insignia of office, 
 or armed with weapons. The best specimen, perhaps, of all 
 this motley group is the God of Literature, represented as 
 standing on one foot on a monster's head, while one arm is 
 stretched to its utmost extent, the hand holding a Chinese 
 pen : there is a certain amount of abandonment and 
 freedom from the stiff conventionality of the sedate or 
 hideous imbecilities which do duty as Chinese idols, the 
 flowing drapery and slender form of this personification of 
 Literature having lent themselves readily to the artistic eye 
 of the carver, who has not failed to take advantage of them. 
 Specimens of the Eight Genii are also sometimes found, as 
 well as other carvings of the same class as that last 
 mentioned, in which the natural twistings of the roots or 
 fibres have been utilised, with skilful touches here and there 
 to heighten the effect, or supplement what Nature has left 
 undone. 
 
 Boles of trees are also sometimes made use of as curios, 
 while stands for ornaments and vases, under the skilful 
 manipulation of a workman, blessed with a certain play of 
 fancy, become as curious objects of art as the carved stone 
 vessels they support. Chinese ebony, or black-wood, as it 
 is likewise called, is largely used for the above purposes, and
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 is carved into the imitation of lotus leaves, seed-vessels, 
 and many other objects. The white-wood carved work of 
 Ningpo is much admired ; frames for pictures, little models 
 of boats, carts, figures of men and animals, and many other 
 objects are produced in it. 
 
 The carving in ivory and sandal-wood is perhaps better 
 known in the West, as such large quantities of it are made 
 for exportation. The concentric balls of ivory have 
 attracted much interest and speculation ; there is, however, 
 no trickery in their production, but, like most things of the 
 kind amongst Chinese, they are the result of patient toil, 
 the balls being carved in situ one within the other : the 
 outside ball is first carved, and, through the holes thus 
 made, instruments are introduced, and gradually the out- 
 side crust, as it were, forming the outermost ball, is 
 detached from the remaining interior mass, while, by the 
 same means, the surface of this interior mass is carved. 
 This process is repeated with every successive ball until 
 a globular mass of intricate hollow balls is the result of the 
 ingenuity of the Chinese artist-workman. 
 
 The carved soap-stone ware of Foochow is well known 
 amongst the foreign residents in China : models of pagodas, 
 shoes, Chinese graves, plates, memorial arches, and many 
 other things, are produced in it. The hard seed of the 
 olive is elaborately carved in the South into models of boats 
 and other objects. Wood-carving is of very ancient origin 
 in China, though the influence of Buddhism in the second 
 century gave an artistic life to what had before not been 
 raised much above a mechanical art. No signatures or 
 dates are borne on Chinese carvings ; it is therefore difficult, 
 if not impossible, to assign a date to them. 
 
 Book recommended. ' L'Art Chinois,' by M. Paleologue. 
 
 CHESS. Chess is an ancient game in China, and is 
 said to have been invented by the first emperor of the Chow 
 dynasty, Wu Wang, B.C. 1120; though it is questioned 
 whether this Chow dynasty does not refer to one four 
 hundred years later. Chess is mentioned in the Chinese 
 
 132
 
 Chess 
 
 classics, but the game in olden times appears to have been 
 somewhat different from the present one, which came into 
 general use after the Sung dynasty. 
 
 Chess has always been looked upon as a mimic war- 
 fare, and the likeness is more marked in Chinese chess, for 
 there are the general, the secretaries, the elephants, horses, 
 chariots, cannon, and soldiers ; the two armies are also 
 divided by a river. The similarities between the game as 
 played in the West and China are obvious ; but the resem- 
 blances between that played in China and in other Eastern 
 countries are of such a nature as to point to a closer 
 relationship. There are sixty-four squares, as on the 
 English board, with sixteen pieces on each side ; but here 
 the general points of resemblance cease, for there is a river 
 running through the middle of the board, and the squares 
 are uniform in colour, the pieces not being placed on them 
 but on the intersections of the lines ; nor are they placed 
 in two rows of eight each, but the first row contains nine 
 pieces, consisting of the principal ones, while a line of five 
 soldiers is deployed in front, near the river, and these are 
 supported by two cannon a little to their rear. The 
 knight, in the English tour of the board, can only have 
 sixty-four moves, and in the course of that number has 
 touched every square on the board ; but were the Chinese 
 equivalent of the knight, viz., the horse, to go on such a 
 round, he would have nearly half as many moves again, 
 for the intersections of the lines, being the resting-places 
 for the pieces, increase the number of such positions to a 
 total of ninety. The general and his two secretaries are 
 confined to four squares, which, unlike the other squares 
 on the board, are crossed by diagonal lines ; along these 
 lines, and on them alone, the secretaries move, but only 
 across one square at a time ; the general also only moves 
 one square at a time, in a straight line, but not diagonally. 
 Though these pieces are confined to the four squares, 
 they have, on account of their positions being placed 
 at the intersections of lines, more than four places that 
 they can occupy ; the general has nine points he can 
 
 133
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 rest on, and the secretaries five. The elephants, which 
 flank the secretaries on each side, are also restricted in 
 their movements, being confined to their own side of the 
 board, not being allowed to cross the river, but they have 
 more freedom of motion within such limits, being per- 
 mitted to move diagonally through two squares, both back 
 and forward. The horses, which are the next pieces, have 
 the curious combination of movement peculiar to the 
 knight in the Western game, viz. : a straight motion 
 followed or preceded by a diagonal one, but, unlike the 
 English game, the Chinese equivalent of the knight, can 
 only move one point forward, sideways or backward, and 
 one diagonally ; nor can the horse jump over any other 
 piece. The chariots take the place of the castles in the 
 English game, occupying the same position on the board, 
 having the same moves, and they are the most powerful of 
 all the pieces ; from the restricted moves of the general 
 ( = king), castling is impossible. The cannoniers have 
 the same power of movement as the chariots, but, curiously 
 enough, take, only when a piece intervenes, leaping, 
 like an English knight, over the obstruction. The five 
 soldiers move like the English pawns, only forward in 
 the first brunt of battle ; they gain increased power of 
 motion on crossing the river into the enemy's territory, 
 when they move sideways as well ; there is, however, no 
 merit in their reaching the extreme end of the board, for 
 they can never move back, and there is no changing 
 them for a higher piece. 
 
 The chessmen are called red and black, but the black 
 ones are the natural colour of the wood white. They are 
 not carved to represent what they stand for, but have the 
 names cut into the top of the wood, being otherwise exactly 
 like English draughtsmen. The carved ivory chessmen, 
 made by the Chinese workers in ivory are simply meant 
 for the foreign market. 
 
 The longitudinal lines are numbered, but not the trans- 
 verse, and by the use of the names of the chessmen, and of 
 the expressions forward, backward, and sideways, a game 
 
 134
 
 Chess 
 
 can easily be played from the book, or a game recorded as 
 it is played. 
 
 In taking pieces, the captured one is removed, and the 
 capturing one is placed on the point the captured occupied, 
 except in the case of the cannonier. The object, as in the 
 English game, is to checkmate. The general, though con- 
 fined to headquarters, i.e., the four squares already named, 
 is in check if no piece intervenes between him and the 
 opposite general on the same straight line. He cannot be 
 captured, and, like the English king, cannot move into 
 check. 
 
 The limited power of movement of a number of the 
 pieces, as well as the want of a queen, due naturally to the 
 low estimation that woman is held in, in the East, restrict, 
 it is said, the combinations in Chinese chess more than in 
 the Western game. Notwithstanding all, the Chinese 
 game 'has its own elements of skill.' The equilibrium of 
 power is not so greatly displaced as at first sight might 
 appear, because, of the sixteen chessmen, eleven are prin- 
 cipal pieces, and only five soldiers, though, with the excep- 
 tion of the chariots, the power of each chessman is less 
 than in the Western game. 
 
 Literary men and women often play chess, and it is 
 quite a common subject of Chinese paintings ; but it is 
 not the pastime of the common people to the great extent 
 it appears to be in Japan. 
 
 Different sorts of chess have been played at different 
 times in China ; and there is still another game in vogue, 
 perhaps of even earlier origin than the common chess, 
 which is called wai-k'ct, or ' blockade chess.' There are 
 324 squares, or 361 positions on the board, and 300 
 pieces, which are black and white, and stand, as in 
 the common chess, on the crossings of the lines. We have 
 not space to go into a full account of this game, but will 
 content ourselves with saying that the pieces are placed by 
 each player alternately on the board, and the object is to 
 surround the opponent's men and their crossings, ' or 
 neutralise their power over those near them.' 
 
 US
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 There is also 'a three-handed game played upon a 
 three-legged board. . . . The " chess of the Three 
 Kingdoms." ' 
 
 Books recommended. Journal N. C. Br. R.A.S., New Series, No. 3., 
 Art. 8, which contains a description of Chinese chess and two printed games. 
 The same Journal, New Series, No. 6., Art. 6, compares the Chinese game 
 with that played by Western nations. Professor Giles's ' Historic China and 
 other Sketches,' Article on ' Wei Ch'i,' or the Chinese ' Game of War.' 
 
 CHILDREN. China is alive with children. If France 
 is at one extreme as regards the proportion of children to 
 adults, China is at the other, and the whole Chinese nation 
 will quite agree with the sacred Hebrew Psalmist when he 
 sang' Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them,' 
 though they would qualify the statement by changing the 
 word ' children ' into ' boys.' Yes, the whole land is swarm- 
 ing with them, and not the land alone, but the water also. 
 The small boats in Canton, that partly take the place of 
 cabs and carriages in the West, will not only have 
 representatives of a past generation (typified by an ancient 
 grandam almost too antiquated to wield an oar), of the 
 present generation in the buxom mother, but also of the 
 future generation, which lasjt is represented by half a dozen 
 boys and girls of all ages and sizes, from the little pickaninny 
 (who is carried pick-a-back by a sister not much bigger 
 than himself) to the eldest sister, who, being fifteen, is 
 engaged, and at the transition stage between girlhood 
 and womanhood. A walk on shore will bring one, 
 at every village and hamlet, into a swarm of youngsters, 
 almost as numerous as the swarms of gnats and mosquitoes 
 over one's head. The wonder is where they come from, 
 and where and how they live. Clothing does not cost 
 much ; for a number of old rags for swaddling bands is 
 all that is provided for the new arrival at first, and then 
 in the country-side, in summer at all events, a single jacket 
 is enough, or in many cases the nut-brown skin of the little 
 ones is considered sufficient. Clothing is added with 
 additional years, being delayed longer in the case of 
 boys than in that of girls. 
 
 Childhood does not appear so charming to our Western 
 
 136
 
 Children 
 
 eyes when surrounded by all the squalor and dirt incident 
 to Chinese village and city life ; but, amidst all their filth 
 and wretchedness, children will still be children the wide 
 world over, and they have, even amongst the seemingly 
 stolid Chinese, the faculty of calling forth the better feelings 
 so often found latent. Their prattle delights the fond 
 father, whose pride beams through every line of his 
 countenance, and their quaint and winning ways, and 
 touches of nature, are visible even under the disadvantages 
 of almond eyes and shaven crowns. 
 
 The relative position of the two sexes, at their start in 
 life, is clearly shown by the following well-known quotation 
 from the Classics : 
 
 ' Sons shall be his, on couches lulled to rest. 
 
 The little ones, enrobed, with sceptres play ; 
 Their infant cries are loud as stern behest ; 
 
 Their knees the vermeil covers shall display. 
 As king hereafter one shall be addressed ; 
 
 The rest, as princes, in our states shall sway. 
 
 ' And daughters also to him shall be born. 
 
 They shall be placed upon the ground to sleep ; 
 Their playthings, tiles ; their dress, the simplest worn ; 
 
 Their part alike from good and ill to keep. 
 And ne'er their parents' hearts to cause to mourn ; 
 
 To cook the food, and spirit-malt to steep. 1 
 
 For a month a Chinese baby is nameless ; then, emerging 
 from the state of being a mere unit in babydom, it has a 
 feast given in its honour ; a tentative name is bestowed 
 on it, or rather, in the expressive phraseology of the 
 Chinese, it has its name ' altered ' from that of ' Baby,' 
 or ' Love,' to something more distinctive ; and its head 
 is shaved, a most wise provision in a country where 
 parasites are accepted as an infliction of Providence to 
 teach patience. Severity is held up as a proper treatment 
 for children ; natural affection, however, often carries the 
 day, so that there is, as the outcome, a constant conflict 
 between the two principles, such as the Persians represent 
 as existent between the principles of good and evil ; neither, 
 in the case under question, being, however, an unmitigated 
 good or an unqualified evil. If the child cries, as a rule 
 
 137
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 everything it wants is given to it. At other times, the 
 parents give way to violent fits of temper in their efforts 
 to bring the child to obedience, when it is beaten with great 
 cruelty, on the head, or anywhere, with sticks of firewood, 
 or anything that comes handy, and, like a typhoon, these 
 violent outbursts upset everything. 
 
 Notwithstanding all these trials, as well as the theory 
 that play is a waste of time, the Chinese child has a fair 
 amount of enjoyment, which it fully appreciates, and makes 
 good use of. Marriages galore, and funerals, conducted on 
 the most approved Salvationist principles, with bands of 
 music ; processions and feasts ; toys, primitive in construction 
 and cheap in material to be sure and what child does not 
 know how to enjoy toys are all specially provided for his 
 delectation, and how he enters into the spirit of everything 
 with true zest needs only to be seen to be understood. 
 
 New Year's time is the most glorious of all for little 
 John Chinaman. In all his fine toggery he trudges along 
 at his father's side to pay his New Year's calls, his little 
 brain busy at work calculating how many cash he will 
 get in presents from his father's acquaintances, while the 
 old gentleman himself is thinking of the good bargains 
 that this year will bring. ' Kung-hei', fat ts'oi',' here they 
 are, the little man bowing and scraping and shaking his 
 chubby little fingers in exact imitation of his elders. A 
 veritable chip of the old block, he takes his pleasures 
 gravely, but, the visits over, he evidently enjoys the fun 
 to the full, as with lighted joss-stick, as assiduously as 
 a chiffonnier, he carefully turns over the mass of smoking 
 paper fragments, the remnants of the long string of 
 crackers his big brother has just let off, to be rewarded 
 by half a dozen which have missed fire. 
 
 But before many years the boy's free childhood is over 
 and his education is commenced ; his name is again 
 ' altered ' to a new one, though at the same time he 
 keeps his childhood's name, or ' milk name,' as it is 
 expressed sometimes, through life. (See Article on 
 Birthdays.) 
 
 138
 
 China 
 
 CHINA. The origin of the name by which this 
 country is known to the nations of the West is not 
 certain. If we are to take the evidence of some ancient 
 Indian books, such as the laws of Manu, the name China 
 was in use in the twelfth century B.C. It has also been 
 supposed to be derived from the family of Tsin, but this 
 would give a later origin to it. The chief of this family 
 obtained eventually, after having made history for some 
 centuries, sway over the whole of China, and even long 
 anterior to that period, the kingdom subject to this sept, 
 being situated at the north-west portals of China, might 
 have had its name given by strangers to the rest of the 
 land. 
 
 Cathay is a designation of a much later date, being 
 derived from the Ki-tah, or Khitan (hence Khitai, Khata, 
 or Cathay), who ruled the North of China in the tenth 
 century. This name was used for nearly a thousand years 
 by the inhabitants of Central Asia, and from them it 
 spread to other nations. The Russians still call China, 
 Khitai. It is interesting and curious to notice the pairs 
 of names which have been applied to China, those that 
 used them being often ignorant that they were one and 
 the same country : one being ' the name of the great 
 nation in the Far East as known by land/ and learned 
 from overland travellers, the other its name as known 
 by sea, and learned from navigators. We cannot do more 
 here than just name them in couples, Seres, Sinae ; 
 Khitai, Machin ; Cathay, China. None of these names 
 are used by the natives themselves. The ' Celestial 
 Empire ' has some Chinese excuse for its origin ; 'Pin- 
 Chow, which Williams translates as ' Heavenly Dynasty,' 
 being used to a slight extent in the sense of the ' Kingdom 
 which the dynasty appointed by Heaven rules over,' but 
 not being a term of general application among the common 
 people. The latter use several names : Cluing Kivok, ' The 
 Middle Kingdom' and it is possible to obtain native 
 maps of the world with China not only in the middle, 
 but monopolising nearly the whole of the map, while 
 
 139
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 England and other countries are represented as small 
 islands or single cities lying round its borders. Chung 
 Kvvok ' can be traced back to more than a thousand 
 years before Christ. In those far-off days it was used 
 to denote the province of Honan, which is almost the 
 centre of China. As the reigning family became more 
 and more powerful, they gave the name to the whole 
 country.' Another common name is T l ong Shdn, ' The 
 Hills (or Country) of T'ong ' ; the T'ong (T'ang) dynasty, 
 being one of the most celebrated in ancient history, the 
 name in all probability took its rise then. From the 
 same source the usual name in vogue, in the South of 
 China, for the people, is T'ong yan, ' the men of T'ong,' 
 while in the North it is Han jm, ' the men of Hdn,' Hdn 
 again being the name of another ancient dynasty. 
 
 The following names also appear for the people and 
 country in literature, viz., Lai Man, or ' the Black-haired 
 Race' ; Chung WdKwok, 'The Middle Flowery Kingdom,' 
 in contradistinction to Ngoi Tei, ' the Outlying Lands.' 
 
 An old name for China is Wd ffa, ' The Glorious Ha ' ; 
 Ha again being an ancient dynasty, while the most modern 
 name is Tai Ts l ing Kwok, ' The Great Pure Kingdom,' so 
 named after the present, or Ts'ing dynasty. 
 
 It appears a coincidence to find a name which means 
 ' The East ' applied by the Chinese to their own land. 
 
 Different religions have also bestowed their appellations 
 on this much-named country ; the Buddhists have called it 
 by the Hindoo name of Chin Tan, or ' Dawn,' and Chin Nd; 
 and the Mohammedans, J^ung T'0, or ' Land of the East.' 
 The former, Edkins says, ' may be the China of Ptolemy.' 
 The general concensus of opinion now is that the ' Land of 
 Sinim,' mentioned in the Book of Isaiah, is China. In 
 modern Latin, that used by learned men in modern times, 
 Lingua sinica is the Chinese language ; and the term sino- 
 logue is one applied to scholars of the Chinese language. 
 Again the Seres of the Greeks and Romans are also con- 
 sidered to be the Chinese. 
 
 Books recommended. Edkins'a ' Buddhism.' Williams's 'Middle King- 
 
 I4O
 
 Chinese Abroad 
 
 dom.' Gillespie's ' Land of Siuim.' See also Yule's ' Travels of Marco Polo,' 
 vol. i., introduction, p. 11. For the arguments in support of the Seres 
 being the Chinese, see Anthon's 'Classical Dictionary,' Article 'Seres,' where 
 numerous authorities are quoted. Roman authorities are also given in 
 Andrew's 'Latin-English Dictionary,' as well as in Cordier's ' BiMiotheca 
 Sinica.' 
 
 CHINESE ABROAD. How well adapted John 
 Chinaman is for going abroad, the following quotation 
 from Sir Walter Medhurst's pen will show : 
 
 'The phases of character in which the Chinese possess the most 
 interest to us Western peoples, are those which so peculiarly fit them 
 for competing in the great labour market of the world. They are 
 good agriculturalists, mechanics, labourers, and sailors, and they 
 possess all the intelligence, delicacy of touch, and unwearying patience 
 which are necessary to render them first-rate machinists and manu- 
 facturers. They are, moreover, docile, sober, thrifty, industrious, 
 self-denying, enduring, and peace-loving to a degree. They are equal 
 to any climate, be it hot or frigid : all that is needed is teaching and 
 guiding, combined with capital and enterprise, to convert them into 
 the most efficient workmen to be found on the face of the earth. . . . 
 Wherever the tide of Chinese emigration has set in, there they have 
 proved themselves veritable working bees, and made good their footing, 
 to the exclusion of less quiet, less exacting, less active, or less intelli- 
 gent artisans and labourers.' 
 
 It is not only in recent years that the Chinese have 
 gone abroad : they go now as emigrants, but records show 
 that they were as enterprising and daring in their expedi- 
 tions in former periods as any Western nations were at 
 such times. The use of the mariner's compass enabled 
 the Chinese to put to sea with a confidence they would 
 otherwise not have possessed ; for it came in as a dernier 
 ressort when fogs obscured the headlands by day, or mists 
 clouded the stars at night. The compass was first used by 
 the geomancers (see Article on Fung Shui), who even 
 observed its variation. A simpler kind was employed at 
 sea, as all the surrounding concentric circles, with the 
 names of the zodiacal signs, etc., etc., etc., were unnecessary 
 there ; and this compass, so primitive in its construction 
 and it is interesting to notice that it was originally a floating 
 compass has been used by the Chinese ' for about eight 
 hundred years.' They took voyages to Japan and Corea 
 one to the latter country being undertaken three hundred 
 and seventy years before Christopher Columbus launched 
 
 141
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 his frail barques in search of the new world across the 
 Atlantic. 
 
 They not only went in their own vessels, but during the 
 Tang dynasty, in the ninth century, the Chinese merchants 
 at Canton ' were in the habit of chartering foreign 
 probably Arab vessels with foreign sailing masters to 
 trade between Canton and Colombo. . . . They took 
 carrier pigeons with them, and sent back word by them 
 to their charterers.' 
 
 The Mongols, ruling at one time in both China and 
 Persia, carried on intercourse between these two countries 
 by sea thus semi-circumnavigating Asia in large fleets, 
 carrying ambassadors and merchandise. Aided by the 
 compass, and taking advantage of the north-east monsoon, 
 they started on their long and hazardous voyage, returning 
 with the favouring gales of the south-east monsoon. 
 Traffic was even kept up to recent years, within the memory 
 of the writer, with the numerous islands to the south-east 
 of Asia in the neighbourhood of the Straits Settlements, 
 Borneo and Celebes, and the same navigation was carried 
 on between the North and South of China till the steamer 
 traffic drove the slow and unwieldy junk from the trade. 
 In olden days, however, not only Java, but India, Ceylon, 
 the Gulf of Persia, and Arabia were all visited by the 
 enterprising and commercial Chinese. ' All this was done 
 before the days of Vasco de Gama, and the credit of the 
 first use of the mariner's compass must be awarded to the 
 Chinese. The Arabs borrowed it from them, and it then 
 passed to the Red Sea and the Mediterranean.' 
 
 Marco Polo informs us that the Emperor of China sent 
 ships to the southern part of Africa. 
 
 The strong opposition to the Chinese in America has 
 drawn special attention to them in that quarter of the 
 globe, but, notwithstanding so much talk about them, the 
 numbers that have gone over are not so large as one would 
 naturally have expected (Chinese workmen first went to 
 America in 1855, when 3,526 coolies went under contract), 
 for in the United States, in 1880, there were only 105,642, 
 
 142
 
 Chinese Abroad 
 
 and in 1890, 107475. In 1894, 105,312 registered them- 
 selves, out of what was stated to be, in round numbers, 
 110,000. About 8,000 registered in the Pacific States, 
 6,247 m N CW York, and 1,784 in Pennsylvania. New York 
 had 1,000 Chinese laundries in 1895. There is a regular 
 Chinese town within the city of San Francisco with a 
 population of 30,000, two theatres, sixteen opium dens, 
 and one hundred and ten gambling dens. The Chinese 
 are found as far north as Alaska. The greater number of 
 them seem to be in the Western States. In 1890,96,844, 
 or 90' 1 1 per cent, were in the Western portion of the 
 country. The rate of increase since 1870 has been as 
 follows: 1860 to 1870, 80-91 per cent.; 1870 to 1880, 
 66'88 per cent, 1880 to 1890, rpi per cent., or an increase 
 of 2,01% There were said to be less than 100,000 or 
 120,000 in the States in 1900. Emigration has almost 
 practically stopped, as only certain classes are allowed to 
 enter, such as bond fide merchants (partners), including 
 shop-keepers, travellers for curiosity, and genuine students, 
 not simply those who wish to acquire a knowledge of 
 English for business purposes, and members of the 
 diplomatic and consular bodies. The wives and families of 
 those resident in the States are allowed to join their 
 husbands and fathers. In 1901, the Chinese had decreased 
 by 17,675, the number being 89,800. 
 
 'There were 4,383 Chinese in Canada, in 1881,' and 1 1,000 in 1900. 
 ' This, however, does not include the large number scattered about in the 
 outlying parts of British Columbia, and in the Yukon mining region, for 
 the Chinese are great placer miners.' ' Despite the poll-tax of 850 Gold 
 per head, which is exacted from every Chinaman entering Canada, . . . 
 14,000 Chinese immigrants have arrived in Canada since the tax was 
 instituted in 1886, yielding nearly 8700,000 to the federal treasury. 
 As domestics, market-gardeners, and laundrymen, they fill so important 
 a place in the life of British Columbia that repeated agitation for 
 increased restrictions upon their entry has as yet failed to produce any 
 effect at Ottawa. ... A monster petition' was [in July 1896] 'got up, 
 asking the Dominion Government to increase the poll-tax to 8500' 
 and was ' widely signed in the province, reciting that Chinese labour is 
 driving out white labour in the mining, salmon fishery, and other 
 industries.' 
 
 The numbers that entered the Dominion have fluctuated 
 
 H3
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 in different years : for the fiscal year ending 3Oth June 
 1891, it was 2,1 14 ; while the next year it was 3,276. They 
 are pretty numerous in British Columbia and Vancouver. 
 Some thirteen years ago there were some 5,000 Chinese in 
 the city of Victoria alone. ' It was with their aid that the 
 Western section of the great Canadian Pacific Railway was 
 constructed, and they have been the pioneers of, or aids to, 
 many valuable industries and enterprises being opened up.' 
 The construction of the railroad across the United States 
 was also largely due to their help, ' Chinese workmen form- 
 ing the bulk of the labourers on the Union Pacific.' 
 
 In Trinidad there were, about twenty years ago, 4,000 
 or 5,000 Chinese, but they have decreased to probably 
 about 2,000 or 3,000, [2,200 in 1900]. They used to work 
 in sugar plantations, but are now principally shopkeepers, 
 as well as general merchants, miners and railway builders, 
 etc. There were three Chinese males in Grenada in 1891, 
 out of a population of 53,209. In the Leeward Islands, by 
 the census of 1891, there were 83 males and 39 females, 
 natives of China, making a total of 122. In Antigua the 
 numbers were 66 and 3, making a total of 69. In Jamaica, 
 in 1891, they had increased to males 373, females 108, total 
 481, of whom 347 were born in China ; thus rising from -02 
 of the total population in 1881, to -08 in 1891. 
 
 In British Guiana, by the census of 1881, there were 
 4,393 Chinese, while their estimated number in 1887 was 
 males 2,115, females 1,061, total 3,176; and in 1888, 
 3,074. In 1893, there seem to have been about the same 
 number, viz., 3,000, for in the same year the Legislature of 
 British Guiana offered a bounty of $25 a head for 5,000 
 Chinamen from the United States. They were wanted to 
 work under contract on sugar plantations and in gold mines. 
 It was stated in 1900 that there were 2,900, and that they 
 were decreasing in numbers. 
 
 In Surinam, or Dutch Guiana, with a population of 
 57,000 inhabitants, there is a sprinkling of Chinese. 
 
 In Chile, in 1885, the Chinese numbered 1,164, now 
 there are 7,000. 
 
 144
 
 Chinese Abroad 
 
 In Peru there are 50,000 Asiatics who are chiefly 
 Chinese, viz., 47,000, out of a population of 2, 00,000. 
 They are said to be pouring into Brazil and Mexico in 
 large numbers. 
 
 In Mexico, in 1893, there were said to be about 3,000 
 Chinese, of which number 600 were employed in the mines 
 in the State of Sinaloa. 
 
 In Cuba and Porto Rico, in 1877, there were 43,811 
 Chinese. They have increased till now there are 90,000 
 in these countries. 
 
 In Hawaii, in 1884, there were 17,939 Chinese; in 
 
 1890, 15,000; in 1896, 21,616 out of a total population of 
 109,020, 'the native Hawaiians numbering only 31,019.' 
 In 1899 the Chinese were estimated 'at 27,000; 6,000 of 
 whom were employed on sugar plantations. Many useless 
 swamps' in these islands have been reclaimed by the 
 Chinese and used for the cultivation of rice. ' Until 1886, 
 Chinese labourers were largely employed in the sugar 
 plantations of Hawaii : ' after that, Japanese took the places 
 they had filled. As sugar fell in price, the Chinese, 
 being cheaper labourers, were taken on again, and hundreds 
 of them arrived in the Islands for that purpose, until, in 
 1893, there were 40,000 settled in the Sandwich Islands. 
 Many Chinese hold very good positions, including several 
 Chinese lawyers. The American Exclusion Act against the 
 Chinese now applies to Hawaii. 
 
 In Mauritius and its dependencies, by the census of 
 
 1891, there was a total of 3,151 Chinese, of whom 9 were 
 females, being a decrease in numbers, as the previous census 
 showed a Chinese population of 3,558. 
 
 In 1890 they were increasing largely in numbers in 
 Kimberley, having established themselves in 75 shops, 
 many of them being employed as masons, carpenters, and 
 painters. 
 
 In India and Ceylon there are some Chinese to be 
 found, and there is said to be unmistakable evidence of 
 their presence in the Mysore in ancient times. Quite re- 
 cently, even further evidence of their work, it is considered, 
 
 145 K
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 has been discovered, for while sinking a main shaft in the 
 Harnhalli gold mine, a number of mining implements of 
 various kinds were found which had been used by the old 
 miners in their work a thousand years or more ago, and it 
 is supposed that the workings were made by Chinese. 
 The tools are said to be like Chinese ones, and unlike 
 Hindoo ones. 
 
 In Burmah they are numerous. The whole trade of 
 Burrnah is in Chinese hands. Sir L. Griffin considers that 
 the future of Burmah belongs to the Chinese. A great 
 proportion of the trade of Rangoon is in their hands. 
 'They are numerous in all the commercial towns up 
 country, such as Mandalay, etc., and have increased very 
 rapidly none of the indigenous races, such as the 
 Burmese, Taliens, or Karens, have multiplied so greatly. 
 They are wanted in such places where the population is 
 small. They possess the very qualities which the Burmese 
 lack, and are respectable citizens. . . . They are the best 
 of all immigrants in the East.' For centuries past the 
 Western Chinese have had commercial intercourse with 
 Burmah, and a few hundreds were ' settled as merchants in 
 Bhamo, Mandalay, Fangyan, and other places/ but the 
 British annexation of the country has increased their 
 number : so that there are now probably 5,000 Yun-nan 
 and Sz-chuan men living in Burmah, who are in the habit 
 of taking Burmese wives, the sons of these unions going to 
 school in Yun-nan to learn Chinese, and learning Burmese 
 in the land of their birth. From South-Eastern China the 
 immigration has lasted many years, but in small numbers 
 until recently, when British rule afforded greater security. 
 There are now probably some 35,000 Chinese from the 
 Eastern Coast in Burmah, which, with the 5,000 already 
 mentioned as from the West of China, would make 
 not far short of 40,000 Chinese in Burmah, there being 
 io,coo in Mandalay, while there are probably 21,000 in 
 Rangoon, though we have seen it stated that there are 
 40,000 in the latter city alone. 
 
 There were about 1,000 Chinese settled in Haiphong 
 
 146
 
 Chinese Abroad 
 
 about ten years ago, ' where they have monopolised every 
 pursuit requiring skill, perseverance, and commercial 
 acumen.' In Haiphong, in 1890, out of a population of 
 1 5,000, 5,600 were Chinese. 
 
 In the City of Hu6, in the capital of the Kingdom of 
 Annam, 800 are Chinese, the total population being 
 estimated at 100,000 ; and in Tourane, Haiphong, and 
 other ports in Tonkin, the trade is chiefly in the hands of 
 the Chinese. 
 
 The population of Cochin-China, in 1889, was 1,864,214, 
 of which 56,528 were Chinese. In Saigon, out of a 
 population of 16,213, there were 7,346 Chinese. Now by 
 the last census there are 73,857 Chinese, out of a population 
 of 2,252,034. 
 
 In the town of Cholon, four miles from Saigon, there 
 were, in 1889, 14,944 Chinese, out of a population of 
 
 37,441- 
 
 ' The people [of Cambodia] are apathetic and indolent, 
 and have allowed the trade to fall into the hands of the 
 Chinese.' 
 
 There are nearly one million and a half of Chinese 
 subjects resident in Siam (the latest estimate being 
 1,350,000 ; another figure is 1,400,000). They ' have almost 
 monopolised the local trade,' and the general revenue is 
 farmed out to them. At least 200,000 Chinese from the 
 Island of Hainan alone are believed to be in Siam. The 
 whole population of Siam is estimated at from six to ten 
 millions. Bangkok is 'occupied by a mixed Siamese and 
 Chinese population, estimated at from 400,000 to 500,000 
 [a later estimate puts it at 350,000]. As in so many other 
 parts of Further India, the Chinese have here almost 
 monopolised the local trade.' 
 
 'We point with just pride to the great Chinese trading communities 
 of Hongkong and Singapore, which have grown up under our fostering 
 care. The annual immigration from South China amounts to over 
 200,000 per annum, while about three-fourths of that number annually 
 return to their native land. In and around the Straits Settlements we are 
 supposed to have at least 600,000 Chinese, not counting those in Borneo, 
 the Dutch colonies, or the Philippines. If all territory under direct 
 British rule be included, they slightly outnumber the children of the soil.' 
 
 H7
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 For scores of years they have been pouring into 
 Malaysia, and all surrounding islands. An early inter- 
 course between China and these islands is known to have 
 existed. One work ascribes the beginning of this to the 
 fifth century of the Christian era, and this intercourse was 
 afterwards renewed in the tenth century. When the 
 Portuguese first arrived in this part of the world in the 
 sixteenth century, they found Chinese junks lying at 
 Malacca, and what was evidently a prosperous trade being 
 carried on by the Chinese. From all that can be gathered, 
 they seemed in these early days to have been simply birds of 
 passage. At all events, there is no evidence to show that 
 they settled down amongst their new surroundings and 
 became inhabitants of the land. As to the present 
 day : 
 
 ' The annual influx of Chinese emigrants into the Peninsula cannot 
 be ascertained ; but some notion of its amount may be formed from 
 the number which lands in Singapore. This, on an average of years, is 
 about 100,000 (in 1894 it was over 137,000), of whom about one-fourth 
 settle in the island, the majority being sent on to Penang or dispersed 
 among the neighbouring States. The number that return yearly to 
 China from the same port is about 70,000, most of them resorting to it 
 from neighbouring countries for the convenience of a passage. 
 
 ' The emigrants from China are all from the four maritime provinces 
 of the empire Kvvongtung, Fokien, Chekiang and Kiangnan. Four- 
 fifths of the whole number come from Amoy and Swatow, and about 
 a tenth part from Canton ; the emigrants from the two more northerly 
 provinces forming but a very small fraction. Nearly all the emigrants 
 consist of the labouring classes fishermen, artisans, and common 
 day-labourers. They usually arrive at their places of destination in 
 great poverty, and are obliged to mortgage their labour to their 
 resident countrymen in consideration of their passage-money. 
 
 ' From the nature of the emigration, the proportion of males to 
 females is always great. . . . The result, of course, is that the increase 
 of the Chinese population by natural means is very slow.' 
 
 This paucity of women is one of the peculiar features of 
 Chinese emigration. Naturally children are also absent, 
 for, if those going to try their fortunes abroad have wives 
 and children, they are left at home, where they are con- 
 sidered to be more the adjuncts of the ancestral abode 
 than the peculiar property of the individual himself, to say 
 nothing of being companions of the father and husband. 
 No doubt the abject poverty of most of the emigrants is 
 
 148
 
 Chinese Abroad 
 
 also one cause for all home ties being sundered ; for none 
 of the middle or upper classes are to be found amongst 
 them. 
 
 The total population of the Straits Settlements, in 1891, 
 was 512,905. The increase of the Chinese, from 1881 to 
 1891, was 53,662 or 307 per cent., while the Malays and 
 other natives only increased 9-5 per cent. There are 4,450 
 Chinese in every 10,000 of the population. They are Hok- 
 kiens (natives of the Fuk-kien province), Teo Chews 
 (natives of the neighbourhood of Swatow), Cantonese, 
 Hakkas (see Article on Hakkas), or Khehs (as the Hakkas 
 are called in the Amoy or Swatow speech), Hylams (natives 
 of the Island of Hainan), and Straits-born Chinese. The 
 census of 1891 gives the population of Singapore Island as 
 184,544, the Chinese being 121,908 and the Malays 35,992 
 Penang had 87,920 Chinese, and Malacca 18,161. Penang 
 has now over 90,000, and Malacca 29,000. 
 
 The increase by the census of 1901 amounts to 53,944 or 
 237 per cent, and in every 10,000 of the population there 
 were 4,927 Chinese. The Cantonese have increased in the 
 ten years 20^4 per cent. ; the Hokkiens 25*5 ; the Teo Chiu 
 i, and the Straits-born Chinese 267 per cent. The latter 
 have increased in greater proportion than any of the others, 
 they numbering 44,022 in 1901 as against 34,757111 1891. 
 During the ten years under review, the disproportion 
 between the sexes has been reduced: in 1891 it was in 
 every 1,000 persons over 15 years of age, male 857, females 
 143 ; in 1901 it was 831 and 169 respectively. 
 
 ' The population of the State [of Johore] is remarkable for contain- 
 ing a larger number of Chinese than of Malays. The exact figures 
 have not been ascertained, but probably come to 200,000, viz. : Malays, 
 35,000, Chinese, 150,000 [that is three-quarters of the population], and 
 Javanese, 15,000. More than half are to be found within 15 miles of 
 the Singapore Straits. The Chinese are chiefly found as cultivators of 
 gambier and pepper, spread over about this range of country in the 
 extreme southern end of the Peninsula, nearest to Singapore, of which 
 Johore has been described as the " back country." These cultivators 
 go from Singapore, the capitalists for whom they cultivate are 
 Singapore traders, and all their produce and most of their earnings 
 find their way back to Singapore again.' 
 
 Hundreds go by almost every steamer from China 
 
 149
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 to the Straits and adjacent countries. More than 
 100,000 landed in Singapore in a single year ; and, not 
 including those in Borneo, the Dutch Colonies and the 
 Philippines, there are a million Chinese in the Straits 
 Settlements and their immediate nighbourhood. 
 
 In Negri Sembilan, a group of nine small States, the 
 entire population in 1891 was 41,617, of whom about 5,511 
 were Chinese, and amongst them 37 females. It is now 
 stated that over one-third of the population is Chinese. Of 
 them Dr. Dennys says, ' The number of Chinese engaged 
 in tapioca estates and in mines have greatly increased, and, 
 for years to come, there must be a perceptible monthly 
 increase.' 
 
 In Sungei Ujong, with a total population in 1891 of 
 23,000, 18,000 were Chinese. In Jelebu also, the Chinese 
 form a large proportion of the population. 
 
 In 1891, the census gave the population of Selangor as 
 81,592, of whom 50,884 were Chinese. They, both as 
 traders and miners, form the most important element of the 
 population, and are emigrants from the south of China, 
 being chiefly composed of Hakkas (Khehs) and Cantonese. 
 
 ' At Larut, and at the chief mining settlements in the 
 interior ' of the State of Perak, ' the Chinese form a large 
 part of the population.' In Perak, in 1 89 1 , there were 94,345 
 Chinese, or 44 per cent, of the whole population. The 
 Perak census of 1901 shows a total population of 329,665, 
 of which there were 150,239 Chinese. In every 10,000 
 of the population the Chinese numbered 4,557. 'The 
 Chinese have increased enormously in the Federated 
 Malay States of late, but there is still a vast disparity 
 between the sexes ; so great in fact that, in the total 
 figures for the States, there are 491,313 males, of all races, 
 to only 185,825 females.' In Perak they have increased 
 363 per cent, since 1879, and are nearly equal to the 
 Malay population, which, in 1891, was 96,719. The total 
 population of the State was 214,254. In Pahang there 
 were, in 1891, 3,241 Chinese, out of a total population 
 Of 57462. 
 
 150
 
 Chinese Abroad 
 
 Notwithstanding all this, the demand for Chinese (and 
 Indian) labour in the Federated Malay States has grown 
 so great that wages have risen sometimes to double or 
 treble the rate paid a few years ago, and important works, 
 such as roads, railways, and irrigation, have been seriously 
 delayed, and so earnestly is John Chinaman wanted in that 
 part of the world that the government of those States has 
 actually arranged for direct steam communication with 
 several Chinese ports and provinces ' a subsidy of $5 a head 
 for every Chinese labourer imported by this means, up to a 
 certain number and for a term of years.' 
 
 ' Chinese furnish nearly all the miners, as well as the operators [in 
 the Malay Peninsula]. They have succeeded, employing primitive 
 methods, where Europeans have failed, and mining promises to remain 
 in their hands. That accounts for the great increase in the Chinese 
 population, from 163,000 in 1891 to 303,000 in 1901. In Perak and 
 Selangor, the great tin-producing States, the Chinese outnumber the 
 Malays by 78,000. Malay population has advanced, however, from 
 230,000 in 1891 to 313,000 in 1901.' 
 
 ' The Chinese, who have been settled in most Bornean 
 towns for generations, conduct all the trading operations,' 
 the natives being ' indolent and wanting in enterprise.' 
 Sandakan, the capital of British North Borneo, had a 
 population of 7,132 in 1891, of whom 3,627 were Chinese. 
 There are now stated to be 20,000. There is room for 
 5,000,000, and they would be received gladly. In Labuan 
 they number over 1,000, 'are the chief traders, and most of 
 the industries of the Island are in their hands,' the total 
 population being under 6,000. The Chinese seem destined 
 to be the future inhabitants of this part of the world ; the 
 demand for them is increasing. They land as coolies, but 
 their industry and superior qualities to those of the natives 
 raise them speedily to the position of planters, shopkeepers, 
 and merchants. These Chinese are mostly Hakkas, 
 Cantonese, Hainanese, Swatow, and Amoy men. 
 
 ' The Dutch East Indies possess a quarter of a million 
 Chinese inhabitants.' 
 
 'The population of Java, in the year 1890 . . . amounted to over 
 24,000,000, of whom the Chinese mustered only 242,000. In the islands 
 lying beyond Java, the Chinese are less numerous, numbering about
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 210,000, and of these 80,000 are settled in Deli and on the East coast 
 of Sumatra. There are 24,000 in Rhio, mostly employed in cultivating 
 the pepper and gambier gardens of the Sultan and other native chiefs. 
 In Hanca and Billiton there are 35,000 engaged in tin-mining. In the 
 western division of Borneo, there are 32,000, who earn a living by 
 mining, cultivation, and trade. In all these islands the Chinese are 
 found to be not a dangerous but a highly useful element in the 
 population. Without Chinese labour, tobacco growing in Deli and 
 tin-mining in Banca and Billiton would certainly not have reached the 
 development they have now attained. As to the western division of 
 Borneo, where the Chinese were formerly so turbulent and rebellious, 
 their pride has been so thoroughly taken down by military force that 
 during the last forty years the Government has effectually kept them 
 in check. In the outlying islands, the natives are of a harder stamp 
 than the Javanese, and do not allow themselves to be turned to undue 
 profitable account by the Chinese. In Java, this is otherwise, and the 
 Chinese, through their control of the revenue farming system, have a 
 wide field for extortion and "squeezing" among the people. Danger 
 from the Chinese in Java arises not from their number, but from the 
 power thus put into their hands.' 
 
 In the Anamba Islands there were, in 1892, it is said, 
 about 1,500 Malays and 600 Chinese. 
 
 It is estimated that there are 100,000 Chinese in the 
 Philippine Islands (all the inland trade being carried on 
 by Chinese pedlars), ' of which upwards of 40,000 dwell 
 in the capital and its environs.' During the year 1892, 
 5,273 Chinese arrived in Manila in excess of those 
 who left during that year. The number, in 1890, was 
 8,867 arrivals in excess of departures. There were 
 51,567 Chinese in Manila in 1901, of whom 349 are 
 women, and it is estimated that at least one-third of 
 the 180,000 inhabitants of Manila are of Chinese descent. 
 The American Exclusion Act now applies to the 
 Philippines. 
 
 The total number of Chinese in Japan, in 1888, was 
 4,805. In 1890, Yokohama had a Chinese population of 
 2,625, out of a foreign population of 4,218, and Nagasaki 
 684, out of a total of 1,004 foreign residents. In 1889, 
 Hakodate had 33 Chinese residents, out of a total of 69 
 foreigners. Osaka had 135 Chinese, and Kobe 767. 
 There are now 7,000 Chinese in Japan. In Kobe 1,767 in 
 1901 ; another account gives 1,288 males and 367 females, 
 and in Tokyo, 181. The war with Japan took such of the 
 
 152
 
 Chinese Abroad 
 
 Chinese population of the Island of Formosa as remained 
 there under the Japanese flag. 
 
 In Corea there were, a few years ago, only 100 ; but 
 immigration has been extensive enough to add very 
 materially to their number, so that there were, in 1890, 
 1,057 Chinese, in 1894, 1,234, an< ^ in 1899, 3,134. 
 
 In Siberia, in 1882, a dozen; they are now 'swarming 
 along the auriferous banks of the Upper Yenisei River,' and 
 number there 3,500. From the ist of January 1893 tJ "H 
 the 23rd of April of the same year, when any further 
 arrivals were stopped, 10,260 Chinese coolies entered 
 Vladivostock with passports from Chefoo. The Chinese 
 in Vladivostock numbered 30,000, in 1895, and carry on 
 various businesses in a small way. 
 
 The total population of Australia is about 4,000,000, 
 out of which there are some 40,000 of Chinese race about 
 one Chinaman in every hundred of the population. The 
 last estimate reduces the number to between 25,000 or 
 30,000. 
 
 ' If it had not been for Chinese industry and Chinese labour and 
 enterprise, many parts of Australia would have remained worthless to 
 the present time, and, after all, the Chinese competes with the European 
 in Australia in comparatively few trades. By the Chinese in Australia 
 the heavy poll-tax is felt to be too restrictive, more especially to 
 Chinese having places of business in two or more of the Australian 
 Colonies [for they are restricted in going from one colony to another], 
 while it is contended that serious hurt is done to the shipping interests 
 on account of the veto practically established against Chinese immigra- 
 tion from Hongkong and adjacent ports. Mr. Way Lee maintains that 
 the plea set up by our Australian cousins that the Chinese work too 
 cheaply is altogether fallacious. No Chinaman, he says, will work 
 for less than \ per week in Australia ; whereas, on the other hand, 
 Japanese labour can be obtained for 30 shillings per month, and 
 Kanaka labour for the astonishing low figure of /6 a year per man. 
 Added to this, each Chinese landing in New South Wales has to pay 
 a poll-tax of ^100; in Queensland ^30 ; in Victoria, South Australia, 
 Tasmania, Western Australia, or New Zealand 10-, and in some of 
 these Colonies they are not allowed to work in the mines.' 
 
 In Western Australia further legislation, we under- 
 stand, has been taken against the Chinese, who numbered 
 in that Colony, in 1893, 1,378. 
 
 In Queensland, in 1890, there were 7,242, of whom 92 
 
 153
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 were females ; the proportion of Chinese to the total 
 estimated population has steadily decreased in numbers for 
 more than five years, for, in 1884, the proportion was 4/1 6 
 per cent. ; in 1885, 375 per cent; in 1886, 2-87 per cent. ; 
 in 1887, 2-50 per cent; in 1888, 2-13 per cent.; in 1889, 
 1*89 per cent; and in 1890, 171 per cent The death-rate 
 of Chinese in Queensland is lower than that of the 
 European races. Two Chinese women were married in 
 1890 in Queensland, and, considering the animus felt 
 against the Chinese there, it is not surprising to find that 
 they were married to their own countrymen, but of the 24 
 Chinamen married during the same period, 22 were married 
 to natives of Queensland, and English, Scotch, and Irish 
 women. 
 
 ' In the period extending from 1866 to 1885, 295 Chinamen married 
 in Victoria alone. Of their brides, only four were from their own 
 country. Of the remainder, 138 were natives of the colony all, with 
 five exceptions, white women 49 were born in other Australian 
 colonies, 53 in England and Wales, 15 in Scotland, 24 in Ireland, 2 in 
 Germany, and 2 in the United States ; while France and Spain had 
 the distinction of each furnishing a lady unconventional enough to 
 ally herself with a swain from the Flowery Land.' 
 
 In Victoria, the Chinese are likewise decreasing in 
 numbers. In 1881, they numbered 12,123, while in 1891 
 the figures were, including half-castes, 9,377, of whom 605 
 were females. There were said to be 9,000 in Victoria 
 (1900); and now only 6,248. 
 
 In South Australia, in 1891, there were 2,734 ; in 1900, 
 3,000. They are found in Northern Australia, where, the 
 Earl of Kintore says, they have ' had the greatest share in 
 its development, so far as it has gone ' ; and it is considered 
 that they are indispensable for its further development. In 
 the Northern Territory of South Australia there were in 
 l %9 1 , 3,392 Chinese, out of a total population of 4,898. 
 
 The entire population of New South Wales, by the 
 census of 1891, was 1,132,234, of which the Chinese number 
 14,156. In 1901 it was stated to be over 10,000, of which 
 the women only numbered 677. The first genuine Chinese 
 paper printed in Australia was started in Sydney in 1895 
 under the title of The Chinese Australian Herald, 
 
 '54
 
 Chinese Abroad 
 
 There were 844 Chinese in Tasmania in 1881. 
 
 There were 4,585 Chinese in New Zealand in 1889, in 
 1901 about 5,000, but the poll-tax of 10 imposed, in 1881, 
 on every Chinese new arrival, who intended to be a resident, 
 reduced the immigrants from 1,029 m ! 88i to 23 in 1882. 
 The figures rose again to 354 in 1887, but they again fell 
 off; and, in most of the Australian Colonies, they have de- 
 creased in numbers the Northern Territory is an exception 
 owing to the restrictive legislation against them, the other 
 Colonies having followed suit with the poll-tax. Many 
 of them are shop-keepers and general merchants, miners 
 and railway builders, and some of the most solid men in 
 the community. There have been 178 Chinese naturalised 
 in New Zealand during the ten years ending in 1889, 
 and they ' are said to make excellent citizens ' ; more than 
 9 per cent, of those naturalised during that time being 
 Chinese, they occupying the fourth place on the list of 
 those naturalised ; Germans, Danes, and Swedes taking the 
 lead. Naturalisation is, however, only effective in the 
 Colony in which it is granted. 
 
 They are to be found in the Transvaal, but no Chinese 
 women seem to have gone there. 
 
 There were three Chinese in British New Guinea in 
 1890-1891. 
 
 It will thus be seen what numbers of them are 
 scattered over the world. Even London has a fluctu- 
 ating population of them, chiefly sailors and firemen of 
 the steamers trading with China. In 1898, out of 1,204 
 received into the Strangers' Home for Asiatics in Lime- 
 house, nearly half were Chinese. 
 
 ' There are very few Chinese in England only 767, all told, 
 according to the last enumeration. Yet only three counties are wholly 
 without Chinamen Hereford, Rutland, and Westmoreland. Most of 
 our Orientals live in London or its neighbourhood. There are 302, in 
 all, in London. The South-Eastern counties are favourites with these 
 visitors ; Surrey has 45, Kent has 49, Sussex has 36, Hants has 24. 
 There are 17 Chinese in Croydon, 5 in Brighton, 4 in Hastings. 5 in 
 Reading, 3 in Southampton, and 4 in Portsmouth. Middlesex has 45, 
 and Essex 28. In Gloucester there are 22 Chinese, in Lincolnshire n, 
 in Cheshire 14, in Durham 10, and 51 in Lancashire. But many of 
 
 155
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 them must find life rather lonely. There is only one Chinaman in all 
 Oxfordshire, one in Huntingdon, one in Derbyshire. The other 
 counties have from two to nine. [Hereford, Rutland and Westmoreland 
 have none]. In many of the large towns a solitary Chinaman is often 
 found. Norwich has one, for instance ; so have Coventry, Bolton, St. 
 Helens, Blackburn, Preston, and South Shields. Birmingham, Salford, 
 and Hanley have only two each. In all Yorkshire there are only 23. 
 The Chinese seem to like Ireland; there are a total of 112 in that 
 island. But they avoid both Scotland and Wales. There are only 
 29 Chinese in Scotland and 16 in Monmouthshire and Wales. Most 
 of the Chinese in Great Britain are either Government officials, 
 students, or domestic servants, and the females are to the males as 
 three to four.' The proportion of women to men of Chinese nationality 
 in England is 75 per cent. 
 
 ' The Chinese colony is quite a separate section of Oriental life in 
 London. There are several shops in Limehouse Causeway owned 
 by Chinese, with Chinese hieroglyphics over their doors, and run in 
 regular Chinese fashion. The very reckoning of change is done by 
 enumerators on the counter, after the old Roman fashion. With some 
 of these shops gambling dens and opium rooms are regularly main- 
 tained.' 
 
 The Pall Mall Gazette suggested, a few years ago, 
 a solution of the modern ever-present ' servant-girl ' 
 difficulty to be found in their employment by the harassed 
 English matron, as household servants. It has been said 
 that : 
 
 ' Many native labourers in Germany have been displaced by 
 Chinese,' while a Mecklenburg paper is stated to have 'regularly 
 advertised contracts for Chinese labour, the prevalent term of agree- 
 ment being for ten years, a cash payment of 200 marks being made in 
 advance.' The Germans in East Africa have imported Chinese 
 labour ' for agricultural purposes, as the natives will not work more 
 than is absolutely necessary to earn a bare subsistence' ; 240 Chinese 
 coolies having been sent from Singapore. ' The planters in Portuguese 
 Africa have resolved to engage a large number of Chinese contract 
 labourers for their fields in that country, owing to the great want of 
 labour.' 
 
 ' In Hamburg there are many Chinese dock-labourers.' 
 
 ' In German New Guinea, experience has taught . . . that for 
 plantation work no other labourers can compete with the Chinese.' 
 The coolie traffic of Holland with China is nearly 'half a million per 
 annum ; while that of England is under 50,000 ; of Portugal, a few 
 hundreds ; of Germany, Hawaii, and the South American Republics, 
 hardly as much.' 
 
 The last census (1891) gave the Chinese in Cape Colony 
 
 156
 
 Chinese People 
 
 as 215 males and no females ; this number has, however, 
 largely increased since. In November 1901, the Chinese in 
 Port Elizabeth, by around enumeration, were 390, of whom 
 6 were women. 
 
 Like the Briton, the Chinese are found nearly every- 
 where ; like him, the Chinaman has the faculty of making 
 himself at home abroad ; and, like the Briton, he looks for- 
 ward, after making his pile, to return to his home and 
 spend the remainder of his days in ease and comfort ; and 
 again, like the Briton, the countries he blesses by his 
 presence owe, in some cases, their salvation, and in others 
 incalculable benefits to him. 
 
 Books recommended. The information, where not original, has been 
 culled from an immense variety of sources too numerous to particularise. 
 Interesting information about the Chinese in the Straits Settlements is given 
 in Dr. Denny's 'Descriptive Dictionary of British Malaya.' The Census 
 Returns of the Straits Settlements and other British Colonies may also be 
 mentioned. 
 
 CHINESE PEOPLE, CHARACTERISTICS OF. 
 With regard to the physical characteristics, the Chinese 
 belong to the Mongolian family, possessing its yellowish 
 skin, lank, coarse, black hair, and almost rudimentary beard 
 and whiskers, and scanty hair-growth on the rest of the 
 body, prominent cheek-bones, eyes almost invariably black, 
 lack-lustre in expression Punch describes them as ' like 
 button-holes ' and obliquely sloping towards the nose, there 
 being either no bridge to that organ, or in other cases 
 scarcely any, and broad nostrils ; there is also ' a small flap of 
 skin of the upper eyelid overlapping just above the inner ' 
 angle of the eye, at least, in South China. The face is 
 round ; they have small hands and feet, and long tapering 
 fingers. The ankles of many of the common boat-women 
 are very neat. ' They are well built and proportioned, but 
 short in stature, especially in the South, where a man of 
 six feet in height is such a rarity as to be nicknamed 
 " Giant." ' The average height in the North is a few in ?hes 
 above that in the South ; and difference exists as to com- 
 plexion in the different parts of the empire and between 
 different classes, owing to exposure to the sun and the 
 
 157
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 weather, which falls to the lot of some, and which others 
 escape. This is most strikingly manifest in the skin of the 
 Cantonese boatman, which will be well browned all over 
 the body, except round his waist, where, being constantly 
 covered by his rolled-up trousers, it is of a considerably 
 lighter hue. The Svvatow fisherman is often swarthy almost 
 to blackness, nor is there a mid-region round his loins of 
 a lighter shade, as he works in the garb of old Adam, minus 
 the fig-leaves. The faces of some of the ladies are fairer, 
 shielded as they are from all exposure, than those of many 
 of the inhabitants of the South of Europe. With a dark 
 skin one scarcely expects to find soft texture, but that of 
 even the common women is soft. To a stranger, newly 
 arrived from Western lands, there appears a remarkable 
 sameness in all the people all are black-haired, black- 
 eyed, with clean-shaven heads and faces, except the elders, 
 who cultivate their scanty beards, and all exemplifying the 
 same general characteristics they present so much unifor- 
 mity to one unaccustomed to such a mass of an unknown and 
 distinct type that the question often presents itself: How 
 do those who are brought into intimate relationships with 
 them distinguish one from the other? And a ready 
 answer presents itself in what seems to the uninitiated the 
 analogous case of a shepherd knowing each sheep under 
 his care. A few months' residence and familiarity with the 
 new type shows that amidst the general uniformity there 
 are many points of difference, and a slight appreciation of 
 what constitutes Chinese beauty is occasionally awakened. 
 That these crude opinions of Chinese physical sameness 
 are far from the truth, it needs but to instance the similar 
 opinion held by the Chinese as to ourselves. 
 
 In an examination of Chinese for colour-blindness, 
 1,200 men and women were tested with these results: 
 Colour-blind, 20; completely green-blind, 14; completely 
 red-blind, 5 ; and one partially so. The Chinese are often 
 unable to distinguish between green and blue, their 
 language following suit to a great extent, for there is one 
 word which means both green and blue. 
 
 158
 
 Chinese People 
 
 Notwithstanding the insanitary conditions of their life, 
 not a few of the Chinese appear to attain a good old age ; 
 the hard life and exposure to which most of the labouring 
 classes are subject age many of them, on the other hand, 
 very soon ; especially is this the case with the women, who 
 are scarcely passed the bloom of girlhood before coarse 
 features show the strain on their physical powers. 
 
 After this general description of the physical character- 
 istics of the Chinese, we give a scientific account of the 
 Ideal Mongolic type compared with the Ideal Caucasic 
 type, for which we are indebted to Keene's ' Asia,' edited by 
 Sir R. Temple : 
 
 
 IDEAL MONGOLIC TYPE* 
 
 IDEAL CA-C si 
 
 
 
 
 SHAPE OF HEAD . 
 
 Normally brachycephalic, 
 
 Normally dolichocephalic, 
 
 
 i.e., round horizontally. 
 
 i.e., long horizontally. 
 
 FACIAL ANGLE 
 
 Prognathous, index Nos. 
 
 Orthognathous, index Nos. 
 
 
 76 to 68. 
 
 82 to 76. 
 
 FEATURES 
 
 Square, angular, and 
 
 Rounded off and oval. 
 
 
 flattened. 
 
 
 CRANIAL CAPACITY 
 
 1,200 to 1,300 cubic cen- 
 
 1,300 to 1,400 cubic cen- 
 
 
 timetres. 
 
 timetres. 
 
 CHEEK-BONES 
 
 High and prominent. 
 
 Low and inconspicuous. 
 
 EARS 
 
 Large and standing out 
 
 Small, well formed, close 
 
 
 from the head. 
 
 to the head. 
 
 MOUTH . 
 
 Large, with thick lips. 
 
 Small, with bright - red, 
 
 
 
 moderately thin lips. 
 
 NOSE 
 
 Broad, flat, short, and 
 
 Long, narrow, high, 
 
 
 somewhat concave. 
 
 straight or somewhat 
 
 
 
 convex tip projecting 
 
 
 
 beyond the nostrils. 
 
 FORKHEAD . 
 
 Low, receding, narrow. 
 
 Straight, broad below, 
 
 
 
 fully developed. 
 
 EYE 
 
 Small, almond - shaped, 
 
 Large, round, straight ; 
 
 
 oblique upwards and 
 
 orbits rather close set ; 
 
 
 outwards, orbits wide 
 
 iris normally blue or 
 
 
 apart, iris black. 
 
 grey, but very variable. 
 
 CHIN . 
 
 Very small and receding. 
 
 Full and slightly pro- 
 
 
 
 jecting. 
 
 NECK 
 
 Short and thick set. 
 
 Long, slender, and 
 
 
 
 shapely. 
 
 FIGURE . 
 
 Squat, angular, heavy, 
 
 Symmetrical, slim, active, 
 
 
 muscular, inclining to 
 
 robust. 
 
 
 obesity. 
 
 
 HANDS AND FEET . 
 
 Disproportionately small. 
 
 Medium-sized or large. 
 
 STATURE 
 
 Below the average 5 ft. 
 
 Medium or above the 
 
 
 to 5 ft. 4 in. 
 
 average 5 ft. 4 in. to 
 
 
 
 5 ft- 9 in. 
 
 159
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 
 
 
 
 IDEAL MONGOLIC 1 VI*K. 
 
 IDEAL CAUCASIC TYPE. 
 
 COMPLEXION . 
 
 Pale-yellowish, tawny or 
 
 Fair or white, inclining 
 
 
 olive, inclining to a 
 
 to brown and swarthy 
 
 
 leathery - brown and 
 
 normally with ruddy 
 
 
 cinnamon no red or 
 
 tinge. 
 
 
 ruddy tinge. 
 
 
 HAIR . 
 
 Dull -black, long, coarse, 
 
 Long, wavy, and normally 
 
 
 stiff, and lank, cylin- 
 
 light brown, but very 
 
 
 drical in section. 
 
 variable glossy, jet- 
 
 
 
 black, flaxen, red, etc., 
 
 
 
 elliptical in section. 
 
 BEARD . 
 
 Very scanty or absent. 
 
 Full, bushy, often very 
 
 
 
 long. 
 
 EYEBROWS 
 
 Straight and scanty. 
 
 Arched and full. 
 
 EXPRESSION . 
 
 Heavy, inanimate, mono- 
 
 Bright, intelligent, in- 
 
 
 tonously uniform. 
 
 finitely varied. 
 
 TEMPERAMENT 
 
 Dull, taciturn, morose, 
 
 Energetic, restless, fiery 
 
 
 lethargic, but fitfully 
 
 and poetic. 
 
 
 vehement. 
 
 
 An ethnological study and comparison of the inhabi- 
 tants of different parts of China would afford much interest 
 and instruction. We have not been able to find any 
 statistics on the subject, though we understand one or two 
 have made some researches in the matter. Through the 
 kindness of the Hongkong Government we have been 
 allowed to inspect the books in Victoria Gaol, and we find 
 the following was the height of 1000 Chinese Male prisoners 
 (the fractions of inches have been omitted) : 
 
 4 fet 
 
 t 6 
 
 4 > 
 
 9 
 
 4 
 
 10 
 
 4 
 
 ii 
 
 5 
 
 o 
 
 5 
 
 2 
 
 5 
 
 3 
 
 6 inches = 
 
 5 feet 4 inches 
 
 5 5 
 6 
 
 44 
 
 77 
 
 112 
 
 172 
 
 178 
 
 164 
 
 117 
 
 62 
 
 28 
 
 13 
 
 2 
 
 We discarded from our investigations all under the age 
 of 2 1 by Chinese reckoning, which is a year or two less 
 than by English computation, but maturity is early 
 attained in a hot climate. Neither does the fact that the 
 measurements are those of prisoners on their admission to 
 gaol militate against them being reliable as average 
 statistics for Chinese in this part of China, as the majority, 
 
 160
 
 Chinese People 
 
 if not all the prisoners, form a very good sample of 
 Southern Chinese. The great proportion of them are 
 artisans and coolies, and are typical of the whole of their 
 class ; a few of the better class of Chinese are also to be 
 found amongst them. 
 
 The height of 100 female prisoners was as follows : 
 
 4 feet 6 inches = I 
 
 5 feet o inches = 27 
 
 4 
 
 , 7 
 
 5 
 
 5 
 
 i 
 
 = 10 
 
 4 
 
 , 8 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 2 
 
 = '3 
 
 4 
 
 . 9 
 
 = 9 
 
 5 
 
 3 
 
 = 5 
 
 4 
 
 , 10 
 
 = ii 
 
 5 
 
 4 
 
 = 
 
 4 
 
 > ii 
 
 = 14 
 
 5 
 
 5 
 
 = i 
 
 The average height of the Chinese is said to be 5 feet 4 
 inches, while the average of the English is 5 feet 8 inches. 
 
 As regards their mental characteristics, much might be, 
 and has been, written ; the latter largely tinctured by the 
 mental media through which the various observers viewed 
 their idiosyncrasies. 
 
 One of the most marked peculiarities is their wonderful 
 memory in the way of study. Trained for centuries in this 
 particular groove, the result has been that books are easily 
 learned by heart and repeated from beginning to end with- 
 out mistake. Their patience, perseverance, and industry 
 are deserving of all praise ; no task is considered too trivial, 
 no labour too arduous to engage in. Their politeness, 
 peaceableness, and dread of giving offence are often carried 
 to an extreme. Their economy, credulity, lack of sincerity 
 and sympathy are all characteristics on which page after 
 page might be written. 
 
 As has been said of the Japanese, so may it be said 
 equally well of the Chinese : 
 
 ' His very politeness may compel him to hide a disagreeable truth, 
 or, at the utmost, to express it in very indirect language. His native 
 tongue, with its elaborate impersonal forms of address and even of 
 command, reflects the whole social sentiments of the people. It 
 abounds in ... negations, in honorifics to the person addressed, in 
 deprecatory phrases concerning self, or self's belongings.' 
 
 These assist the fatal want of veracity so noticeable 
 amongst the Chinese, for it must be confessed that the 
 obligations of truth are not so binding. with them as with us. 
 
 161 L
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 This trait of character is constantly exhibited in the courts 
 of justice. They are, however, not worse than most 
 Orientals in this respect ; in fact, they are better than 
 many. 
 
 Having thus lightly touched upon a few of the 
 characteristics of this wonderful, little understood, much 
 lauded, as well as much decried people, we will ourselves 
 retire to the background and present a symposium of 
 opinions of residents, authors, statesmen, missionaries, 
 travellers, and others. 
 
 ' It is an abuse of terms, to say that they are a highly moral people. 
 ... A morality that forgets one-half of the decalogue must be 
 wonderfully deficient, however complete it may be in the other. ... I 
 think, however, we may affirm . . . that the moral sense is in many 
 particulars highly refined among them. . . . Respect to parents and 
 elders, obedience to law, chastity, kindness, economy, prudence, and 
 self-possession are the never-failing themes for remark and illustration. 
 . . . The happiness and general prosperity of the Chinese are so 
 conspicuous that they merit a short analysis. Let us see then of what 
 elements they are compounded : 
 
 '(i) An habitual readiness to labour. (2) Frugality in the use of 
 worldly goods. (3) Skill competent to enable the people 
 to turn all advantages to the best account. (4) An exact 
 conception of money's worth.' Tradescant Lay. 
 
 ' In the Chinese character are elements which in due time must 
 lift her [China] out of the terribly backward position into which she 
 has fallen, and raise her to a rank among the foremost of nations. 
 Another ground of hope . . . lies in the matter-of-fact habits of the 
 Chinese, their want of enthusiasm and dislike of change, which 
 are rather favourable than otherwise to their development as a great 
 community.' Dr. Wells Williams. 
 
 'The mental capacities of the people are of no inferior order. 
 Their administrative powers are remarkable. Sir Frederick Bruce is 
 reported to have said that " Chinese statesmen were equal to any he 
 ever met in any capital in Europe." . . . Certain it is, they hold 
 their own with our British diplomatists. Chinese merchants cope 
 successfully with our own in all departments of trade ; in fact, are 
 gaining ground on them. (See Consul Medhurst's u Report on the 
 Trade of Shanghai," Bhie Book [China], No. 7, 1870.) . . . Their 
 literati are equal to any intellectual task Europeans can set before 
 them. . . . The common people are shrewd, painstaking, and 
 indomitable ; and the more I have travelled among them the more 
 have I been impressed with their mental promise, docility, and love 
 of order. . . . The Chinese have always been the imperial race 
 in the Far East. ... It is true that at present they are in a most 
 deplorable condition. Their old principles of government are 
 disregarded ; the maxims of their classics utterly ignored by the 
 generality of their rulers ; rapacity and corruptions pervade ever)' 
 
 162
 
 Chinese People 
 
 department of the State. . . . Absence of truth, and uprightness 
 and honour, this is a most appalling void, and, unfortunately, it meets 
 one in all classes and professions of the people. I do not refer to 
 money matters, for, as a rule, they stand well in this respect. . . . 
 The Chinese are not naturally an anti-progressive people. They 
 are peculiarly amenable to reason, have no caste, and no powerful 
 religious bias. Their history shows that they have adopted every 
 manifest improvement, which has presented itself, for these 
 many centuries. . . . The truth is, the Chinese have all the mental, 
 moral, and religious instincts of our common nature. . . . The 
 fact that they have preceded us in many of the most important 
 discoveries of modern times, such as the compass, gunpowder, 
 printing, the manufacture of paper, silk, porcelain, etc., proves their 
 inventive genius. . . . They are peaceable and civil to strangers.' 
 Dr. Williamson. 
 
 Here are a few extracts from older writers : 
 'Generally speaking, they have all the cunning, deceit and 
 intrigue of the French, without any of their good qualities.' 
 Dr. Morrison. 
 
 ' Such Europeans as settle in China, and are eye-witnesses 
 of what passes, are not surprised to hear that mothers kill or 
 expose several of their children ; nor that parents sell their daughters 
 for a trifle, nor that the empire is full of thieves ; and the spirit of 
 avarice universal. They are rather surprised that greater crimes 
 are not heard of during seasons of scarcity. If we deduct the desires 
 so natural to the unhappy, the innocence of their habits would corres- 
 pond well enough with their poverty and hard labour.' Premare. 
 
 'The Chinese are so madly prejudiced in favour of their own 
 country, manners, and maxims, that they cannot imagine anything, 
 not Chinese, to deserve the least regard.' Chavagnac. 
 
 ' So unwilling are the Chinese to allow themselves to be surpassed, 
 or that any other people possess that of which they cannot boast, 
 that they fancy resemblances where there are none, and, after striving 
 in vain to find them, they still hope that such there are, and that 
 if there should happen to be none, they are of no importance, or 
 surely they would have been there.' _>r. Milne. 
 
 ' The superiority which the Chinese possess over the other 
 nations of Asia is so decided as scarcely to need the institution of an 
 elaborate comparison. ... It may be considered as one proof of 
 social advancement on the part of the Chinese, that the civil 
 authority is generally superior to the military, and that letters always 
 rank above arms. . . . The Chinese are bad political economists. 
 . . . The advantageous features of their character, as mildness, 
 docility, industry, peaceableness, subordination, and respect for the 
 aged, are accompanied by the vices of specious insincerity, falsehood, 
 with mutual distrust and jealousy. . . . The superior character 
 of the Chinese as colonists in regard to intelligence, industry, and 
 general sobriety, must be derived from their education, and from the 
 influence of something good in the national system. . . . The 
 comparatively low estimation in which mere wealth is held, is a 
 
 J6 3
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 considerable moral advantage on the side of the Chinese. . . . 
 Poverty is no reproach among them. . . . The peaceful and 
 prudential character of the people may be traced to the influence 
 and authority of age. . . . The Chinese frequently get the better 
 of Europeans in a discussion, by imperturbable coolness and gravity. 
 ... It is the discipline to which they are subject from earliest 
 childhood, and the habit of controlling their ruder passions, that 
 render crimes of violence so unfrequent among them. . . . Hereditary 
 rank without merit is of little merit to the possessor.' Sir John 
 Davis. 
 
 'As a direct refusal to any request would betray a want of good 
 breeding, every proposal finds their immediate acquiescence : they 
 promise without hesitation, but generally disappoint by the invention 
 of some slight pretence or plausible objection : they have no proper 
 sense of the obligations of truth.' Barrow. 
 
 ' The Chinese . . . are in general of a mild and humane 
 disposition, but violent and vindictive when offended.' Sir George 
 Staunton. 
 
 1 Genius and originality are regarded as hostile and incom- 
 patible elements.' Gillespie. 
 
 And again some extracts from later writers : 
 
 ' Ingenuity is a gift largely bestowed upon the Chinaman ; it is 
 indeed one of his most marked characteristics, but it is ingenuity of 
 that peculiar kind which works with very slender materials. . . . 
 Almost every Chinaman is, by a kind of natural instinct, good both 
 at cooking and at bargaining.' Archdeacon Cobbold. 
 
 ' This mysterious race, which with the Anglo-Saxons and the 
 Russians will divide the earth a hundred years hence. . . . Hard- 
 working, frugal, and orderly when their secret societies are kept 
 under due control, they are admirable and trustworthy men of 
 business, while as artisans their industry is only exceeded by their 
 skill and versatility.' Sir Lepel Griffin. 
 
 ' The love of antiquity is inborn in the Chinese, they live in the 
 past. . . . To them the past is not a mass of musty records, filled 
 with the suffocating odours of decay, as it appears often to us, but a 
 rich treasure-house fragrant with the aroma of purest wisdom and 
 noblest example. . . . They are exclusive to the extremest degree. 
 . . . Conservatism has been carried to such an extreme that the 
 whole nation has become fossilised. . . . Closely connected with this 
 spirit of exclusiveness is an overweening pride and absurd conceit in 
 their own superiority, and an unreasoning hatred of everything foreign. 
 . . . Taking the people as a whole, their fundamental qualities of 
 industry, stability, and readiness to submit to authority, contain the 
 promise of cheering results in the future.' Rev. B. C. Henry. 
 
 ' The Chinaman and the mosquito are the two great mysteries of 
 creation.' H. Nonnan. 
 
 ' One of the most remarkable national peculiarities of the Chinese 
 is their extraordinary addiction to letters, the general prevalence of 
 
 164
 
 Chinese People 
 
 iterary habits among the middling and higher orders, and the very 
 honourable pre-eminence which from the most remote period has 
 been universally conceded to that class which is exclusively devoted 
 to literary pursuits. ... I have left the country with the conviction 
 that the Chinese nation, as a whole, is a much less vicious one 
 than, as a consequence of opinions formed from a limited and unfair 
 field of observation, it has been customary to represent it ; further, 
 that the lower orders of the people generally are better conducted, 
 more sober and industrious, and, taken altogether, intellectually 
 superior to the corresponding class of our own countrymen.' Dr. 
 Rennie. 
 
 ' I find here a steady adherence to the traditions of the past, a 
 sober devotion to the calls arising in the various relations of life, an 
 absence of shiftlessness, an honest and, at least, somewhat earnest 
 grappling with the necessities and difficulties which beset men in 
 their humbler stages of progress, a capacity to moralise withal, and 
 an enduring sense of right and wrong. These all form what must be 
 considered an essentially satisfactory basis and groundwork of national 
 character. Among the people there is practical sense ; among the 
 gentry, scholarly instincts, the desire for advancement, the disposition 
 to work for it with earnestness and constancy. Amongst the rulers, 
 a sense of dignity, breadth of view, considering their information, 
 and patriotic feeling. Who will say that such a people have not a 
 future more wonderful even than their past.' G. F. Seivard. 
 
 'The moral character of the Chinese is a book written in strange 
 letters, which are more complex and difficult for one of another race, 
 religion, and language to decipher than their own singularly com- 
 pounded word-symbols. In the same individuals, virtues and vices, 
 apparently incompatible, are placed side by side. Meekness, gentle- 
 ness, docility, industry, contentment, cheerfulness, obedience to 
 superiors, dutifulness to parents, and reverence for the aged, are in 
 one and the same person, the companions of insincerity, lying, 
 flattery, treachery, cruelty, jealousy, ingratitude, avarice, and distrust 
 of others. The Chinese are a weak and timid people, and in 
 consequence, like all similarly constituted races, they seek a natural 
 refuge in deceit and fraud. But examples of moral inconsistency are 
 by no means confined to the Chinese, and I fear that sometimes too 
 much emphasis is laid on the dark side of their character, . . . 
 as if it had no parallel amongst more enlightened nations. Were 
 a native of the empire, with a view of acquiring a thorough knowledge 
 of the English people, to make himself familiar with the records of 
 our police and other law courts, the transactions that take place in 
 what we call the " commercial world," and the scandals of what we 
 term "society," he would probably give his countrymen at home a 
 very one-sided and depreciatory account of this nation.' ArcJtdeacon 
 Gray. 
 
 ' I find the Chinese most polite. . . . The only thing no man 
 can accuse the Chinese of is love of change.' Mrs Gray. 
 
 'The earnest simplicity and seriousness with which an amiable 
 and lettered man in China will sit and propound the most prepos- 
 terous and fantastic theories that ever entered a human brain, and 
 
 I6 5
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 the profound unconsciousness he shows of the nonsense he is talking, 
 affect one very curiously. . . . There are few things in which the 
 Chinese do not claim pre-eminence, and it is this habit of self- 
 complacency which renders them so very much averse to being 
 enlightened on those points on which they habitually are found 
 wanting. The belief in their own infallibility cannot but be a standing 
 obstacle to the progress of the people in all departments where it 
 prevails, and the difficulty of getting a Chinaman to acknowledge that 
 he is beaten in an argument is but another phase of the same pheno- 
 menon. It is a sufficient answer, for him, that, however useless or 
 hurtful a given practice may be, it is the "custom" of the country ; 
 and the belief that all the customs which have descended from 
 generation to generation are, for that very reason, incapable of 
 improvement, renders him a very hopeless subject to deal with. . . . 
 There are few things more amusing, and at the same time more 
 exasperating, to a European than the utter confusion of thought which 
 characterises the Chinese as a race. . . . There seems a looseness 
 of reasoning ; a want of consecutiveness, in the mental process of 
 the Chinese which argues an inherent defect in their constitutions.' 
 Balfour. 
 
 ' The truth is that a man of good physical and intellectual qualities, 
 regarded merely as an economic factor, is turned out cheaper by the 
 Chinese than by any other race. He is deficient in the higher moral 
 qualities, individual trustworthiness, public-spirit, sense of duty, and 
 active courage a group of qualities perhaps best rendered in our 
 language by the word manliness ; but in the humbler moral qualities 
 of patience, mental and physical, and perseverance in labour, he is 
 unrivalled.' Consul F. S. A. Bourne. 
 
 'John Chinaman is a most temperate creature. . . . During the 
 whole course of my many years' residence in the country, I do not 
 remember to have seen a dozen instances of actual drunkenness. . . . 
 They are a sociable people amongst themselves, and . . . their 
 courtesies are of a most laboured and punctilious character. . . . 
 The Chinese are essentially a reading people. . . . The Chinese 
 have not, it is true, that delicate perception of what the claims of truth 
 and good faith demand, which is so highly esteemed among us 
 Westerners, but they know and prize both characteristics, and practical 
 illustrations thereof are constantly observable in their relations one 
 with another, and with foreigners. . . . Honesty ... is by no 
 means a rare virtue with the Chinese. ... As regards the question 
 of courage, again it must be admitted that the Chinese possess more 
 of the quality than they have hitherto had credit for. . . . Both 
 kindliness and cruelty, gentleness and ferocity, have each its place in 
 the Chinese character, and the sway which either emotion has upon 
 their minds depends very much upon the associations by which they 
 are for the moment surrounded. When in their own quiet homes, 
 pursuing undisturbed the avocations to which they have been accus- 
 tomed, there are no more harmless, well-intentioned, and orderly 
 people. They actually appear to maintain order as if by common 
 consent, independent of all surveillance or interference on the part of 
 the executive. But let them be brought into contact with bloodshed 
 and rapine, or let them be roused by oppression or fanaticism, and all 
 
 166
 
 Chinese, Professors of 
 
 that is evil in their disposition will at once assert itself, inciting them 
 to the most fiendish and atrocious acts of which human nature has 
 been found capable. . . . There is no more intelligent and manage- 
 able creature than the Chinaman, as long as he is treated with justice 
 and firmness, and his prejudices are, to a reasonable extent, 
 humoured.' Sir Walter Medhurst. 
 
 'There exist no more honourable, law-abiding and industrious 
 citizens than the Chinese.' Earl of Kintore. 
 
 Here are opinions then as diverse as possible. What 
 more pat than the following : ' The Chinese must be 
 a strange people, from the varying accounts which are 
 given of them by different observers. They are over-esti- 
 mated in some things and undervalued in others, mis- 
 understood in most.' What is the truth ? We believe it 
 to consist in a true mean. If a man or woman will view 
 this people with a mental calmness, not on the one hand 
 carried away with too great an enthusiasm a fault 
 easily committed, owing to the wonderful antiquity and 
 many good points in their character and on the other 
 nand, if prejudice is resolutely banished, their good points 
 will be seen, while their failings will also be noticed. 
 
 CHINESE, PROFESSORS OF, ABROAD.-There 
 have been Professorships of Chinese at a few of the leading 
 Universities in England for some years. On Dr. Legge's 
 retirement from Hongkong, a number of his friends and 
 admirers subscribed towards the foundation of a Chair 
 of Chinese at Oxford, with the proviso that he should 
 be the first occupant. He held it for many years, until 
 his death a few years ago. The income is about 95 a 
 year. The post is at present filled by Professor Bullock. 
 
 Prior to this there was a Professorship of Chinese in 
 King's College, London, Professor Summers, an old 
 resident in China many years ago, taking the classes. 
 Professor Douglas is the present occupant of the Chair. 
 A number of years ago Mr. Kidd was Professor of Chinese 
 at University College, London, and later the late Professor 
 Terrain de la Couperie. 
 
 Recently a Professorship of Chinese has been established 
 
 167
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 at Cambridge, with Dr. Giles as Professor, he having filled 
 some similar appointment at Aberdeen for a short time 
 previously. 
 
 Mr. E. H. Parker has been Reader in Chinese at 
 University College, Liverpool, for several years, and is now 
 occupying the position of Professor of Chinese at Owen's 
 College, Manchester. This Chair has been established 
 tentatively by the Lancashire County Council, by special 
 grant and subscriptions made towards it, in view of the 
 large trade between the County and China. 
 
 ' The University of London proposes to establish a 
 special department, called the Department of Practical 
 Chinese, the objects of which will be : 
 
 ' ( i ) To provide courses of instruction in modern Chinese, 
 organised with a view to the needs of (a) persons engaged, 
 or about to engage, in business in China as clerks, merchants, 
 etc. ; (b) officers employed, or about to be employed, in the 
 Diplomatic, Consular, Military, and Customs Services in or 
 connected with China ; (c) civil, railway, and mining 
 engineers about to be employed in China, and other classes 
 to whom a knowledge of colloquial Chinese is important. 
 
 ' (2) To encourage study and research in connection 
 with modern Chinese questions and existing Chinese 
 institutions, etc. 
 
 ' Mr. George Brown, late British Consul at Kiukiang, 
 will be appointed Director of the department, and be directly 
 responsible to the University for its organisation. The 
 course of instruction will be given by Mr. Brown, assisted 
 by one or more native Chinese teachers, and such other 
 persons as it may be desirable to appoint. The University 
 will provide suitable accommodation for the work of the 
 department at the University Buildings, South Kensington. 
 
 ' The China Association has undertaken to guarantee a 
 sum of 500 a year for five years for the expenses of the 
 department, and to take steps to raise a fund for its 
 permanent endowment.' 
 
 M. Papov, late Consul-General and First Dragoman of 
 the Russian Mission at Peking, is the Professor of Chinese 
 
 1 68
 
 Chop-Sticks 
 
 Language and Literature at the University of St. 
 Petersburg. 
 
 Public Classes for the study of Chinese were started 
 in Lyons in 1900, the Chamber of Commerce of that 
 city and the Government of Indo-China assisting. The 
 Professor is Mr. Courant. M. Vissiere is the Professor 
 at L'Ecole des Languages Oriental in Paris. He was 
 First Interpreter at Peking, in the French Legation. 
 The Professor in Le College de France at Paris is M. 
 Chavannes. He was attacht at the French Chinese 
 Students' Mission in Peking. Mr. Schlegel is Professor of 
 Chinese at Leyden. There are Chairs for Chinese at a 
 dozen European Universities. 
 
 In the United States there are several ; the late Dr. 
 S. Wells Williams having filled one at Yale for a number 
 of years ; Mr. Fryer, late of Shanghai, occupies a similar 
 position in San Francisco ; and the latest development is 
 the donation of $100,000, for a Chinese Professorship at 
 Columbia University, New York. Dr. Hirth, late of the 
 Customs Service in China, fills the Chair. 
 
 CHOP-STICKS. Lansdell thus describes these useful 
 adjuncts to the Chinese table : 
 
 ' Chop-sticks are a pair of cylindrical [square or squarish at the 
 holding part] rods, rather longer [they are really a good deal 
 longer] and not quite so thick as lead pencils, which are held between 
 the thumb and fingers of the right hand and are used as tongs to 
 take the food and carry it to the mouth an operation by no means 
 easy to the unpractised.' 
 
 No knives appear at a Chinese table, the food being 
 already carved and cut up into pieces either large enough 
 for a mouthful, or so well cooked that the chop-sticks can 
 easily separate them, or, again, the chop-sticks lift the 
 small piece of quail or duck to the mouth and a bite is 
 taken off. With rice, the edge of the bowl is pat to the 
 under lip, and the chop-sticks shovel it into the mouth, 
 along with the tiny bits of meat and vegetables that have 
 already been picked up by them and placed on the top of 
 the rice. To our Western ideas, every one using their own 
 
 169
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 chop-sticks to clip into the dishes on the table is not 
 pleasant ; nor is the use again of the earthenware spoons 
 in the soups and broths so liked by the Chinese, to ladle 
 out from the central dish or big bowl into one's own little 
 bowl, to our taste either. Tiny wire forks are used for 
 sweetmeats at the table. 
 
 Chop-sticks are of ivory, bone, bamboo, etc. 
 
 CICADA. This noisy insect is very common. 'Their 
 strident noise is overpowering, and most annoying to 
 invalids. The bodies measure about 3 inches in length.' 
 They are caught with some species of bird-lime, made of 
 the ashes of the China fir, glutinous cooked rice, and 
 water. This is stuck on to the end of a bamboo pole, 
 which is then pushed up amongst the branches of the trees, 
 and the insect caught by its sticky nature. Chinese boys 
 play with cicadas, holding them in their hands, or tying 
 them to a piece of string. 
 
 The cast skin of the cicada (toil shim) is used as 
 medicine for convulsions, and fever in children. It is 
 boiled in water with a creeper called ngaii fang, the 
 hooked creeper, and the rush, which is used as a lamp-wick, 
 and sometimes in serious cases a little bit of sycee, about a 
 mace in weight, is put into the water. These are boiled 
 together for half an hour, and then the water is forced 
 down the child's throat, as, being bitter, the child will not 
 drink it willingly. 
 
 The cicada in one stage of his existence passes two 
 years underground. It is only the male which is able to 
 give vent to its passion of love in the curious ear-arresting, 
 noisy, strident, loudly sibilant, and distracting song, though 
 song is a word too suggestive of harmony to be applied to 
 the scissors-grinding cicada. It sounds like the loud force- 
 ful emission of the two consonants s and z, viz., sz sz, 
 
 and this is continued for half a minute or a minute, and 
 having been raised to a loud crescendo, it ends abruptly with 
 a 'shish-jick,' to be started again apparently in a few seconds. 
 The horrors of a sultry summer day are increased 
 
 170
 
 Cities 
 
 to fatigued and exhausted man by the intermittingly 
 continued songs of half a dozen or a dozen cicadas, en- 
 sconced in the neighbouring trees. The musical apparatus 
 consists ' of two membranes over air-tubes in ' the ' throat, 
 with hollow-sounding cavities behind each, which increase 
 the volume of its notes. . . . Cicadas are neither crickets, 
 locusts, nor grasshoppers.' Their bodies look as if headless, 
 and are blunt. The male lives a short time, leaving the 
 female, who gorges herself on green leaves, and finally lays 
 many eggs on twigs and branches. The larvae burst from 
 their eggs, and burrow through the tree to the ground, 
 eating as they go, and remain for two years as 
 chrysalides. 
 
 CITIES. Cities are divided into three classes in 
 China : provincial cities, prefectorial, or departmental 
 cities, and district cities. The fact of them being capitals 
 and the seats of Government doubtless constitutes them 
 cities. Every city is protected with a wall (or walls), 
 except Hii-i Hien in Anhui, the extent and size being 
 conditioned by its grade, or rank, as above. The largest 
 cover within their circumference a considerable extent of 
 ground, which is not all thickly covered with houses, 
 but even contains market-gardens, etc., as well as private 
 parks attached to the yamens, or official residences. In 
 fact, a bird's-eye view of a native city from its walls is 
 often very picturesque, with the fine trees adding grace to 
 the mass of red-tiled, low-lying houses, broken every now 
 and then by a pagoda, or the lofty buildings above the 
 city gates. 
 
 The walls round Peking are a little over 20 miles in 
 circumference. The city proper in Canton is about 6 
 miles round. One of the smallest and most recent cities 
 in China is probably that of Kowlung, now in British 
 territory. 
 
 Many cities have large suburbs lying outside the 
 walls. Cities have, however, not a monopoly of walls 
 in China, as robbers, and the disturbed state of many parts 
 
 171
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 of the country, cause even villages to be walled and 
 surrounded with moats. 
 
 A cathedral is not one of the constituent factors in 
 determining a place to be a city, but every city has one 
 temple to Confucius, at least ; and it often happens that a 
 city is not only a district capital, but also that of a 
 department, and sometimes that of a province as well. In 
 such cases there must be a temple for each : so in Canton, 
 which is the capital for two districts, one department and 
 one province, there are consequently no less than four 
 Confucian temples. 
 
 Besides this, at all events in a large city, there is a City 
 Temple to the God of the City. There are also examina- 
 tion halls in most cities. 
 
 CLAN. This division of the people in China is 
 analogous to that of the Scotch clan in many respects, and 
 is productive of feud and disaster to themselves and others 
 sometimes, as well as of protection at other times to those 
 belonging to the same clan, as a few generations ago was 
 the case among the Highland clans of Scotland. The 
 nucleus round which the clan gathers is the ancestral temple 
 and worship ; here are the headquarters for all who are 
 descendants of a remote ancestor. Genealogies are kept, 
 often with the greatest care, in which are noted all the 
 migrations of the family ; and so particular are the Chinese 
 with regard to this point, that on the tombstones, in some 
 places, are put the numbers of the generations since the 
 family came to that country-side. 
 
 In many villages all the inhabitants belong to one clan, 
 just as in the Highlands of Scotland one part of the country 
 will be found almost entirely peopled by one clan alone. 
 As in China the unit of the population or nation is not the 
 individual, but the family, it may be easily understood of 
 what paramount importance the clan is ; and it is one of 
 the greatest disgraces possible for a man to be disowned or 
 put out of the clan, even if it be only temporarily. It is 
 worse, of course, to be punished for a generation, and worst 
 
 172
 
 Climate 
 
 of all if the punishment is for ever that is to say, if his 
 branch of the family is excluded from the clan for ever. 
 
 Disputes often take place between members of different 
 clans, and lead to quarrels, reprisals, and fights, into which 
 the whole clan is dragged ; and eventually, the soldiery, 
 after perhaps some lives have been lost on both sides, are 
 sent to put a stop to the internecine strife ; in fact these 
 petty wars are waged so fiercely, that in some instances 
 they approach the vindictiveness displayed in the Italian 
 vendetta. 
 
 It should, however, be observed that the system of clans 
 is more marked in the South of China, and most especially 
 so in the Kwang-tung and Kwang-si provinces. 
 
 The secret societies, especially in the Straits Settle- 
 ments, take their rise in the clan system to a great 
 extent. 
 
 Books recommended. Two articles on the comparative history of clans, 
 by Rev. Hilderic Friend, in the Chinese Recorder and Missionary Journal, 
 entitled 'Tsung tsuh eld lai lih,' vol. ix. Nos. 4 and 5. Williams's 'Middle 
 Kingdom,' vol. i. p. 482 et seq. Also see Chinese Repository, vol. iv. p. 
 411. 
 
 CLIMATE. In a land of such vast dimensions, it may 
 readily be understood that the climate varies with each 
 part of the country, and almost any variety of climate may 
 be found in different parts of China. The extremes of cold 
 and heat are not only found in the extremes of the North 
 and South, but in the North are even found together ; for 
 China, like the eastern sea-board of the Northern States of 
 America, has a winter in the North approaching an Arctic 
 one for severity, while the summer heat is tropic in its 
 intensity, even greater for a short period than it is in many 
 parts far South. 
 
 In some places the atmosphere is saturated with mois- 
 ture during a large part of the year, while in other regions, 
 except in the rainy season, the air is dry and clear. 
 
 The climate at Newchwang is more moderate than at 
 some of the ports further down the coast. It is said 
 that both Chefoo and Japan ' have a much higher average 
 temperature . . . ; the thermometer rarely goes above
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 88 and the nights are always cool : often chilly.' The 
 climate of Chefoo has been described as 'scarcely different 
 from that of New York, Boston, or Edinburgh.' 
 
 The extremes of range in Peking are 104 and zero 
 Fahrenheit. The rainfall is generally lower than 16 inches 
 in the year, but little snow falls, and it does not remain on 
 the ground more than a few days ; the rivers are locked in 
 ice for three months. As the heat increases, sand and dust 
 is blown about with great force, forming dust-storms. 
 September and October are the two most delightful 
 months at Peking. 
 
 The summer heat of Wei-hai-wei is thus described : 
 
 ' It is a cooler place than Japan, />., the ports in Japan where the 
 fleet goes. Our maximum heat this summer has been about 87 in 
 the shade, and this only on one or two days. For a month or so it 
 ranged about 82 in the hottest part of the day, cooler at nights, 
 and now and then a drop of 8 to 10 in the day. And this has 
 been, in that matter, an average summer. On Liiikungtao, cricket 
 and other games have, during the whole time, been freely indulged 
 in. It is certainly a cooler place to spend August and September in 
 than Chefoo, and in time Wei-hai-wei may take away much of the 
 popularity of that place as a summer resort.' 
 
 Of Ningpo it has been said that the winters may be 
 compared to the winters in Paris, and the summers for a 
 short season, to those of Calcutta. The climate is very 
 damp, the ground being marshy, and the extremes are 
 greater than at Shanghai. The range of the thermometer 
 is from 24^ to 107 , and a fall or rise of 20 in two hours is 
 not unusual. 
 
 In Shanghai the great heat, while it lasts, is very trying, 
 but fortunately it is not of long duration. 
 
 The riverine ports are very hot in summer : Kiukiang 
 gets the name of being 'the hottest place in all China'; the 
 heat in the month of August there is dreaded, for there is 
 'a succession of cloudless and intensely hot and oppressive 
 weather.' At the end of July 1892, the thermometer was 
 at 102 in the shade. It even reached 104" Fahrenheit 
 on the 1 3th, I4th, I5th and i8th August 1900, and 24 on 
 the Qth January of the same year. It is also very hot in 
 Nanking in July and August. These hot dog-days last 
 
 '74
 
 Climate 
 
 for about thirty days, but, after they are over, the nights 
 get cooler. As an instance of the degree of heat experienced 
 at such times we may mention that at the end of July 
 1892, the thermometer kept pretty regular at 96". Towards 
 the end of July 1892, the thermometer, at Hankow, at 
 midnight, registered 97. 
 
 Of the West of China a recent writer says : 
 
 ' Rains are frequent, and heavy clouds cover the heavens three- 
 fourths of the year ; and, in absence of clouds, a smoky mist veils the 
 earth from the piercing rays of the sun. The climate is equable, and 
 even the summer, although long and severely hot in July and August, 
 is modified by frequent showers. . . . The winters are very mild ; 
 while frost is seldom seen, and snow is almost unknown, except upon 
 the mountains. Experience shows the climate to be fairly ' healthy, 
 ' and no more trying than that of Central China.' 
 
 The climate of Amoy has been described as ' delight- 
 ful.' But the word ' delightful ' must be taken as comparing 
 it with the climate of some other parts of China less 
 fortunately situated. The thermometer ranges from 40 
 to 96. The author spent three months in that port in the 
 summer of 1889, and experienced what the temperature 
 was at 93 for a day or two ; the heat was intense, but 
 fortunately it was a dry heat. This dry heat in Amoy is 
 generally moderated by a fresh sea-breeze which springs 
 up nearly every day in the course of the forenoon and dies 
 down in the evening. The heat during the night is very 
 great, until the sea-breeze, rising with the tide, slightly 
 cools the atmosphere. 
 
 At Swatow the heat is great in summer, ranging nearly 
 as high as at Amoy. The author also experienced a few 
 days of it during June 1892, when the thermometer was 
 between 90 and 92^ ; but, as in Amoy, sea-breezes spring 
 up and make the heat more bearable, while at Double 
 Island, at the entrance to the estuary on which Swatow is 
 situated, the evenings are cool in summer, though the days 
 are hot. 
 
 The heat at the three cities of Hongkong, Canton, and 
 Macao, is of long continuance, but not of so excessive a 
 character as further up the coast, where its duration is 
 
 175
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 shorter. In Canton, the thermometer ranges from about 40 
 or 50 to 88 or thereabouts, and it rarely rises higher or falls 
 lower. The sea-air moderates the climate at Macao and 
 Hongkong. The rainfall of the latter place is greater than 
 at Macao and Canton, and occasionally attains the extra- 
 ordinary figure of 30 inches in 24 hours, the annual mean 
 for 21 years being over 86 inches; for 1891 it was very 
 abundant, the total for the twelve months being 117.30. 
 Drought occurs in some seasons, and rain does not fall for 
 months to any appreciable extent The climate in Hong- 
 kong in summer is often of a hot, muggy nature, and while 
 it lasts, harder to bear than a dry heat of even higher 
 temperature. In the mountain-sheltered town, and on the 
 lower levels, the thermometer will rarely rise higher than 
 88 and 89, though it very occasionally registers, on two 
 or three days, 93 in the hottest part of Queen's Road, while 
 on the Peak levels, free to the sea-breezes, and cooled by the 
 high elevation of from 1,500 to 1,800 feet, the mercury falls 
 from 4 to 10 lower, according to the season of the 
 year, the greatest difference between the two levels being in 
 summer. These higher levels are, however, subject to 
 mountain mist and fog. Fogs rarely visit Macao. The 
 winter months in these three ports form the most delightful 
 season of all the year, especially is this the case in October, 
 November and December, and even in January. Clear cool 
 weather, with Italian skies, provides the beau ideal of 
 existence. The Peak climate is said to be even finer than 
 that of Chefoo the sanitarium for foreign residents in the 
 North of China. 
 
 The climate of China, especially in the North, is also 
 said to have moderated considerably from what it was some 
 centuries or thousands of years ago. On the other hand, 
 the reckless denudation of the hills of wood and forest, by 
 the inhabitants, has doubtless had a considerable effect in 
 increasing the dryness and parched aspect of everything 
 during certain seasons of the year in China. It has been 
 noticed that, in Hongkong, since extensive tree-planting has 
 been carried on, the summers appear to be somewhat cooler. 
 
 176
 
 Cockroach 
 
 The mere range of the thermometer does not form a 
 fair criterion, in this land of the heat, of the way in which 
 the temperature affects the human frame. Humidity and 
 other considerations have to be taken into account. 
 
 In the South of China the climate seems adapted, as 
 a rule, for children of foreign parents up to the age of 
 eight or ten, but after that they are inclined to shoot up 
 like hot-house plants, and require a more bracing air. 
 The climate in China gets the blame of much that should 
 be laid to indiscretions in diet, and careless exposure to 
 the sun, or neglect of a fair share of exercise. If all these 
 points are carefully attended to, a man or woman may, 
 and often does, with of course some exceptions, enjoy very 
 good health. Some constitutions appear unable to stand 
 the climate, while occasionally others thrive better than in 
 their own lands. 
 
 The Chinese, as a race, are physically weaker than the 
 English, but this should not all be laid to the account of 
 the climate; insanitary surroundings, ignorance of the laws 
 of health, no Sunday rest, and other causes also having a 
 share in it. 
 
 COCKROACH (Blatta orientalis}. ' This disgusting 
 insect ' is found in large numbers, especially in storerooms 
 and sideboards. It is very destructive, eating holes in 
 coats, trousers, and dresses where a stain of food may 
 have attracted them, and nibbling the edges of shirt-cuffs 
 and collars, so that they soon get ragged. They trail 
 over dishes in the pantry, giving an unpleasant taste to 
 tl\e soup if the plates have not been washed clean im- 
 mediately before using. With books, they are especially 
 annoying, staining the covers of cloth-bound ones as if 
 spots of rain had fallen on them ; they are extremely fond 
 of some colours books bound in red and blue suffer most 
 as a rule, the whole covers being stained with them. (See 
 Article on Insects.) Some of the big active ones are very 
 vigorous and rapid in their flight about a room at night, 
 and annoying, especially to nervous ladies, though, except 
 
 1 77 M
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 for the unpleasantness, they do no actual bodily harm as a 
 rule in China. The forcible application of the sole of a 
 shoe seems to be the most effective means of exterminating 
 these pests. 
 
 Cockroaches are pounded up, and an infusion of them 
 with boiling water is made in the same way as tea is 
 infused. The water is then given to children suffering 
 from fever. 
 
 CONFUCIUS AND CONFUCIANISM. One feels 
 a certain amount of difficulty in approaching such a vast 
 subject, for Confucianism is so entwined and blended with 
 all that concerns China, that it is hard to know where to 
 begin or where to leave off. We will simply preface 
 our account by saying that Confucianism is a system 
 of philosophy and ceremonial observances to which its 
 founder and followers ascribe the highest possibilities, if 
 carried out rigidly and faithfully to every minute jot and 
 tittle. Its originator was par excellence the sage of China. 
 
 Confucius's father ' was a military officer eminent for 
 his commanding stature, his great bravery, and immense 
 strength.' The birth of the sage has been surrounded by 
 mythical legends. ' From his childhood he showed ritual- 
 istic tendencies,' and ' delighted to play at the arrange- 
 ment of sacrificial vessels and at postures of ceremony.' 
 He ' bent his mind to learning.' He married young, his 
 experience of the married state not being a happy one, 
 nor did he appear to bestow much affection on his son. 
 Confucius early took public service in the State, holding 
 different offices at different times, such as Keeper of the 
 Stores of Grain, Guardian of the Public Fields and Lands, 
 Magistrate, Assistant Superintendent of Works, and 
 Minister of Crime ; and applied his principles to the 
 government with the most signal success. 
 
 These appointments were not all held in succession, but 
 were interspersed and followed by years spent in imparting 
 instruction to disciples (at one time as many as 3,000), in 
 gaining knowledge himself, and in the compilation and 
 
 178
 
 Confucius and Confucianism 
 
 editing of books, as well as in journeyings amongst the 
 different petty States into which the China of that time 
 was divided, in the hope that the rulers would give him 
 the opportunity of putting his principles of government 
 to the test, when, such confidence had he in them, that 
 he was convinced that, instead of anarchy and confusion, 
 peace and harmony would reign supreme. He died, 
 feeling that he was unappreciated, at the age of seventy- 
 two. His disciples had the highest admiration for him, 
 and exhausted attributes in the expression of it. 
 
 The best title which has ever been bestowed on him is 
 that of ' The Throneless King.' 
 
 ' Probably no man has been so contemned during his lifetime, 
 and at the same time so worshipped by posterity, as Confucius. In 
 both extremes there has been some exaggeration. His standard of 
 morality was high, and his doctrines were pure. Had he, therefore, 
 had an opportunity of exercising authority, it could but have resulted 
 in good to an age when the notions of right and wrong were strangely 
 confused, and when both public and private morality were at the 
 lowest ebb. On the other hand, it is difficult to understand the secret 
 of the extraordinary influence he has gained over posterity, and 
 the more the problem is studied the more incomprehensible does it 
 become,' when viewed from a European standpoint. 'His system of 
 philosophy is by no means complete, and it lacks life (if we may 
 venture to say so), in face of the fact that it has supplied the guiding 
 principles, which have actuated the performance of all that is great 
 and noble in the life of China for more than twenty centuries.' 
 
 It is impossible in the short space of this article to 
 give a digest of the doctrines of the sage. We will content 
 ourselves with giving a summary of the essential points as 
 adapted to the requirements of modern everyday Chinese 
 life by the great Emperor K'ang Hi : 
 
 ' I. Esteem most highly filial piety and brotherly submission, 
 in order to give due prominence to the social relations. 
 
 ' 2. Behave with generosity to the branches of your kindred, in 
 order to illustrate harmony and benignity. 
 
 '3. Cultivate peace and concord in your neighbourhoods, in order 
 to prevent quarrels and litigations. 
 
 '4. Recognise the importance of husbandry and the culture of 
 the mulberry-tree, in order to ensure sufficiency of clothing and food. 
 
 ' 5. Show that you prize moderation and economy, in order to 
 prevent the lavish waste of your means. 
 
 '6. Make much of the colleges and seminaries, in order to make 
 correct the practice of the scholars. 
 
 '"]. Discountenance and banish strange doctrines, in order to 
 exalt the correct doctrine. 
 
 1/9
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 '8. Describe and explain the laws, in order to warn the ignorant 
 and obstinate. 
 
 '9. Exhibit clearly propriety and yielding courtesy, in order t 
 make manners and customs good. 
 
 1 10. Labour diligently at your proper callings, in order to give 
 settlement to the aims of the people. 
 
 'ii. Instruct sons and younger brothers, in order to prevent them 
 from doing what is wrong. 
 
 ' 1 2. Put a stop to false accusations, in order to protect the 
 honest and the good. 
 
 ' 13. Warn against sheltering deserters, in order to avoid being 
 involved in their punishment. 
 
 ' 14. 1'romptly and fully pay your taxes, in order to avoid the 
 urgent requisition of your quota. 
 
 '15. Combine in hundreds and tithings, in order to put an end 
 to thefts and robbery. 
 
 ' 1 6. Study to remove resentments and angry feelings, in order 
 to show the importance due to the person and life.' 
 
 These, with commentaries, are read to the people on the 
 1st and 1 5th of the month. 
 
 Divine honours are paid to the sage by the Emperor 
 twice a year, and by every school-boy throughout the 
 length and breadth of the land. 
 
 Confucius is generally represented in the temples to him 
 by a wooden tablet with his name and titles on it, but in 
 some cases there is an image of him. There is a temple in 
 every district city and one in every departmental city, 
 consequently there are three in Canton : in two of these 
 there is a tablet, in the third, an image. In the district city 
 of Kit Yong, in the Ch'ao Chaii Department, the author saw 
 both an image and a tablet. The image represents a sage 
 as black as a negro, for he is described as being of a swarthy 
 complexion. Besides Confucius himself, his disciples, to 
 the extent of some hundred and seventy, are also honoured 
 by images or tablets in the immediate presence of 'The 
 Perfect Sage ' himself, or in the precincts of the same 
 temple that he occupies, and they are likewise 
 worshipped. 
 
 Books recommended. 'Confucianism and Taoism,' bv Professor 
 Douglas. Professor Ledge's 'Religions of China.' The same author's 
 'IiujK-rinl Confucianism, 1 and his master-work, 'The Chinese Classics." 
 'The three Religions of China,' by Du Bose. Faber's 'Digest of the 
 Doctrines of Confucius.' and a review of the latter in the China Review, 
 vol. i. p. 260. 'Confucius, The Great Teacher,' by Major - General 
 G. G. Alexander. 'A Guide to the Tablets in a Temple of Confucius' 
 by T. Walters. 
 
 1 80
 
 Cormorant Fishing 
 
 CORMORANT FISHING. The Chinese have long 
 used cormorants for fishing purposes ; for the journal of 
 the friar Odoric (A.D. 1286-1331) mentions this strange 
 method of fishing, and it is largely carried on at the 
 present day in some parts of China. To show the 
 admirable adaptation of this bird for the pursuit, we quote 
 from a lengthy article in The Encyclopedia Americana: 
 
 'The cormorant is most admir.ibly adapted for swimming, . . . 
 having the great toe united to the others by a common membrane, 
 . . . yet they are among the very few web-footed birds capable of 
 perching on the branches of trees, which they do with 'great ease 
 and security.' Cormorants, of which there are quite a number of 
 species distributed over different parts of the world, are closely 
 allied to the pelicans in conformation and habits. They ' are very 
 voracious feeders. . . . They dive with great force, and swim under 
 water with such celerity, that few fish can escape them. . . . Should a 
 cormorant seize a fish in any other way than by the head, he rises to 
 the surface, and, tossing the fish into the air, adroitly catches it head 
 foremost as it falls, so that the fins, being properly laid against the 
 fish's sides, cause no injury to the throat of the bird.' 
 
 Their use is not confined to one part of the country. 
 Amongst other places where they may be found at work 
 may be mentioned the North River above Canton, the 
 river above Ch'do-Chau-fii and the river above Foochow. 
 Though we have seen a small catamaran-like boat, with 
 several cormorants on it, in one of our trips into the interior, 
 we have not actually seen them employed : we therefore 
 copy at length from Miss Gordon-Cumming's ' Travels in 
 China,' as to their fishing : 
 
 'The simplest form of fishery is when a poor fisherman has 
 constructed for himself a raft consisting only of from four to eight 
 bamboos lashed together. On this he sits poised (crowned with a 
 large straw hat), and before him are perched half-a-dozen of these 
 odd uncanny-looking black birds waiting his command. The cage 
 in which they live and the basket in which he stores his fish complete 
 his slender stock-in-trade. The marvel is how he contrives to avoid 
 overturning his frail raft. Sometimes several fishers form partnership, 
 and start co-operative business. They invest in a shallow punt, and 
 a regiment of perhaps twenty or more of these solemn, sombre birds 
 sit on perches at either end of the punt, each having a hempen cord 
 fastened round the throat just below the pouch, to prevent its 
 swallowing any fish it may catch. Then, at a given signal, all the 
 cormorants glide into the water, apparently well aware of the 
 disadvantage of scaring their prey. 
 
 181
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 'Their movements below the surface are very swift and graceful 
 as they dart in pursuit of a fish or an eel, and giving it a nip with 
 their strong hooked beak, swallow it, and continue hunting. Some- 
 times they do not return to the surface till they have secured several 
 fish, and their capacious pouch is quite distended, and sometimes the 
 tail of a fish protrudes from their gaping bill. Then they return 
 to the surface, and at the bidding of their keepers disgorge their 
 prey, one by one, till the pouch is empty, when they again receive 
 the signal to dive, and resume their pursuit. 
 
 ' Some birds are far more expert than others, and rarely fail to 
 secure their prize, but sometimes they catch a fish, or more often 
 an eel, so awkwardly that they cannot contrive to swallow it, and 
 in the effort to arrange this difficulty, the victim manages to escape. 
 If one bird catches a large and troublesome fish, two or three of its 
 friends occasionally go to the aid of their comrade, and help him 
 to despatch it. Such brotherly kindness is, however, by no means 
 invariable, and sometimes, when a foolish young bird has captured 
 a fish, the old hands pursue and rob him of his prize. At other times 
 a bird fails in its trick, and after staying under water for a very long 
 period, comes up quite crestfallen without a fish. 
 
 'When the birds are tired the strap is removed from their throat 
 and they are rewarded with a share of the fish, which they catch 
 as it is thrown to them. It is reckoned a good day's fishing if 
 eighteen or twenty cormorants capture a dollar's worth of fish ; and 
 as so many birds represent about half-a-dozen owners, it is evidently 
 not a very lucrative business. 
 
 ' The birds are quite domestic, having all been reared in captivity. 
 Curiously enough, the mothers are so careless that they cannot be 
 trusted to rear their own young ; and furthermore, the said young 
 are so sensitive to cold weather that only the four or five eggs laid 
 in early spring are considered worth hatching, as only these can be 
 reared in the warm summer. They are taken from the cormorant and 
 given to a hen, who apparently must be colour-blind, as she calmly 
 accepts these green eggs in lieu of her own. She is not, however, 
 subjected to the misery of seeing her nurslings take to the water, as 
 they are at once removed from her care, when after a month's 
 incubation, the poor little fledgelings make their appearance. They 
 are then transferred to baskets which are kept in a warm corner ; 
 the young birds being buried in cotton wool and fed with pellets 
 of raw fish and bean-curd. 
 
 ' When they are two months old their nursery days are over, and 
 the sorrows of education must begin. They are therefore offered for 
 sale, a female bird being valued at from 35. to 53., and a male bird at 
 double the price. This difference is due to the superior strength of 
 the latter, which enables it to capture larger fish. Thenceforth the 
 professional trainer takes them in hand ; and fastening a string to one 
 leg, he drives them into the water and throws small live fishes, which 
 they are expected to catch. They are taught to go and return subject 
 to different calls on a whistle, obedience being enforced by the per- 
 suasive strokes of a bamboo the great educational factor in China ! 
 When thoroughly trained, a male bird is valued at from 205. to 305., 
 and its fishing career is expected to continue for five years, after which 
 it will probably become old and sulky.' 
 
 182
 
 Cotton 
 
 Cormorant fishing was practised in both France and 
 England in the seventeenth century ; and an attempt to 
 revive it has lately been made in England. 
 
 COSMETICS. These were largely used by the 
 Chinese, no girl or woman above the very menial classes 
 being considered as dressed without a plentiful application 
 of rouge to the lips and patches of it on the cheeks. A sign, 
 even if others were wanting, that the present race of Chinese 
 have descended to the warmer regions of the south of China 
 from a climate where rosy cheeks and ruby lips were natural. 
 No art was displayed in applying the rouge, nor was conceal- 
 ment ever dreamt of. At the first glance, a Chinese lady 
 was seen to be painted by the coarse big daub on each side 
 of her face. On festivals and gala occasions it was even more 
 freely applied. White powder was also used to render their 
 dark faces more fair. The lavish use of cosmetics spoils 
 whatever complexion a Chinese lady may possess. Within 
 the last few years, however, a change has come over the 
 fashion ; a little line across the lower lip in the middle 
 serves for the lips in the way of rouge, if rouged at all, and 
 the cheeks are now left to their natural colour, as a rule. 
 
 COTTON. The introduction of cotton as a textile 
 plant into China is an interesting subject. ' The art of 
 spinning and weaving cotton, as far as Central China is 
 concerned,' is traced to 'a lady of high rank, who intro- 
 duced the art B.C. 400.' It has been supposed that the 
 ancient Shii King (The Book of History) mentions cotton, 
 but ' the weight of proof is, however, strongly adverse to 
 this view.' There is no doubt that a historical notice, 
 about A.D. 500, ' refers to cotton robes,' and in A.D. 670 we 
 find it bearing the name of Kih-pei, derived from the Sanscrit 
 Karpasi. This early knowledge of cotton amongst the 
 Chinese was confined, it is believed, to what was brought 
 into the empire as tribute, for it was not until the Sung 
 dynasty that the plant was grown in China. 
 
 ' Early in the eleventh century the plant was brought over and 
 cultivated in the north-western provinces by persons from Khoten. 
 
 I8 3
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 . . . The opposition to cotton cultivation on the part of silk and hemp 
 growers was so persistent that the plant had not fairly won its way 
 into favour until the Yuen dynasty. The great cotton region is the 
 basin of the Yangtsz Kiang, where the white and yellow varieties grow 
 side by side. The manure used is mud taken from the canals and 
 spread with ashes over the ploughed fields, in which seeds are sown 
 about the 2oth of April. The seeds are planted, after sprouting, five or 
 six in a hole, being rubbed with ashes as they are put in, and weeded 
 out if necessary. After the winter crops have been gathered, cotton 
 fields are easily made ready for the shoots, which, while growing, are 
 carefully tended, thinned, hoed, and weeded until the flowers begin to 
 appear about August. As the pods begin to ripen and burst, the 
 cultivator collects them before they fall, to clean the cotton of seed 
 and husks. The weather is carefully watched, for a dry summer or a 
 wet autumn are alike unpropitious, and as the pods are ripening from 
 August to October, it is not uncommon for the crop to be partially 
 lost. The seeds are separated by a wheel turning two rollers, and the 
 cotton sold by each farmer to merchants in the towns. Some he 
 keeps for weaving at home ; spinning-wheels and looms being common 
 articles of furniture in the houses of the peasantry. Cotton is culti- 
 vated in every province, and most of it is used where it grows. 
 Around Peking the plant is hardly a foot high ; the bolls are cleaned 
 for wadding to a great extent, while the woody stalks supply fuel to 
 the poor. Minute directions are given in Su's "Encyclopaedia of 
 Agriculture" respecting the cultivation of this plant, whose total crop 
 clothes the millions of the empire.' 
 
 'Cotton is not cultivated in China as in the United States. The 
 preparation of the soil and the planting and cultivation are different. 
 The ridges are wide, like the ridges of an American wheat field, and 
 the seed is sown as an American farmer sows wheat. Consequently 
 the plants are very thick, and the Chinese cotton-farmer cultivates 
 every plant to the full maturity possible. The necessity for sufficient 
 space for the plant to grow and branch is not admitted, and, when 
 matured, the stalk is small and the limbs comparatively few. This 
 thickness of growth necessarily results in small bolls and a short 
 staple. To look at an acre of Chinese cotton when full-grown, leaves 
 an impression favourable to great yielding capacity, which the actual 
 yield is far from fulfilling. The thickness of the plants, standing so 
 close together, keeps off the action of the sun, and causes many of the 
 bolls to wither in the shade, and also prevents many from maturing. 
 The hoe used for working cotton is very narrow, in order that the 
 labourer may thread his way, as it were, between the thick standing 
 plants. When the Chinese are taught the advantage of properly 
 spacing their cotton rows and thinning the cotton plant, so that the 
 warm air and the rays of the sun can freely penetrate, the change 
 from the present system of cultivation will be rewarded by an increased 
 yield per acre and a much finer staple.' 
 
 'The durable cotton cloth made in the central provinces called 
 Nankeen by foreigners, because Nanking is famous for its manufacture, 
 is the chief product of Chinese looms.' 'The so-called "Nankeen" 
 cottons are said to be "colour variations" of the herbaceous cotton 
 plant.' ' It is now seldom sent out of the country, and the natives are 
 
 184
 
 Cotton 
 
 even taking to the foreign fabric in its stead. Cotton seed in that 
 part of China is sown early in June, about eighty pounds to an acre ; 
 in a good year the produce is about two thousand pounds, diminishing 
 to one-half in poor seasons. It is manured with liquid bean-cake, 
 often hoed, and the bolls gathered in October, usually by each family 
 in its own plot. The seeds are separated by passing the pods 
 between an iron and wooden roller on a frame, which presses out the 
 seeds and does not break them. The clean cotton is then bowed 
 ready for spinning, and the cloth is woven in simple looms by the 
 people who are to wear it after it is dyed blue. The looms used in 
 weaving cotton vary from twelve to sixteen inches in width ; they are 
 simple in their construction ; no figures are woven in cotton fabrics, 
 nor have the Chinese learned to print them as chintz or calico. . . . 
 The only attempt to estimate the product has been in Kiangnan, at 
 28,500 tons, a figure below rather than above the truth.' 
 
 'Owing to the great difficulty of obtaining any reliable statistical 
 information, it is impossible to give anything approaching accuracy as 
 to number of pounds of cotton produced annually, or number of acres 
 devoted to the cultivation of the cotton plant' in China. 'There has 
 been within recent years a great increase in the weight of the cotton 
 crop as well as in the acreage. The type of plant most generally 
 cultivated is the herbaceous, and the cotton resulting is only poor in 
 quality. Little or no preparation is made before sowing seed, which 
 is generally done broadcast. As a result there is much overcrowding, 
 and as is inevitable, there is produced a stubby plant with small bolls 
 and much unripe cotton. On the terraces of the hillsides something 
 approaching cultivation is pursued, with the result of a better crop. 
 Usually twenty weeks intervene between planting and picking, this 
 latter operation being mostly the work of children and women. The 
 old cotton stalks are afterwards collected and dried for fuel. Very 
 few large plantations exist in China, most of them being only a few 
 acres in extent.' 
 
 The cotton plant is grown all over China at the present 
 day. It has been thought that it may have been intro- 
 duced ' by foreigners trading with the Chinese ' ' by way of 
 the southern sea ' ' as well as by the Mongol usurpers 
 coming in from the north-west,' for, though first cultivated 
 during the Sung dynasty, it was only under the Mongols 
 that it was grown to any extent. One writer describes 
 the spread of the cotton plant in China as being very rapid 
 on account of its being able to stand the northern winters 
 and the southern mildness of climate. So common has 
 it become now that it is the staple article for dress in 
 China, especially amongst the poorer classes, as it can be 
 more cheaply made than silks. Not content with their 
 own native produced article, cotton and cotton goods form 
 the largest import into China, and an import which is 
 
 185
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 continually increasing in value. In 1892 it was represented 
 in value by 53,290,200 taels, grey and white shirtings from 
 England accounting alone for 15,693,081 taels of that 
 amount. The Indian yarn thus imported 'is suited to 
 make coarse fabrics which are strong and wear well.' 
 ' China greatly values cheapness, and, if she procure these 
 [Indian yarns], she will supply her own coarse textile 
 fabrics for the time by the cottage loom system, and suit 
 her own taste in strength and quality.' But a new phase 
 recently came over the cotton industry, and a number of 
 mills fitted with the latest appliances for the manufacture 
 have sprung up at Shanghai, and a few other important 
 centres of trade and industry in China ; this is accompanied 
 by an increased cultivation of cotton. It would seem that 
 the Indian yarn is better suited for manufacture than the 
 native. 
 
 ' Mr. Tratman, referring to the manufactures of the Hupeh cotton 
 mill at Wuchang, says : "These goods have had a fair trial through- 
 out these provinces during the past few years, but they are not 
 appreciated to anything like the same extent as similar goods of 
 foreign manufacture. The yarn is short and difficult to work with the 
 primitive appliances in use here. The shirtings have not the same 
 toughness as even the most common kind of English goods, and they 
 tear very easily. This inferiority of the Hupeh goods is not, I am 
 told, to be in any way attributed to the manufacture, but simply to the 
 fact that the cotton used is much below the standard of Indian cotton." ' 
 
 Though of short staple, Chinese cotton ' is suitable for 
 mixing with other qualities.' The Hon. T. H. Whitehead, 
 from whom we have quoted the last sentence, in his speech 
 at the Royal Colonial Institute in 1895, proceeds to say : 
 
 ' In the Shanghai River in December 1893, there were at one time 
 no less than five ocean-going steamers taking in cargoes of China- 
 grown cotton for transportation to Japan, there to be converted by 
 Japanese hands into yarn and cotton.' 'The Chinese have millions 
 of acres of land admirably adapted to the cultivation of cotton.' 
 
 The starting of these cotton mills, to which we have 
 already referred, will obviate the necessity of carrying the 
 cotton to Japan and then bringing the yarn back to 
 China, since the conversion of it into yarn can be carried 
 out on the spot. Shanghai, being the centre of the cotton 
 growing districts, bids fair, if the industry is not throttled 
 
 186
 
 Cotton 
 
 by Chinese officialdom and officialism, to ' be one of the 
 greatest manufacturing centres in the world.' It has already 
 proved a commercial success in Shanghai, and companies 
 for starting mills at other places are every now and then 
 being promoted ; some time ago it was announced that a 
 ' weaving enterprise on a somewhat large ^>cale ' would 
 ' shortly be inaugurated in Honam, Canton.' There are 
 now (1898) fifteen mills running in Shanghai and Northern 
 China with about 400,000 spindles. 
 
 In the last-mentioned city there are over 1,000 em- 
 ployed in the native primitive method of weaving cotton- 
 cloth. It takes about twelve days to make one piece of 
 1 1 chang in length (about 43 yards), and the pay for this is 
 380 cash, the masters providing board and lodging for the 
 workmen, but charging them for it. The cotton is carded 
 by means of a large bow several feet in length, which is 
 held by, or fastened to the body of, the workman who 
 vibrates the string amidst the cotton, thus producing a very 
 light floss. 
 
 The war in the North of China seriously affected the 
 cotton mill industry in China, and other troubles, incident 
 to new ventures of the kind in China, have handicapped it, 
 but ' other industries, as silk and sugar, have had the same 
 difficulties to surmount, and have surmounted them success- 
 fully,' and cotton would probably have done the same but 
 for the war. These initial trials over, the industry will 
 probably become a permanent one in China. 
 
 The cotton tree is not to be confounded with the cotton 
 plant. It is a large, splendid tree, growing to a considerable 
 size, with immense limbs branching out from it, and in 
 spring it has a large red flower. A white silky down covers 
 the seeds, whence its name. This cotton is ' equally good 
 looking ' as the true cotton, its staple is too short to be woven 
 into cloth ; consequently it is only used to stuff cushions, 
 etc. A rough cloth is capable of being produced from it, 
 so it is said, but this statement is doubtful. 
 
 Books recommended. Williams's 'Middle Kingdom.' Dr. Porter Smith's 
 'Chinese Materia Medica and Natural History,' and Dr. Edkins's 'Modern 
 China.' 
 
 I8 7
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 CREMATION, Cremation is opposed to the principles 
 of the Chinese. They believe that unless the whole body 
 goes intact into the next world, it will not be in a perfect 
 condition in a future state of existence. It is only Buddhist 
 monks whose bodies are thus disposed of at the present 
 day. It was, however, a common practice, in some parts 
 of China, at all events, during the twelfth and thirteenth 
 centuries, for Marco Polo says : ' The people have paper- 
 money, and are idolaters and burn their dead.' Ibn Batuta 
 also says : ' The Chinese are all infidels : they worship 
 images, and burn their dead just like the Hindoos.' A 
 memorial was presented against it in A.D. 1261 to the 
 Emperor, ' praying that the erection of cremation furnaces 
 might thenceforth be prohibited.' It is a great pity that 
 the practice was not continued, as the neighbourhood of a 
 Chinese city is converted into a vast necropolis, to say 
 nothing of solitary graves scattered over the hills and 
 mountains, even at a distance from human habitations. 
 There is no intramural burial. No places of worship are 
 turned into charnel-houses, to the detriment of future living 
 worshippers, as with us, but an equally, or even more, 
 reprehensible custom is in vogue of preserving the coffin in 
 the house or some convenient temple for weeks, months, 
 and years, until either a favourable site with propitious 
 influences is found, or until the family can afford the ex- 
 penses of a funeral befitting their social position. This is 
 in the South ; in the central portions of China, as at 
 Shanghai, one sees coffins standing even in the corners, or 
 centres, of fields. All these insanitary customs would have 
 been done away with had the more scientific and health- 
 preserving practice of cremation been allowed to continue. 
 The Mantsz aborigines in Western Sz-chuen cremate their 
 dead. The bodies are placed in a sitting position and 
 bound with cords. The funeral pyre is built, and, after the 
 body is burned, the ashes and unburned wood are buried 
 on the spot. 
 
 Archdeacon Gray thus describes a cremation at Honam 
 Temple : 
 
 188
 
 Currency 
 
 'As I entered the inner gates my attention was directed to an 
 apartment, the doors of which were crowded by a number of priests 
 arrayed in sackcloth, and wearing white bandages round their fore- 
 heads. The corpse, attired in a cowl, and with the hands fixed in the 
 attitude of prayer, was placed in a bamboo-chair in a sitting posture, 
 and carried to the pyre by six secular monks. All the monks were in 
 attendance, and walked two abreast, immediately behind the remains 
 of the departed friar. As the long procession advanced, the walls of 
 the monastery echoed with the chanting of prayers and the tinkling of 
 cymbals. When the bearers reached the pyre, they placed the chair 
 containing the corpse upon it, and the fagots were then kindled by 
 the chief priest. Whilst the body was enveloped in flames, the 
 mourners prostrated themselves upon the ground in obeisance to the 
 ashes of one with whom they had been accustomed to join in prayer 
 and praise. When the fire had burned itself out, the attendants 
 collected the charred bones and placed them in a cinerary urn, which 
 was then deposited in a small shrine within the precincts of the 
 monastery. The cinerary urns remain in this shrine until the ninth 
 day of the ninth month, when the ashes which they contain are 
 emptied into bags of red cloth, which are then sewn and thrown into 
 a large ossuary, or species of monastery mausoleum. These edifices, 
 built of granite, are called by the Chinese Poo-Toong-Tap, and are 
 upon an extensive scale. That belonging to the monastery of Honam 
 is a noble piece of masonry, and is divided into compartments, one 
 being for the ashes of monks, and the other for those of nuns. The 
 bags of red cloth, with their contents, are consigned to these re- 
 ceptacles through small apertures just sufficiently large for their 
 admission.' 
 
 CURRENCY. China presents the curious spectacle of 
 an empire without a gold or silver currency in general 
 use throughout the land. For centuries, with but slight 
 exceptions, the medium of exchange has been the cash, a 
 small copper coin of the size of an English halfpenny, but 
 only a half or a third as thick, with a square hole in its 
 centre for convenience in stringing. It has a raised broad 
 rim round the circumference as well as one round the square 
 hole in the centre. In the sunk space between these two 
 rims are, on the obverse, four raised Chinese characters, two 
 of which are the style of the Emperor's reign, and two are 
 the equivalent of 'current coin.' At the present day the 
 majority of the coins also have on the reverse two raised 
 Manchu characters, one denoting the provincial mint at 
 which the coin has been cast, and the other the equivalent 
 of the word ' currency.' For some centuries before Christ, 
 and until the present time, this has been, in its general 
 
 189
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 features, the circulating medium of China. Larger coins 
 of the same character have also been coined, but, as a rule, 
 it may be said that China has had no gold or silver coinage. 
 A few attempts to coin silver have been made once or 
 twice in the past, but they have been failures. Edkins 
 says ' Arabian trade brought to China the use of silver by 
 weight, as European trade at a later period brought the 
 dollar.' ' A thousand years ago the people in Central 
 China kept their accounts in copper cash.' It is now the 
 general practice, at all events in the South, for accounts to 
 be kept in silver taels, mace, candarins, and It (a decimal 
 system : ten // making one candarin ; ten candarins, one 
 mace ; and ten mace, one tael) ; there being actually no 
 such coins in existence. But in Hongkong and places 
 where the dollar is common, they are often kept in dollars 
 and cents. Hence arises sometimes a curious mixture, the 
 shop-keeper at times puts down some of the items in taels, 
 etc., and in other parts of his books items will occur in 
 dollars and cents. Paper notes have at different periods 
 been issued by the Government, and in later times by 
 private firms. They have been much in use in certain parts 
 of China Foochow for example. Marco Polo devotes a 
 whole chapter to an account of the paper-money in use in 
 China in his time. (See Article on Banks and Bank- 
 notes). The Chinese readily used the Mexican, South 
 American, and other dollars half a century ago Spanish 
 dollars took the place that the Mexican subsequently held, 
 but, except in the neighbourhood of Hongkong, and often 
 there as well, they always weighed them, and they were 
 generally stamped, as they passed through the hands of 
 merchants and shop-keepers, with a private mark of the 
 firm, till they fell into pieces and became what is known as 
 broken silver, and had to be weighed as each transaction 
 took place to know their value. For this purpose a small 
 money scale is a part of the equipment of every one going 
 shopping ; in time, no doubt, a regular silver coinage will 
 drive this practice out. The Japanese, Hongkong, and 
 Straits Settlements subsidiary coins, such as the five, ten, 
 
 190
 
 Currency 
 
 and twenty cent pieces, have been much in circulation, 
 especially in Hongkong and its neighbourhood. The 
 Japanese yen and Hongkong dollar are also used more 
 now. Within the last few years a mint has been estab- 
 lished at Canton. This mint is a very fine one, and in 
 one respect, that of stamping machines, is the largest in 
 the world. It is under the superintendence of a Scotch- 
 man, but all the other officials and workmen are natives. 
 The following extracts from Consul Brennan's Report 
 may prove of interest in this connection : 
 
 'This mint has not so far [1893] taken upon itself the duty of 
 providing the people with a standard of value at the expense of the 
 Government. It only cares to work at a profit. . . . No assayer is 
 employed, and the provincial treasury silver is taken to be pure, the 
 Canton dollar [few of which have been coined] is not of even fineness. 
 Some of the first dollars coined there were found in the London mint 
 to be actually 884 instead of 900 fine. . . . There is a steady demand 
 [for the subsidiary coins] because of the convenience, their passing 
 above their intrinsic value being an exemplification of Ricardo's 
 proposition that the value of a coin depends on demand and supply. 
 . . . There is certain to be in time an immense demand for such small 
 silver pieces all over the Empire.' 
 
 (Sir Thomas Wade, a former British minister to Peking, 
 actually recommended that Hongkong should coin taels 
 when it was proposed to issue a Hongkong dollar, 
 and this when the Chinese were familiar with foreign 
 dollars. 
 
 The Chinese, as will be seen below, have given in their 
 adhesion to the use of the dollar themselves.) 
 
 The coins issued by the Canton mint have been dollars, 
 half dollars, twenty, ten, and five cent pieces in silver, 
 copper cents and cash. The Government of the Fokien 
 Province had a large quantity of silver coins minted for them 
 at this establishment in Canton. The same Viceroy, Chang 
 Chih-tung, who introduced this first mint into China, also 
 established one at Wuchang for the benefit of the Hupeh 
 and Hunan Provinces. The Central Provinces will pro- 
 bably be supplied from Nanking with a new coinage, while 
 the Northern Provinces are also minting their own silver 
 money, Anhwei, for one, having a mint of its own. Indeed 
 
 191
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 so rapidly have these new mints been springing up in 
 China within the last few years that it is difficult to keep 
 count of them all. Other mints will soon doubtless supply 
 other portions of the empire with silver coins. The ten 
 and twenty cent pieces issued by the Canton mint are 
 largely in circulation in Hongkong, though not now 
 received at the Government offices, such as the Post 
 Office, etc. 
 
 CUSTOMS, IMPERIAL MARITIME. In 1853, 
 owing to the T'ai P'ing rebels capturing Shanghai, the 
 collection of customs duties on foreign bottoms entering that 
 port was placed in the hands of foreigners, as a temporary 
 measure until order should be restored ; but what was in- 
 tended as a modus vivendi for the time being, proved so 
 well adapted for the purpose, that it became a permanency, 
 and has increased with the extension of trade and the 
 opening of new treaty ports, until it is now a most im- 
 portant department, with a large and efficient staff recruited 
 from most of the European nations, though the English 
 are in the majority. 
 
 The following is the personnel of the establishment : 
 At the head of all are the Inspector-General and the 
 Deputy Inspector-General ; immediately below them are 
 the Commissioners, 40 in number, who are generally in 
 charge of each Custom-house. They are assisted by 
 Deputy Commissioners, of whom there are 19, including 6 
 extra for Likin ; the next ranks being Chief, First, Second, 
 Third and Fourth Assistants, of whom there are 194 ; Clerks 
 number 12 ; under the heading of Miscellaneous there are 
 12 names ; and there are 29 Surgeons connected with the 
 Customs, who have private practice as well, making, with 
 the 279 of the Indoor Staff, a total of 308 foreigners. The 
 foreign Outdoor Staff number 551, the ranks being Tide 
 Surveyors, Assistant Tide Surveyors, and Boat Officers ; 
 Chief Examiners, Examiners, and Assistant Examiners ; 
 Tide Waiters, and Watchers, and Miscellaneous, etc. There 
 are also five armed cruisers built in England, most of 
 
 192
 
 Customs, Imperial Maritime 
 
 them by Armstrong, commanded and officered by Euro- 
 peans, and styled the Coast Staff (46 in number), and 
 manned by Chinese ; also belonging to this Coast Staff 
 is a small fleet (10) of armed launches with 19 officers, 
 and an Engineer's Staff, 7 in number. The lighthouses on 
 the China coast, with the exception of those kept up by 
 the Hongkong and Macao Governments, owe their incep- 
 tion and maintenance to this same department, employing 
 58 foreigners and 222 Chinese. There is a Marine Staff 
 as well ; the Lighthouse Staff coming under the heading 
 of Marine makes a total of 129 foreigners. There is a small 
 Educational Department (7 foreigners), and a Postal one 
 with 65 foreigners. This then gives us a total of 1,093 
 foreigners ; a few hold two appointments, one sometimes 
 in connection with the Postal Service, so that the total is 
 a little less ; with all deductions, however, there are more 
 than 1,050 foreigners, and over 5,000 Chinese (some 5,038) 
 in the whole Customs employ under Sir Robert Hart ; but 
 the numbers, of course, fluctuate from year to year, and, 
 with the opening of new treaty ports and the extension of 
 the postal system, the numbers tend towards an increase. 
 The Nationality of the staff some years since was roughly 
 stated, as follows : There are about 550 British, about 125 
 Germans ; American, 80 ; French, about 40 ; Danish, 30 ; 
 Norwegian, some 30 or so ; Portuguese, nearly 30 ; Swedish, 
 20 ; Russian, Spanish, Italian, Belgian, Austrian, Dutch, 
 Siamese, Turkish, Hungarian, and Venezuelan below 20 
 each, some nations having only one in the service. 
 
 About ^"400,000 a year was allowed by the Chinese 
 Government for the support and upkeep of this entire 
 service of the Imperial Maritime Customs, but the sum 
 has doubtless been increased, as the establishment is con 
 stantly growing and the expenses increasing. The patron- 
 age is in the hands of the Inspector-General, whose 
 nomination is required for appointment. 
 
 Mr. H. N. Lay was the former Inspector-General, but 
 he came to grief in 1863 over the Sherard Osborne fleet, 
 and was succeeded by Sir Robert Hart, who has 
 
 193 N
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 performed the onerous and multifarious duties connected 
 with his position with great tact and ability, winning 
 not only the good opinion of the Chinese government, 
 but that of the mercantile community in China as well. 
 The receipts of a most important department are thus 
 handed over intact to the Chinese, and, notwithstanding 
 the large salaries necessarily paid to the foreign em- 
 ployes, the Chinese government reaps a larger benefit 
 from it than it would from one in purely native hands, 
 so difficult is it for money once in the hands of 
 Chinese Mandarins to leave their possession without 
 a large percentage being deducted for the benefit of 
 each one who has had to do with it. This revenue 
 is likewise honestly collected, a thing impossible of 
 accomplishment were natives employed, as bribes and 
 presents are in continual use in China. Could this 
 same system be enlarged and extended to the collec- 
 tion of the whole of the Customs revenue of China, 
 it would prove of incalculable benefit to the nation ; 
 but the Provincial authorities are opposed to this, the 
 Provincial and Imperial authorities being mutually sus- 
 picious of each other. (See Article on Li Kin.) 
 
 A further advantage of this service is the moral 
 lesson it gives to Chinese officials. Hong Yau-wai, 
 one of the leaders of the Chinese Reform Party, speaking 
 of the enormous loss of revenue that occurs in China, 
 stated that in his own native district, that of Namhoi, 
 out of a total amount of 8240,000 a year, only some- 
 thing over 820,000 reached the Imperial Purse. It is 
 also exerting an improving influence on the government 
 system of keeping accounts. An accuracy and care is now 
 exercised over them, supposed to be the result of the 
 publication quarterly of the Foreign Customs accounts ; 
 and public accounts 'are now frequently printed in the 
 Peking Gazette, which is a hopeful novelty.' 
 
 CUTTLE-FISH. This is a most common article of 
 diet amongst the Chinese, and is eaten both fresh and dried. 
 
 194
 
 Decorations and Presentations 
 
 ' In the latter case the ink-bag is cut away, and all 
 impurities having been removed by water, the animal is 
 submitted to pressure and then dried in the sun. Bundles 
 of one catty each are tied up and placed in cases holding 
 ten catties or more each, for export' (Dennys) from the 
 Straits Settlements. 
 
 The fresh cuttle-fish is fried over a quick fire, while 
 dried cuttle-fish is boiled to prepare it for the table. 
 
 A curious idea was prevalent at one time in the West, 
 that the so-called Indian ink (really Chinese ink) was 
 prepared from the colouring matter of the cuttle-fish, instead 
 of being made from lampblack as its principal ingredient. 
 
 CYCLE. From a remote antiquity the Chinese have 
 used a cycle of 60 years. This sexagenary cycle is formed 
 of two sets of characters : one set consisting of twelve and 
 the other of ten, which are combined together in sets of 
 two, i.e., each year of the sixty is represented by two 
 characters which distinguish it from the other fifty-nine. 
 A sexagenary division also existed in early times in India 
 and Babylon. 
 
 The Chinese employ both this cycle as well as the year 
 of the reign of the sovereign. The latter is preferable, as at 
 times the use of the former causes some uncertainty. For 
 example, if a book has the name of one of the years of the 
 cycle on the title-page as the date of its being written or of 
 its publication, the question may arise as to which series of 
 sixty years the date refers whether it is the year in the 
 present cycle of sixty, or the year in the last, or a former 
 cycle of sixty years. There is not the precision about it, 
 under any and every circumstance, which there ought to be 
 in anything connected with dates. 
 
 DECORATIONS AND PRESENTATIONS.- 
 Mayers, who is the great authority on all matters connected 
 with Government titles, etc., says most justly that : 
 
 'Although rewards for distinguished service, or marks of Imperial 
 favour, the conception of which resembles in some degree that of the 
 
 195
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 European system of Royal or National Orders and Medals of 
 Distinction, are to be found in China, nothing in the shape of an 
 actual Order of Merit approximating to the European type has been 
 adopted by the Chinese Government. . . . Isolated distinctions have 
 indeed been conferred in China on foreigners of various nationalities, 
 principally for services rendered in the command of the drilled troops 
 during the T'ai P'ing rebellion, and subsequently in the collection of 
 the Customs' revenue, . . . but as these are bestowed for the most 
 part by provincial authorities, and without the sanction of any 
 established rule or recognised statutes, such as are required to 
 constitute what is commonly known as an " Order," the badges thus 
 conferred can scarcely be regarded as having a real value as authentic 
 marks of distinction.' 
 
 There is, however, of late years the newly established 
 Order, in its various grades, reserved solely for foreigners, 
 namely, the Order of the Double Dragon ; it is divided 
 into five grades, the first, second, and third being sub- 
 divided into three classes. Sir Robert Hart, the dis- 
 tinguished and able head of the Imperial Maritime Customs 
 in China, has a decoration of a First Class of the Second 
 Division of this Order, and many of the Customs officials 
 have the different classes of it. Major von Henneken and 
 several of the Europeans employed as officers in the 
 Chinese navy were decorated with it during the war with 
 Japan, and Mr. Matheson received it in recognition of his 
 excellent services in the construction of the Formosan 
 Railway. The officers of the ill-fated German gunboat Iltis, 
 which was lost some years ago in a typhoon, had the Order 
 of the Double Dragon conferred upon them for having 
 rescued a number of Chinese soldiers from the ' Kow Shing.' 
 
 The purely native decorations and privileges are many 
 in number. We note a few of them below. 
 
 The Riding Cape or Yellow Riding-Jacket (ma k'wa), 
 though so styled is not necessarily, but at the present day 
 is generally, of that colour. It is only worn ' when in 
 personal attendance upon the sovereign, in the field, or 
 upon journeys.' Only two Europeans have been honoured 
 with its bestowal General Gordon and M. Giquel. ' It 
 is in colour of a gorgeous golden hue, lined with sleeves of 
 peacock blue all of the richest silk. It is very capacious 
 . . . reaching down far below the waist.' 
 
 196
 
 Decorations and Presentations 
 
 Another honorary distinction, conferred upon eminent 
 public functionaries, is the privilege of being allowed to 
 ride on horseback ' for some distance within the outer 
 gateways of the palace, when summoned to an audience.' 
 
 Another class of distinctions is that of the feather. The 
 feathers allowed are those of the peacock and the crow. 
 They are placed in the back of the hat, and stick out, slop- 
 ing downwards. The peacock feathers are three-eyed, 
 double-eyed, or single-eyed. The first is conferred on 
 Imperial princes, 'nobles of the higher degrees, or for the 
 most signal military achievements' ; the second is reserved 
 for lower officials or dignitaries ; and the third ' is bestowed 
 as an ordinary form of reward for public service, and during 
 the last few decades has been indiscriminately obtainable 
 by purchase.' The Crow Feather or Blife Plume is for the 
 soldiers of the Imperial Guards, and officials of the seventh, 
 eighth, and ninth degrees of rank are rewarded by it. The 
 peacock feather has been conferred upon Europeans, 
 amongst its recipients being Sir Robert Hart and his 
 brother, the late Mr. James Hart, of the Imperial Maritime 
 Customs Service, and some of the foreign officers of the 
 Chinese Navy. 
 
 A peculiar feature in connection with these distinctions 
 amongst the Chinese is the withdrawal of them as a sign 
 of Imperial impatience or displeasure. A notable instance 
 of this lately was in the case of the late Viceroy Li Hung- 
 chang in connection with the troubles with Japan, his 
 three-eyed peacock feather and yellow riding-jacket were 
 the honours of which he was deprived temporarily ; for 
 1 the slight is often quickly repaired,' not only by the re- 
 bestowal of the lost honours but by the fresh granting of 
 even greater ones. 
 
 General Yeh, who distinguished himself in battle, was 
 ordered by the Throne to be rewarded with ' Imperial gifts 
 consisting of a white peacock-feather-holder, a small knife, 
 a pair of large purses, and a couple of tinder-boxes.' 
 
 The Bat'uru Distinction, derived from the Manchu word 
 for ' brave,' is something like the French Legion cfhonneur 
 
 197
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 1 and is conferred solely for active service in the field.' 
 There is no outward sign of its possession, but each 
 recipient gets a distinguishing title either in Manchu, 
 Mongolian, or Chinese, the first being the most honourable. 
 The title given, for instance, might be ' IMt'uru, with the 
 title Magnanimous Brave.' The bestowal of the title 
 gives the right to wear the peacock's feather, though the 
 brave soldier has generally obtained that privilege before. 
 Enhanced allowances are also the result of the Bat'uru, 
 when on active service. General Mesny, who was in the 
 service of the Chinese army, is the only European who has 
 obtained this honour ; it was bestowed on him for services 
 in the province of Kwei-chow. 
 
 Another privilege is the Manchu one, of having the 
 sword-scabbard c6vered with yellow bark from the Robinia 
 pygmcea a tree belonging to the Acacise family. The 
 Seventh Prince, on the accession of the Emperor, Kwong 
 Sui, had this bestowed on him. 
 
 Another honour granted is ' the permission to use 
 scarlet or purple reins when riding ... on horseback 
 . . . and to use the same colour for the props of the 
 sedan-chair.' These privileges ' were believed to be reserved 
 exclusively for the Imperial family,' but the Viceroy Li had 
 them conferred on him. Yet another honour bestowed on 
 the same high official was a robe made of throat-skins of 
 sables, sent as a birthday present to him by the Empress 
 Dowager ; special permission from the Throne is required 
 for the wearing of such. 
 
 In this connection it may be interesting to notice two 
 distinctions conferred on Sir Robert Hart : the Inspector 
 General ' will, however, receive a piece of silk with the 
 names of his three ancestors inscribed thereupon in five 
 colours. This is a higher honour than the yellow jacket. 
 Another special decree also ' conferred buttons of the first 
 rank ' on his immediate three ancestors ' for his able 
 administration of the Customs.' Again ' the Emperor 
 of China has by Imperial Rescript' done similar honour 
 to the three generations of ancestors of Sir Halliday 
 
 198
 
 Decorations and Presentations 
 
 Macartney, the Secretary of the Chinese Legation in 
 London. These are the only two Europeans who have 
 been thus honoured. 
 
 The title of Instructor of the Emperor ' is a posthumous 
 one, and it is said ' is never given a man in his lifetime, and 
 only to the most distinguished officers after death.' The 
 great Tseng Kwo-chuan, deceased, and his brother had it : 
 ' it is unprecedented in history that two brothers should be 
 so honoured.' 
 
 Among the honours conferred upon the late energetic 
 Admiral (and General) Fong by the Throne was the Order 
 of the Yellow Flag ' an honour possessed only by some 
 half-dozen recipients in the whole Empire. It carried with 
 it the despotic power to order the execution of any subject, 
 if of subordinate rank, without reference to Peking.' 
 
 Presentations or testimonials to officials by the people 
 take a different form in China from what they do in the 
 West. 
 
 There is the presentation of the official umbrella, which is 
 a distant cousin of the Italian Baldacchino. It is a circular 
 canopy with a deep border and fringe dependent from it. 
 
 ' It is made of scarlet silk, and on the deep borders which encircle 
 it are embroidered in yellow or black silk the names of the donors.' 
 
 'At other times, tablets bearing complimentary inscriptions are 
 given as testimonials, and these are much prized by the recipients, 
 and used to decorate their best receiving rooms.' 
 
 'Another and more comical method of exhibiting the public 
 estimation of official probity and worth is for a deputation of the 
 inhabitants to wait upon a mandarin at one of the gates of the city 
 at the moment of his making his farewell exit, and to beg the gift 
 of his boots, which are thenceforth reverently cherished in some 
 temple as public property.' 
 
 The latest decorations of foreigners has been through 
 the instrumentality of the Viceroy Yuan Shi-k'ai of a 
 number of missionaries, mostly Roman Catholic, in 
 connection with the rendering and settling of the missionary 
 claims arising out of the Boxer disturbances of 1900 
 buttons, peacocks' feathers, and stars stars doubtless of 
 the double dragon. 
 
 199
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 DEMONIACAL POSSESSION. The Chinese 
 believe that madness and many forms of disease are 
 due to possession by evil spirits. 
 
 The idea of evil spirits and their wicked machinations 
 pervades the whole of Chinese society : it crops up in all 
 sorts of unexpected places, and permeates and pervades 
 their whole round of existence. Does a parent's love go 
 out towards some little child, and, as year by year goes by, 
 increase in strength, until suddenly some disease takes the 
 little darling away from the home it has made bright and 
 happy? Then the miserable solace the bereaved parents 
 have, is that it was not a proper child of their own at 
 all, but some spiteful spirit, that, after ingratiating itself 
 into their affections, ruined all their fond hopes, and 
 dashed their anticipations of future bliss by suddenly 
 showing itself in its true colours in returning whence 
 it came. 
 
 More than twenty years ago some most curious instances 
 of apparent demoniacal possession forced themselves upon 
 the attention of the missionaries and their native assistants 
 in the South of China, bearing, seemingly, a close analogy 
 to those mentioned in the New Testament in the time of 
 Christ. Some of the native preachers treated these cases 
 in the same way that the Apostles did, and in several 
 instances with marked results of improvement. 
 
 At Foochow, according to Doolittle, yellow paper charms 
 are used, with different devices on them, in a number of 
 various ways, to counteract the evil influences when 
 sickness is believed to be caused by an evil spirit ; 
 and, in the same part of the country, whips made of 
 branches of the peach or willow, or a scourge, made, in 
 the shape of a snake, out of hemp, are employed to beat 
 the bed, and drive away the evil spirit. 
 
 There are several different kinds of demoniacal 
 possession, according to the Chinese. There is, first, 
 the possession of the body, produced by demons, who 
 are capable of inducing any of the ordinary diseases to 
 which flesh is heir in China. Vows and offerings to the 
 
 2OO
 
 Demoniacal Possession 
 
 gods are the remedies for those who suffer thus involuntarily. 
 
 The next form is more serious, for the demon in this class 
 
 is supposed to actually dwell within the possessed, whose 
 
 case is, however, diagnosed by the sapient (?) Chinese as 
 
 being different from that of an ordinary lunatic. Dennys 
 
 in his ' Folklore of China,' quoting from an article by Mr. 
 
 Gardner, treats at some length of these, and his account 
 
 tallies in several respects with those given in the Bible of 
 
 the demoniacs in the time of our Saviour. A still worse 
 
 case is that of those who, thus possessed, yield to the demon, 
 
 the consequence being that on their worship of him riches 
 
 flow in ; but, notwithstanding all, ill-luck, in the way of 
 
 retributive justice, follows such ; and the ill-gotten gains 
 
 take to themselves wings and flee away. There are 
 
 besides 'devil-dancers' or spiritual media, who profess 
 
 to be possessed, going into ' a sort of ecstatic frenzy, and, 
 
 when in this state, they answer. questions as to the disease 
 
 and remedies to be applied for the relief of those on whose 
 
 behalf they are consulted.' They also believe in demons, 
 
 who to all outward appearance are mortals, and who are 
 
 missionaries from the nether world to warn mankind, 
 
 amongst whom they live, of the evil consequences of 
 
 indulgence in wrongdoing. 
 
 China would appear to present a better field for the 
 manifestation of such delusions, as the people are so 
 ignorant and superstitious and are naturally susceptible. 
 Mania, dementia, and hysteria, will probably account for all, 
 or nearly all, so-called instances of demoniacal possession. 
 
 1 Many of these cases of possession are, doubtless, due to 
 suggestion. Persons of susceptible temperament, seeing or hearing 
 of others so afflicted, are tempted to worry or annoy their friends, and 
 are carried away and frightened by their own emotions into an 
 hysterical state bordering on actual mania.' 
 
 Story after story might be given under these different 
 heads, as well as of superstitions about foxes, which last 
 prevail more in the North than in the South of China, but 
 for the latter see the article on Fairy Tales. 
 
 Books rf commended. Dennys's 'Folklore of China, ' chap. viii. Cliuiete 
 
 2O I
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 Recorder, Jan. -Feb. 1881, p. 16. Chinese and Japanese Repository, 3rd 
 September 1863. Doolittle's ' Social Life of the Chinese.' Professor Giles's 
 1 Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio,' vol. i. pp. 25, 26, 168 ; vol. ii. p. 300. 
 'The Chinese, their Present and Future ; Medical, Political, and Social,' by 
 R. Coltmun, Jr., M.D., pp. 149-151. ' Demon Possession and Allied Themes,' 
 by Rev. J. L. Nevius, D.I). 
 
 DIALECTS. When one travels on the continent of 
 Europe one expects, every few hundred miles, to find a 
 different language spoken, but because an extent of country 
 larger than Europe is all part of one empire, it is generally 
 supposed that one language (the Chinese) is spoken through- 
 out its length and breadth. It is quite true that it is Chinese 
 that is spoken in Peking, as well as in Canton, and it is 
 equally true that the inhabitants of Shanghai, Foochow, and 
 Amoy as well, all speak Chinese ; but it is also true that 
 not one of the inhabitants from any of those places could 
 understand those from the others any more than a Londoner 
 could a Berliner ; or a Parisian, a Dutchman ; or a Spaniard, 
 an Italian. It might convey a livelier sense of the difference 
 to suppose that the speech in Liverpool was as different from 
 that in London as one European language is from another, 
 so that any merchants from London, who settled in 
 Liverpool, would have to learn the language of the people 
 of that city, and would be strangers in a strange land, as 
 far as the speech was concerned. Again, suppose that 
 Gaelic was the speech in Edinburgh or Glasgow, a 
 native of those cities settling in London would find that 
 to be understood he had to pick up the language of the 
 South of England. Again, let Welsh be the only language 
 spoken in the principality, a Welshman would then not 
 be understood in York, or anywhere else in England or 
 Scotland. 
 
 Such, then, represents the position of the Chinaman in 
 his own land, for different so-called dialects are spoken 
 in it. It is a pity that they have received this name, for it 
 gives such a wrong impression as to their range, the number 
 of people that speak them, and the very great difference 
 that exists between them. 
 
 202
 
 Dialects 
 
 As the lamented, but talented, Carstairs Douglas says in 
 speaking of one of them : 
 
 ' But such words as " Dialect " or " Colloquial " give an erroneous 
 conception of its nature. It is not a mere colloquial dialect or patois ; 
 it is spoken by the highest ranks just as by the common people, by 
 the most learned just as by the most ignorant ; learned men indeed 
 add a few polite or pedantic phrases, but these are mere excrescences 
 (and even they are pronounced according to the' so-called dialect of 
 that part of the country) ' while the main body and staple of the 
 spoken language of the most refined and learned classes is the same 
 as that of coolies, labourers, and boatmen. Nor does the term 
 "dialect" convey anything like a correct idea of its distinctive 
 character : it is no mere dialectic variety of some other language ; it 
 is a distinct language, one of the many and widely differing languages 
 which divide among them the soil of China. . . . They are cognate 
 languages, bearing to each other a relation similar to that which sub- 
 sists between the Arabic, the Hebrew, the Syriac, the Ethiopic, and 
 the other members of the Semitic family; or again between English, 
 German, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, etc.' 
 
 To generalise then, there are throughout China the fol- 
 lowing main divisions of speech or language, generally called 
 dialects. We arrange them with some attempt at relative age, 
 or the greater or less remains of age contained in them : 
 
 i. The Cantonese. 5. The Hainanese. 
 
 Hakka. 6. ,, Shanghai. 
 
 3. Amoy. 
 
 4. Swatow. 
 
 Ningpo. 
 Mandarin. 
 
 (In the Straits Settlements No. 2 is known as the Kheh, 
 No. 4 as Tfu chi'u, and No. 5 as Hylam, in this pronun- 
 ciation following that of the Swatow and Amoy people.) 
 
 Mandarin and its cognate branches being the youngest, 
 it will thus be seen that another fallacy, viz., that Mandarin 
 is the language of China, and the others dialects of it, is 
 untenable. Cantonese being more akin to the ancient 
 language of China (spoken about 3,000 years ago) than the 
 Mandarin, while the Hakka also contains traces of a high 
 antiquity, and is supposed to mark a period long anterior to 
 that represented by Mandarin, but, in some respects, sub- 
 sequent to that period of which the Cantonese contains 
 remains, although in other points it has traces of as high, or 
 nearly as high, an antiquity. This is true also to some 
 extent of Swatow, Amoy, and Shanghai, as well probably 
 of others ; so that it may rather be said that the languages 
 
 203
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 spoken in the South-East of China have traces of the 
 ancient speech, whereas the Mandarin is modern ; in fact, 
 one appears to have ' elements in it which seem to be 
 remnants of a dialect of greater antiquity than even the" 
 Cantonese ' can boast of.' 
 
 Having thus spoken of the grand divisions, we have 
 further to draw attention to the fact that, besides these 
 main divisions, there are lesser ones, into which they are 
 subdivided, for which, if we give the main divisions the 
 name of languages, we have the more fitting term of dialects ; 
 for to adapt what we wrote some years since in ' Cantonese 
 Made Easy,' they have their real dialects, some of which 
 are spoken by tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands 
 of natives, and which, if they were spoken by the inhabitants 
 of some insignificant group of islands in the Pacific, with 
 only a tithe of the population, would be honoured by the 
 name of languages. We quote again from a monograph 
 by ourselves (on the San-wui Dialect) : At the same time, 
 however, there are wheels within wheels in the matter of 
 these Chinese dialects : that is to say, the dialect of one 
 district is not one homogeneous whole, though the district 
 may be so small as geographically to equal in square miles 
 a few English counties only. It will readily be understood 
 that there is scope for a considerable variation, without 
 this variation being so marked as to become a separate 
 dialect or sub-dialect. Considerable changes can thus be 
 rung, while yet the changes are not so great as to put the 
 dialect or sub-dialect out of harmony with the general 
 characteristics of the particular dialect, or language, of 
 which it is a branch. Every now and then one comes 
 across villages and towns, which seem almost a law to 
 themselves as to their speech, for all the peculiarities of the 
 district are so accentuated, and so many new varieties of 
 pronunciation introduced, new idioms and words used, as 
 well as a difference in the tones employed, as to result in 
 a lingo more or less unintelligible, even to inhabitants 
 of the same district, and a perfect jargon of unmeaning 
 sounds to a stranger to that part of the country. 
 
 204
 
 Dialects 
 
 It will thus be seen that the ramifications are numerous, 
 for after the division of dialects proper, are the lesser 
 divisions of sub-dialects, variations and local patois. The 
 most minute divisions of all are those which present a 
 curious spectacle when found to exist in a city itself, as, for 
 instance, there are two or three of these minute subdivisions 
 found in the City of Canton, with a population estimated 
 sometimes at a million. It is as if about a dozen different 
 minute divisions of English were to be found in London : 
 the inhabitants of that City south of the Thames having 
 certain peculiarities, which would mark them out as different 
 from those in other parts of London, while the West End, 
 the City itself, the East End, and, not to carry the com- 
 parison any further, half-a-dozen other districts of London 
 would each have some few local peculiarities of pronuncia- 
 tion distinguishing them from the rest of London. 
 
 The above will help to explode another fallacy, that if a 
 man knows one of the so-called dialects, such for instance as 
 Cantonese, he is then perfect master of all that may be said 
 by people speaking that language. The real facts of the 
 case will be better understood if one instances the bewilder- 
 ment of a cockney, when landed amongst a crowd of York- 
 shiremen speaking the Yorkshire dialect in its broadest. 
 
 So many are the changes in the language in China that 
 it maybe said that every hundred miles the language differs 
 to a more or less material extent in some places every 
 twenty miles and a rough estimate has been made that 
 there are as many dialects in China as there are days in 
 the year. The word China, when applied geographically, 
 covers such an aggregate of country, that practically a 
 knowledge of one of the languages of China is sufficient to 
 carry one over hundreds and thousands of miles, though, 
 when it comes to a minute and accurate knowledge of all 
 that is said, much is left to be desired, and ludicrous 
 mistakes occur. 
 
 It may be of interest to have some general idea, im- 
 perfect though it must necessarily be, of the range of the 
 different languages and some of the more important 
 
 205
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 dialects. To begin then with Mandarin as being the most 
 widespread. It is the speech, in one form or another, in 
 fourteen or fifteen out of the eighteen provinces into which 
 China is divided. Mandarin is divided into the Northern 
 and Southern. The standard dialect of the former being 
 Pekingese, owing to the accident of Peking being the seat 
 of the Central Government, while Nankingese holds the 
 same position with regard to the southern division. A 
 third marked variety is that of Western China, which has 
 its centre in Ching-tu in the Sz-chuan province. Besides 
 these, there are a number of smaller divisions, such as 
 the Hankow ; but, amidst all these varieties, there appears 
 to be a better chance of one being understood through a 
 much wider extent of country in that part of the empire, 
 where Mandarin is spoken as the language of the people, 
 than is the case in other parts of China. Taking the 
 population of China as 360,000,000, a population say of 
 300,000,000 are Mandarin speaking. This is, of course, a 
 mere rough estimate, and, to be accurate, would require a 
 considerable amount of adjustment,as there are large Hakka- 
 speaking communities amongst them, while, on the other 
 hand, there are Mandarin-speaking people amongst some 
 of the other provinces. In the city of Canton alone there 
 are 100,000 Mandarin speakers. All high officials require 
 a knowledge of Mandarin ; those who do not know it have 
 therefore to learn it, and the consequence is that almost all 
 who aspire to office, or to come in contact with official life, 
 acquire it to a greater or lesser extent. Many of the plays 
 put on the stage are in Southern Mandarin, consequently 
 ardent play-goers have a more or less smattering of that 
 variety of it. 
 
 The other languages of China are spoken by smaller 
 populations, but by still large enough ones to command 
 respect. For example, the people who speak Cantonese, in 
 some form or another, number 20,000,000, a population 
 falling not far short of that of Italy. This language is in 
 use throughout the larger part of the Kwang-tung, or Canton 
 province; one authority considers that 12,000,000 speak it 
 
 206
 
 Dialects 
 
 there. It has been estimated that about one-third of the 
 people of the province speak Hakka, while in the north-east 
 of the same province there is a considerable population 
 speaking the Swatow and its variations. The Cantonese 
 speakers then are in the majority, but they are not confined 
 to this province, for in the next, the Kwang-si, it is also 
 largely spoken, especially in the South, some of it being 
 of a comparatively pure type, while in other parts it is 
 mixed with Mandarin. 
 
 It is impossible, without writing a book specially 
 dealing with the subject, to give an account of all the 
 dialects coming under each separate language. The follow- 
 ing short notice of some of them in Cantonese may give an 
 idea of what may be expected to be found under each 
 grand division. The Cantonese has numerous dialects and 
 groups of dialects. One group consists of the San-wui, 
 San-ning, Yan-p'ing and Hoi'-p'ing, a most peculiar class of 
 dialects, containing much that is very different from the 
 pure Cantonese, and any one of which, when spoken in all 
 its broadness, is, to a great extent, difficult of comprehension. 
 Another group consists of the Tung-kwiin, San-on, Pok-lo, 
 and Tsang-sheng dialects. Besides these, there are a 
 number of other dialects, such as the Hong-shan,or Macao, 
 the Shan-tuk, the Shfu-hing, and others too numerous to 
 mention, each district having more or less differences 
 which segregate it and its inhabitants to a greater or lesser 
 extent from the neighbouring districts. It must be remem- 
 bered that each of these dialects have, as has already been 
 said, smaller divisions or subdivisions. For example, the 
 San-wui dialect may be divided into three, whilst besides 
 this three-fold division there are numerous smaller divisions 
 still. The ramifications are most minute ; not only are 
 there several slight variations in one city or even in one 
 town ; not only does the speech of the boat people differ 
 from that of those on land ; not only is there baby-talk ; 
 but there are even certain words which are used by women 
 and never by men in fact, the men would be laughed at 
 if they used them. 
 
 207
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 With regard to the Hakka, there do not appear to be 
 such differences between the speech of those living in 
 different parts of the country, in Kwang-tung at least, as 
 there is amongst the Cantonese. To mention some of 
 these Hakka dialects, there are the Ka-yin-chu, the Sin-dn, 
 the Ch'ong-lok, and others. Again, with regard to this 
 language, we have constantly been met with the supposi- 
 tion that a knowledge of Hakka means a thorough 
 knowledge of Hakka in all its dialects. Such knowledge 
 is almost impossible for one man to acquire, be he native or 
 foreign. The difference between the dialects of Hakka is 
 still sufficiently marked to confuse one considerably, until 
 familiarity with speakers from different parts of the 
 country overcomes the difficulty. In the Canton province 
 alone not a few millions speak this language, roughly 
 estimated at say about the population of Portugal and all 
 her colonies combined ; perhaps about four millions says 
 one authority, but this same curious people are found in 
 other provinces as well ; at present there is no accurate 
 knowledge of their number as a whole. 
 
 The next so-called dialect up the coast is that of the 
 Swatow and neighbouring districts, which is spoken by 
 some millions, perhaps three, in one or other of its variations 
 or dialects, such for example as the Hoi-fung, Luk- 
 fung, etc. 
 
 Next after this comes the Amoy, which has about the 
 same affinity to the Swatow that Spanish bears to 
 Portuguese. There are numerous dialects of it, and it is 
 spoken by a large population of say 9,000,000, or so a 
 larger population than that of Belgium and Ireland com- 
 bined. Again, further up the coast, but still in the same 
 province, is the Foochow ; it is spoken throughout an extent 
 of country of approximately 130 miles by 270, and by a 
 population of 5,000,000, considerably more than that of 
 Sweden, spread over a larger extent of country than Wales. 
 Like all the others, it has variations, some twenty, or so, main 
 ones. Of it, as spoken a few hundred miles inland, a writer 
 says : ' But what a Babel of tongues and dialects there is 
 
 208
 
 Dialects 
 
 among these wild mountaineers ! A native can hardly pa^s 
 the limits of his own village but his speech will betray him.' 
 This is, of course, what one would expect in such a 
 mountainous district ; the country which the Mandarin 
 occupies is, much of it, of a more level type. 
 
 Besides these, there are the languages of Shanghai and 
 Ningpo, and others less well-known to the foreigner, and 
 consequently whose divisions into dialects have been less 
 studied. 
 
 The Hainanese is spoken in the island of Hainan, where 
 numerous other speeches are in use, Hainanese being, how- 
 ever, the lingua franca ; it has also numerous variations, the 
 dialect of Kiung-chau being the standard. It is allied 
 to the Amoy and Swatow, but is very different in some 
 respects, having some peculiarities, incident also to the 
 Japanese, in the change of letters in the pronunciation of a 
 word. It is spoken by three millions of people, being used 
 in the Luichow peninsula. 
 
 The number of syllables in some of the different 
 speeches of China are as follows : 
 
 1. Amoy, 846. 
 
 2. Cantonese, 780. 
 
 3. Foochow, 786. 
 
 4. Hakka, 700. 
 
 5. Hankow, 316. 
 
 7. Pekingese, 430. 
 
 8. Shanghai, 660. 
 
 9. Swatow, 674, 
 
 10. Wenchow, 452. 
 
 11. Yangchow, 415. 
 
 6. Ningpo, 444. 
 
 Mr. E. H. Parker, a great authority on Chinese dialects, 
 says : 
 
 'It is plain that 1,500 years back the Chinese dialects had for 
 centuries been almost as numerous as they are now,' and he says 
 further, 'from the earliest historical times, widely different dialects 
 have been spoken in China.' ' Between the dialects of Peking, 
 Hankow, Sz-Ch'uan, Yangchow, Canton, Hakka, Foochow, Wenchow, 
 and Ningpo . . . there is complete homogeneity ; and though the 
 variations between this and that dialect are often greater . . . than 
 the differences between Portuguese and French (as one extreme), 
 and no greater than between Flemish and Dutch (as another extreme), 
 yet the rigid adherences of all to theoretical standards is more perfect 
 than in the European languages or dialects.' 
 
 The so-called dialects are, however, in many respects as 
 different as one European language from another. These 
 
 209 o
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 differences are partly due to climatic and telluric influences, 
 individual, and local peculiarities of utterance which have 
 been perpetuated, and the effects of succeeding waves of 
 migration from different parts ; possibly the influence of 
 preceding residents, as well as other more obscure causes 
 have also been responsible to some extent. Some of the 
 reasons for these divergencies in languages or dialects can 
 be seen, but the whole subject is one that would repay 
 study. We may here draw attention to a few of the causes : 
 the mixture of people speaking different dialects produces 
 a new form ; old forms are retained in one dialect, while 
 other dialects may discard these and retain others ; 
 localisms are perpetuated, and new terms are sometimes 
 brought back by those who have been in other districts 
 and found a permanent home away from their original 
 habitat ; migrations take place from, and to, different parts 
 of the country, so that districts wide apart are more similar 
 in their speech than the intermediate country is to one or the 
 other. ' There can be little doubt that the corruption of 
 old Chinese into the modern " Mandarin " dialects was 
 caused chiefly by the immense admixture of Tartar and 
 Thibetan blood during the period 300-900 A.D.' 
 
 It is a dream of some Chinese to introduce a uniform 
 language in place of the numerous so-called dialects that 
 exist throughout the length and breadth of the land. About 
 200 years ago the Emperor Kang Hi caused schools to be 
 established in Canton, and elsewhere, for this purpose. We 
 question if the result the scheme was meant to accomplish 
 is much nearer fulfilment now than at that time. In the 
 future, doubtless, it will be brought about to a greater or 
 lesser extent, but by other means than that, for there is but 
 little reasonable doubt that when the railway shall have 
 drawn the distant parts of China together by the meshes 
 of its network, the unification of the language will proceed 
 with more rapid strides, as the nation by it, and other 
 means dependent upon and accelerated by it, becomes 
 welded into a homogeneous whole. 
 
 What then will be the speech that will succeed to 
 210
 
 Divorce 
 
 this confusion of tongues in China ? We believe that, if 
 China is not subdivided, but continues as one empire in 
 the future, in the course of time (it may take centuries 
 to accomplish it) one language will gradually, either take 
 the place of the others, or the others will, modifying the 
 one, give place to a new language, which will perhaps 
 contain the best features of all, and be an advance on any 
 now spoken. The language that bids fair to take this 
 prominent position in the future would seem to be the 
 Mandarin, at all events it stands as good a chance as any, 
 if not a better than many, of taking this enviable position. 
 
 Besides the above, Manchu is the language of the 
 rulers of China, who have caused many books to be trans- 
 lated into it, and tried to foster it, and galvanise it into 
 literary activity. It is not, however, a language that the 
 Chinese take much interest in. Mongolian is also used 
 in Mongolia, and to some extent, of course, in Peking. The 
 different aborigines to be found in many parts of China also 
 speak their own languages or dialects. 
 
 Books recommended. Numerous articles have appeared in the C'hinfi 
 Review and Missionary Recorder, amongst which may be instanced those 
 by E. H. Parker, by Don, and by the present writer. Also see the 
 ' Philological Essay ' by E. H. Parker, in Giles's new ' Chinese English 
 Dictionary. ' 
 
 DIVORCE. There are seven reasons for which, ac- 
 cording to Chinese law, a man may divorce his wife ; they 
 are barrenness, lasciviousness, jealousy, talkativeness, 
 thievery, disobedience towards her husband's parents, and 
 leprosy. These seem sweeping enough in all conscience ; 
 and to those unacquainted with the inner life of the Chinese, 
 it would seem simple enough for a man to bring his wife 
 to book under one or other of these, and rid himself of an 
 uncongenial companion, but such is not the case in practice. 
 The wife's relations have to be considered in the matter ; 
 and again, if she has no parents, she cannot be put away, 
 as they are not living to receive her back again ; further, 
 for the lesser offences, he cannot put her away if he be in 
 mourning for a parent ; and yet again, it is much simpler 
 
 211
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 for a Chinese (and causes much less ill-feeling to all parties 
 concerned), in case no son is born to him, to take a con- 
 cubine or secondary wife (not a second wife except by 
 courtesy, for a Chinese has only one legal wife See Article 
 on Marriage) and increase the number, one after the other, 
 until he obtains the longed-for heir or future worshipper 
 at the family tombs ; or, failing this, he may adopt a son 
 (See Article on Adoption). All these different expedients 
 and restrictions nullify, or render unnecessary, the provisions 
 as to divorce, which, like everything Chinese, is theoretically 
 easy of accomplishment, but in practice is something very 
 different. Statistics are difficult to obtain in China, and, 
 when obtained, are very unreliable, owing to the inexacti- 
 tude of the Chinese mind one of their most common 
 characteristics. No statistics, as far as the author is aware, 
 are obtainable on this particular subject ; but, judging from 
 a long residence amongst the people, he would say that 
 divorce is not any oftener resorted to than in England, 
 probably less often by far. 
 
 Besides what has been said above, a married couple 
 may mutually agree to separate ; again, by law a husband 
 is liable to be punished if his wife is convicted of adultery, 
 and he does not put her away. But there is as high a 
 standard of chastity among many classes of Chinese 
 married women as there is among women of the West, and 
 such a rule among the middle and higher classes, at least, 
 does not often require application. 
 
 This is the law and custom as between husband and 
 wife. It is very different, however, when the wife has to 
 complain of her husband. She has then practically no 
 redress or safeguards (unless he break her bones, when he 
 is amenable to law), except the small and uncertain 
 modicum of public opinion, which may keep her husband 
 from transgressing too much, or better still, the punish- 
 ment which his wife's family will take in hand, should he 
 act so as to bring disgrace on them. 
 
 The case is quite different with the so-called secondary 
 wives. They are not a man's wives in the sight of the law, 
 
 212
 
 Doctors 
 
 that is to say, they do not stand on a footing of equality, 
 though recognised as concubines, for there is only one first 
 legitimate wife ; and a man is free to dismiss these concu- 
 bines from his bed and board, and treat them in a way he 
 would not dare to act towards his first wife (though a man 
 may be cruel enough to her in China, as well as in England, 
 if he choose). This treatment may be modified more or 
 less by the prospective counteraction of the so-called wife's 
 relations and her social position, presuming she has any. 
 If she has none, or if her position is of no account, as is 
 more than likely often to be the case with a secondary 
 wife, beggary or prostitution stares her in the face, unless 
 she is fortunate enough to enter another family in a similar 
 position. 
 
 Books recommended. ' The Status of Women in China,' by Rev. E. 
 Faber, Dr. Theol. Most books on China also contain longer or shorter 
 paragraphs on the same subject ; see, for example, Williams's ' Middle 
 Kingdom' and Gray's 'China;' also see Articles in this book on Marriage 
 and Women. 
 
 DOCTORS. The native doctor is a curious character : 
 he passes no examination ; he requires no qualification. 
 He may have failed in business and set up as a physician, 
 for which he requires no stock in trade, medical instruments 
 being almost unknown (See Article on Acupuncture). If 
 he can get an old book of prescriptions from another retiring 
 practitioner, so much the better for him. He is now fit to 
 kill or cure as chance may will it, or as his ignorance, or 
 fortuitous circumstances may decree. The doctor most 
 entitled to confidence in the sight of his countrymen is the 
 man whose father has been one before him, and the 
 confidence increases should his grandfather have followed 
 the same calling. This it might be supposed was due to 
 an ignorant belief in the influence of heredity ; but, as it is 
 stated by the Chinese, the value in their eyes consists in 
 the son or grandson possessing all the books of pre- 
 scriptions of his sires. Thus provided, he is ready to begin 
 his empirical career. Fees vary according to the class of 
 man and his patients, and according to the place of 
 
 213
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 residence, whether it be a fashionable quarter or a poor 
 suburb, or whether it be town or country. The enormous 
 sum of perhaps thirty cents or half a dollar may be charged 
 per visit, if he comes in his sedan to see his patient, and of 
 this amount a large proportion would go for the chair and 
 the rest for the doctor himself. Should he belong to the 
 humbler ranks and come on foot, his fee is proportionately 
 cheaper. He puts on a solemn air and has quite an owl- 
 like look, as he peers out of the semi-darkness of a Chinese 
 bedroom through his great goggle-shaped glasses each 
 lens of which is two inches across and set in huge, uncouth, 
 copper frames. The thing of the greatest importance is 
 feeling the different pulses of the human system, of which 
 the Chinese count a number. The pulse at each wrist is 
 felt, and each is divided into three, which, according to the 
 light or heavy character of the pressure, indicates a 
 different organ of the body, so, by thus feeling the pulses, 
 the states of a dozen real or imaginary organs are deter- 
 mined. Having then learned by the pressure of these 
 three at each pulse the seat of the disease, a few questions 
 may be asked by the doctor, but these are scarcely con- 
 sidered necessary. A prescription, sometimes composed 
 of the most horrible and nauseous compounds, is prepared 
 in large doses, for the native idea is that the larger the 
 dose, the more likely it is to prove efficacious. In pre- 
 scribing for natives, the foreign doctors have to be most 
 careful, as most ludicrous cases have occurred, such as the 
 paper being swallowed by the sick ignoramus, as well 
 as the powder, or pill, it contained. 
 
 Amongst their medicines, besides some that are to be 
 found in our Western Materia Medica, are snake skins, 
 fossils, rhinoceros or hartshorn shavings, silk - worm and 
 human secretions, asbestos, moths, oyster - shells, etc. 
 Almost anything that is disgusting is considered good as a 
 medicine. Apothecaries' shops abound where the doctors' 
 prescriptions are made up, or where the patients themselves 
 procure medicines as they think they require them. Quack 
 advertisements are placarded on almost every blank wall. 
 
 214
 
 Dogs 
 
 The manner in which the Chinese treat their physicians 
 is rather peculiar. Should a speedy cure not result from 
 the doctor's treatment, the patient calls in another, and, if 
 no better, yet another, and so on in rapid succession, until, 
 all human aid failing, he perchance at last goes to his gods, 
 if he has not already tried them before. 
 
 It is not an uncommon sight to see a woman waving a 
 child's jacket in her hand in the street, while she croons in 
 a monotonous voice to the spirit of the sick child to return 
 to the body from whence, the child being in an unconscious 
 or comatose condition, it is supposed to have fled. 
 
 In seasons of epidemic, large processions are got up by 
 the different commercial guilds, every shopkeeper and 
 householder being called upon for a subscription. 
 
 Books recommended. -Willianis'a 'Middle Kingdom.' Article on 'The 
 Medicine and Medical Practice of the Chinese,' by James Henderson, M.I)., 
 in December 1864 number of Jmcriml of the North China Branch of the 
 Royal Asiatic Society. 
 
 DOGS. The dog is so much in evidence in China that 
 he deserves an article to himself. From the erroneous im- 
 pression that dogs form one of the principal items of a 
 Chinaman's diet, the common variety has been dubbed the 
 ' chow dog.' A glance at one of this species is enough to 
 show its great likeness to that depicted in books of Arctic 
 travel, and known as the Esquimaux dog. This Chinese 
 dog approaches much nearer to the original wolf type than 
 the more highly bred species to be found in our Western 
 lands. That they are not more highly developed is doubt- 
 less due to the apathy of the Chinese with regard to them, 
 for though kept by many families as a watch-dog, the 
 animal is not petted and made so much of as would be the 
 case amongst us ; for instance, he is not made a companion 
 of his master's walks, nor when his owner often does not 
 appreciate the luxury or necessity of a bath, is it likely 
 that his dog would be given one. He lies at the outer- 
 door, or in the shop, or prowls about the street very much 
 uncared for, according to our ideas of the treatment of 
 our pets, dogging the steps of the foreigner, scarcely ever 
 
 215
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 attacking him boldly; but retreating before him in a 
 cowardly manner, and seeking safety at his master's door, 
 to be reinforced with fresh courage as the stranger passes, 
 when he issues out behind his back with his irritating bark, 
 which has been described as a 'short, thick snap, very 
 unlike the deep, sonorous baying of our mastiffs.' He 
 begins with several of these and runs off into a quick 
 succession of them for a few seconds, a series of these 
 short refrains producing a most monotonous effect, 
 especially when lasting for a long time. The vigorous 
 greeting thus received from the whole pack of village dogs 
 is extremely unpleasant when one is out for a country 
 walk ; though apparently very fierce, there is generally 
 but little danger to be apprehended. The chow dogs 
 are all about the same size, a foot in height and about 
 two feet in length. The colours are uniform in one 
 individual, and consist of light brown, black, and creamy 
 yellow. 
 
 ' Without being handsome, the chow ... is strong, the colour 
 varying from black to tan, brown, ruddy-brown, etc.' ' It is most 
 uncertain in its temper,' says another writer, ' disobedient, and liable 
 to fits of savageness. It has almost none of the repose of our good 
 English breeds. It has also an inveterate survival of old habits, the 
 propensity to attack domestic animals.' 
 
 The following gives rather a different view of the chow 
 dog, being from an account of the fourth annual exhibition 
 of the Chow Chow Club at the Royal Aquarium in London. 
 It is taken from one of the London dailies of ist December 
 1898: 
 
 ' The chow-chow, which is known by a briefer name east of Suez, 
 is undoubtedly the fashionable dog. Every dog has his day, and the 
 chow-chow is having his just now. Nevertheless, we venture to pre- 
 dict a long life for the club, because it is certain that when the chow- 
 chow is bred from good stock and domesticated, it is a very jolly dog 
 and quite unlike the specimens which you meet with in the Far East. 
 It may even attain courage in time, just as the Egyptian soldier has 
 done under British training. Most of the chow-chows now shown 
 are of English breed, and have thus lost to a certain extent their 
 native habit of barking and running away to bark another day. They 
 are very handsome dogs, without doubt, and curiously like the 
 Esquimaux breed, with which certainly they may claim kinship.' 
 
 216
 
 Dogs 
 
 A writer in Home Notes on dogs thus describes 
 them : 
 
 'Black chows, or the edible dogs of China, are very fine animals 
 of the size of a small collie, and of the Pomeranian type, the desirable 
 points being almost identical. The tongue and roof of the mouth are 
 black, and the eyes very small and keen. They are falrtiful creatures, 
 and become greatly attached to their owners.' The good points in 
 Pomeranians are ' thick, long hair, a well " feathered " tail (styled the 
 plume), long hair on the back of the forelegs, small ears, fox-shaped 
 head, and a frill of thick fur round the neck.' 
 
 Punch describes the Chinese Chow ' with a tongue 
 like as if it had been licking ink.' 
 
 The ears do not hang down, but are sharp and upright, 
 except in a variety to be found in the province of Ngan- 
 hwui, which ' has pendent ears of great length.' One pecu- 
 liar feature in these dogs is the abrupt rise of the tail from 
 the insertion, whence it curls up over the back, never hang- 
 ing down. This is so marked that a wag has said that the 
 tail almost assists in lifting the legs from the ground. 
 This abrupt rise is heightened, doubtless, in appearance by 
 the unusually straight hind legs, giving a somewhat un- 
 gainly look to the animal. The chow is not a very rapid 
 runner, probably this style of hind legs handicapping it. 
 The bitch has dew-claws on her hind legs, one on each, but 
 the male has none. The Chinese say of the dog that it 
 ' can go on three legs.' 
 
 ' The dogs of Peking are very clannish, and each set jealously 
 guards its own street or yard ; they are fed by the butchers in the 
 street and serve as scavengers there, and in all large towns. They 
 are often mangy, presenting hideous spectacles, and instances of 
 plica polonica are not uncommon ; but, as among the celebrated street 
 dogs of Constantinople, hydrophobia is almost unheard of.' 
 
 There is another breed of dog, the Pekingese pug, or 
 sleeve dog ; the latter name has been given to it from the 
 masters carrying this pretty little pet in their capacious 
 sleeves. Dr. Rennie says of it : ' The breed is a very 
 peculiar one, something between the King Charles and the 
 pug.' What are termed in England 'Japanese spaniels,' 
 which appear, if not identical with, to be very similar to 
 the Pekingese dog, and some specimens of which were 
 
 217
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 taken from the Summer Palace at Peking to England, are 
 thus described : 
 
 ' They are docile, playful, and affectionate, and of unusual intelli- 
 gence. Their long silky coats, delicate and finely-formed paws, large, 
 lustrous eyes, massive heads, and long, feathery tails, proudly curled 
 over their backs, make them beautiful pets. . . . Smallness is an 
 important point, as they are carried in the large sleeves of Japanese 
 ladies and called " sleeve dogs." ' 
 
 A writer in Cornhill for July 1896 speaks about 
 
 ' A large chow-dog from Northern China, which a freak of fashion 
 has decreed shall be kept as a pet by English ladies. These dogs are 
 not suited either by nature or training for domestic pets. They are 
 only half-civilised dogs, very excitable, often savage, and so little con- 
 sidered as household companions in their native Manchuria that they 
 are bred for the sake of their fur, and killed, like seals, when the fur 
 is in season. But they are born sledge-dogs, immensely strong in the 
 shoulder and short in the neck, with pulling powers far greater than 
 those of any of the breeds used in Holland and Belgium for drawing 
 carts. If the laws against the use of dogs for draught are repealed, 
 just as the laws against road-engines and steam-carts are about to be 
 repealed, the " chows " would form the basis of a new breed of cart- 
 dogs for minor traffic.' 
 
 There is a large breed of dogs in Thibet which are 
 mentioned by numerous authors : 
 
 Marco Polo says of them : ' They have dogs of the size of asses, 
 strong enough to hunt all sorts of wild beasts, particularly the wild 
 oxen, which are . . . extremely large and fierce.' Turner describes 
 them as : ' Huge dogs, tremendously fierce, strong, and noisy . . . 
 so imperiously furious, that it was unsafe, unless the keepers were 
 near, even to approach their dens.' Again he says : 'Up started a 
 huge dog, big enough ... to fight a lion.' Captain Raper describes 
 one: 'A remarkably fine animal as large as a Newfoundland dog, 
 with very long hair, and a head resembling a mastiff's. His tail was 
 of an amazing length, like the brush of a fox, and curled half-way 
 over his back.' Mr. Hosie speaks of them as : ' Fine, powerful 
 dogs. . . . The animal brought to me for inspection required the 
 whole strength of a Thibetan to keep him in check. Had I bought 
 the dog, which was offered for ten taels, I should have had to engage 
 his keeper also.' 
 
 Books recommended. Williams's 'Middle Kingdom,' Gray's 'China,' 
 
 . 529, Turner's 
 Western China,' 
 
 Hart's 'Western China,' 'Asiatic Researches,' vol. xi. p. 529, Turner's 
 'Embassy to Thibet,' pp. 155-215, Hosie's 'Three Years in Wester 
 
 p. 134. 
 
 DRAGON. The dragon is the Imperial emblem of 
 China the emblem of Imperial power and is symbolical 
 
 218
 
 Dragon 
 
 of what pertains to the Emperor : his person is called ' the 
 dragon's person ' ; his countenance, ' the dragon's face'; his 
 eye, ' the dragon's eye' ; his hands are ' the dragon's claws ' ; 
 his sleeve, ' the dragon's sleeve ' ; his children are ' the 
 dragon's seed ' ; his pen (that is the Emperor's autograph), 
 ' the dragon's pen ' ; his throne is ' the dragon's seat ' ; when 
 he mounts it, the action is spoken of as ' the dragon's flight ' ; 
 his bed, ' the dragon's bedstead ' ; his decease is euphemisti- 
 cally termed 'the Emperor ascended upon the dragon to 
 be a guest on high ' ; and his ancestral tablet is called ' the 
 dragon tablet.' 
 
 The dragon, which is reserved for Imperial use in 
 designs on furniture, porcelain, and clothing, is depicted 
 with five claws ; that in use by the common people has 
 four. A Chinese author thus describes the dragon : 
 
 ' Its head is like a camel's, its horns like a deer's, its eyes like a 
 hare's, its ears like a bull's, its neck like a snake's, its belly like an 
 iguanodon's, its scales like a carp's, its claws like an eagle's, and its 
 paws like a tiger's. Its scales number eighty-one, being nine by nine, 
 the extreme (odd or) lucky number. Its voice resembles the beating 
 of a gong. On each side of its mouth are whiskers, under its chin is 
 a bright pearl, under its throat the scales are reversed, on the top of 
 its head is ihe/>o/i s/ian, which others call the' chek inuk. ' A dragon 
 without ' a chek muk ' cannot ascend the skies. When its breath 
 escapes it forms clouds, sometimes changing into rain, at other times 
 into fire.' 
 
 Having thus given an accurate description of this 
 wonderful creature (one of the four supernatural [or 
 spiritually endowed] creatures, according to the Chinese, 
 the others being the Tortoise, the Lin and the Feng), it 
 only remains to be said that ' it wields the power of trans- 
 formation and the gift of rendering itself visible or invisible 
 at pleasure.' Another Chinese authority informs us that 
 ' the dragon becomes at will reduced to the size of a silk- 
 worm, or swollen till it fills the space of Heaven and Earth. 
 It desires to mount and it rises till it affronts the clouds ; 
 to sink and it descends until hidden below the fountains of 
 the deep.' The Chinese most thoroughly believe in the 
 existence of this mysterious and marvellous creature : it 
 appears in their ancient history ; the legends of Buddhism 
 
 219
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 abound with it ; Taoist talcs contain circumstantial accounts 
 of its doings ; the whole country-side is filled with stories 
 of its hidden abodes, its terrific appearances ; while 
 it holds a prominent part in the pseudo-science of 
 geomancy ; its portrait appears in houses and temples, and 
 serves even more than the grotesque lion as an ornament 
 in architecture, art designs, and fabrics. 
 
 There are numerous dragons too numerous to enter 
 even into a succinct account of them in the space of a short 
 article. Volumes might be filled with a history of this 
 wonderful, antediluvian creature, embalmed in Chinese 
 literature and memory. 
 
 Among other roles that the dragon fills is that of a 
 modern Neptune to the Chinese. In this character, he 
 occupies a palace made of pearls at the bottom of the sea, 
 sends rain, and waters the thirsty land. 
 
 Many years ago, in England, the writer came across 
 an old gentleman, interested in China, who was firmly of 
 the belief that the Chinese worshipped the devil, because 
 they paid divine honours to the dragon. Only another 
 instance, out of many, of the fallacy of reasoning on Chinese 
 subjects from European premises. They worship the 
 dragon, but it does not follow that their dragon is ' that old 
 dragon,' the devil. 
 
 Another dragon is the bobtailed dragon, which causes 
 whirlwinds ; a frightfully destructive one in Canton city, a 
 number of years ago, was believed to be due to his agency. 
 
 The district of country on the mainland immediately 
 opposite the English colony of Hongkong is called Kau- 
 lung (generally written, Kowloong, or Kowloon), or the 
 Nine Dragons, probably so named from the numerous 
 ranges of hills, which, like gigantic monsters, spread their 
 sinuous course along the coast, the nine dragons being a 
 favourite number with the Chinese, and represented in 
 some of their ancient works on standards. 
 
 The national flag of China adopted with, and by, the 
 navy of foreign-built ships, was a triangular yellow flag 
 with a dragon on it, now changed to an oblong one more 
 
 220
 
 Dragon 
 
 in keeping with the shape of other national flags, but with 
 the same device. 
 
 The conventional representations of the dragon, as we 
 have already said, are commonly divisible into two. On 
 Imperial China we see a snake-like body mounted on four 
 legs, with an enormous head ; the feet are five-clawed. 
 This is sprawled over the dish, or whatever it may be, and 
 covers the greater part of it. On vases used by the people 
 as ornaments, a scope is given for ingenuity by the intro- 
 duction of a number of similar saurians (but only with four 
 claws) in different positions on the vase front views being 
 given as well, in which the two horns are seen. On mural 
 pictures and in paintings on wood, inserted above door- 
 ways, the rain dragon is the one usually represented. Here 
 what is seen of the hideous monster conveys more the im- 
 pression of an enormous python, as folds of a very thick 
 and large snake-like body are visible amongst masses of 
 clouds, the half -suggestive revelation of what is seen 
 increasing, if anything, the impression of size, while a 
 frightful head fronts one, full-faced, with all its gigantic 
 repulsiveness. In books printed under Imperial sanction 
 or auspices, two dragons encircle the title, striving, not 
 like the lion and the unicorn for the crown, but for a pearl. 
 There are again two kinds of dragons carrried in some of 
 the processions of which the Chinese are so fond. They 
 are at such times represented as long serpentine creatures 
 of great girth, and 1 50 or 200 feet long, made of lengths of 
 gay, bright-coloured crape and sparkling with tiny spangle- 
 like mirrors. Every yard or so a couple of human feet 
 those of the bearers buskined in gorgeous silk, are visible, 
 the head and shoulders of the men being unseen. The 
 whole is fronted by an enormous head of ferocious aspect, 
 before the gaping jaws of which a man manoeuvres a large 
 pearl after which the dragon prances and wriggles. The 
 difference between the two kinds is that the one is re- 
 splendent with gold scales, while the other gleams with 
 silver ones. That this different way of representation is 
 not due to simple fancy, appears from the fact that in India 
 
 221
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 they distinguish three varieties of dragon : one of which 
 lived in the mountains, and had golden scales ; and the other 
 in caves or flat country, and had silver scales ; while the 
 third dwelt in marshes and fens, and was of a black colour. 
 The rain dragon used in mural representations appears 
 more like the last. We give the following account of the 
 supposed origin of the dragon, from the learned pen of Mr. 
 Charles Gould : 
 
 ' It [the dragon] is more likely to have once had a real existence 
 than to be a mere offspring of fancy. . . . We may infer that it 
 was a long terrestrial lizard, hibernating and carnivorous, with the 
 power of constricting with its snake-like body and tail ; possibly 
 furnished with wing-like expansions of its integument, after the 
 fashion of Draco volans, and capable of occasional progress on its 
 hind legs alone, when excited in attacks. It appears to have been 
 protected by armour and projecting spikes, like those found in Moloch 
 horridus and Megalania firisca, and was possibly more nearly allied 
 to this last form than to any other which has yet come to our know- 
 ledge. Probably it preferred sandy, open country to forest land ; its 
 habitat was the highlands of Central Asia, and the time of its dis- 
 appearance about that of the Biblical Deluge. . . . Although terrestrial, 
 it probably, in common with most reptiles, enjoyed frequent bathing, 
 and when not so engaged, or basking in the sun, secluded itself under 
 some overhanging bank or cavern. The idea of its fondness for 
 swallows, and power of attracting them, mentioned in some traditions, 
 may not impossibly have been derived from these birds hawking 
 round and through its open jaws in the pursuit of the flies attracted 
 by the viscid humours of its mouth.' 
 
 Books recommended. ' Mythical Monstei's,' by C. Gould, B.A. 'Scraps 
 from Chinese Mythology,' in China Review, vol. xiii. , by Rev. Dyer Ball, 
 M.A., M.D., annotated by J. Dyer Ball. 
 
 DRAGON-BOATS AND THE DRAGON-BOAT 
 FESTIVAL. This festival is the nearest approach to an 
 annual regatta that the Chinese possess. It is held on the 
 fifth clay of the fifth moon, but the preceding days shadow 
 forth the feast day as well. 
 
 It took its origin in the commemoration of a virtuous 
 minister of state whose remonstrances were unheeded by his 
 unworthy sovereign, and whose only reward was degrada- 
 tion and dismissal, some 450 years B.C. He committed 
 suicide, and on the first anniversary of his death, the 
 ceremony of looking for his body was commenced ; it has 
 been continued on succeeding anniversaries ever since, and 
 
 222
 
 Dress 
 
 has resulted in this festival. Little packages of boiled rice, 
 done up in bamboo leaves, are eaten at this time, as such 
 offerings were cast into the river by the fishermen who tried 
 to recover the body. 
 
 The dragon-boats are long narrow boats from fifty to 
 one hundred feet in length, broad enough to seat two men 
 abreast. The craft is propelled rapidly with paddles, 
 accompanied by the sound of a drum and gongs which are 
 placed in the centre of the boat. Impromptu races are 
 got up, not unattended with accidents at times, as the 
 boats are slight and dangerous when paddled by well-nigh 
 a hundred excited Chinamen, wild with enthusiasm and 
 unsteady with spirits. Large crowds of spectators line 
 every vantage ground on the banks of the river ; and 
 prizes of no intrinsic value are often offered by them, which 
 are eagerly contested for, the bare honour of winning spur- 
 ring the men on in their efforts ; the crews are occasion- 
 ally treated by wealthy hongs on the banks. For hours 
 and days nothing is heard but the unceasing monotonous 
 clang of the gongs, and the boom of the deep-toned drums 
 in the numerous boats. 
 
 Since the advent of plague, the Chinese think that the 
 dragon-boats brought out and paddled about at, or near, 
 the time of the festival will drive it away. 
 
 This Dragon-Boat Feast is one of the four festivals 
 at which settlements of accounts take place amongst the 
 Chinese ; the others being New Year's Eve, occurring 
 sometime in our January or February ; the Moon Festival 
 on the 1 5th day of the 8th moon, in September or October ; 
 and the Winter Solstice Festival, a variable feast in the 
 nth moon, November or December. The Dragon-Boat 
 Festival is the second of the series, occurring on the 5th 
 day of the 5th moon, in June or July. 
 
 Books recommended. Archdeacon Gray's 'China,' vol. i. p. 2f>8 ft 
 seq. Doolittle's ' Social Life of the Chinese,' vol. ii. p. 55 d seq. Mayers' 
 ' Chinese Reader's Manual,' p. 107. 
 
 DRESS. The foundation, or starting point, of all 
 
 223
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 Chinese dress is the loose pair of trousers and the almost 
 equally loose-fitting jacket ; with these two articles on, a 
 Chinese is completely dressed : all the rest are not 
 necessaries, but luxuries. The fundamental idea is simply 
 displayed in these two ; the other articles which are piled 
 on to a greater or lesser degree, owing to the weather, or 
 the length of the owner's purse, are merely, with the 
 exception of the head-gear and that for the feet, an elabora- 
 tion of that simple idea. Take any article of male attire. 
 The long gabardine, or robe, is only the jacket which has 
 overgrown to the ankles, instead of stopping short a little 
 below the middle of the body : it has not an entirely 
 different shape, as with our various shapes of coats and 
 jackets, or what difference there is, is but slight ; and even, 
 what, for want of a better term, one calls a waistcoat, is 
 not quite another style of article, but simply a short 
 straight jacket without sleeves, buttoning up as the 
 common, close-fitting, sleeveless one (worn occasionally by 
 the labouring classes) does. There are two varieties of it ; 
 one so buttoning, and one fastened at the side. A riding- 
 jacket has wide sleeves, but is still a jacket The jackets 
 of the women are of a different shape from that of the men, 
 being longer, reaching well towards the knees, and having 
 much wider sleeves. 
 
 If one proceeds to the lower extremities, there are, as 
 said above, the loose-fitting trousers. These sometimes 
 are tucked into long stockings, which are neatly bound with 
 garters below the knee, and presto ! our boy or waiter is in 
 knickerbockers the same pair of trousers doing duty for 
 both styles of dress. Is the weather cold ? Then a pair of 
 leggings is put on. These are simply single legs of peg- 
 top trousers diminishing gradually in calibre, as they 
 proceed downwards, till their extremities are tied round the 
 ankles. They are fastened up to the girdle at the waist ; 
 but there is a void space behind, where they do not meet, 
 and where the inner jacket hangs in folds, presenting a 
 most untidy appearance unless a long robe is worn over all 
 to hide it. A woman's trousers are exactly the same shape 
 
 224
 
 Dress 
 
 as a man's. They do not wear knickerbockers, but the 
 middle and upper classes often wear, especially when 
 dressed up, what, for want of a better name, are called 
 skirts. These are the very embodiment of the divided 
 skirt, for the simple reason that their different component 
 parts have never been united, and, at the same time, they 
 have a trace of the trousers still about them trousers 
 unfinished, as it were, for one piece hangs in front down to 
 the ankles, like an apron, and another piece hangs behind 
 in the same way ; they are buttoned up at one side, and 
 open at the other, while embroidery and numerous pleats 
 in vertical lines adorn them. 
 
 There are several varieties of dress besides those named 
 above, adapted to different uses, as well as to the changes 
 of weather. For instance, Nature's garb appears to be 
 often all-sufficient for the Swatow fisherman or farmer, and 
 even many of the boatmen at the city of Tie Yong, near 
 Swatow, wear nothing else at times. In other parts of 
 China, the savage state is not so nearly approached, except 
 in the case of young children of the poorer classes, who 
 run about naked for several years, the several years being 
 of longer duration when they are boys. In Amoy and 
 Swatow it is not at all uncommon to see a boy with 
 nothing on at all but a purse. It must, however, be 
 explained that the purse is more of an apron or pinafore 
 than with us, and is fastened round the neck, covering as 
 much of the front of the body as decency requires in a hot 
 climate though this last is not always even attended 
 to. The common coolie or labourer considers himself 
 sufficiently attired for his work in hot weather, with a loin 
 cloth and a pair of straw sandals, but the latter are 
 optional. Others make shift with a pair of short trousers, 
 only reaching half-way down the thighs, or roll the longer 
 trousers up that length, or as far as they will go. In the 
 purely native dress, nothing in the form of a shirt or cing- 
 let is worn, though now of late years, from contact with 
 foreigners, the latter is being adopted by a few, and must be 
 much more comfortable in cold weather than the loose-fitting 
 
 225 i'
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 jacket. Coats, jackets, and trousers, varied only by robes 
 and leggings, are piled one on the top of the other as the 
 weather gets colder. The upper garments are readily cast 
 off in the middle of the day, or in a warm room, thus offer- 
 ing a great advantage, in this one particular, to our style 
 of dress, where a top-coat is the only thing one can throw 
 off on entering a house. 
 
 The women's innermost garment is of thin stuff, close 
 fitting, and closely buttoned up the front, but above this, 
 the usual piling on of jackets takes place if the weather 
 requires it. The women wear no long robes in the South. 
 
 Less care is taken of the legs with both men and 
 women, and fewer thicknesses appear to satisfy them there. 
 There is a considerable variety displayed in sandals, boots, 
 and shoes. Besides the straw ones, already mentioned as 
 worn by men, simple soles of leather, with a loop for one 
 of the toes, and strings to tie them round the ankles, are 
 worn by those of both sexes, who labour out-of-doors in 
 carrying burdens, etc. Men's and women's shoes, on the 
 contrary, are quite distinct ; one of the most marked 
 differences being in the thickness of the sole. The large- 
 footed women are perched up on a thick white sole, two or 
 three inches in height. Of late years, Shanghai shoes with 
 thin soles have come into vogue amongst those who are 
 well dressed. And again a curious style is in fashion : it 
 consists of the whole foot being poised on a round pedestal 
 a few inches high, fixed in the centre of the sole. This is 
 the Manchoo shoe ; but it is going out, if not quite out, of 
 fashion again. Common shoes are made of cloth, but silk 
 and satin and embroidery are also largely employed. The 
 cramped-up little feet are enclosed, after being wound up 
 in long bandages, in small shoes of from two and a half 
 to four or five inches in length, coming to a point at the 
 toe. (We ourselves have measured several of these tiny 
 shoes on the feet ; one measured 2-g inches.) The pain 
 that this foolish fashion entails on the poor girls is well 
 shown by the common Chinese saying : ' For every pair 
 of small feet-there is a kong [jar] full of tears.' No stock- 
 
 226
 
 Dress 
 
 ings can be put on with such feet, but they are worn on 
 the natural feet by women as well as by men, or rather, 
 to be correct, socks and stockings are both worn by men, 
 the former principally in summer, and socks are generally 
 used by women, though stockings are also put on. Those 
 of foreign manufacture are coming into use at treaty ports ; 
 the native ones consist of pieces of calico sewn together. 
 It may be mentioned that both sexes wear a girdle of 
 cord round the waist to fasten their trousers up, by 
 hitching them over it. There are no openings in the 
 trousers, except for the legs and waist. A collar, or rather 
 stock, made of satin, is worn round the neck by men in 
 winter, and when in ' dress.' 
 
 Before marriage a Chinese girl's hair is plaited in a queue, 
 but on marriage it is done up into a curious shaped coiffure. 
 
 The ladies wear no bonnets or hats, neither do the 
 common women, as a rule, except those who are out in 
 the sun and exposed to the weather. Their hair is combed 
 and plastered with a gum, and, thus made up, forms a 
 sufficient head-covering in a hot climate. But an endless 
 variety is seen in this style of head-dress : now a modest 
 set of protuberances in connection with the tea-pot-handle- 
 like coiffure at the back of the head ; now enormous 
 butterfly wings project from the side of the head, or lie 
 closer to it ; again back wings project to a greater or 
 lesser degree ; and yet again various adjuncts are added 
 to eke out the quantity of hair, or to raise it like a small 
 horn on the head. In some places the styles differ in 
 every bit of country-side. One of the best places the 
 author has ever seen for noticing these is Swatow, where, 
 in a group of from twenty to forty women, nearly a score 
 of different coiffures were seen. The boat-girls in Macao, 
 and some in Hongkong, go with a bright coloured hand- 
 kerchief over their heads, tied under their chins. The 
 Hakka women also often bind a cloth round the head, look- 
 ing something like an old-fashioned bonnet. In Swatow 
 and the surrounding country a number of different kinds 
 of head-cloths are worn by the women, according to the 
 
 227
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 districts they come from. The author saw a curious one in 
 use at the district city of T(e Yong, near Swatow. It was a 
 long narrow cloth thrown over the head, and the ends were 
 brought round the face when its wearers wished to hide 
 their countenances from the passers-by. In winter a broad 
 band, either plain or embroidered, is often bound across 
 the forehead by women, and prevents that cold, aching 
 feeling which an extremely low temperature produces. The 
 men wear a skull-cap of satin with a cord button of red or 
 black on the top in winter, but go bare-headed in summer. 
 Felt hats are likewise seen ; they have a turned-up brim, 
 and some of the better kind have gold thread on the 
 edge; their use is restricted to the lower classes. In very 
 cold weather a peculiar headgear is worn by some. It 
 consists of a pointed cap, which, with a flap falling down 
 behind and buttoning under the chin, covers up not only 
 the neck but the whole head with the exception of the 
 face. Little boys are often seen with these on, as well 
 as some men and a few women. Large bamboo hats, 
 nearly a yard in diameter, effectually shed the rain off, 
 and as effectually protect the head from the rays of the 
 sun. Several other varieties of bamboo hats are worn, 
 some by men alone ; others by women alone ; while others 
 are patronised irrespective of the sex of the wearer. In 
 rainy weather the lower classes in the South put on a 
 cloak made of bamboo leaves sewn together, presenting 
 a veritable Robinson Crusoe appearance ; but in Swatow 
 a similar one made of coir fibre is substituted, looking 
 somewhat like the capiuie pallia, or straw cloaks, worn 
 by the peasantry, in the northern provinces of Portugal. 
 At such times labourers go bare-footed, as for that matter 
 they do at nearly all times ; shop-keepers and others splash 
 about througli the mud and rain on shoes with wooden 
 soles a couple of inches thick (for the usual felt sole acts 
 as a sponge in wet weather), a poorer style consists of 
 a ruder chump of wood with a network of string for the 
 toes. A still better class, such as official underlings, and 
 some gentlemen, put on boots made especially for damp 
 
 22$
 
 Dress 
 
 and wet, reaching half-way, or even further up towards 
 the knees. Wooden clogs, with leather uppers, are used 
 by women and girls. 
 
 We have already spoken of jackets, robes, waistcoats 
 or sleeveless jackets, and close-fitting ones. There are 
 besides, double jackets or lined ones, and fur jackets. A 
 dress-suit consists of a robe opening at the bottom of the 
 centre line, both before and behind, with sleeves shaped 
 like a horse's hoof, a jacket is worn over this, and satin 
 boots with thick white soles, a sash round the waist, and 
 an official hat with a button at the top, are put on. 
 
 Earrings are quite a part of Chinese female dress ; 
 every woman and girl wears them ; and so accustomed 
 does one get to see them in a woman's ears, that it looks 
 almost as queer to see a Chinese woman without these 
 indispensables, as it would to see an English lady going 
 barefoot ; and a Chinese woman would feel as ashamed to 
 appear in the one condition, as an English lady would in 
 the other. The earrings differ in style in different parts 
 of China, and there is as great a dissimilarity between 
 them as there is between those of one country and another. 
 Among the Hakkas, a common earring is a silk tassel. 
 The Foochow women have enormous rings, several inches 
 in diameter, in their ears. The Cantonese earring is often 
 formed of two parts : the earring proper a round metallic 
 (gold, silver, or brass) ring, broadened out into a flat 
 ornamental surface in front, into which a flat ring of jade, 
 or other stone, or composition, is hung. 
 
 Fashions in dress do change in China, but so slight and 
 gradual are the changes except when some dynastic over- 
 throw revolutionises everything that to the foreigner no 
 difference is visible, but to the initiated into these 
 mysteries an extremely gradual change is perceptible, so 
 that, in the course of forty or fifty years, ladies' sleeves are 
 noticed to be wider than before, and, in the course of a 
 quarter of a century, quite a new style of dressing ladies' 
 hair is seen. Some fashions even can be seen to change 
 
 o 
 
 every two or three years. 
 
 229
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 The style of dress, it should be noticed, is not quite the 
 same in different parts of China. What has been written 
 above applies principally to the South of China, in the 
 neighbourhood of Hongkong, Macao, and Canton : even 
 in these neighbourhoods, the dress of the Hakkas is not 
 quite the same as that of the Cantonese (See Article on 
 Hakkas). The mode of doing up the hair by the women, 
 the kind of earrings worn by them, as well as the dress 
 itself, are so distinct as to mark anyone, at the first glance, as 
 coming from some other part of China. The men's dress has, 
 however, but little or nothing to differentiate it, the greatest 
 exception being in the case of the Swatow and Hokkien 
 men, who often wear a turban, whereas other Chinese are 
 seldom seen with it. The short jackets of these same men 
 are sometimes longer than those in the extreme south. 
 
 The colour of the clothing worn also differs. White is 
 never seen as an outer garment on women in Canton or 
 Hongkong, except to please Europeans ; this colour 
 being reserved alone for undergarments, in which, of course, 
 a woman would be ashamed to appear in public. In 
 Amoy, however, this does not seem to be the rule, and in 
 that part of the country bright red, and other colours are 
 worn by young ladies, a thing which is never seen in 
 Canton amongst respectable women. In Swatow, white also 
 is worn, but the young ladies do not appear to come out in 
 such brilliant hues as in Amoy. These may be taken as 
 instances of the variations in style of dress in China. 
 
 Though the Chinese men go often in a state of semi- 
 nudity, the women make up for it by a severe modesty in 
 their dress. There is no exposure of their person, as there 
 is in the evening dress amongst European ladies ; neither 
 is tight-lacing a vice amongst the Chinese. They 
 sedulously hide all the contours of the figure, and in fact 
 tie down the breasts. 
 
 EARTHQUAKES. An earthquake is not a 
 phenomenon often experienced by the foreign resident in 
 China. Very slight shocks have been felt a few times in 
 
 230
 
 Earthquakes 
 
 
 
 Hongkong, but so insignificant have they been as to be 
 unknown to the majority till the next day's papers 
 contained a notice of them ; but in some other parts of 
 China they are not such a trivial matter. They are recorded 
 as of frequent occurrence in Hainan ; earthquakes in 
 conjunction with storms, famine, and pestilence have 
 materially decreased the population at one time ; but, as a 
 general rule, earthquake shocks would appear to be 
 infrequent in China, and not of serious import. We give a 
 short, but unfortunately not a complete list, as the subject 
 has not yet received the study and attention it merits. 
 
 A.D. 1037. A severe earthquake 'that affected Honan and Shansi 
 and caused the death of 22,000 people, and the wounding and maiming 
 of between 5 and 6,000 more.' 
 
 A.D. 1295-1308. During the latter years of this period 'severe 
 earthquakes in T'ai-yuan and Ta-tung in Shansi. In the former town 
 over 800 houses were thrown down, and a large number of people were 
 killed. Ta-tung, however, suffered still more severely. There 5,000 
 houses were shattered into ruins, and 2,000 people were buried beneath 
 them.' 
 
 A.D. 1334. Earthquakes, and also during the next few years. 
 
 In the early days of the Ming dynasty (this dynasty lasted from 
 A.D. 1368 to A.D. 1643), a 'terrible earthquake visited the plain of 
 Chien-ch'ang. . . . The old city of N ing-yuan sank bodily into the 
 ground, and gave place to the large lake which lies to the south-east 
 of the present city.' 
 
 A.D. 1662. One in China, when 300,000 persons were buried in 
 Peking alone. 
 
 A.D. 1731. Another, when 100,000 persons were swallowed up at 
 Peking. 
 
 A.D. 1847, November I3th. An earthquake at Shanghai. 
 
 A.D. 1850. The city of King-yuan, in western China, already 
 mentioned, was again ruined by an earthquake. 
 
 A.D. 1852, December i6th. There was a shock of some violence 
 at Shanghai, at 8.13 P.M., and another slight shock at 10 P.M. There 
 were no serious effects. These were felt at Ningpo at 8.9 P.M., and 
 three hours later. There were other shocks at Shanghai on two 
 subsequent days. 
 
 A.D. 1854. A shock felt in Canton, and about the same year at 
 Chinkiang, where people were thrown on their faces. 
 
 A.D. 1867. A sharp shock at Ningpo, at a few minutes after 10 
 A.M. on the 1 7th December. Bells were set ringing, clocks stopped, 
 chandeliers swayed, and water in earthen jars rippled violently. A 
 slighter shock was felt at Shanghai. 
 
 2 3 I
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 A.D. iS/l, April nth. A severe earthquake to the west of 
 Sz-chuan, at about n A.M., at Bathang, when 'government offices, 
 temples, granaries, store-houses, and fortifications, with all the common 
 dwellings,' were overthrown, and most of the inmates killed. Flames 
 burst out in four places, and were beaten down on the i6th, but 
 rumbling noises underground continued like distant thunder, and the 
 earth rocked and rolled. In about ten days the earth quieted. For 
 several days before, the water had overflowed the dykes, the earth 
 cracked, and black fetid water spurted out. The region affected by 
 this earthquake was over a circuit of four hundred miles, and, it 
 occurring ' simultaneously over the whole of this region,' 2,298 people 
 were killed. ' In some places steep hills split and sank into deep 
 chasms, in others mounds on level plains became precipitous cliffs, and 
 the roads and highways were rendered impassable by obstructions.' 
 
 1874, June 23rd. A slight shock in Hongkong. 
 
 1890. Five distinct shocks during the year in the province of 
 Shansi ; the heaviest was in the spring, and upwards of a hundred 
 persons were killed in it. On the I5th October two shocks were felt 
 at Fenchau-fii. This year was exceptional. It is said that earthquake 
 shocks are only felt once in ten years in that province. 
 
 1891, April I2th or I3th. Three shocks of earthquake felt during 
 the day at Taiytten-fu in Shansi. 
 
 1891, April 1 7th. A severe earthquake shock occurred at Fen- 
 chau-fii in Shansi, at half-past six o'clock in the morning, the worst 
 that has happened in that region within thirty years. A number of 
 houses were thrown down in the city and suburbs, and some eight or 
 ten persons were killed. There was a great destruction of houses in 
 the villages. The shock extended at least 100 // in all directions. 
 ' It is somewhat surprising that more damage was not done, as the 
 whole country rocked like a ship on a wave of the sea. The earth- 
 quake lasted one minute only, but some of the houses that were shaken 
 by it fell during the following afternoon. The people say that earth- 
 quakes are caused by a large fish, which wakes up after a sleep of 
 some years and gives a flop.' 
 
 1891, August 3rd. A slight shock felt by a few residents at 
 Hongkong, at 2.10 P.M. 
 
 1892, April 22nd. A distinct and continuous series of shocks, 
 lasting for a few seconds in Hongkong, with lateral vibrations and a 
 rumbling sound, but doing no damage ; also felt in a number of the 
 other coast ports in China. 
 
 1892, July 2 1 st. A slight shock felt at the Peak (Hongkong) and 
 Kowloong, at 6.40 A.M. 
 
 1892, July 28th. A heavy earthquake shock at Hoihow 'that 
 shook the whole place, houses being seen and felt to stagger and 
 shake in a most terrifying manner, . . . accompanied by a subter- 
 ranean roar far louder than thunder. ... It is said by the natives that 
 Hoihow has not been visited with a similar shock for a century : even 
 a slight one is an unusual occurrence. 
 
 1892, August 4th. A slight shock in Hongkong. 
 
 232
 
 Earthquakes 
 
 1892, December i6th. A shock at 3 A.M. at Amoy, by which 
 people were awakened, and lasting for several seconds. 
 
 1893, August 1 4th. A slight shock felt in T'ai-ku-hsien ; no 
 damage. 
 
 1893, August 29th. An earthquake of great magnitude, devastating 
 an area of 9,000 square miles in the Tibetan district of Kada, border- 
 ing the province of Sz-chuan. The Dalai Lama's Grand Monastery 
 of Hueiyuan, and 7 small Lamaserais were buried in ruins, and 804 
 houses, belonging to the native and Tibetan soldiers and their families, 
 met the same fate. 74 Lama priests, and 137 Chinese and Tibetans 
 were killed, with a large proportion of wounded. 
 
 1893, October I7th. Severe repeated shocks at Taipeh-fu in 
 Formosa, and on the i6th a strong shock was felt in Amoy and 
 Kulangsu, at 2.30 A.M. 
 
 1893, December 8th. A severe shock at Foochow, at 11.10 P.M. 
 
 1894, June 2oth. A sharp shock of earthquake felt in Amoy and 
 Kulangsu, at 6.30 or 6.45 A.M. ; a very slight shock had been noticed 
 two days previously, at about 2 P.M. Three houses were wrecked. 
 
 1894, August nth. There were slight shocks at Hongkong, at 
 10.55 A - M - ar >d 1-20 P.M. 
 
 1895, August 3oth. Earthquake shocks were felt in Hongkong, 
 Swatow, Waichow, and Haifung. The earthquake was severe at 
 Swatow, where it occurred at ten minutes to six P.M. It was preceded 
 by an excessively hot day, with a dull, oppressive feeling in the air, 
 rain falling heavily just before. It lasted between fifteen and twenty 
 seconds, by one account, and two minutes by another ; a slight shock 
 had been experienced about 3.30 P.M., a continuation of minor shocks 
 followed it as well, up until 3.15 A.M. on Saturday. Considerable 
 damage was done on shore to native property, and a little to foreign 
 in the way of cracked walls and ceilings. The vessels in harbour were 
 shaken from truck to keelson, the colour of the water in the river was 
 changed from blue to brown by the agitation of the mud, and the sea 
 had a very confused appearance south of the Lamocks. The direction 
 from E. to W. It was the severest shock ever felt in Swatow. It 
 was thus described in Hongkong : ' Horizontal vibration between 
 E. and W. roughly ; there was no vertical motion, and hardly any 
 perceptible travelling direction. The first distinct oscillation was 
 felt a minute or so before a quarter to six, and lasted about 30 seconds. 
 Fainter tremors were felt for some minutes afterwards ; and another 
 distinct shock occurred about 11.30 P.M.' Persons sitting or lying 
 down felt it plainly, and it interfered a little with writing. It was felt 
 most in high buildings. Two gentlemen in upper floors of the 
 Hongkong Hotel felt dizzy, and thought the place was coming down. 
 Bottles and glasses rattled in some buildings. 'A coolie sitting on the 
 pavement in the streets rushed into the roadway, shouting that the 
 houses were falling.' 
 
 1895, August-October. Earthquake shocks at Kit Yong, 30 miles 
 from Swatow, from the 3Oth August till i ith of October, 'the country 
 round for eighteen miles seeming to be within the district of dis- 
 turbance.' Two small shocks towards the end of September at Swatow, 
 but no damage. At Tsing Hai City in the Chao Chow Prefecture 
 there were several earthquake shocks with disastrous consequences, 
 
 233
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 more than a hundred houses falling, and about forty persons being 
 killed by their collapse, the shocks in Kit Yong being slight in com- 
 parison. 
 
 1896, July 22nd. A pretty severe shock at Tientsin, about 8.52 P.M. 
 { A tremor, accompanied by a rumbling or grating noise, as if a large 
 quantity of bricks had been shot from carts, was, after an interval of 
 two seconds, followed by a very distinct earth oscillation, which lasted 
 for two or three seconds. . . . The most severe shock that has been 
 felt at Tientsin since 1888.' 
 
 1897, January i;th. A slight shock in Hongkong ; and January i8th, 
 a severe one at Foochow, at 6 A.M., direction about north and south. 
 
 1898, November I2th. A shock in the city of Shi'ii Hing (about 
 70 or 80 miles from Canton) and the surrounding villages. Houses, 
 windows, furniture, and hanging lamps shook with a creaking noise 
 as if about to fall ; and people were startled from sleep by a phen- 
 omenon which they had never experienced before. The elders made 
 enquiries as to whether it portended good or evil. 
 
 1901, June 7th. 'Two shocks of earthquake at Foochow, at 8.5 A.M., 
 the second of which was severer than any for many years.' 
 
 1903, January 6th. A slight shock at Weihaiwei at 6 A.M., and at 
 Shanghai at 6 h. 2 m. 2 s. A.M., stopping two clocks looking north. 
 
 ECLIPSE. The common idea amongst the Chinese 
 of an eclipse is that some monster is swallowing the sun 
 or moon ; hence gongs and drums are beaten and an 
 uproar and noise is made to drive the monster dog away. 
 That these efforts are successful is proved by the sun or 
 moon emerging intact after each encounter. Though some 
 of the high officials know the absurdity of this notion, yet 
 the farce, as far as the Government is concerned, is kept up 
 by an occasional notification like the following : 
 
 ' A Notification in the matter of saving and guarding the Sun and 
 Moon : 
 
 'On the loth day of the gth moon [2ist October 1901] Yune, 
 Intendant of Circuit (invested with power of control over military 
 forces) of Suchow, Ts'ung Kong, and T'ai Ts'ong, issued a Notification 
 suspended in front of his yamen, to the effect (stated in general terms) 
 that on the i ,th day of the gth moon (26th October 1901), being the Mo 
 Yan Day (of the Diurnal Sexagenary Circle), there will be an eclipse 
 (//'/. an eating) of the Moon, and that on the 1st day of the loth moon 
 [i ith November 1901], being the Kwai Tsz Day, there will be an eclipse 
 of the Sun. On the arrival of these dates, all Civil and Military Officers 
 are directed each and all to save and guard the Sun and Moon.' 
 
 The above was issued by the Shanghai Taotai. 
 
 EDUCATION. The Chinese owe everything to their 
 
 234
 
 Education 
 
 system of education. It is this which, amidst all the 
 changes of dynasty, has kept them a nation ; it is this 
 which has knit together the extremes of this vast land, and 
 has caused the same aspirations to rise, and the same 
 thoughts to course, through people differing in vernacular, 
 and in many customs and habits ; it is this that has been 
 the conqueror of the conquering hosts that have swept over 
 the land, and set up an alien dynasty more than once in 
 her history. 
 
 The Chinese child is heavily handicapped when he 
 commences his educational course, for ' the language of the 
 fireside is not the language of the books ' ; nor has he all 
 the auxiliary aids which first launch a child on the sea of 
 learning, and make the acquisition of knowledge a pleasure 
 in happy Western homes, with the present-day beautifully 
 illustrated books, and language simplified to encourage the 
 youthful beginner : there is no ' Reading Made Easy,' no 
 ' Laugh and Learn,' no ' Peep of Day,' nor any of the other 
 numerous books, which are the delight of the little ones 
 amongst us. Though one often sees a bright, intelligent 
 infant among the Chinese, the absence of all aids, similar 
 in their design to those mentioned above, must be a terrible 
 want to the poor little Celestial. Were the first book put 
 into the youngster's hands named ' Reading Made Difficult ' 
 it might then convey some idea of the nature of its 
 contents ; for, barring the fact that it is in rhyme and in 
 lines of three words each, there is nothing in it to smooth 
 the rough path for little feet. It commences with a state- 
 ment that might tax all the mental powers of a philosopher 
 to fathom, to wit : ' Men at their birth are by nature 
 radically good ' ; after this tough introduction, instances are 
 adduced of youthful learning and precocity, all tending to 
 show the necessity of education. Categories of the 
 numerical series, of which the Chinese are so fond, follow, 
 such for example as the three powers heaven, earth, and 
 man ; the five cardinal virtues ; and six kinds of grain. A 
 list of books to be learned is next enumerated, followed by 
 an epitome of Chinese history in the tersest form possible ; 
 
 235
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 and the book ends with what, if it were only in an in- 
 telligible form for the boy, would be the most interesting 
 part of all, viz : instances of the pursuit of knowledge 
 under difficulties, which are used to goad the future aspirant 
 for literary fame on his course. 
 
 At first scarcely anything he reads is understood by 
 him, but he has to learn it off by heart, so as to say it 
 without a single error. The first is, of course, a mistake ; 
 the second is not ; for experience shows that such a method 
 is the best for learning Chinese. The author, himself, when 
 a boy, learned the first book and others in this way, so as 
 to be able to repeat long screeds of them by heart, and 
 later years have only deepened the impression that, given 
 time to do so, this is the only way to learn Chinese 
 thoroughly. In fact, if we Westerners were not always in 
 such a hurry, and so pressed for time, it would prove an 
 excellent plan in the first stages of learning a European 
 language ; the author tried it with French and found it 
 produced excellent results. But to return to our Chinese 
 boy in the midst of his difficulties. These may perhaps be 
 better appreciated by the foreign reader from the following 
 illustration : We remember reading of a school for teach- 
 ing the English language to Gaelic-speaking boys. The 
 schoolmaster ordered the scholars to read from one of their 
 English lesson-books, which they did beautifully, but when 
 an English visitor began to question them on what they 
 had read, he found blank faces staring at him in amazement, 
 and not a single reply could he get. The master then in- 
 formed him that the boys had only been taught to read 
 English, not to speak it ; their pronunciation was perfect, 
 but not a word did they understand of what they had read. * 
 Our Chinese boy is in pretty much the same plight at first ; 
 for four or five years he learns the names of the Chinese 
 characters, but the great majority of them are meaningless 
 signs to him. Book after book has he to get up in this 
 wearisome manner, and page after page of copy-book 
 characters has he to trace in a listless round, which knows no 
 Sunday rest, nor Wednesday, nor Saturday half-holiday : a 
 
 236
 
 Education 
 
 Chinese school is for work, and not play ; play is considered 
 a waste of time, and, as such, to be discouraged as much as 
 possible ; no variety of studies ; nothing to break the 
 monotony from daylight till dark, only enough time to 
 take meals being allowed. Verily it is no wonder that the 
 Chinese school-boy appears heavy and dull, grave and 
 dignified, and that he has his company manners always at 
 hand, appearing the pink of propriety like all the fossilised 
 youngsters he has read about. At last a little light is 
 allowed to glint into this mental darkness, for he is initiated 
 into the mysteries and privileges of knowing what the 
 thousands of seemingly arbitrary signs mean. And here is 
 the reason why, though nearly all Chinese (at least in the 
 more civilised parts of the empire) can read to a greater or 
 lesser extent, so many of them understand but little of what 
 they read ; for many of them are unable from poverty to 
 pursue their course of education beyond the initial stage. 
 Many of them are in the position of Milton's daughters : 
 the blind poet taught them to read Latin to him simply 
 to read it, without a knowledge of what it meant ; and the 
 Chinese that is spoken in everyday life is nearly as different 
 from much of that contained in the books, as a dead 
 language is from a living one. 
 
 There is no class system in Chinese schools ; each boy 
 forms a class by himself: there are as many classes as there 
 are boys. A dull scholar is thus not drawn on faster than 
 he is able to go by the quicker boys, nor do the brighter 
 pupils have a drag on their progress in the persons of the 
 dull ones. As each boy learns his lesson he goes up to say 
 it, the long school-hours also making it necessary for him 
 to learn the greater part, if not all, of his work in school- 
 time. A Chinese school makes itself heard long before it 
 is seen : a confused babel of sounds warns you of your 
 approach to it ; for each boy is learning his task off by 
 heart, repeating it over and over again, till fixed in the 
 memory, in a loud sing-song tone of voice ; the effect of 
 thirty or forty boys (for few schools are fortunately much 
 larger than that) all doing their best to outvoice each other 
 
 237
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 in this manner, being better imagined than described, and, 
 once heard, never forgotten. In England, schools are a 
 nuisance to their neighbours at play-time ; there is no play- 
 time in Chinese schools they are, on the contrary, a 
 nuisance when the boys are at their lessons. 
 
 If a boy's studies are continued, he is taught, as we 
 have said, the translation of this wonderfully recondite 
 literary style into more intelligible language. Besides this, 
 the following subjects find a place in the curriculum : com- 
 position, where rules of grammar are conspicuous by their 
 absence, and position is everything, and precedent or 
 ancient usage establishes the proper collocation of words. 
 Intimately connected with this is the construction of 
 antithetical sentences, where meaning, word, and phrase, as 
 well as tone, are matched together with wonderful care, 
 precision, and musical rhythm. One or two other forms 
 of composition are also taught, and the scholar learns the 
 art of letter-writing, where almost every possible idea is 
 already provided for in cut-and-dried expressions redolent 
 with the flowers of allusion, classic lore, and fable. This is 
 a most important branch of Chinese education, and requires 
 special study. We ourselves were present at a meeting 
 at which a letter was read from a gentleman, expressing 
 his regret at not being able to be present, and containing 
 good wishes for the members and the Society to which 
 they belonged. Such a letter in English would require 
 no explanation to an English audience, but the Chinese 
 secretary of this Society considered it necessary to explain 
 its contents to the members present, though they were 
 all fairly well educated in Chinese. Belles-lettres also 
 take a place in the more extended course of study. A 
 collection from ancient authors, forming a course of 
 Chinese literature, is placed in the hands of the student ; 
 a smattering of Chinese history, valuable for the sake of 
 allusions it places at a writer's disposal, is acquired ; 
 artificial verse-making claims a share of attention ; and the 
 composition of those wonderful essays, where the reasoning 
 proceeds in a circle, and ends where it began, which are 
 
 238
 
 Education 
 
 valuable as preparing the student for the Civil Service 
 examinations ; this last being the final stage for which all 
 the preceding has been preparatory ; this, the goal which 
 has necessitated all the arduous toil, with, in the event of 
 success, its resultant office-holding. (See Article on 
 Examinations.) 
 
 The whole of the classics (the Four Books and the Five 
 Classics) are mastered, as well as the commentaries thereon, 
 in the school and collegiate course, extending over some 
 years. It will thus be seen that geography, arithmetic, 
 algebra, mathematics, and all branches of science, are 
 utterly unknown in a Chinese educational course. What 
 then is the result of the whole thing? Not the acquisition 
 of knowledge, or the training of the mind, so much as the 
 turning out of successful essayists ; a marvellous training 
 of the memory, and the extraordinary development of the 
 imitative faculty these two at the expense of everything 
 else no originality, no scope for individuality ; the produc- 
 tion of literary machines, the manufacture of mental type- 
 writers, where the stereotyped forms of antiquity are repro- 
 duced with but scant variety. It speaks well for the 
 Chinese nation, that, with all this tight-lacing of healthy 
 aspirations, with all this binding of the feet of progress, it 
 has been impossible to entirely curb all individuality, to 
 check all variety. It has been well said that though this 
 system 'has considerable educative value' it yet ' limits the 
 mental and moral vision to the horizon which confined the 
 mind of Confucius twenty-four centuries ago, cramps the 
 intellect, stunts the growth of moral feeling, and bends the 
 will into an antagonism to everything non-Chinese.' It 
 has also been stated with truth that, ' the vast majority of 
 the educated men in China do not know to this day what 
 is the meaning of the most common terms in our educa- 
 tional vocabulary, and much less do they know the use 
 and value of the things designated, or how they are to be 
 studied.' 
 
 China has no school-boards, nor even anything in the 
 place of the National and British schools in England.
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 Schools are opened by masters to gain their living, or 
 established by the gentry, or one tutor is employed by 
 several families to conduct a private school for their 
 children, while colleges, or, strictly speaking, higher schools, 
 established on pretty much the same principles, abound in 
 all cities. 
 
 We have thus far only mentioned boys, and we might 
 close without any reference to girls ; for the attitude of the 
 nation, as a whole, with regard to the education of this sex, 
 is almost that of complete neglect. Notwithstanding this, 
 not a few instances are adduced in Chinese history of blue- 
 stockings ; and, at the present day, in some parts of China 
 at least, a very small minority of the girls either manage to 
 pick up such a smattering of the characters as to be able 
 to read cheap novels, or, very rarely, have the advantage 
 of a teacher provided by their parents, who are stimulated 
 to give them an education, in some cases by the example 
 of the mission schools. From personal contact with 
 thousands of natives in the course of his official duties, the 
 writer is able to say that it is the rarest thing to find a 
 woman who is able to sign her own name, and when that 
 is laboriously accomplished, it is perhaps all that she can 
 write ; whereas, on the other hand, a preponderating 
 majority of men in the extreme south of China, in the 
 cities at all events, are able to do this. To state it broadly: 
 it is a great exception if a woman can do ought but make 
 her mark, while it is an exception if a man cannot. 
 
 It is very hard to form an estimate as to the number of 
 men who can not only read, but mentally understand what 
 they read. The proportion differs in different parts of the 
 empire, and even in the same part, it will vary greatly 
 in the citizen and the rustic. Dr. Martin estimates it 
 at one in twenty. But these estimates are very un- 
 satisfactory, as in different parts of the country and 
 in city and town and country there are great differ- 
 ences. Again a great many have a little smattering of 
 this knowledge and can manage to get along somehow 
 when reading is made easy to them by the use of 
 
 240
 
 Education 
 
 a simple style, but are soon out of their depth if the read- 
 ing extends beyond the simplest characters. One recent 
 writer estimates that only one-tenth of the entire population 
 is able to read. An account of education in China would 
 not be complete without a closing allusion to the dawn of 
 better days. Mission schools and colleges are to be found 
 at the different centres, and these have done a good and 
 appreciable work ; there are likewise the schools in Hong- 
 kong, under the fostering care of the British Colonial 
 Government ; and, what is more encouraging still, there 
 are, here and there at several important centres, either 
 schools established, more or less under the auspices of the 
 Chinese Government, such as the T'ung Wan Kwen, at 
 Peking and Canton, where a thoroughly good training is 
 given in English ; or again, such establishments as naval 
 and other colleges, in connection with arsenals, where a 
 technical education is imparted ; and, lastly, a most 
 significant fact, at one of the provincial examinations in 
 the City of Wu-chang, the examinees were asked to give a 
 comparison between ancient and modern mathematical 
 methods, the former being native, and the latter foreign ; 
 other centres of examination have taken the same subject 
 up, doubtless in consequence of the decree issued some 
 ten years ago by which the Literary Chancellors of the 
 provinces were ordered ' to admit candidates to a competi- 
 tion in Mathematics at each annual examination for the 
 first degree.' If successful, these were to undergo a special 
 examination at Peking, in Physics, Applied Mathematics, 
 Practical Mechanics, Naval and Military Tactics, Gunnery 
 and Torpedo Practice; or, instead of these, in International 
 Law, Political History, etc. ' If successful they shall be 
 admitted to competition for the second degree in Peking, 
 which shall be conferred in the ratio of one to twenty, the 
 total not to exceed three in one year. Those who obtain 
 the second degree may compete for the third.' (See 
 Article on Examinations.) As an instance of this intro- 
 duction of a new subject in the stereotyped Chinese 
 examination the following will be found interesting : 
 
 241 Q
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 ' In Western Shantung in the Tung Ch'ang Prefecture, two pro- 
 blems were propounded at the examination for the hsiu-ts'ai degree in 
 1892, the first or 13. A., one of which asked for the superficial area of 
 a globe eighteen inches in diameter. The other was of a more com- 
 plicated character, and adapted to fit the aspirants for the post of 
 Grain Commissioner. Problem. If eight thousand piculs of rice are 
 carried at thirteen tael cents per picul, and if the freight is paid in rice 
 at taels two and a half per picul, how much rice is expended for the 
 freight? It is said that this question was propounded to not less than 
 ten thousand students in the Tung Ch'ao Prefecture, and that only one 
 man tried to give any answer at all, and he was snubbed by the 
 Chancellor for an ignorant pretender. Yet if any one could have 
 given the correct answer which a Western lad of ten years would be 
 ashamed not to be able to do in three minutes, he would probably 
 have been passed on that account ! The result, as often happens in 
 such cases, has been a great increase in the number of applicants to 
 the foreigner for a formula . . . which will evolve correct answers. 
 The absurdity of proposing problems in regard to the nature of 
 which students have had no opportunity of learning must be as evident 
 to the Chancellor as to the candidates. But by another three years, 
 some mathematical books will have probably been pored over not in 
 vain.' 
 
 Another hopeful sign is the resumption of the plan for 
 sending students to Western lands to prosecute their studies 
 in the modern centres of learning and thought. The young 
 Emperor himself began the study of English some years 
 since, and now the Empress Dowager has taken it 
 up. 
 
 'The Tsung-li Yamen have promulgated [1896] a verbal edict of 
 the Emperor to the provincial authorities, commanding that the study 
 of foreign mathematics and the various branches of polytechnical 
 science shall from henceforth be compulsory in all colleges of the 
 country. Candidates at the literary examinations will now have 
 to qualify in at least one of the latter subjects, while mathematics 
 must be one of the standing subjects at these competitions for literary 
 degrees.' 
 
 This gradual progress in the betterment of this wonder- 
 ful system of examinations was followed by orders from the 
 Emperor for a radical change, only to be again upset by the 
 reactionary measures of the Empress Dowager. This is all 
 a matter of history of the year 1898. 
 
 Since then the dreadful events in the North of China, 
 fit to be printed with lurid letters of blood on pages of 
 Cimmerian darkness, have followed, to be succeeded by a 
 further appreciation (to a more enlarged extent than 
 previously) that her educational system was a drawback 
 
 242
 
 Emblems 
 
 to the desire of the progressive party in China to be in a 
 line with Western nations. 
 
 The following extracts will serve as instances of things 
 attempted, not always to be accomplished, for progress is 
 comparatively slow in China : 
 
 'Upon the joint memorial of H.E. the Viceroy Tao and the 
 Provincial Governor Tak, Imperial sanction has been granted to 
 establish colleges and schools in Kwongtung for the teaching of both 
 foreign tongues and Chinese to the native youth ; in the large districts 
 colleges will be established, and in small ones schools, where smart 
 and intelligent students will be admitted and educated, and after a 
 course of study be chosen by examination for Government Service. 
 With this aim in view there will be no literary examination in any of 
 the villages for the year' [1901]. 
 
 'The Reform Decrees of the Court order, amongst other things, a 
 provincial College in every Capital. The first to be opened was one 
 by Governor Yiin Shi Kai in Chinan-fu' [1901]. 
 
 That the antiquated wen-chang's, or the literary essay's, 
 days are numbered is apparent. 
 
 Books recommended. Martin's 'Han Lin Papers.' Also see Extract from 
 a paper by Rev. J. C. Ferguson in the Hongkong Daily Press of the 
 7th of January 1892. Most of the text-books on China also contain more or 
 less full accounts of the Examination system of China. 
 
 EMBLEMS. Chinese art is enriched with many 
 emblems full of significance to the initiated and the native ; 
 but generally conveying nothing but an idea of quaintness or 
 ornamentation to the foreigner. As illustrative of a hand- 
 maid of native art which gives meaning to flower and bird 
 and animal depicted or carved or embroidered with such 
 lavish profusion by the painstaking Chinese, we shall 
 merely note a few of the emblematical symbols used. 
 
 Bamboos, chrysanthemums, plum-blossoms, and epiden- 
 drums represent the four seasons summer, autumn, winter, 
 and spring. 
 
 The same sound stands in China for ' noble rank ' and 
 ' birds,' hence the latter are emblems of the former. Storks 
 mean longevity. As the same sound represents ' lotus ' and 
 ' continuous' as well, the use of ' lotus,' is obvious. The 
 peony is the king of flowers and the pictorial synonym of 
 wealth. The bamboo also does duty for ' peace,' and the 
 lotus for ' a perfect gentleman, too.' Besides the seasons 
 
 243
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 they typify, the plum is expressive of purity and the 
 chrysanthemum of longevity. 
 
 EMBROIDERY. The Chinese are famous for their 
 skill in embroidery. Men and women are both employed 
 in the production of numerous articles for home consumption 
 as well as for exportation. Official robes for mandarins 
 and their wives ; petticoats for ladies ; purses for rich and 
 poor ; shoes for men and women with natural feet, as well 
 as for those with golden lilies the cramped-up deformities 
 which do an imperfect duty in place of the natural growth ; 
 caps for men and boys ; adjuncts of dress, such as spectacle- 
 cases and numerous other articles are all adorned and 
 ornamented with embroidery. Banners, altar-cloths, the 
 gorgeous robes donned by the ragged boys in a procession, 
 are all rich with it. 
 
 ' There are many styles with thread, braid, or floss, and 
 an infinite variety in the quality, pattern, and beauty of the 
 work.' The ' motives,' are of the usual style of Chinese 
 art-work heavy bats, long convoluted dragons, splendid 
 phoenixes, geometrical patterns, insignia of the genii, fruit, 
 flowers, and butterflies ; these are blended together in a 
 galaxy of richest colours, or studded in more diffuse 
 splendour on glowing backgrounds of cerulean blue or 
 emerald green, or numerous other shades in which the 
 gorgeous East delights to clothe itself. But it should be 
 mentioned that, owing to the introduction of aniline 
 colours, the loveliness has, in a great measure, departed, and 
 harmony of tint almost entirely, from the needlework of 
 the present day. 
 
 Girls are taught to embroider as an accomplishment 
 and a necessary duty, for their own tiny shoes are worked 
 by themselves, and not bought ready-made in the shops, 
 while many a woman, seated in the narrow street at the 
 door of her humble dwelling, adds to the slender means of 
 her family by her skill in fancy work of this description. 
 Peddlers go through the streets whirling a small rattle, and, 
 from the stock-in-trade of these peripatetic dealers, the 
 
 244
 
 Embroidery 
 
 domestic stocks of silk for embroidery are generally re- 
 plenished. Most lovely shades of the finest floss silk, 
 running through the whole gamut of the richest colours, 
 are displayed in the numerous small drawers of these 
 itinerant merchants, while gold and silver thread are also 
 for disposal, to be added to the needlework to enhance its 
 beauty. 
 
 Numbers of men are employed in the production of 
 shawls, table-covers, and fire-screens for exportation. The 
 latter. are made 'of divers colours of needlework on both 
 sides,' the screen at which the men work being set upright 
 between the two who are producing the piece, and the 
 needle pushed through from one man to the other alter- 
 nately, and thus the same pattern is produced on both 
 front and back. Time is of no consequence when effect 
 and beauty are to be the results, while patience, and persever- 
 ance are the two principal factors employed without stint by 
 the Chinese in all their industrial arts, nor are they absent in 
 the production of embroidery. It is said that, in a spectacle- 
 case, six inches by two, there will sometimes be not less 
 than 20,000 stitches ; and theatrical costumes, mandarin 
 robes, and ladies' dresses will take ten or twelve women 
 four or five years' constant work to finish. Under such 
 conditions it will be readily seen that fashions cannot change 
 from year to year. ' Wall hangings made of such work 
 are very costly. In Canton where it is carried to its 
 highest development, they have frequently brought several 
 thousand dollars. Nevertheless such extra fine work is 
 rare. The buying public demand good, effective tableaux 
 at prices not over $100 each and the supply naturally 
 equals the demand.' 
 
 Large stores of old embroidery are to be found in the 
 pawnshops of Chinese cities ; nor are the robes, there to 
 be seen, all of modern make, but some splendid specimens 
 of a style no longer in fashion, or ordinarily procurable, 
 are occasionally met with. Many foreign ladies who 
 would not touch a Chinaman's clothes yet buy these old 
 and soiled robes, and different articles of dress worn by 
 
 245
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 generations of Chinese, and utilise the embroidered pieces 
 in ornamenting cushions, chair-backs, etc. 
 
 These may appear cheap, and they are certainly ' nasty,' 
 yet it is the fashion in this least suitable climate to drape 
 the furniture and walls of drawing-rooms with the 
 equivalent of what a greasy old-clothes-man at home 
 carries off in his bag. How much more sensible it would 
 be if ladies sought after specimens of the Art made years 
 ago for Art's sake, two of which stand out in the writer's 
 memory as most excellent of their kind. Both were 
 circular and about a foot in diameter ; one representing a 
 white eagle perched on the rugged branch of a pine tree, 
 with a stanza in beautiful characters in a column on one 
 side, and so exquisite was the work it was almost im- 
 possible to discover that they were not written with a 
 brush and the richest ink. Every feather of the bird was 
 articulated, every needle of the pine was given in natural 
 shades. The other, probably more interesting, was a danc- 
 ing female figure, her robes and ribbons fluttering in the 
 air, whilst all manner of flowers strewed the ground, a 
 marvel of delicate work and refined colouring. But, alas ! 
 the features of this Nymph or Goddess were, as is not 
 unusual, painted upon the satin ground, and the artist was 
 not in touch with the embroiderers. The face was quite 
 one-fifth of the whole figure and very unbeautiful, with, 
 shocking to relate, a nose of Bardolphian proportions im- 
 possible in Nature and execrable in Art, but in every other 
 respect this work was a masterpiece. 
 
 ' Embroideries, ancient and modern, are always in demand among 
 Orientals, the former being much more expensive. Many skilful 
 artisans take advantage of this fact, and by an accurate imitation of 
 colours faded by age and also by secret chemical treatment turn out 
 embroideries which seem worn with age. The counterfeits are not 
 easily detected. Even when they are, the discovery is to the benefit 
 of the dealer and not the collector. A bogus antique of this 
 class was recently sold in Hongkong for $500, for which two weeks 
 previously the dealer had paid 15 to the maker. As a matter of fact, 
 modern embroideries in China are just as good as ancient, so that it is 
 folly to pay ten times for one picture what you might for a second of 
 equal merit and beauty. This is especially true when a fine em- 
 broidery is to be exposed in the drawing-room of a house which uses 
 
 246
 
 English from Chinese Pens 
 
 coal and gas. ... So ruinous are the gases produced by the com- 
 bustion of both coal and illuminating gas that the only safe rule is to 
 frame embroideries air-tight between glass plates. Thus protected 
 they will retain their brilliancy unimpaired, where left exposed they 
 become dull and dingy in a few years.' 
 
 As an instance of the uses ladies put Chinese 
 embroideries to, see the following, written by one of 
 themselves in 1901. 
 
 'The short Chinese Mandarin coats have also served successfully 
 as evening cloaks ; but all the Eastern embroideries are worth buying, 
 being adaptable to household decorations, cushions, mantelpiece 
 covers, and footstools, with special charm, while they are allowed to 
 decorate simple blouses.' 
 
 There are a number of different stitches employed. In 
 one a fine raised effect is produced by winding the thread 
 round the needle and then taking the stitch. No one, as 
 far as we are aware, has made a special study of this 
 subject ; and though we have made a point of enquiring of 
 those interested in Chinese embroideries as to the stitches, 
 we must confess we have not yet penetrated to the inner 
 arcana of their mysteries, but must perforce be content 
 with standing on the threshold, and admiring the skill of 
 the Chinese in producing such marvellous fantasies of 
 colour. 
 
 ' The East ' seems ' to have been the natural home of 
 embroidery,' and Mr. Walter Crane proceeds to say that 
 ' to-day China and Japan produce the most beautiful 
 renderings of flowers and birds.' 
 
 ENGLISH FROM CHINESE PENS. To the 
 Chinese the acquisition of our language is a terrible task ; 
 nearly, if not quite, as appalling to contemplate as the 
 idea of learning Chinese is to the average Englishman. 
 To the majority who undertake it, time and money are 
 of more importance than a thorough knowledge of the 
 subject, and ' maskee, can do ' is the motto of the tyro who 
 thereupon proceeds to inflict his outrageous attempts at 
 writing English on the Englishman, with generally most 
 ludicrous results. 
 
 247
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 Perhaps Wan Chi wishes some favour from you, and as 
 an introduction, he sends you his English calling-card with 
 an invitation on it as follows : 
 
 Mr. WAN CHI 
 
 Requests the pleasure of Mr. William Jones for a Dinner party at 
 the Chinese Hotel (Hang Fa Lau), Queen's road central, to-morrow 
 at 6 P.m. 
 
 Hongkong, i7th October 1892. 
 
 ist top floor. 
 
 Again here is a business notice : 
 EXPRESS. 
 
 NOTICE. 
 
 We beg to inform, Gentlemen, all of you that we have commenced 
 business of establishing a new Printing Office hern as a substitution 
 for the Printing Office of T. S. Marchmon but we have been selected 
 with best arrangement of new and approved Machine for quickness of 
 improvement. 
 
 Expresses, Bills, Programmes, and any kind of Joping and 
 Stationer)', that we have choose too with great care a department of 
 fashionable, current and suitable calon's Type for printing. We beg 
 leave to inform, Gentlemen, as my own experience as a printer enable 
 us to forward the most approved order as cheaply as any of the long 
 established printer here. We request every confidence trust by all of 
 your Company and we shall be glad to give all of you the satisfaction 
 of printing, but we hope earnestly, may all your Company prepared 
 orders to bestow on our printing department and we having referred 
 already to all of your Factory the perfected and completed business 
 of our preparation. 
 
 N.B. Hoping sincerely all of your Company will see no objection 
 to this notice. 
 
 A SHANG PRINTING PRESS. 
 Po Man Tap, John. 
 
 Shau Chow, January, 1893. 
 
 It is to be feared that if ' Po Man Tap, John ' succeeded 
 in commencing the ' business of establishing a new Printing 
 Office hern as a substitution ' for the former one, that his 
 compositors would not be able to ' give . . . the satis- 
 faction of printing ' in any better style than the following 
 which the Chinese printer who set it up doubtless thought 
 was perfect : 
 
 EXCELSIOR. 
 
 The shades of night were falling fast, as through. An alpine 
 village passed a youth, who how, mid snow and ice, a banner, with the 
 strang device. 
 
 EXCELSIOR. 
 248
 
 English from Chinese Pens 
 
 His brow was sad ; his eye beakers. Flashed like a falcion from its 
 sheath, and like a silver clarion bung. The accents of that unknown 
 tongue. 
 
 EXCELSIOR. 
 
 In happy homes he saw the light bright. Of household fires gleam 
 warm and abouce, the spectral glaciers shone, and from his lips exaped 
 a green. 
 
 EXCELSIOR. 
 
 " Try not the pass ! " the old man said ; " Dark lowers the tempest 
 overhead. The roanug tarrent is deep and wide " and loud that 
 clarion voice replied. 
 
 EXCELSIOR. 
 
 "O shay" the marden said "and rest" Thy weary head upon my 
 breast ! " a tear stood in his bright blue eye, But still he answered with 
 a sight. 
 
 EXCELSIOR. 
 
 " Beware the pine-tree's withered branch Beware the awful 
 aralanche ! " This was the peasant's lass Good night, a voice replied, 
 far up the height. 
 
 EXCELSIOR. 
 
 At break of day, as heavenward The pions monks of Saint 
 Bernard Uttered the aft repeated prayer, a voice cried through the 
 startled air. 
 
 EXCELSIOR. 
 
 A traveller by the faithful hound. Half-buried in the snow was 
 found, still grasping in his hand of ice, That hammer with the strange 
 device. 
 
 EXCELSIOR. 
 
 There in the twilight cold and gray, Tepeler's, but beautiful, he 
 lay, and from the sky, serene and far, a voice fell, like a falling star. 
 
 EXCELSIOR. 
 
 Tradesmen's bills are very amusing, so utterly regard- 
 less are they of spelling and plurals ; you are charged for : 
 
 1 doz. Table Knife. 2 Ibs. funch plum. 
 3 large cup and saucers. doz. Egg cup. 
 
 3 Eggs cups. 2 pieces plate. 
 
 2 Ibs. Dried Apple. i Pen (ilass. 
 
 Or has your tradesman given your wife a bad article by 
 mistake, he may write her a letter like the following : 
 
 Mrs. W. SMITH. 
 
 Madam, 
 
 I am very sorry these ball which I give you the another day was 
 new & has not been play before I do not know why should 
 
 249
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 broked so I sent another one not charge to obliged for you only & 
 I got all goods from Ingland I will try better nextime & obliges. 
 
 Your Faithfully 
 
 VAN LOI. 
 
 Our shoemaker knows but little of leggings, and 
 describes them in his bill as 'armorial articles for the 
 legs.' 
 
 Here is a notice that we received on a torn scrap of 
 paper from our washerman. 
 
 Sir, 
 
 Now, your cloths is much larger than before ; will you be 
 candly give me at $2.50 per cent. 
 
 Your trily, 
 
 WO SHING, 
 
 Washerman. 
 
 The following will explain itself, and is of higher order 
 of production than the last : 
 
 THOMKINS SIMPSON & Co. 
 
 April i Qth, 1892. 
 To JOHN BROWN Esq. 
 Dear Sir. 
 
 Our manager Mr. White gave me your note and the man you 
 recommended and I will do some things for him in the future at 
 present we have enough of men at work but we will increase the 
 coolies by next month if the weather will be hot enough to use of 
 more of our ice. So I have tell him to come to see me by next month. 
 I think I may use him. 
 
 I am Sir, 
 
 Your ob. Servant, 
 
 YEUK MAN KING. 
 Compradore of Thomkins Simpson &* Co. 
 
 The original is not ice, but we do not intend to give 
 away our correspondent : so for the same reason we have 
 altered the names appearing in the original documents we 
 have reproduced in this article. 
 
 Another Celestial is in trouble with his wife, and writes. 
 We alter names, addresses, and dates : 
 
 ' ist April 1902. 
 
 No. 468A Tunnel St. Central Hongkong. 
 To Honourable A. M. STEVENSON. 
 Sir, 
 
 I beg to inform your Honour that your petitioner Chan 
 250
 
 English from Chinese Pens 
 
 Luk draftsman employed in Messrs Smith & Brown firm live in No. 
 468A Tunnel Street. 
 
 Last year your petitioner on 4th November 1901 married No. 
 [sic] Reunion Street Chong Lei-wai's younger sister Chong Yf 
 
 For she was unwilling to go back to your petitioner's own village 
 and said too much bother language. 
 
 She was at that time remove all her silk and cotton clothes, rings, 
 bracelets to her own house. She said ' I am not willing to go Canton 
 or village but I wish go back my house use needleworks enjoy the days.' 
 
 ' Bother language ' is distinctly good and expressive 
 from the husband's point of view, the wife might describe 
 what she said in different language. 
 
 Replete as the Chinese language is with terms of direct 
 and indirect address graduated to different degrees of 
 position and rank, the native feels the want of such terms 
 in the English language and supplies the deficiency to the 
 best of his ability. Our English officials receive letters and 
 petitions which confer such an exalted status on them as 
 they never hoped to attain. One complaint about a 
 subordinate officer addressed to a higher official, after 
 stating the subject of grievance, goes on to say, ' should the 
 business at the present time be not so dull, I shall not 
 trouble your majesty,' etc., etc. 
 
 Another letter commences, ' Most Noble Sir.' 
 
 The Chinese lad is not behind his European or American 
 confrere when he commences to describe, in his own unique 
 and expressive language, ideas which appear tame and 
 commonplace when translated and transcribed in the 
 language of his elders. A Chinese youth, writing on the 
 Emperor of China taking up the study of English, 
 remarks : ' I am pleased to hear that our Emperor is 
 studying English it will enable him to govern more 
 neatly,' while another described the usual light refreshment 
 at a clerical meeting as an ' Ecclesiastical carousal.' 
 
 But confusion gets worse confounded when our half- 
 instructed Chinese takes the role of a preceptor upon him 
 and proceeds to teach his compatriots English as he fancies 
 it is spoken ; then it is veritably a barbarian lingo. The 
 following sentences are from a book with that object in 
 view : 
 
 251
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 4 1 cannot Chinese speak.' 4 To do good virtues become rich and 
 know.' 4 Diligent learn of English words no difficult.' 'He himself 
 no have got.' 4 Why you cannot want mistake.' ' Fear inside have 
 little false.' 'Run come too much refuge.' 'Can do biting.' 'Ac- 
 comulatc bliss.' 'Accomulate many, confidentor, etc.' 
 
 Many of the attempts, however, of our own fellow- 
 countrymen to speak Chinese (for but few of them are ever 
 able to write it) might call forth as much harmless merri- 
 ment from John Chinaman as his attempts to write our 
 difficult language produce in us. 
 
 Many of the Chinese in the neighbourhood of Hongkong 
 and the Treaty Ports have evinced a great desire to learn 
 English, as the Celestial is shrewd enough to see that the 
 potentialities of wealth are present in a knowledge of the 
 foreigner's tongue ; but of late years the desire has spread, 
 and the Chinese Government itself has taken the movement 
 under its fostering care. As long ago even as 1 896 
 
 ' The Peking Government . . . issued instructions to the various 
 Viceroys and Governors of the Empire to establish schools for the 
 teaching of the English language and Western sciences in all the 
 principal cities of the country. According to the wording of one 
 clause in the General Instructions, the reason for this was that China, 
 in order to keep herself on terms of equality and in touch with the 
 Great Powers of Europe, "must educate the masses and encourage 
 inventive genius and foreign learning amongst her people, together 
 with that love for country and home and that devoted patriotism so 
 conspicuously ingrained in the hearts of those who have studied such 
 languages and sciences," etc.' 
 
 The sovereign has set the example to his subjects by 
 himself taking lessons in English in his palace, and the 
 Empress Dowager as well. 
 
 ETIQUETTE. The Chinese have an elaborate system 
 of etiquette, which is most punctiliously observed on state 
 occasions and at festivals, and on the whole there is more 
 polish and outward politeness than is common with English 
 or Americans ; it approaches more to the French style. 
 The suavity of manner and urbanity with which common 
 street coolies address one another, and even the beggars, is 
 most noticeable, and the graciousness with which the boat- 
 women accost each other when shouting orders and requests 
 
 252
 
 Etiquette 
 
 to different craft in the intricate navigation of the crowded 
 rivers, is most pleasant to hear. The like is never 
 seen in the West, though, at the same time, should 
 a quarrel arise, the choicest 'Billingsgate' and a rare 
 collection of obscene epithets is employed, these latter 
 taking the place of profane oaths in the West. 
 
 We cannot call it with mock, because it is with real, 
 solemnity that young John Chinaman copies his elders in 
 his ceremonious observances, especially in his bows at New 
 Year's time, performed with all the gravity of an old 
 man with the weight of many years on his shoulders, and 
 the full sense of the responsibility of a due and right 
 performance of all the rules of etiquette. 
 
 Chinese etiquette has many points quite different 
 from English, as the following examples will show: 
 
 Scene, A breakfast table at which is seated a 
 new arrival who has not yet spent a winter in Hong- 
 kong. Enter the boy, his shaven pate graced with 
 the usual Chinese winter skullcap. 
 
 The foreigner loquitur: 'A-sam! What foh you 
 puttee on that piecee cap come waitee table? That 
 no b'long plopah ; no b'long polite ! ' 
 
 Answer by A-sam 'O! that b'long numbah one 
 plopah, numbah one polite. S'pose you see Mis- 
 tah 's boy, he hab got cap all same same.' 
 
 More than forty years ago a party of six young 
 Englishmen went out for an excursion in the country 
 in the neighbourhood of one of the Treaty Ports. They 
 were entirely ignorant of Chinese etiquette and custom, 
 and while walking along one of the narrow paths at 
 the side of a paddy-field, they met an old man carry- 
 ing a load, whom they thought very rudely insisted 
 on the path being given up to him and his burden, 
 until he had passed with it. They pushed him out 
 of the way, and struck him with their sticks for his 
 rudeness, entirely unaware that they were the offenders, 
 and gross offenders too. The path being narrow and 
 there being no room for the encumbered and the un- 
 
 253
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 encumbered to pass at the same time, the Chinese, 
 with commendable common - sense allow the burden- 
 bearer in such cases, the right of way, while the un- 
 encumbered, who can easily step off the way, do so ; 
 those carrying a lighter weight make way for the more 
 heavily laden, as, for instance, one man bearing a burden 
 will step out of the way for two men carrying a 
 sedan-chair. In this case the foreigners were also 
 guilty of disrespect to an old man, whom the Chinese 
 reverence the old man also being an elder of the 
 neighbouring village, further increased the offence. The 
 villagers, indignant at the insult, rose, took the young 
 Englishmen into custody, and avenged their wrongs 
 by putting them to death, after some days of imprison- 
 ment 
 
 The Chinese are very fond of sending presents as 
 acknowledgments of favours received. They often con- 
 sist of a multitude of different articles of tasty food, 
 fruit, or tea, etc., and when received from a native, 
 who knows nothing of foreign customs, a selection is 
 only intended to be made by the receiver. An acquain- 
 tance of ours was in the habit of keeping the whole 
 assortment, no doubt to the disgust of the sender, who 
 also, doubtless, formed a very low opinion of the greed 
 and rudeness of foreigners. 
 
 We here give a few unwritten rules of Chinese 
 etiquette, which will serve to give an insight into the 
 subject : 
 
 Standing. In standing, stand at attention with or 
 without the heels touching each other, and the hands 
 down at the sides. Do not stand at ease with one 
 foot placed at right angles to the other; nor with arms 
 akimbo. In talking to a man in a position superior 
 to yours (such as a high official, while you are a lower 
 one), do not keep your eyes fixed on his, but let 
 them rest on the button on the lapel of his coat at 
 his left breast, only occasionally raising them to his 
 face. 
 
 254
 
 Etiquette 
 
 Entering a Room. In entering a room with a number 
 of persons seated in it, do not bow to each separately ; 
 but give a grave bow first to the right, then to the 
 left. If a particular friend of yours happens to be in 
 the company, he is at liberty to advance two steps 
 towards you, and you, in like manner, may advance 
 two steps further into the room, each then saluting 
 the other with clasped hands and a bow. 
 
 Sitting down, The left hand is the place of honour. 
 It is given to the guest, and the host takes the right ; 
 but the greatest caution is necessary, in sitting down, 
 not to do so before your guest ; and if either should 
 get up, or even rise slightly, the other must follow 
 suit at once. It is most amusing to see how Chinese 
 visitors bob up and down at the least movement of 
 their foreign host. Another important rule is never to 
 sit while any one else who is your equal is standing. 
 
 Answers to Questions. Like the French, the Chinese 
 do not consider it always polite to simply answer ' Yes ' 
 or 'No,' but often turn the interrogative form of a 
 question into the affirmative, using the same words, as 
 far as possible, in the reply that have been used in 
 the question. Foreigners are apt to think that Chinese 
 are boorish when they answer in this manner, but 
 they are only acting in accordance with their code of 
 politeness. 
 
 Enquiries as to Age, etc. It is not considered rude 
 for a Chinese to make most particular enquiries as 
 to a stranger's personal affairs. In fact, the making 
 of such enquiries often evinces great politeness. ' How 
 old are you ? ' ' Are you married ? ' ' How much money 
 do you make a year ? ' ' Where are you going ? ' ' What 
 are you going to do ? ' ' How much did you pay for 
 this ? ' These questions and others of the same 
 character are constantly on a Chinaman's lips. 
 
 Dunning. It is not considered polite to ask a man, 
 whom you may meet in the street, for a debt due 
 by him to you. One of the most polite forms in 
 
 255
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 which to request repayment is to ask your debtor for 
 a loan of money for your own use. 
 
 Noises, etc. Guttural sounds, hawking, clearing the 
 throat, spitting, using the fingers to blow the nose, and 
 eructations, arc not necessarily considered impolite by 
 the Chinese. It must be remembered that they look 
 upon such things in quite a different way from what 
 we do nowadays. We say nowadays, for it is not 
 more than a few centuries ago that a book was pub- 
 lished in England containing, among other things, 
 directions how to blow the nose neatly with the fingers. 
 But we will not offer any more remarks on such a 
 nauseating subject. 
 
 Want of Dress, A Chinese official will not allow his 
 chair-bearers to carry him in the half-naked manner which 
 the Chinese coolie so delights in. The Mercantile classes 
 and others are not particular in this respect. 
 
 Spectacles. It is considered impolite to wear spectacles 
 before a guest or superior. A short-sighted man must be 
 ready to submit to any amount of awkwardness rather 
 than infringe this rule of etiquette. It is very amusing to 
 see a witness in a Court of Justice looking at some docu- 
 ment which he is unable to see properly, not daring to 
 put on his glasses lest it should be construed into a sign 
 of disrespect to the judge, perhaps mildly saying he is 
 short-sighted, but in other cases never giving a hint that 
 he cannot see properly without putting them on. If it is 
 absolutely necessary that something should be looked at, 
 and an apology having been offered, or permission having 
 been given to put them on, they must be taken off as soon 
 as possible afterwards. Some even hesitate to put them 
 on when told to do so. 
 
 Hats. There are great differences in Chinese hats, 
 some may, or rather must, be tolerated in a room or house, 
 and others under no consideration whatever. The common 
 skullcap with a red or black knotted knob (or blue if the 
 wearer is in mourning) is au fait. It should be worn in 
 winter, in-doors or out, and is only dispensed with in 
 
 256
 
 Etiquette 
 
 summer for the same reason that Indian judges do not 
 wear wigs in that country. The official hat, with the 
 button indicative of the rank of the wearer, is dress, and is 
 hastily donned to receive a visitor ; neither do the official 
 hats of the mandarins' servants need to be removed on 
 entering a house ; but the case differs in toto when we 
 come to the ordinary rain and sun-hats, whether they are 
 as large in size as an umbrella, or only about the size of a 
 gong, or the small conical ones worn by the native soldiers 
 and coolies, like those provided for the Chinese policemen 
 in Hongkong. The same holds good of the felt hats used 
 in winter by coolies and tradesmen, etc. Hoods also 
 should not be kept on inside one's house. If the hat is 
 only of the right kind, it is politeness for a Chinese 
 gentleman to put it on to receive his guest; to appear 
 bareheaded before a visitor is considered impolite. 
 
 Queue. Unless the nature of his work, such as carrying 
 a chair or washing the floor, requires, or makes it convenient 
 for his queue to be wound in a coil round his neck or 
 shoulders, or to be done up in any fashion in a bunch at 
 the top or back of his head, no Chinese servant or inferior 
 ought ever to appear so before his master or superior, but 
 the queue should always hang down behind. 
 
 Finger-Nails. Long finger-nails are not considered a 
 sign of dirtiness, but of respectability, and of being above 
 manual labour, which, if necessary, would of course 
 prevent them from attaining such length as an inch and a 
 half, two inches, or even three, though it is seldom one sees 
 them all of equal length on all the fingers. It is well that 
 such is the case, as two or three on one or both hands give 
 such a claw-like appearance to the fingers as to make them 
 sufficiently repulsive ; fortunately hand-shaking is not in 
 vogue in China, as it would be extremely unpleasant to 
 feel the long talons gripping one's hand. 
 
 Shaking Hands. A Chinese clasps his two hands 
 together and moves them up and down a few inches in 
 front of himself several times. When excessively polite 
 they are raised up as high as his forehead, while he makes 
 
 257 R
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 a profound bow. Ladies do not do this, but clutch the left- 
 hand sleeve with the right hand, and imitate the same 
 motion. 
 
 Handing Things. Both hands are used to pass any- 
 thing, therefore a Chinese is not to be considered clumsy 
 who hands any small articles, such as a cup of tea, in this 
 manner : it would be thought the height of rudeness to do 
 otherwise, for it would evince an unwillingness to take the 
 little trouble necessary. The same rule of etiquette is 
 observed in receiving anything from anyone. 
 
 Meals. At meals men and women never eat together, 
 unless the women are bad characters, even a husband and 
 a wife should take their meals separately. This is the 
 strict rule, but it is occasionally more honoured in the 
 breach than in the observance. The children, or younger 
 members of the family, wait till the grown-up people are 
 seated, the latter nod an assent to 'a show of asking 
 permission to eat.' Each one has his own bowl of rice, 
 and he picks up pieces of meat and vegetables, etc., from 
 the common dishes in the centre of the table, but it is 
 considered polite only to help oneself from the side of the 
 dish nearest to one. 
 
 After each meal it is the custom to wipe the face and 
 hands with a wet cloth wrung out of hot water. In the 
 family circle each one will leave the table and do this 
 washing ; but at a dinner party the servants will bring a 
 cloth, so wrung out, to each diner, a separate one being 
 given to each if the guests and hosts are not very familiar, 
 otherwise the same cloth may be used. In the Chit-kong 
 province (where Soochow is) the same basin and cloth are 
 used, as it shows that they are brotherly. 
 
 One having finished may ask the others to 'eat 
 leisurely,' which is the equivalent of saying ' excuse me,' 
 and he is then at liberty to leave the table. It is etiquette 
 to remain sitting at meals till all have finished, but, in the 
 event of urgent business, etc., demanding one's attention, 
 a guest may, before the others have finished, lay his chop- 
 sticks across his empty bowl, this being an indication of 
 
 258
 
 Etiquette 
 
 his desire to leave ; the host on observing it, lifts them 
 down, places them on the table and says ' ho hang ' (which 
 is equivalent to our ' good-bye,' though it really has the 
 meaning, if freely rendered, of I hope you will have a safe 
 walk ') to the guest, who is then free to depart. 
 
 The above form of procedure takes place with strangers, 
 or when everybody is on their best behaviour ; for, though 
 it is incumbent on all to sit down together at the same time 
 to their meals, it is unnecessary, in unceremonious inter- 
 course, that all should rise at the same time. At formal 
 dinners or meals, however, the host cannot leave the table 
 till he sees that all his guests, having all finished, wish to 
 do so. 
 
 VISITING Tea Drinking. The etiquette about tea 
 drinking in connection with paying visits is curious. 
 When paying a visit to an official, if a servant should 
 bring in a cup of tea, there is no necessity to take any 
 particular notice of it ; allow the servant to put it down 
 where he likes near you, and continue your conversation 
 with the mandarin. Should, however, he consider you a 
 good friend, or, even in the case of a first call, should he 
 desire to treat you with great respect, or evince his great 
 pleasure at seeing you, he may hand you the cup of tea 
 with his own hands. In such circumstances it is incumbent 
 upon you to rise to your feet and take it from his two hands 
 with both of yours. 
 
 A cup of tea in an official call (be you either a civilian 
 calling on an official, or even if you are both officials) is 
 destined to play an important part. Your business over, 
 or your conversation done, you invite your host to drink 
 tea (ts'ing ch'a), which he thereupon proceeds to do with 
 you, and the visit is over. Should you, however, be taxing 
 the patience of your host by overstaying your welcome, or 
 should a pressure of business make it necessary for him 
 to shorten the call as much as possible, he begins to 
 touch the cup with his fingers, expecting you to take the 
 hint. Are you such an obtuse individual that hints are 
 entirely lost upon you ? Then he may sometimes though 
 
 259
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 it is not quite the correct thing for him to do so give you 
 the invitation to take tea with him, when you will have to 
 retire, feeling mortified at having transgressed the rules of 
 politeness, and at being treated with rudeness in return. It 
 must be remembered, however, that this tea is never to be 
 touched until it is time to go. These rules as to the cong/dv 
 not hold good with people who are not officials. 
 
 Marks of Friendliness. When seeing a mandarin in 
 his hall for transacting business, should he invite you into 
 his private apartments, then any subjects can be discussed, 
 and any amount of freedom, consistent, of course, with 
 self-respect, may be enjoyed ; coats even may be thrown 
 off till a state approaching nearly to the inpuris naturalibus, 
 so congenial to the Chinese in hot weather, is arrived at. 
 
 Whispering. The Chinese mode of using the hand to 
 cover the mouth when whispering to anyone is different 
 from the Western style ; for, instead of simply covering the 
 mouth with the hand spread open, the fingers of the hand 
 are bent towards each other just as if a very large orange 
 were being held in the hand, and in a position midway 
 between a clenched fist and an open hand. The ends 
 of the fingers are put close up to the mouth, or touching 
 the lips, thus muffling the sound. This muffling is intensified 
 if it is cold weather and a number of sleeves come over the 
 
 hand. 
 
 Beckoning. In beckoning, the Chinese do not use one 
 finder pointed upwards and curved towards one, as we do ; 
 but the hand is reversed, the fingers hanging down and the 
 whole hand is used to beckon towards one with a sweeping 
 motion, in a most energetic manner. 
 
 Names. A curious rule holds good with regard to 
 names in a family : it is against Chinese etiquette to 
 name a child after his father or grandfather, in fact 
 the name of any member of a former generation must 
 not be used by a descendant. The Peking Gazette 
 some years since contained an application forwarded by the 
 Viceroy of Canton from General Hsieh Hung-chang to be 
 allowed to alter his name to Hsieh Te-lung, as it had been 
 
 260
 
 Etiquette 
 
 discovered from his family register that a remote ancestor 
 of his had a name identical with his own. 
 
 Wives. The way in which a Chinese treats a wife is, 
 according to our Western ideas, peculiar. One or two 
 instances of it have already been noticed. It is not 
 amongst many Chinese considered a proper thing to 
 write a letter to one's wife if absent from home. The 
 family idea comes into play here as it does in so many 
 matters connected with Chinese social and domestic life. 
 The man's mother is the head of the family when he is 
 away from the ' family house.' What then, according to 
 this Chinese way of looking at things, more natural and 
 proper than that he should write to his mother? The 
 next best thing is to write to his son, though an infant, 
 or even to his daughter, for all signs of affection between 
 husband and wife are to be deprecated, not that such 
 indications are simply bad form, but they are looked 
 upon as even indelicate. Failing any proper person 
 to send his letter to, the Chinese may send to the 
 one whom the Englishman would think first of all of 
 writing to ; even in this case, however, the letter must 
 not be addressed on the cover to his wife though it may 
 be inside, but the envelope is directed ' To be handed to 
 the family.' Some of the Chinese are better than their 
 rules of etiquette or propriety, and write direct to the wife, 
 even if there be a mother or child. A wife again in writing 
 to her husband does so in the name of a son, or failing a 
 son, of a daughter. 
 
 The following extract will show how incongruous the 
 Western and Eastern codes of etiquette are : 
 
 ' Foreign ignorance of the customs of the Chinese is another 
 cause of a feeling of superiority on the part of the Chinese. That 
 anyone should be ignorant of what they have always known, seems 
 to them to be almost incredible. Many Chinese unconsciously adopt 
 toward foreigners an air of amused interest, combined with 
 depreciation, like that which Mr. Littimer regarded David Copperfield, 
 as if mentally saying perpetually, " So young, sir, so young !".... 
 There are multitudes of details in regard to social matters, 
 of which one must necessarily be ignorant, for the reason that he 
 has never heard of them, and there must be a first time for every 
 acquisition. . . . Inability to conform to Chinese ideas and ideals, 
 
 26l
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 in ceremony, as well as what we consider more important matters, 
 causes the Chinese to feel a thinly disguised contempt for a race 
 whom they think will not and cannot be made to understand 
 "propriety." It is not that a foreigner cannot make a bow, but he 
 generally finds it hard to make a Chinese bow in a Chinese way, 
 and the difficulty is as much moral as physical. The foreigner feels 
 a contempt for the code of ceremonials, often frivolous in their 
 appearance, and he has no patience, if he has the capacity, to spend 
 twenty minutes in a polite scuffle, the termination of which is fore- 
 seen by both sides with absolute certainty. The foreigner does not 
 wish to spend his time in talking empty nothings for "an old half 
 day." To him, time is money, but it is very far from being so to a 
 Chinese, for in China everyone has an abundance of time, and very 
 few have any money. No Chinese has ever yet learned that when he 
 kills time, it is well to make certain that it is the time which belongs 
 to him, and not that of some one else.' 
 
 ' With this predisposition to dispense as much as possible with 
 superfluous ceremony because it is distasteful, and because the time 
 which it involves can be used more agreeably in other ways, it is not 
 strange that the foreigner, even in his own eyes, makes but a poor 
 figure in comparison with a ceremonious Chinese. Compare the 
 dress, bearings, and action of a Chinese official, with long flowing 
 robes and graceful motions, with the awkward genuflections of his 
 foreign visitor. It requires all the native politeness of , the Chinese 
 to prevent them from laughing outright at the contrast. In this 
 connection it must be noted that nothing contributes so effectively 
 to the instinctive Chinese contempt for the foreigner, as the evident 
 disregard which the latter feels for that official display so dear to the 
 Oriental. What must have been the inner thought of the Chinese who 
 were told that they were to behold the "great American Emperor," and 
 who saw General Grant in citizen's costume with a cigar in his mouth, 
 walking along the open street ? Imagine a foreign Consul, who ranks 
 with a Chinese Taot'ai, making a journey to a provincial capital to 
 interview the Governor, in order to settle an international dispute. 
 Thousands are gathered on the city wall to watch the procession of 
 the great foreign magnate, a procession which is found to consist of 
 two carts and riding horses, the attendants of the Consul being an 
 Interpreter, a Chinese acting as messenger (t'ing ch'ai), and another 
 as cook ! Is it any wonder that Orientals gazing on such a scene 
 should look with a curiosity which changes first to indifference, 
 and then to contempt ? ' 
 
 Books recommended. Some interesting papers have appeared lately in 
 the Chinese Recorder for 1898, entitled 'Notes on Chinese Etiquette,' by 
 Rev. O. G. Warren. 
 
 EURASIANS. The children of European fathers by 
 Asiatic mothers, or vice versd, are, by a union of the first 
 syllables of both words, called Eurasians. Some dress in 
 the foreign style and some in the native : the former look 
 more like their Chinese mothers than their fathers ; the 
 
 262
 
 Eurasians 
 
 latter look very white and foreign-like. Their eyes are 
 generally black, though the results of the second and third 
 generations of such alliances are often very fair, have 
 brownish hair, and occasionally lighter-coloured eyes. The 
 union of the two bloods seems, as far as the men are con- 
 cerned, to produce a more sprightly race than the Chinese, 
 and one whose organs of speech are better adapted to 
 pronounce English than those of pure Chinese breed ; for 
 it is a very rare thing for a Chinese to speak English accu- 
 rately, though he may have resided for years in England, 
 as rare almost as for an Englishman to speak Chinese like 
 a native, though he may have lived for years in China. 
 Some of the girls who have a preponderance of English 
 blood in them are very pretty and fair. Unfortunately the 
 majority of the daughters are brought up to lead an 
 immoral life, and sold like slaves into it. 
 
 There is a Eurasian school in Shanghai, a great number 
 of the children in the Diocesan Home and Orphanage in 
 Hongkong belong to the same class, and there are a very 
 large number of them in the Government Central School 
 (now called Queen's College) in the same Colony. They are 
 drafted from these establishments into the lawyer's and 
 other offices, where they make very useful clerks and 
 interpreters, from their knowledge of both Chinese and 
 English. 
 
 It is not all the half-castes that come under this class, 
 as numbers of them are swallowed up under the name of 
 Portuguese. This, in the Far East, is not restricted alone 
 to those worthy of that name, but is used to designate all, 
 who, having some drops of foreign blood in their veins, 
 elect to call themselves such, dress in foreign clothes, and 
 talk a smattering of the patois glorified with the name of 
 Portuguese. But this, in reality, is a sort of pidgin- 
 Portuguese, and not understood by new arrivals from 
 Portugal, who require an interpreter to explain it to them. 
 Macaoese would be a better term, as the majority of them 
 are either born in Macao or have descended from residents 
 in that city. They are of all shades of colour, and their 
 
 263
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 complexions show traces of Indian (Goa), Chinese, 
 Japanese, and European ancestry in all degrees of pro- 
 portion. The mercantile offices are full of them. They 
 write a good hand, and act as clerks, but seldom rise to 
 any position of great trust and confidence. They work 
 as a rule for a mere pittance, and the poorer classes 
 herd together after the manner of Chinese. A very few 
 are engaged as merchants in business. 
 
 EXAMINATIONS. We have treated of the end and 
 aim of education in China in a former article (See Article 
 on Education). It now falls to our lot to write more fully 
 of the final step to this goal, namely, the system of Civil 
 Service examinations in China. In the matter of com- 
 petitive examinations, the Chinese present one of those 
 unique spectacles which are alike the wonder, as well as 
 the admiration, of those who understand them. 
 
 In this strange land there has been in vogue for 
 centuries, and even millenniums, a system of examinations, 
 which, originally started with testing the ability of those 
 already in office, has gradually widened in scope till at 
 this time it is all-embracing in point of geographical extent, 
 and is the test of ability which all have to undergo who 
 desire admission into the Civil Service of this immense 
 empire with its thousands of officials ; with this end in 
 view, boys are incited to learn their lessons and be diligent ; 
 with this aim, men pursue their weary course of study, 
 year in and year out, till white hairs replace the black, and 
 the shoulders, which at first merely aped the scholarly 
 stoop, eventually bend beneath the weight of years of toil. 
 No other country in the world presents the curious sight 
 of grandfather, father, and even son, competing at the same 
 time. Failures seem only to spur on to renewed trials, 
 until, after many times having formed a unit amongst the 
 annual two millions that pass through one or other of the 
 ordeals of this gigantic examination scheme, the old man 
 of seventy or eighty, who has been unfortunate enough not 
 to appear among the small percentage of one or two out 
 
 264
 
 Examinations 
 
 of a hundred, that is allowed to pass, finally attracts 
 Imperial notice, and, as an honour, and the meed of his 
 untiring perseverance and indefatigable toil, receives the 
 coveted reward. 
 
 The scheme is widespread as the empire : every petty 
 district city even has its Examination Hall, where the 
 initial trials are conducted under the supervision of the 
 Imperial Chancellor, a sub-chancellor being in residence, 
 who subjects the candidates to a preliminary examination. 
 Out of the two thousand or so, only twenty of the best 
 receive the degree which the Chinese term 'Siii-ts'ai,' 
 meaning ' budding genius,' but which for convenience is 
 generally termed by foreigners the B.A., though, except for 
 the analogy of being the first degree obtained in both East 
 and West, there is scarcely any point of similarity, and so 
 it is throughout the whole series of degrees. An original 
 poem and one or two essays by each candidate on the 
 subjects assigned to them are the exercises of this ex- 
 amination. A night and a day are spent in their produc- 
 tion. The results to the successful student are as follows : 
 no office, or appointment, but admission is granted him 
 into the charmed circle of those who are entitled to wear 
 the lowest grade of gold button on the tops of their hats, 
 and who are protected ' from corporal punishment ; it 
 raises him above the common people, renders him a con- 
 spicuous man in his native place, and eligible to enter the 
 triennial examination for the second degree,' held in the 
 provincial capital, the successful candidates at which take 
 the .second degree, styled the ' Chli-jin,' or ' promoted 
 scholar,' or M.A. This examination lasts through ' three 
 sessions of nearly three days each.' The examiners are 
 the Imperial Commissioner and ten provincial officers. 
 Some six thousand, more or less, according to the size of 
 the province, enter for this examination. Essays in prose 
 and verse are required, but, of course, there is much more 
 given to be done, and a higher style is required than in 
 the former, and much strictness is exercised with regard 
 to the slightest errors in the essays. The small percentage 
 
 265
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 that pass still get no appointment, nor office, but rise higher 
 in the public estimation, wear a higher grade of gilt button, 
 when in dress, and put a board over the front doors of 
 their houses with the mystic characters ' Promoted Men,' 
 as well as the date of attaining this distinction. One step 
 more entitles the scholar to eventually obtain office. This 
 next higher degree is taken at Peking. It is termed ' Tsun- 
 sz,' or ' Entered Scholar,' or LL.D. Lots are drawn for 
 vacant posts, and the successful candidate may, perchance, 
 begin his official career as a district magistrate. 
 
 Another degree may, however, be taken, success in the 
 examination for which entitles to admission to the Hanlin 
 College. The members of this College are ' constituted 
 poets and historians to the Celestial Court, or deputed to 
 act as Chancellors and Examiners in the several provinces.' 
 The highest on the list, after two special examinations in 
 the Emperor's palace and in the presence of the Emperor 
 himself, is styled the ' Chuang-yuen ' or ' Laureate.' 
 
 This then is a rough sketch of this wonderful system ; 
 the details of which, as regards the subsidiary examinations, 
 might be filled in at great length. Enough has been 
 written to convey some idea of the system as a whole, but 
 it is difficult to describe the enthusiasm which pervades the 
 whole country with regard to the examinations. Con- 
 gratulations are showered on the successful students ; they 
 dine with the highest officials after the event, and the 
 Emperor himself entertains the most celebrated of all. It 
 is naturally to be expected that the family of the successful 
 candidate should feel honoured, but those who take the 
 highest honours are looked upon as conferring distinction 
 on their native places ; and it is quite a sight, on going 
 through a Chinese City, to see the red boards, with gilt 
 characters, placed over certain doors, proclaiming to all 
 passers-by the degree, or degrees, taken by the inmates, 
 separate boards being used for those who have taken the 
 higher positions, such as senior tripos, etc., in each re- 
 spective examination. On the blank walls of the fronts 
 of the houses will often also be seen large yellow or red 
 
 266
 
 Examinations 
 
 papers with red or yellow letters on them ; for it is 
 customary when any one has been successful at an examina- 
 tion to send a poster with large characters on it announcing 
 to all one's friends and relatives the fact. For examina- 
 tions at which one has been successful in the provinces, red 
 paper is used with yellow characters, but for those held in 
 Peking yellow paper with red characters is used. 
 
 Besides the legitimate interest taken in these literary 
 contests, they form the Goodwoods and Derbys of China ; 
 for not only is the news of success spread far and wide as fast 
 as swift messengers, rapid boats, and fleet couriers can carry 
 it to waiting friends and expectant relatives ; but it is as 
 eagerly received by utter strangers, who, having staked on 
 the issue, are in excitement to know the result. 
 
 Like everything Chinese, these trials of literary skill of 
 the future governors of the people are held in far different 
 surroundings from what a Westerner would expect. The 
 buildings cover a large extent of ground, that in Canton 
 occupies 1 6 acres. After the main entrance (which is 
 within the entrance of the outside wall) is passed, a broad 
 avenue leads up to a congeries of buildings for the use of 
 the Examiners and others connected with them and their 
 work. On each side of this main avenue are narrow lanes, 
 giving access to the 8,653 ce ^ s m which the students are 
 confined. These cells are 5 feet 9 inches by 3 feet 8 
 inches wide, their height being a trifle over that of a man. 
 There are two grooves in the walls for two planks ; one 
 forms a table, the other a seat for the solitary student shut 
 up in each cell. It is a species of imprisonment, no 
 communication being allowed with the candidates, under 
 penalty of severe punishment. They enter the Examination 
 Hall with provisions, fuel, candles, bedding, and writing 
 materials, being searched to see that no ' cribs,' or other 
 means of assisting their labour, are smuggled in, it being 
 the constant practice for some to do this : a specially small 
 miniature edition of the classics is printed for the purpose 
 and secreted about the person. The confinement must be 
 irksome and disagreeable in the extreme: deaths 
 
 267
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 occasionally occur from excitement, the privations and 
 exposure being greater than old age can endure. In other 
 places the Examination Hall is not of the same construction. 
 The author visited one in the district city of Kit Yong, 
 near Swatow, where the students had long forms and 
 tables provided for them. In the departmental city of 
 Ch'aii-chau-fu, the Examination Hall is fitted up in a 
 similar manner, judging from the peep into it from outside 
 which the writer had. 
 
 The Chinese have been wise in thus giving the people 
 a share in their own government, nor is it in the way of 
 pandering to the democracy ; but it is bestowed as a right 
 on those who are fitted for it by an education, which, 
 though not on a par with a modern Western course of study, 
 is by no means to be despised when compared with that in 
 vogue in Europe a few centuries since. Thus ambitious 
 spirits have a career open before them, which may lead 
 them up to the very foot of the throne itself ; the extra 
 exuberance of youth is toned down by a course of study 
 which must have a great effect in producing the grave and 
 reverend seniors, which Chinese mandarins are. It pro- 
 duces likewise a conservative element, as it is to the 
 interest of the whole body of literati to conserve the 
 existing polity and resist all violent change which might 
 overthrow their position and prospects. For this reason, if 
 for no other, progress in China will be comparatively slow, 
 and probably none the less sure on account of its slowness. 
 China has also by this admirable plan admirable, taken 
 as a whole, alike in its conception, development, and 
 working prevented herself from being overburdened by 
 an aristocracy, with all its concomitant evils, which, had it 
 existed, would, as in most European countries, have 
 monopolised all that was worth having in the government, 
 until driven inch by inch from its unfair position a work 
 long in operation, and difficult of accomplishment. 
 
 Here then is a mighty system, complete in all its details, 
 ready, as soon as Western science takes a fair grasp of 
 the nation, to be used as a means of disseminating 
 
 268
 
 Examinations 
 
 scientific knowledge and methods throughout the length 
 and breadth of the land, as well as literary style and polish. 
 Some faint indications that such may eventually be its 
 function have already been given. 
 
 Besides the literary examinations, military examinations 
 for officers of the army are held, in which skill in gymnastic 
 exercises, such as lifting heavy weights and shooting with 
 bows and arrows, are the tests required. But the Chinese 
 have shown their wisdom in considering warlike exercises 
 as far inferior to literary ability : military officers, as com- 
 pared with civil functionaries, are despised, and under the 
 heading of military officers are included naval officers as 
 well. 
 
 Of late years, as has been remarked above, there has 
 been a tendency to introduce a few mathematical and 
 other questions at some of the centres of examination, and 
 this attempt to employ Western knowledge culminated in 
 an edict by the Emperor Kwong Sui, dated the 23rd of 
 June 1898, directing that at the literary examinations 
 from those of doctor down to those for licentiates, the 
 candidates should write short practical essays, instead of 
 using the Chinese classics entirely as heretofore. A similar 
 attempt, made by the Emperor Kanghi, to vivify with the 
 touch of knowledge the stagnant pool of Chinese ancient 
 lore, resulted in a short time in a return to the old state of 
 affairs, as public opinion was against any innovation ; and 
 an even quicker reversal of the Emperor's plans has taken 
 place in this case, for the Empress Dowager, with, as far as 
 can be seen at present, a fatuity fraught with the greatest 
 danger, has upset this as well as the other beneficent plans 
 inaugurated by Kwong Sui. (See, however, Article on 
 Education). 
 
 ' The standard essay wen-chang has been the chief cause of 
 the working of the minds of the literati, and causing them to labour 
 ceaselessly, in the same old tread-mill. It has held absolute sway for 
 a millennium over China's intellectual life, and its baneful effects can 
 be seen everywhere in the literature of the last three dynasties. 
 Scholars have learned what they could not afterwards make use of in 
 actual life, and they have had no time left for learning what could be 
 used. The scholars of the Sung dynasty bequeathed in this legacy of 
 
 269
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 the w^n-chang a burden of such weight upon the mental life of China 
 that it has been steadily crushing out its very existence. Originated 
 to perpetuate classical learning it has been the liveliest factor in 
 suppressing the desire for such knowledge. It has absolutely nothing 
 to be said in its favour, unless the remark of an eminent living states- 
 man of China be given to its credit that "it has repressed rebellion by 
 keeping the minds of ambitious men cramped by the pursuit of useless 
 knowledge." The main reason that has kept it alive has been that it 
 was supposed to be the essence of orthodox Confucianism.' 
 
 Now we hear that this has been given up, and now we 
 hear it has been restored again to the list of subjects for 
 examination. 
 
 ' About 14,000 bachelors are added to the list every year. There are 
 probably close on 700,000 Chinese graduates now living. It is the 
 expectants of office who are one of China's greatest dangers, men 
 embittered by feeling that they have themselves been unjustly passed 
 over, who have never been given opportunity to show what they could 
 do, and who are incapable of doing what alone lies before them ; 
 although in the west of China we have come across one man who 
 had taken a high degree keeping a wayside inn in a very lonely place, 
 believed by our coolies, as it happens, to be the resort of robbers.' 
 
 EXTRATERRITORIALITY. As the laws and 
 judicial system in force in China partake more of the 
 character of those in operation in Europe in the Middle 
 Ages, Europeans and Americans in China, as well as in 
 other Asiatic countries, have insisted on being amenable 
 to their own laws, and exempted from the legal process of 
 the country in which they dwell. 
 
 There is a Supreme Court, with a Chief Justice and 
 other officers under the Foreign Office of England, which sits 
 in Shanghai, and proceeds in circuit to the different treaty 
 ports when cases arise, demanding its attendance amongst 
 British subjects or in which one party is British. The 
 Consular Courts, presided over by the British Consuls, take 
 cognisance of the smaller cases, or hold a preliminary 
 enquiry in the more important ones. The posts of Chief 
 Justice and Consul General have been amalgamated, and 
 the Consul General at Shanghai has, in addition to his 
 other duties, performed those of Chief Justice. 
 
 On the other hand, if a Chinese is sued by an 
 Englishman, the trial takes place in a Chinese Court, at 
 
 270
 
 Fairy Tales 
 
 the instance of the English Consul. In Hongkong, of 
 course, this rule does not hold good, for, being an English 
 Colony, it is an integral part of the British Empire. 
 Chinese criminals sometimes escape from the mainland to 
 this island. Before their rendition to the Chinese 
 authorities, an enquiry is held by the Police Magistrate, 
 who, an primd facie proof of the crimes, sends up the cases 
 to the Governor of the Colony, who decides as to whether 
 the criminals are to be handed over to the Chinese or not. 
 Nevertheless the Chinese authorities at Canton have felt 
 a considerable amount of soreness on the subject, as it is 
 difficult for them to understand (with their system of torture 
 of prisoners and witnesses, and the forced confessions ex- 
 torted from the former and even at times from the latter) the 
 importance of unshaken, truthful evidence, and of genuine 
 eye-witnesses. The uncertainty of English law, and the 
 jealous care exercised over the prisoner in case he should be 
 innocent, are incomprehensible to them. Applications have 
 been made to the Supreme Court of the Colony, on a writ 
 of habeas corpus, for a release of the prisoners on some 
 alleged technical flaw ; but these have rarely succeeded. 
 
 Books recommended. 'Exterritoriality. The Law relating to Consular 
 Jurisdiction and to Residence in Oriental Countries,' by F. T. Piggott, M.A., 
 Ll.M. ' Jurisdiction et Exterritoriality en Chine,' par J. Ilelenius Ferguson. 
 
 FAIRY TALES. There are many fairy tales to be 
 found in Chinese literature, but different in detail to those 
 of the West. The animal world, like the wolf in Reel 
 Riding Hood, comes in, but in a more artistic form than in 
 the old nursery tale, as the foxes assume human shape at 
 will, not being detected till well on in the story, and they 
 are beneficent as well as malignant. ' Our Chinese foxes, 
 which are represented as the frequenters of the ancient 
 sepulchres, turn into the Elves of the Forest, and by moon- 
 light imbibe the ethereal essence of heaven and earth. 
 They dig up the graves of the dead and place their skulls 
 on their foreheads. They then look up to the Xorth Pole 
 and bow to the Starry Host. If the skulls do not fall off 
 
 271
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 while they perform this rite they change into lovely and 
 fascinating females.' Love often plays an important part 
 in some of these stories, showing that, though not con- 
 sidered proper by the prudish Chinese, human nature and 
 the ruling passion will yet reveal themselves even under 
 the most repressive circumstances. Besides this class of 
 fairy tales, much of the Taoist mythology might be 
 classed under this category, when the marvellous and 
 miraculous doings of the gods, demi-gods, and genii are 
 told at garrulous length and with tedious detail. 
 
 In China it is not only the children that believe in 
 sprites, fairies, dryads, nymphs, demons, and goblins, but 
 the children of an older growth nearly all firmly believe in 
 them ; for the whole universe to the average Chinaman is 
 peopled with unseen denizens, who occasionally appear to 
 the good or evil, and reward or punish them in quite the 
 orthodox story-book style. 
 
 Books recommended. 'Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio,' translated 
 and annotated by Herbert A. Giles, 2 vols., De la Rue & Co. 'The Fairy 
 Foxes,' published by Messrs. Kelly and Walsh, Ltd. 'Scraps from Chinese 
 Mythology,' in different numbers of the China Review, by Rev. Dyer Ball, 
 M.A., M.D., annotated by J. Dyer Ball. 
 
 FAMINES. Famines are common in this mighty 
 empire, where in one part there will be a superabundance, 
 while want and death are staring another province in the 
 face. It is due often to the absence of railways (See 
 Article on Railways) and means of rapid intercommunica- 
 tion, that famines are more frequent in the more northerly 
 provinces, where the great waterways that bless the South 
 are rarer. But famines in China are due to various causes, 
 as often as not to the failure of the crops. As has been 
 well remarked ' there is always a lamentable lack of in- 
 telligence in dealing with the emergency.' Taxes are 
 sometimes remitted, and the Government in its quasi- 
 paternal relations to its people professes the greatest 
 commiseration, but any assistance that is rendered is 
 docked on its passage through the hands of the officials. 
 As has been truthfully remarked by one of the Hongkong 
 papers : ' The most efficient relief work is generally done 
 
 272
 
 Fans 
 
 by missionaries,' who have laboured heroically in distribut- 
 ing the funds generously subscribed by the foreign residents 
 in China, going in fact to the famine-stricken districts and 
 personally attending to the relief of the famishing natives. 
 Cases of cannibalism are known in famine times people 
 even eating their own children. 
 
 FANS. There can scarcely be any other nation on 
 earth that uses such quantities of fans : amongst us, the use 
 of the fan is confined to the gentler sex, and it would be 
 considered effeminate, or at all events singular, for a gentle- 
 man to sport one. With the Chinese, fans are used as 
 much by the one sex as by the other, and particular makes 
 or forms are confined in their use to the male sex. All sorts 
 of materials are employed in their construction, the palm 
 leaf, which Nature seems almost to have designed as an 
 object-lesson and a hint, being one of the most common ; 
 silk, paper, bamboo, feathers, and other things, are also used. 
 The largest size of palm leaf, nearly a yard in diameter, of 
 an orbicular shape, has a neat rim braided round it, the 
 stalk forming the natural handle. This gigantic size is 
 placed in the hands of slave-girls and other female domestics, 
 to perform the duty which the poet inveighed against so 
 strongly in the well-known lines : 
 
 ' I would not have a slave to till my ground, 
 To carry me, to fan me while I sleep, 
 And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth 
 That sinews bought and sold have ever earned.' 
 
 The smaller kind of the same shape, and of which such 
 large quantities are exported to America the common 
 palm-leaf fan is used by the lower classes, and it is curious 
 to notice the variety of uses to which this fan is put in 
 China : it serves to blow up the wooden or charcoal fire in 
 the earthenware furnaces, instead of a pair of bellows ; old 
 torn-down-looking seamstresses pin it on the top of their 
 hair to serve as a hat ; it also does duty as a sunshade ; it is 
 used, in common with other fans, as a duster to fan or flap 
 away the dust off a seat, or to cool the chair before offering it
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 to a visitor; to drive the mosquitoes out of the mosquito 
 net ; to fan the restless baby to sleep ; to cool the hungry 
 youngster's food ; and it comes in handy for many another 
 purpose. 
 
 There is a great variety of fans, and the following 
 classification embraces many, though not all of them, viz : 
 feather fans, folding fans, and screen fans ; the latter are of 
 a variety of shapes, ' round, octagonal, sexagonal, or poly- 
 gonal.' The young Chinese, exquisite in his robes of silk 
 and satin, generally carries, at the proper seasons, one of 
 them in his hand, the gift perchance of some artistic and 
 literary friend who has embellished it with a landscape in 
 black and white, and (or) a few lines from his pen in either 
 prose or poetry. We give an inscription on one of these 
 fans which was presented to a European. It not only gives 
 an idea of what such inscriptions may be, but also shows what 
 a Chinese complimentary letter is like. We have changed 
 the names from what they were in the original : 
 
 ' The noteworthy visit you paid me some time ago has filled my 
 humble cottage with glory. I believe you are a virtuous man whose 
 object it is to benefit the world with your kind heart, which is ready to 
 afford free services to the distressed it comes in sight of. This being 
 its policy, many a poor sufferer has had his chronic disease removed 
 and got immediate relief from great difficulties. How greatly in need 
 is this class of people ! Furthermore, our unexpected meeting has 
 quickly made us bosom friends. That a man so forsaken by the 
 world as myself can gain so true a friend as you is rare. It has given 
 me great consolation to hear of your promotion to the post of Chief 
 Medical Officer. Your success is the result of your repeated good 
 deeds which always multiply one's blessings : the Eye of Heaven 
 clearly sees our human actions. Though I am not worthy of your 
 friendship, I sincerely hope you will not forget me after you have left 
 here for your new appointment. Send me advice and instruction to 
 amend my defects. True affection forbids me to forget you or to cease 
 thinking of you. May there still be a time for our future meeting and 
 companionship is my earnest prayer. 
 
 Kwong-suf, 1 6th year, Qth moon in autumn. Written in the Tsing 
 Ming Tai Tak Fort, Kwong-tung province, for the use of Dr. Chong 
 Lei. Scribbled by Chaii Yaii alias Sik Ping.' 
 
 The silk of which some of these fans are made is 
 actually spun by the silkworm on the bamboo frame which 
 surrounds the fan. This may seem incredible, but the 
 writer had in his possession a small disc of silk, a few inches 
 
 274
 
 Fans 
 
 in diameter, spun in the lid of a tin canister, and given to 
 him by a relative in whose house it had actually been 
 produced. It therefore requires no credulity to believe that 
 a fan somewhat larger could be thus made. The folding 
 fan is universal throughout China from the cheap affair of 
 coarse bamboo splints and black paper with a few splashes 
 of gilt to the more expensive kinds ; the very gorgeous 
 folding-fans that are sent to Europe and America are not 
 used by the Chinese themselves they are simply made to 
 please the outside barbarian. In Canton simple white ones 
 can be bought with maps of the city on them ; the Chinese 
 map-maker has, however, adapted his map to the shape of 
 the fan. Many of the feather fans are lyre-shaped, with a 
 white bone or ivory handle, and eight, ten, or a dozen long 
 feathers ranged in order a fan fit to meet the requirements 
 of fastidious gentlemen. A lady sports one in which 
 perhaps nearly a score of feathers are employed, and which, 
 unlike the gentleman's long narrow shape, is broader than 
 long. In Amoy the writer pocured a curious fan which 
 came from Formosa, a fibrous, somewhat lyre-shaped leaf 
 having a few leaves or sprays as ornamentations burnt into 
 it with a hot iron. The Swatow fan is another sort that 
 is well known : a bamboo tube, about the thickness of a 
 small finger, serves as the handle ; to form the frame- 
 work, the bamboo above the handle is split into very 
 thin slips ; the surface is paper, pasted over these slips, 
 on which some elegant figure or two, a bird or some scene 
 from Chinese history, or mythology, is depicted ; the top 
 is slightly bent over. This is one of the best of open fans 
 to use. 
 
 It is amusing to see the vigorous way in which a 
 Chinese fans himself: not content with a languid stirring 
 of the air in front of his face and chest, he inserts the fan 
 under his jacket, both front and back, and applies it 
 vigorously till cooled, when his legs and arms will come 
 in for an equal share of attention. 
 
 The ordinary way to carry a fan is in the hand, but 
 another convenient place for a folding one is the back of the 
 
 275
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 neck, or it is sometimes stuck by a tradesman into the top 
 of his stocking. It takes the place of a walking-stick with 
 a Chinese gentleman, as it gives him something to hold 
 in his hand, and to flutter and wave and gesticulate with, 
 when excited. With schoolmasters, it is constantly at 
 hand to rap a boy over the head or to call attention by 
 tapping the desk with it. It serves to give point and 
 emphasis to the public speaker's periods; when he has 
 warmed up to his subject and his heated oratory has had 
 its effect, and a cooler frame and quieter manner will suit 
 his next periods better, he opens its folded ribs and with 
 a few leisurely motions brings down his temperature to 
 its desired state ; it adds grace to the faultless get-up 
 of thejeunesse dorte ; while the youthful bride is sheltered 
 from the too inquisitive stare of the crowd by her attend- 
 ant's fan ; the over-heated coolie cools himself with it as 
 he rests a moment or two from his arduous toil ; and 
 the sweltering, half-naked blacksmith has his apprentice 
 fan him when engaged before the glowing forge ; the 
 mandarin has a huge, imitation screen-fan of wood carried 
 in his retinue, which comes in useful when he meets a 
 fellow-official with whom he has no time to waste in 
 salutations by the way, for their attendants interpose 
 these wooden fans, and neither official has seen the other, 
 thus obviating the necessity of stopping the processions 
 and descending from the sedan-chairs. 
 
 Folding fans may be used at any time of the year ; but 
 certain other fans are only to be used at certain seasons. 
 Thus palm-leaf fans and those made of goose feathers are 
 for summer, while when the weather is neither very cold 
 nor very hot as in autumn, and likewise towards the 
 latter part of spring circular silk fans are seen. Winter 
 has no distinctive fans assigned to it, for the obvious 
 reason that fans are not generally required in cold weather. 
 
 Fans are used in decorative art : papers for fans are 
 painted, mounted, and framed as pictures ; open-work 
 spaces are left in walls of that shape. Even the gods and 
 genii are sometimes represented with these indispensables 
 
 276
 
 Ferns 
 
 of a hot climate, some of them being capable of all sorts 
 of magic. 
 
 A deserted wife is, by that happy periphrasis so con- 
 stantly employed by the Chinese, known as 'an autumn 
 fan ' from the inscription written on a fan, and sent to her 
 royal master, by a lady of the Court, who found herself in 
 this unenviable position two thousand years ago. The 
 pathetic lines written on this memorable fan have been 
 rendered into English by Dr. Martin, as follows : 
 
 LINES INSCRIBED ON A FAN. 
 
 ( Written by Pan Tsieh Yu, a lady of the Court, and presented to the 
 Emperor Cheng-ti of the Han Dynasty, B.C. /<) 
 
 Of fresh new silk, all snowy white, 
 
 And round as harvest moon, 
 A pledge of purity and love, 
 
 A small but welcome boon 
 
 While summer lasts, borne in the hand, 
 
 Or folded on the breast, 
 'Twill gently soothe thy burning brow, 
 
 And charm thee to thy rest. 
 
 But ah ! when autumn frosts descend, 
 
 And autumn winds blow cold, 
 No longer sought, no longer loved, 
 
 'Twill lie in dust and mould. 
 
 This silken fan, then deign accept, 
 
 Sad emblem of my lot, 
 Caressed and cherished for an hour, 
 
 Then speedily forgot. 
 
 Books recommended. An article 'On Chinese Fans' that originally 
 appeared in leaser's Magazine and also in ' Historic China and other Sketches,' 
 by Prof. H. A. Giles, published by De la Rue & Co., p. 294. For an amusing 
 skit on the fickleness of the female sex and on marriage, one is referred to 
 Davis's 'China and the Chinese,' vol. ii. p. 119 et seq., where the story of 
 a widow fanning her late husband's grave is given. 
 
 FERNS. Some parts of China abound in ferns, 
 especially is this the case in Hongkong, where they are to 
 be found growing in every nook and cranny, as well as 
 along the roadside and amongst the grass. In other parts 
 they are rarer. (See Article on Botany.) In Hongkong 
 there are 24 different genera with 75 species. 
 
 277
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 FILIAL PIETY. Filial piety is the greatest of all 
 virtues in the Chinese eyes, while disobedience is the 
 greatest of all crimes. From his early childhood the child 
 is trained up, as far as books are concerned, in this idea, 
 while at the same time he is spoiled by the doting love 
 of fond parents, mixed with such a portion, however, 
 of severity, that the compound of bitter-sweet treatment 
 produces on the whole better results than might reasonably 
 be expected ; the bitter, generally coming after the sweets 
 of spoiled infancy, has some effect in toning down the 
 over-indulgence so lavishly acted on. Filial piety is very 
 wide-reaching in its application among the Chinese. It 
 concerns itself with a proper care of their bodies, as these 
 being received perfect from their parents, it is their duty 
 to preserve them. As regards one's parents, it is, accord- 
 ing to our Western ideas, most exacting, though at the 
 same time there is no doubt that if the Chinese have 
 erred too much in going to one extreme, we have likewise 
 erred in going to the other. Confucius said, ' while a 
 man's father is alive, look at the bent of his will ; when 
 his father is dead, look at his conduct. If for three years 
 he does not alter from the way of his father, then he may 
 be considered to be filial.' He also taught that filial piety 
 should be accompanied by reverence, and that its duties 
 should be performed with a cheerful countenance. It is 
 thought to militate against rebellion, and is considered 
 to be the source of loyalty to the Sovereign. The way 
 in which it works is thus expressed in the ' Classic of 
 Filial Piety': 
 
 'Filial duty is the root of virtue, and the stem from which instruc- 
 tion in the moral principle springs. . . . The first thing which filial 
 duty requires of us is, that we carefully preserve from all injury, and 
 in a perfect state, the bodies which we have received from our parents. 
 And when we acquire for ourselves a station in the world, we should 
 regulate our conduct by correct principles so as to transmit our name 
 to future generations, and reflect glory on our parents. This is the 
 ultimate aim of filial duty. Thus it commences in attention to parents, 
 is continued through a course of services rendered to the prince, and 
 is completed by the elevation of ourselves.' 
 
 As Archdeacon Gray remarks in his book, ' China ' : 
 
 278
 
 Filial Piety 
 
 ' The Chinese Government is only to be understood 
 through the relation which exists between a father and 
 his son.' 
 
 Instances of extraordinary self-denial are constantly 
 occurring amongst the Chinese on the part of children to- 
 wards their parents. They undergo imprisonment at 
 times in their stead ; but, what is still more strange, they 
 cut out pieces of their own flesh, cook it, and give it to 
 them to eat, when seriously ill and when other remedies 
 have failed ; it seems to be a never-failing cure, to judge 
 from the accounts that appear in the native newspapers 
 concerning it. The youths are incited to these and other 
 acts of devotion by the recital of instances of self-denial on 
 behalf of parents. There are twenty-four of these stories 
 of paragons of filial piety. One thawed through the ice on 
 a pond, by lying naked on it, and then caught carp of 
 which his mother was fond. Another went into the bed 
 at night to let the mosquitoes have their fill on him before 
 his parents should retire to rest. Another, though seventy 
 years old, played like a child to amuse his aged father and 
 mother. As an instance of the great lengths to which the 
 Chinese go in this respect, a father was preparing to bury 
 alive his only child of three years of age, as poverty was 
 so pressing that there was a difficulty in supporting his 
 mother, when Heaven intervened, for when digging, he 
 came across a pot of gold. One sees in ancestral worship 
 the fullest development of filial piety, as the parents and 
 ancestors are deified and divine honours are paid to them 
 with, however, it must be confessed, a very selfish feeling 
 for the great part, for the raison d'etre of ancestral worship 
 is founded mainly upon a desire to propitiate the departed 
 spirits, and thus ensure prosperity to themselves. (See 
 Article on Ancestral Worship). 
 
 A great deal of filial piety is mere ceremonial obser- 
 vance with but little real heart at the bottom of it, and 
 there are as unfilial sons to be found in China as in our 
 own land, still, at the same time, it must be good for the 
 youth of this vast empire, teeming with future men and 
 
 279
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 women, to have such a high standard, on the whole, held up 
 for their guidance. 
 
 Books recommended. Legge's 'Chinese Classics.' 'The Sacred Edict,' 
 translated by Rev. W. Milne. Chinese Repository, vol x. p. 164. 
 Doolittle's ' Social Life of the Chinese,' vol. i. p. 452 et seq. 
 
 FIRECRACKERS AND FIREWORKS. The 
 Chinese are essentially a noisy people all Orientals are. 
 Spending so much time out of doors has doubtless some- 
 thing to do with their noisy way of talking ; for they will 
 shout at each other when a quiet whisper would serve their 
 purpose as well, if not better. Their music, much of it at 
 least, is noisy what with clash of cymbals, clang of gongs, 
 the loud sounding drum, the harsh untuned flageolets and 
 the shrill flutes, and the entire absence of piano effects. 
 One must suppose that to them the constant forte and 
 fortissimo is as entertaining as the softest and sweetest 
 song without words is to our ears. And the crackers 
 the firecrackers here is a perfect apotheosis of noise. A 
 perfect carnival of uproar and deafening sound is produced, 
 especially at New Year's time, by their almost continuous 
 discharge, for at that joyous season a perfect pandemonium 
 reigns rampant. Woe betide the foreigner in a native city 
 then, or even in the British Colony of Hongkong itself, 
 where their discharge is limited to a certain period of 
 shorter duration than the unrestrained jubilation of the un- 
 fettered Chinese is content with. Sleep is almost out of 
 the question at night while house after house and shop 
 after shop lets off its strings of firecrackers, the rattling of 
 the small artillery being accentuated by a louder boom 
 every little while from a bomb of larger size. The only 
 grain of comfort to the foreigner, while this uproarious din 
 is in full swing, is that the foul spirits of disease are 
 exorcised by the plentiful supply of sulphur fumes floating 
 in the air and penetrating into every nook and cranny. 
 His matter-of-fact nature refuses to believe that the 
 monotonous fusillade of crackers will put to flight the fell 
 and foul spirits that love to lurk about the haunts of men : 
 for such is the supposed rationale of their use by the 
 
 280
 
 Firecrackers and Fireworks 
 
 Chinese ; therefore, at all joyous events such as marriages, 
 processions, saints' days, and feasts immunity from ill has 
 to be purchased by their explosion. In the Hong Shan 
 district they are even discharged at the grave after the 
 burial. The cylindrical stem of the bamboo has, perhaps, 
 given the idea of the form of the firecrackers, and the 
 crack made by the splitting of bamboo may also have 
 been suggestive. The manufacture of the universally used 
 firecracker occupies the time, and helps to fill the purses, of 
 many women and children in some parts of the country. 
 The cracker - frames are tied, ends up, in wheel - shaped 
 bundles, and women and girls fill in the powder. Numbers of 
 them may be seen thus employed, as well as busied with the 
 other processes of the manufacture, in Macao and elsewhere. 
 The following account of the manufacture of fire- 
 crackers in Shanghai will doubtless prove of interest : 
 
 ' Out of 26,705,733 Ibs. of fire-crackers exported from China during 
 1897, over 20,000,000 Ibs. came to the United States.' 'A small 
 quantity went to England. Other countries ' ' took only infinitesimal 
 amounts.' ' In making crackers only the cheapest kind of straw 
 paper, which can be produced in the immediate locality where the 
 crackers are made, is used for the body of the cracker. A little finer 
 paper is used for the wrapper. A piece of straw paper 9 by 30 inches 
 will make 21 crackers 15 inches long and ^th of an inch in diameter. 
 The powder is also of the cheapest grade, and is made in the locality 
 where used. It costs $r5o to $175 per catty or 6 to 7 cents gold per 
 Ib. For the fuse a paper (called " leather" in Shanghai) is used which 
 is imported from Japan, and is made from the inner lining of the 
 bamboo. In other places a fine rice-paper is used, generally, stiffened 
 slightly with buckwheat-flour paste, which, the Chinese say, adds to 
 its inflammability. A strip of this paper rd of an inch wide by 
 14 inches (a Chinese foot) long is laid on the table, and a very little 
 powder put down the middle of it with a hollow bamboo stick. A 
 quick twist of the paper makes the fuse ready for use.' ' The straw 
 paper is first rolled by hand round an iron rod, which varies in size 
 .according to the size of cracker to be made. To complete the rolling 
 a rude machine is used. This consists of two uprights supporting 
 an axis, from which is suspended by two arms a heavy piece of wood, 
 slightly convex on the lower side. There is just room between this 
 swinging block and the top of the table to place the cracker. As each 
 layer of paper is put on by hand, the cracker is placed on the table 
 and the suspended weight is drawn over the roll, thus tightening it 
 until no more can be passed under the weight. For the smallest 
 "whip" cracker, the workmen uses for compression, instead of this 
 machine, a heavy piece of wood, fitted with a handle, like that of a 
 carpenter's plane. In filling crackers 200 to 300 are tied together 
 
 28l
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 tightly in a bunch. Red clay is spread upon the end of the bunch and 
 forced into the end of each cracker with a punch. While the clay is 
 being tamped in, a little water is sprinkled on it, which makes it pack 
 closer. The powder is poured in at the other end of the cracker. 
 With the aid of an awl, the edge of the paper is turned in at the upper 
 end of the cracker, and the fuse is inserted through this. A variety has 
 two chambers separated by a plug of clay through which runs a 
 connecting fuse. There is also a fuse extending from the powder in 
 the lower chamber through the side of the cracker. When the cracker 
 is to be fired it is set on end and fire set to the fuse. The powder 
 exploding in the chamber throws the cracker high in the air where the 
 second charge is exploded by fire from the fuse extending through the 
 plug between the two chambers. In the manufacture of these the 
 clay is first tamped in with a punch to form the separating plug. The 
 lowest chamber is then loaded with powder and closed by turning over 
 the paper at the end. The upper chamber is loaded and closed with 
 clay. A hole is punched in the side of the lower chamber with an awl, 
 and the fuse inserted through this opening.' The hours are 6 A.M. to 
 1 1 P.M. The work is largely done by women and children. Thirty 
 women and ten men can make 100,000 per day, women getting 5 
 cents and men 7 cents a day. An apprentice to the business serves four 
 years, only having his board. At the end of that time, if a fairly good 
 workman, he receives 150 cash a day, an expert getting 200. The 
 business is said to be unhealthy and dangerous. ' The fumes of the 
 powder and other things used in the make-up of the cracker bring on 
 dread diseases which soon end the careers of the poor creatures 
 engaged in the work.' (Leslie's Weekly, i2th July 1899.) 
 
 The following description of a pyrotechnic display will 
 give an idea of Chinese fireworks : 
 
 'The Chinese are proficients in the pyrotechnic art, and the fireworks 
 which were exhibited at the end of this entertainment were chefs 
 (fa'uvre of all skill the four elements having been called into re- 
 quisition to furnish animals, birds, fishes, and reptiles, both real and 
 imaginary ; from whose bodies issued streams of flame. Five dragons 
 ascended into the air, and were metamorphosed into fire-vomiting 
 lions ; a huge bird, of some unknown species, fluttered in the air in a 
 sheet of flame, presently a huge serpent crawled from out of the beak 
 of the bird, and was lost to view in many-tinted flames ; one large 
 lantern ascended, in a mass of fire, from which smaller lanterns issued, 
 which in their turn sent forth various and innumerable forms. On the 
 back of an enormous fish was seated a portly mandarin, from whose 
 aldermanic corporation burst forth streams of fire, which appeared to 
 cause intense delight, and excite the greatest merriment amongst the 
 spectators. The last firework was by far the most beautiful and 
 perfect, being completely artistic in its details ; this represented a 
 mandarin's house with the whole of the adjacent buildings belonging 
 to the residence, the roofs being ornamented with bells and figures ; 
 this burned for some time, and then changed into a mandarin seated 
 in his sedan-chair, with the usual train of attendants, bearing flags, 
 beating gongs, and carrying lanterns ; the effect of this mass of 
 many-coloured flames, defining the outline of the various forms, 
 
 282
 
 Floods 
 
 baffles description ; and as the last sparks died away, we could have 
 been tempted to follow Oliver Twist's example and asked for more.' 
 
 FLAG. A distinctive flag for China is only a recent 
 thing. When China got a foreign-built navy it was 
 necessary that a flag should be devised for the ships and 
 for the use of the Imperial Maritime Customs. The first 
 flag thus used was triangular in shape ; but a number of 
 years ago this was altered to the usual oblong shape in use 
 amongst other nations. The flag is yellow, with a dragon 
 after a pearl, a most fitting emblem for the national flag of 
 a country in which the dragon is the sign and symbol of 
 the ruling power. 
 
 FLOODS. Floods are of frequent occurrence in China. 
 No idea of the evils of deforestation appear to be realised 
 by the people, to many of whom a broken twig or stick is an 
 important factor in the preparation of a meal. 
 
 The enormous rivers are fed after the winter by the 
 snows melting at their sources, hundreds or thousands of 
 miles from their mouths, and the mighty streams rise some- 
 times 40 or more feet above the height they attain during 
 the rest of the year, with the result that vast tracts of 
 country are flooded. Here is part of a telegraphic 
 summary of one of the floods on the Yellow River in 
 1898: 'Nine counties devastated, hundreds of villages 
 submerged, thousands of homes ruined.' 
 
 Modern engineering skill, if applied to these catas- 
 trophies and to the proper embankment of this river, could 
 and would succeed in curbing its course, and restraining its 
 wanderings ; but the weak attempts of the natives, further 
 palsied by the persistent peculations of the dishonest 
 mandarins charged with the labour of supervising the work, 
 who divert much of the money entrusted to them to their 
 own benefit, increases the feebleness of the efforts to 
 master this unruly river. It has been well termed the 
 River of Death. 
 
 'The River of Death : The Yellow River, which has been named 
 the " Sorrow of China," is probably the most destructive stream on the 
 
 28 3
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 face of the earth. In less than a hundred years it has changed its 
 channel four times, and the point where it empties into the sea has 
 from time to time been moved up and down the coast a distance of 
 three miles. It runs through a vast alluvial plain, and is fed by 
 streams from a great system of mountains in the north. When the 
 snow melting on this range comes at a time of heavy rains, the result 
 is sure to be a terrible flood. It has been estimated that in the past 
 three centuries over ten million human beings have perished in the 
 floods of the Yellow River. For destructivencss, both of life and 
 property, this stream is unparalleled, and the soubriquet bestowed 
 upon it is amply justified by its history.' 
 
 FLOWERS. The inhabitants of the ' Flowery Land/ 
 as China is called, are fond of flowers. No lady is dressed 
 without sweet-scented beautiful flowers stuck in her glossy 
 black hair, and the lower classes are glad to copy their 
 superiors whenever a holiday, or any event out of the 
 common, gives them the chance to bloom forth in Nature's 
 own adornments. Failing the natural, they have recourse 
 to artificial flowers, some of which are very well made, 
 especially the pith flowers at Amoy, for which the place is 
 famous. In most houses, and even shops, a vase or two is 
 found, if nowhere else, at least in front of the idol's shrine, 
 where some lovely chrysanthemums, if they are in season, 
 white, yellow, or red, add a touch of colour or beauty to the 
 formal primness of the set and stiff furniture. 
 
 At China New Year, flowers are all the rage. The 
 beautiful white and yellow narcissus with its long, lance- 
 shaped, stiff, green leaves is par excellence the New Year's 
 flower. It is considered lucky to have the first bud open 
 on New Year's Day. Another variety has the leaves all 
 gnarled, being trained like crab's claws, and the plant, 
 instead of being tall and upright, is reduced by art into a 
 curled and curious-shaped looking object. Another 
 essentially New Year's flower is the tiu-chung fa (Enky- 
 anthus rcticulatiis}. Each blossom, about half an inch in 
 length, hangs down like a miniature bell from the woody 
 branches, while the delicate green of the new springing 
 leaves forms a fine shade of contrast to the pink and white 
 of the innumerable tiny flowers. These are not grown in 
 the house, as the first is, but branches of them are stuck 
 
 284
 
 Flowers 
 
 into the quaint-looking vases. A branch of flower culture 
 which we quite neglect in the West is that of fruit-blossoms. 
 The Chinese cut off the branches of fruit-trees as they burst 
 into bud, and the delicate tints of the peach, the white 
 flowers of the plum, and the tender blossoms of the almond, 
 are all eagerly sought for, to decorate their homes at that 
 festive season of the year. Another common form of 
 flower-decoration is the employment of flower-baskets. A 
 wire framework, made into the shape of a basket, is 
 used, and the buds and blossoms artistically arranged on 
 it so as to completely hide it. These are hung up in 
 the room or at the doors, and diffuse a grateful odour 
 through the heated apartments on a warm summer's day. 
 They are largely employed at weddings, as well as at 
 other times, nor are the designs confined only to flower- 
 baskets. 
 
 There are no window plants, so esteemed by the better 
 class of artisans amongst us, as well as by others higher in 
 the social scale, but their place is sometimes taken by a 
 solitary plant, often some woody non-flowering shrub, 
 which has been dwarfed with much ingenuity, and is 
 tended with constant care the whole object only some six 
 inches in height, but a perfect little tree in its way. This 
 idea is further developed at times, and a little rockery is 
 produced, frightful in its ruggedness, an idealised bit of 
 mountain scenery on projecting points of which toy 
 arbours in earthenware are perched, little paths meander 
 from one to the other, crossing the lilliputian gorges and 
 ravines on equally small earthenware bridges, while below, 
 and in front of all, lies a tiny piece of water, in which gorgeous 
 and grotesque goldfish swim about. The heights above are 
 covered at every vantage point with small clumps of dwarf 
 bamboo, and numerous other equally small trees and shrubs 
 clothe with greenness the bare masses of the dry rugged 
 rock, all in proportion with the minuteness of this morsel 
 of quaint imitation of Nature's beauties, looked at from a 
 Chinese standpoint the whole affair only being a foot or 
 two in height. Infinite care and tender pains are taken in 
 
 285
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 planting, watering, and tending this microcosm of a land- 
 scape, thus revealing that the Chinese are not wanting 
 in a love of Nature, as seen through their goggle-like 
 spectacles. 
 
 Amongst flowers, the tree-peony is highly esteemed, 
 being called 'the King of Flowers. 1 The skill of the 
 Chinese has been exercised in producing many varieties. 
 Another flower much thought of is the lotus. There is a 
 white, as well as a red variety, and they are so highly 
 cultivated as to cause the petals to spring from the seed- 
 holes even. They are magnificent flowers, with their 
 delicately veined petals, quaint-shaped seed repositories, 
 and curious peltate leaves. They are much used in 
 Chinese decorative art, and form a fine throne for a god 
 or goddess to sit on in a state of ecstatic and nirvana-like 
 contemplation. 
 
 It is impossible to even enumerate all the beautiful 
 flowers in which the Chinese delight : the white tuberoses 
 laden at the evening hour with heavy perfume, roses with 
 but little scent, beautiful, double dahlias, lovely sweet- 
 smelling magnolias, pure white lilies, superb camellias, 
 chrysanthemums of different shades, and many others 
 with no English names, a mere list of which would fill 
 pages, and the use of such terms as Taberricemontana 
 Coronaria flore plena would frighten the majority of 
 our readers. 
 
 Most Chinese cut flowers are short-lived compared with 
 those in the West. Bouquets and button-holes have not 
 reached the Far East yet, as far as native use is concerned. 
 Many Chinese flowers have been introduced into the lands 
 of the West, and it is to be hoped that as foreign residents 
 have many varieties of English flowers in their own 
 gardens, the natives will in time add them to their stock 
 of cultivated plants, the best of the floral productions 
 of both sides of the globe being thus given in exchange. 
 In Hongkong many foreign flowers are cultivated by 
 the flower gardeners for sale to the exile from home 
 lands. 
 
 286
 
 Food 
 
 Much attention is bestowed on plants by the Chinese, 
 and not a few monographs on flowers, such as the peony, 
 and chrysanthemum, have been written describing the 
 varieties and mode of culture, etc. 
 
 Books recommended. See Article on Botany. 
 
 FOOD. Most erroneous notions are current as to the 
 food of the Chinese, for it appears to be a generally received 
 opinion that their common food consists of rats, cats, dogs 
 and mice. It would be almost as true to say that the only 
 meat the French live on is that of horses, or that the 
 English are fond of snails, because some people in both 
 these countries esteem such as delicacies. Pork is the chief 
 meat of the Chinese in the south in fact, in some of the 
 southern languages of China, the word meat is used to 
 mean pork. The consumption of fish, both fresh and salt, 
 is enormous. Fowls are a favourite article of diet, and a 
 little beef is also eaten. 
 
 There are one or two restaurants in Canton where dogs' 
 and cats' flesh can be bought. The writer has seen the 
 former hung up for sale in a shop, but both are rarely 
 consumed in comparison with other kinds of meat and 
 food. At the races in Hongkong, stalls for the sale of 
 dogs' flesh are opened for the three or four days, confirming 
 the foreigner in his opinion that Chinese live on dogs, but 
 at no other time are any stalls of the kind to be found in 
 the Colony. Our cats in Canton used to disappear, and 
 one of them came home one day all wet, as if it had just 
 escaped from the pot, but then we lived on the banks of 
 the river, and the boat people are not so very particular as 
 to their food as some of the higher classes would be. 
 Many of the respectable Chinese would feel as much 
 disgust at the idea of eating dogs, cats, rats, and mice, as 
 we do. We had at one time in our employ at Canton a 
 boy, a young fellow named A-ling, who got the sobriquet of 
 ' Ratty A-ling ' from his fellow-servants, probably for the 
 twofold reason of his father being a rat-catcher, and because 
 when at home, he used to enjoy a meal of which the chief 
 
 287
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 dish consisted of these rodents ; but none of the other 
 servants would have touched one. It is not an uncommon 
 sight to see dried rats hung up in shops with dried ducks 
 and a number of other dried meats. A favourite dog of 
 ours was once killed by a snake, and when committing his 
 body to the river, in Canton, a miserable leper seized hold 
 of it and took it into his wretched little sampan, notwith- 
 standing our warning as to the cause of the dog's death. 
 But in spite of all these facts, which only show that some 
 Chinese eat such food, we again repeat, it is not the case 
 that dogs, cats, rats, and mice, form the staple articles of 
 diet of the people as a whole. 
 
 At the same time, there are other articles of food which 
 to us appear as disgusting as our fondness for butter and 
 cheese does to the Chinese. It is not every foreign stomach 
 that can stand the sight of hundreds of greenish-brown 
 worms, fresh from the rice fields, hawked about the streets 
 for sale ; nor do salted and pickled eggs, getting dis- 
 coloured by age, and eggs high from long keeping, prove 
 agreeable to our palate, though why we should so take our 
 game and turn with disgust from an egg in a similar 
 condition is a mystery to a Chinese. Silkworm grubs do 
 not sound very tempting to a foreign ear, yet the Chinese 
 are very fond of them. 
 
 In some parts of China the poor people eat snakes ; for 
 instance, in the neighbourhood of Amoy ; but as far as the 
 author could learn, it was the non-venomous ones that were 
 eaten. In some districts of the Canton province, the same 
 horrible reptiles form articles of diet, but it is a question 
 whether, under the same name, other reptiles of a similar 
 shape and form may not be included as well. One of our 
 English friends, on a trip in the country, has tasted what 
 his host considered a dainty dish, viz., cooked snake ; and 
 poisonous ones appeared to be relished in that district. 
 In Swatow, the author saw a man hawking long, brown 
 snakes in a basket for food. There were three or four 
 of them tied with strings round the neck, the strings 
 being fastened to the top of the basket to prevent their 
 
 288
 
 Food 
 
 escape. They are rather an expensive article of diet, 
 costing about seventy cents, each. They are used to 
 make soup. 
 
 Birds' nests, sharks' fins, and fish maws, come 
 more under the name of curious articles of diet, 
 than disgusting : for the first are gelatinous and not 
 like ' ordinary ' birds ' nests (See Article on Birds' 
 Nests) ; and the second and third are so cleaned and 
 washed that they are as pure as any articles eaten 
 by us. 
 
 In the South of China, rice is the principal vegetable 
 food, but instead of vegetables being an adjunct to 
 the meat, as with us, the meat is taken as a tasty 
 article with the rice, which is the staple article of diet. 
 Either dried, salt, or fresh vegetables are eaten at 
 nearly every meal. 
 
 The Chinese, like the French, have nominally two 
 meals. One about 8 or 10 o'clock in the morning, 
 and the other at 5 or 6 in the evening, or thereabouts. 
 With the poorer classes these consist of a number of 
 bowls of rice cooked till so dry that each grain is 
 separate a little pork or fish, salt or fresh, and some 
 fried vegetables. Everything of meat kind is chopped 
 up fine, or cut into pieces, as the Chinese would think 
 it barbarous to carve anything at the table, and also 
 to enable the chop-sticks to pick it up it has to be 
 in little morsels, or at all events of such dimensions 
 as to be easily picked to pieces by them, or lifted to 
 the mouth and a bite taken off". A drink of tea from 
 the rice bowl finishes the frugal meal. The dinner is 
 the same as the breakfast. This then is the ordinary 
 everyday food of millions in the South of China, and 
 costs only about a couple of dollars a month ; or, of 
 late years, say three dollars or so. The more a man 
 has, the more he expends on his food, both as regards 
 quality and quantity, and as a consequence he has a 
 more varied fare. Though nominally only taking two 
 set meals a day, nearly every one takes a snack 
 
 289 T
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 about the middle of the day; it may be only a few 
 cakes, as the Chinese clerks in the Government offices 
 in Hongkong indulge in ; it may be a bowl of fish- 
 congee, or some other tasty soup or dish from the 
 numerous restaurants, or from some of the many 
 refreshment stalls, stationary and peripatetic. 
 
 Some of the hard-toiling labourers, when there is a 
 constant demand on physical strength or muscle, take 
 a number of meals to prime them up for their work, 
 such, for instance, as some of the boatmen on the 
 rivers in the South of China, who work from daylight 
 to sunset, and to whom five meals a day are allowed, 
 when in work. 
 
 Chinese food, like French, does not consist of roasts, 
 but of a multitude of made-up dishes. Peanut oil and 
 soy are added to them, and soups and broths are 
 much taken. 
 
 The Chinese, as far as their own food is concerned, 
 are born cooks. Among the lower classes almost any 
 man can turn his hand to preparing the simple dishes, 
 and in workmen's messes it is the youngest hand 
 (the apprentice) who has the drudgery of the cooking 
 to do. 
 
 The dinners to which the foreign residents or 
 travellers are sometimes invited by the Chinese, bear 
 about the same relation to an everyday dinner, that 
 a Lord Mayor's or Fishmongers' Hall dinner does to 
 an ordinary one partaken of by pater-familias in the 
 bosom of his family. As a sample of these grand 
 dinners in Hongkong, the menu of the one to which 
 the Duke of Connaught was invited will be found 
 below. We must, however, state that some of the 
 dishes were added for the benefit of the foreign visitors, 
 who wanted something more substantial than the numerous 
 broths and slops of a Chinese fine dinner ; for one rises 
 from such a function with a vague feeling of having 
 tasted of an infinite variety of unknown dishes, but, 
 notwithstanding the hours spent at the table, with an 
 
 290
 
 Food 
 
 unsatisfied feeling that a good English dinner of solid 
 food would remove. 
 
 MENU. 
 
 I. Birds' Nest Soup. 2. Stewed Shell Fish. 3. Cassia Mushrooms. 
 4. Crab and Sharks' Fins. 5. Roast Beef (a PAnglaise). 
 
 6. Roast Chicken and Ham. 7. Pigeons' Eggs. 
 8. ' Promotion' (Boiled Quail, &c.). 9. Fried Marine Delicacies. 
 
 10. Roast Turkey and Ham (a PAnglaise). 
 
 n. Fish Gills. 12. Larded Quails. 13. Sliced Teal. 
 
 14. Peking Mushrooms. 15. Roast Pheasant (a PAnglaise). 
 
 16. Winter Mushrooms. 17. Roast Fowl and Ham. 
 
 18. Beche-de-Mer. 19. Sliced Pigeon. 
 20. Snipe (a PAnglaise). 21. Macaroni (a la Peking). 
 
 SIDE DISHES. 
 Cold Roast Sucking Pig. 
 Cold Roast Fowl. Cold Roast Duck. 
 Cold Roast Mutton. 
 
 TABLE DISHES. 
 
 Cold Sausages. 
 
 Prawns. Preserved Eggs. Livers. 
 &c., &c., c. 
 
 FRUITS. 
 Preserved Apples. 
 
 Citrons. Tientsin Pears. Pomegranates. Carambolas. 
 
 Greengages. Pine Apples. 
 
 &c., &c., &c. 
 
 PASTRY. 
 
 Sweet Lotus Soup. Almond Custard. Rice. 
 &c., &c., &c. 
 
 WINES. 
 
 Champagne (Krug). 
 
 Claret. Orange Wine. Rice Wine. Rose Dhu. 
 'Optimus' Wine. Pear Wine. 
 
 We give a few Chinese receipts which we have 
 translated from a Chinese Cookery Book : 
 
 STEAMED SHARKS' FINS. 
 
 Sun-dried sharks' fins are to be washed clean [as follows] : 
 First take the fins [as bought] and place in a cooking pan, add wood- 
 ashes and boil in several waters. Then take out and scrape away the 
 roughness [on the fins]. If not clean, boil again, and scrape again, 
 until properly clean. Then change the water and boil again. Take 
 
 291
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 out, remove the flesh, keeping only the fins. Then boil once again. 
 Put in spring water. Be careful in changing the water, and 
 thoroughly soak them, for it is necessary that the taste of lime should 
 be taken out of them. Then put the fins into soup, stew three times 
 till quite tender. Dish in a bowl, placing meat of crabs below them, 
 and add a little ham on the top. The taste is clear, neither tender 
 nor tough, something like the taste of pomeloes at times. 
 
 CHICKEN WITH THE LIQUOR OF FERMENTED RICE. 
 
 Take the bones out of a chicken and steam till just ready. Then 
 take it out and let it cool. Cut into thin slices. Take gelatinous rice, 
 which has been fermented with yeast and water added, and cook with 
 this for two hours, afterwards add the juice expressed from fresh 
 ginger, soy, sesamum, and oil, of each a little. Mix together with 
 boiled peanut oil. Dish and add fragrant herbs. 
 
 GENII DUCK. 
 
 Take a fat duck. Open and clean. Rub two mace of salt all 
 over it, both outside and in. Put into an earthen dish and take 
 of fan spirits one cup, and put the cup with the spirits inside the duck. 
 Do not let the spirits spill on to the duck ; only the vapour of the 
 spirits is wanted. Steam over water till quite tender. Lift out the 
 wine-cup into a bowl. Done in this way, there is no need of minor 
 vegetables. 
 
 FOREIGNER IN FAR CATHAY, THE. If the 
 record of Chinese intercourse with the West is interesting, 
 it must be admitted that the accounts of the adventures and 
 travels of foreigners in the distant land of Cathay are also 
 full of interest and adventure. Are they not to be found 
 recorded in the innumerable volumes, published during the 
 past few centuries ; are they not chronicled in the old- 
 fashioned language of mediaeval writers, so full of wonders 
 as to astound their contemporaries who often would have 
 none of these travellers tales, and treated them as Baron 
 Munchausens ? 
 
 The achievements of commerce, though in the general 
 written in a soberer strain, sometimes almost approach the 
 interest of a romance. There are fragmentary records of 
 the early trade of the Chinese with neighbouring and 
 distant nations in the dim remote periods of antiquity ; but 
 the origin and earlier transactions of this primitive period 
 are lost in the hazy oblivion of ancient times. The Serica 
 vestis tempted the practical Roman merchants to undergo 
 hardships and difficult journeys of which the majority of 
 
 292
 
 Foreigner in Far Cathay, The 
 
 our present-day merchants know but little; nor less 
 adventurous were the long journeys of the Arab traders. 
 The Portuguese, who took such a leading position in the 
 van of nations in the sixteenth century, had the honour of 
 being the pioneers of modern European commerce in China, 
 in the year A.D. 1516. They were followed in later years 
 by the Spanish, Dutch, and Russians. ' The intercourse of 
 the English with China, though it commenced later than ' 
 that of 'other maritime nations of Europe, has been far more 
 important in its consequences, and their trade greater in 
 amount than all other foreign nations combined.' It 
 commenced in A.D. 1635. American trade with China 
 began in A.D. 1784. (See Article on Trade.) 
 
 At the present day there are different settlements of 
 foreigners at different ports on the coast and on the large 
 rivers, while, scattered here and there throughout the 
 empire, may be found some solitary individuals and families. 
 
 The larger proportion of foreigners in China at the 
 present day are British subjects. In 1890 the different 
 nationalities in China were represented as follows : 
 
 Austrians . 65 j French . . 589 
 
 Brazilians . . 21 Germans . 648 
 
 Belgians . . 28 
 
 British . 3,3 1 7 
 
 Danish . .81 
 
 Dutch. . . 41 
 
 Italians . . 74 
 
 Japanese . 883 
 
 Portuguese . 610 
 
 Russians . 131 
 
 Spanish . . 304 
 Swedes and \ 
 Norwegians/ ' J 55 
 United States, \ 
 Citizens of the f ' 33 
 
 making a total of 8,081. In 1880, 4,000; in 1899, about 
 17,000. 
 
 It must be remembered that Hongkong and Macao 
 are not included in this return, as they are not a portion 
 of the Chinese empire politically, though as far as geo- 
 graphy is concerned they are. The total of Europeans and 
 Americans in the British Colony of Hongkong, by the 
 census of 1891, was 8,545, or total British and Foreign 
 community 10,446. According to returns made in 1879, 
 there were 4,476 Portuguese in Macao, and 78 of other 
 nationalities not Chinese. 
 
 The number of foreigners resident in the different 
 
 293
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 Chinese Treaty Ports in 1898 and 1899, as given by a 
 German paper, were as follows : 
 
 1898 1899 
 
 English 5,148 5,562 
 
 Japs 1,698 2,440 
 
 Americans 2,056 2,335 
 
 Russians 165 1,621 
 
 Portuguese 1,082 1,423 
 
 French 920 ii83 
 
 German 1,043 I I 34 
 
 Spanish 395 448 
 
 Scandinavian ..... 200 244 
 
 Belgians 169 234 
 
 Danes 162 178 
 
 Italians 141 124 
 
 Dutch 87 106 
 
 Other 155 161 
 
 Total . . 13,421 17,193 
 
 Port Arthur, Hongkong, Tsingtau, etc., are not, of 
 course, included in the above statistics. 
 
 The following table is one of the foreign firms at the 
 Treaty Ports. 
 
 1898 1899 
 
 English 398 401 
 
 Japanese 114 195 
 
 German 107 115 
 
 French 37 76 
 
 American 43 70 
 
 Russian . . . . . . 16 19 
 
 Portuguese 20 10 
 
 Belgian 9 9 
 
 Italian 9 9 
 
 Dutch 8 9 
 
 Spanish ...... 4 9 
 
 Austrian 5 5 
 
 Danish ....... 3 4 
 
 Scandinavian . . 2 
 
 Total . . 773 933 
 
 There were 3,839 foreigners in the large Treaty Port of 
 Shanghai in 1895 ! the whole foreign community of Amoy 
 was stated to be 400 or 500 in 1899 ; other smaller ports 
 have many less. 
 
 The foreign population in the British and American 
 concessions at Shanghai were as follows : 
 
 294
 
 Forfeits 
 
 ' The recently completed census of foreign residents in 
 Shanghai (exclusive of those living in the French Settle- 
 ment) gives the following figures, with which may be com- 
 pared those for 1895 : 
 
 British .... 
 
 Portuguese 
 
 Japanese .... 
 
 American 
 
 German . 
 
 Indian .... 
 
 French .... 
 
 Manila and Malay . 
 
 Spanish .... 
 
 Austrian and Hungarian 
 
 Danish .... 
 
 Swedish .... 
 
 Italian .... 
 
 Russian . . . . 
 
 Norwegian 
 
 Turkish .... 
 
 Dutch .... 
 
 Swiss .... 
 
 Belgian .... 
 
 Various .... 
 
 1900 
 
 I8 9S 
 
 2,692 
 
 1,936 
 
 978 
 
 731 
 
 736 
 
 250 
 
 562 
 
 328 
 
 525 
 
 314 
 
 296 
 
 119 
 
 176 
 
 138 
 
 157 
 
 32 
 
 II I 
 
 '54 
 
 83 
 
 39 
 
 76 
 
 86 
 
 63 
 
 46 
 
 60 
 
 83 
 
 47 
 
 28 
 
 45 
 
 35 
 
 4i 
 
 32 
 
 40 
 
 15 
 
 37 
 
 16 
 
 22 
 
 21 
 
 28 
 
 21 
 
 Total 
 
 6,774 
 
 4,424 
 
 ' The preponderance of British subjects in Shanghai 
 remains, therefore, as great as ever it was. In 1870 there 
 were 894 British subjects, 255 Americans, 138 Germans, 
 46 Spaniards, and 16 French, no other nationality running 
 into double figures.' The French concession also contains 
 a considerable foreign population. 
 
 An interesting subject to enlarge upon would be the 
 benefits that this foreign intercourse with China has 
 conferred on her, as well as a view of the other side of the 
 case, but, though tempting, we must forbear. 
 
 Books recommended. Amongst other books that might be named as 
 containing interesting notices of foreign intercourse with China, may be 
 mentioned Williams's ' Middle Kingdom,' The Chinese Repository, and 
 The China Review. 
 
 FORFEITS. The Chinese have a noisy game of 
 forfeits often played at the dinner-table at feast times. It 
 consists in the player flinging out one or more fingers of 
 
 295
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 the hand, and shouting out a number, when the other, who 
 is playing with him, must instantly fling out as many of 
 his fingers as will, if added to the number mentioned by 
 his opponent, make up the total to ten, and while doing 
 this he also shouts out the number of his fingers that he 
 throws out. If a mistake is made, the one who makes it 
 has to drink a cup of spirits as a forfeit. As they proceed, 
 the party of six, eight, or ten, get more and more excited 
 and boisterous, and the shouting at the top of their voices 
 proves very annoying and exasperating to Europeans who 
 may unfortunately have their residences near to those of 
 the Chinese. Such a nuisance is this noisy game, that 
 the playing of it after 11 o'clock at night is prohibited 
 in Hongkong by Ordinance. 
 
 Looking at it from another point of view, this game of 
 chdi-mui (chiee mooee) is a most interesting one, as the 
 Italians have a similar game, which they call morra ; in 
 France it is known as mourre, while the ancient Egyptians 
 had some corresponding game, as represented on their 
 sculptures, and the Romans had their micare digitis over 
 which butchers and their customers gambled for bits of 
 meat, from which game descended the Italian one already 
 mentioned. 
 
 FROGS. The batrachians of China have not been fully 
 treated of. There are a number of varieties. The edible 
 frog Rana esculenta is an article of European diet in 
 Hongkong as well as of Chinese. Tree-frogs are found 
 in Hongkong, Macao, and Swatow, and doubtless in other 
 places as well. Bull-frogs are common, at all events in 
 the South. The rice-fields in the southern provinces of 
 China afford ideal breeding places for frogs, as their 
 constant croaking fully testifies. 
 
 FRUIT. One of the advantages of living in a hot 
 climate is the quantity of fruit that one gets. After a long 
 residence in the East, one notices on a return to Europe, 
 unless it be in a plentiful strawberry season, how much 
 
 296
 
 Fruit 
 
 more readily one can get fruit morning, noon, and night in 
 the East than in the West. There is quantity in the East, 
 but quality (with regard to many fruits) in the West ; for, 
 after all, few fruits are superior to those grown in hot- 
 houses in England. This is, however, not so much the 
 fault of the fruit, as the fault or misfortune of the cultivator ; 
 for it is often due to circumstances over which he has no 
 control. As a rule, unless the fruit is plucked when yet 
 unripe it will spoil with the heat before the slow means of 
 locomotion available will allow of its being conveyed to 
 its destination. One can try to imagine what would 
 become of our vaunted hot-house productions were they all 
 plucked while green pears picked while hard, strawberries 
 gathered before they were ripe, and a week taken in 
 carrying them to the market. 
 
 In the South of China, at Hongkong, Canton, and 
 Macao (for in some other places, such as Amoy, fruits are 
 scarcer, though in Swatow they seem plentiful and of fine 
 quality) there is a succession of fruit nearly the whole year 
 through ; for not only is there such a variety of it in- 
 digenous to the soil, but so many different kinds have been 
 introduced during the last few centuries from foreign 
 countries, that before one has had time to get tired of one 
 sort, another has succeeded it sometimes all too soon. 
 Oranges are very common in the South, having been 
 introduced from that part of China into Europe in A.D. 
 1548 by the Portuguese. The German name Apfelsina, 
 shows their origin, while the Italian name, Portugallo, 
 points out their introducers in the West. The common 
 coolie orange, however, differs rather from those brought to 
 England from Spain at the present day, perhaps the 
 change of soil, climate, and cultivation, have caused a 
 difference in the fruit. The small kat-tsaf, as they are 
 called in China, but erroneously named ' mandarin 
 oranges' in London, have a fine acid taste, and were 
 only brought into Europe in the present century : they are 
 like Tangiereens. The real mandarin orange, or chii-shd 
 kat, is a much larger fruit larger even in diameter than 
 
 297
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 the common coolie orange, which last is about the shape and 
 size of the ordinary kind in England. It is the finest 
 of all, having a skin of a cinnabar red colour very loosely 
 adherent to the fruit itself, the segments of which are much 
 larger in every way than the small kat (though the shape 
 of the two varieties is much the same), and without the 
 acid taste, but very juicy and sweet. It is much dearer 
 and rarer than the smaller one, or than the coolie, or ' tight 
 skin.' The Swatow orange seems to be a variety between 
 the mandarin and the loose-skinned orange as known 
 in Canton and neighbourhood. 
 
 Of plantains there are numerous varieties, amongst 
 which may be named the coarse large ones almost unfit 
 to eat raw the ' dragons' tusks,' ' fragrant plantains,' ' over- 
 the-hill plantains,' and others. One sort or another, with 
 but few breaks, carries one through the year, while the 
 oranges are a winter fruit. 
 
 Amongst other indigenous fruits in the Canton 
 province, may be named : first, the whampee, a yellow- 
 skinned fruit, as its name implies, and pendent in clusters 
 from the glossy-leaved trees which produce it, about the 
 size of a small grape, tart, and nearly filled with two, 
 three, or four, comparatively speaking, large and greenish 
 stones. Second, the li-chi, better known in England by 
 the dried ones, which are exported there in some quantities, 
 but the pulp of which, being shrivelled into a dryish, 
 sweetish, black substance round the dark stone, gives no 
 idea of the taste of the fresh fruit. The skin, when fresh, 
 is more like a shell, being rough and of a bright, red colour, 
 like a very large round strawberry, when seen at a distance. 
 Inside this is a thin white membrane, enclosing the watery, 
 translucent pulp of a sweetish taste, surrounding the 
 brownish-black ovoid stone. The colour of the fruit is like 
 that of a glass of water with a few drops of milk mixed in 
 it. There are two or three kinds of li-chis ; the best variety 
 has a very small stone. Third, the lung-ngan or 'dragon's 
 eye,' is a fruit about the size of a li-chi, with a yellowish- 
 green skin, a large stone, and a watery pulp of a dis- 
 
 298
 
 Fruit 
 
 agreeable, rawish taste, though the Chinese and a few 
 Europeans are fond of it. Fourth, the lo-quat, which 
 Williams describes as a kind of medlar. There is a thin 
 yellow skin adherent to the fruit, and within, in a cavity in 
 the centre of the fruit, is a large seed or two. The fruit is 
 not unpleasant in taste. 
 
 The peaches, when ripe, are good, though smaller than 
 the English hot-house ones. There are two or three 
 varieties of the common kind, one being the eagle-bill, 
 with the point prolonged, and a curious kind, somewhat 
 like a very small apple in shape, but more flattened, the 
 stone inside partaking of the spheroid form. 
 
 There are two varieties of pear ; one hard, like a turnip, 
 rather sweet in taste, but better when cooked, and growing 
 in the South : the other comes from Tientsin, and is much 
 nicer, being sweeter and more juicy in its turnipy substance. 
 Grapes are also brought from the North, a few are grown 
 in the South, but very different are both pears and grapes 
 from English ones. Apples come from the North of China, 
 but are very spongy in taste. 
 
 The mango is a flattish, oblong fruit of a bright yellow, 
 gold colour, and very nice, having, however, a slight 
 turpentine taste. It is a fruit overflowing in its juiciness. 
 The best come from Saigon and Manila, whence they are 
 brought over in steamers. 
 
 China has not only given the orange to Europe, but 
 has on the other hand benefited by the introduction of not 
 a few fruits from other parts of the world, amongst which 
 may be mentioned the pineapple, which was cultivated as 
 early as A.D. 1594 in China, 'to which it was brought from 
 the Western shore of America through the Philippines.' 
 The delicious custard-apple also, as its name in Chinese 
 fdn-lai-chi, foreign li-chi implies, is a foreign introduction, 
 and is identical with the sweet -sop of the West Indies. 
 Besides this, there is that most curious of fruits, the 
 carambola, called by the Chinese the yong-tb, or foreign 
 peach, though why this name should have been selected is 
 a mystery, for when cut through, it looks like a star with 
 
 299
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 five rays. By Europeans it is also known as the Cape 
 gooseberry. There is another variety called the sdm-nhn, 
 which is sourer than the other. These belong ' to the 
 belladonna, or deadly nightshade family, without having, of 
 course, its poisonous qualities.' 
 
 There is also the guava, having a smell something like 
 onions. The Amoy pumelo is a fine fruit, the shaddock 
 of the West Indies. There are two or three varieties of 
 persimmons ; a yellow, hard kind, a bright red, soft sort, 
 about the size and shape of a middling-sized apple, and a 
 small, red variety somewhat like a small egg. There are 
 also several varieties of plums, some very nice, and the 
 sour arbutus, too sour at Canton and neighbourhood to be 
 eaten as a fruit, but making a good fruit-syrup ; it, how- 
 ever, is sweeter and better at Swatow than at Canton. 
 The jack-fruit is also found in China, and the roseapple, 
 a highly scented fruit, giving one the idea of eating 
 solidified scent, about the size of a small apple and of the 
 form of a hollow sphere, the seeds being inside the hollow 
 part. Besides the above mentioned fruits there are citrons, 
 cocoa-nuts in Hainan, limes, melons of various kinds, 
 papaya, pomegranates which are a mass of dried seeds in 
 the South of China, and consequently not eaten, pumpkins, 
 etc. In the north of China the fruits are more of the 
 European type apricots and strawberries, besides some 
 we have already mentioned. 
 
 FUN. Although the Chinese look so serious and 
 grave, they enjoy a bit of fun immensely. The lower 
 classes enter heartily into jokes, and practical ones are 
 constantly to be seen practised in the streets by the chair- 
 coolies waiting for hire. Even what seems to most 
 Europeans a cumbersome language lends itself to puns. 
 Hilarity reigns at wine and dinner-parties. Comedies are 
 in great vogue at theatres. Jest-books are to be bought 
 at the street book-stalls ; but, unfortunately, many of the 
 broad jokes in them verge on the indecent and some of 
 them are quite obscene. 
 
 300
 
 Gardens 
 
 GARDENS. Here is again a word, like many other 
 words, which represents a different idea in China from 
 what it does in the West. One who comes to China 
 prepared to see the beautiful beds, the grouping of 
 colours, and blending of shades, the massing of foliage, 
 the parterres, the trim gravel - walks, the grass - lawns, 
 and the tout ensemble that goes to make up the idea 
 represented by the word garden amongst us, must 
 be prepared to be disappointed. In their place are 
 fantastic masses of artificial rockwork, or pools filled 
 with the large, rich, green, disc-like leaves of the 
 lotus, while the formal but lovely red flowers give some 
 warmth or colour to the scene. A Chinese garden must 
 have a suggestion, at least, of water : if nothing else, 
 a tiny pond with artificial rockwork and a bridge a 
 veritable arch up which one climbs to its top and 
 descends on the other side. At times, as on the earth's 
 surface, water abounds more than the dry land, for 
 numerous sheets of water take up the space which would 
 be occupied in Western lands by flower-beds ; but still 
 the flower-beds are not foregone ; in other words, the 
 Chinese have no flower-beds on land, but their flower- 
 beds are in the water ; for the still surface of the ponds 
 is embellished with the large, round, peltate leaves of 
 the lotus, having a stiff beauty of their own, relieved 
 in the summer months by the many petaled, purple, 
 chalice-like flowers borne on their long, green stalks 
 above the leaves, and rising from the underlying mud 
 a Buddhist emblem ; for ' as it lifts up its buds out 
 of the slimy ground to a greater or less height above 
 the water, unfolding its leaves and flowers, on whose 
 spotless petals no traces are to be found of the mire 
 from which it has sprung, so the souls of men . . . rise 
 from the slime of sin, by their own power and effort, to 
 different heights, and reach the blessedness of Nirvana.' 
 Later on, when the petals are scattered and have floated 
 away like tiny boats, the green and curious shaped seed- 
 vessels are seen. Bridges, as we have said, cross these 
 
 301
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 ponds, while kiosks, or summer-houses, are placed here 
 and there, in the midst of the water or on land, as fancy 
 suggests. Here picnics or summer parties are held, and 
 the literary tastes of the guests are met by the quotations, 
 or excerpts, from the classics hung up by the hundreds 
 under the roofs of the sheltered walls, while the votaries of 
 the histrionic art have their tastes provided for by a stage 
 erected especially for that purpose. Larger buildings are 
 scattered about the grounds, fitted with the straight- 
 backed and antique-looking blackvvood chairs, matched 
 with teapoys and sofas, while rustic-looking stools 
 stand about, formed each of an irregular stone, sup- 
 ported on a wooden stand of three legs. Those who 
 have not been in the tropics know nothing of the 
 luxury of one of these cold, smooth, stone seats on a 
 hot summer's day. 
 
 The plants are ranged in rows in hundreds of coarse 
 earthenware pots, or at the best, green glazed ones sup- 
 ported on similar stands or on wooden ones. Very few, if 
 any, flowers are planted in the ground. Plants of privet 
 are trained into figures of animals and men, to which eyes, 
 hands, feet, and hats of earthenware are added. Long 
 rows of these, interspersed with flowers and shrubs, all in 
 flower-pots, line the walks. Trees are allowed to grow in 
 certain places, but there are no ferneries, no glass-houses, 
 and, though the minutest care is taken in the cultivation, 
 the results do not produce what we would look upon as a 
 garden. Gardens, in this Chinese sense of the term, are 
 attached to temples, to ancestral halls, or form the pleasure- 
 grounds of wealthy gentlemen, and are sometimes, in the 
 latter case especially, of considerable extent. Most 
 Chinese who can afford it, or who have the space for it, 
 have a few flowers, or shrubs, in pots, some rockery work, 
 and a little water with goldfish, in the inner part of 
 their house, or congeries of buildings which do duty for a 
 mansion. 
 
 The following account of a native garden, the Lotus 
 Gardens, the residence of the Literary Chancellor in Pao- 
 
 302
 
 Geography 
 
 ting fu, will give some idea of what they are like, even to 
 the touch of decay so often present : 
 
 There are 'extensive rockeries, fine old trees of several varieties, 
 grottoes, an irregular lake covering an acre of ground perhaps, while 
 in the buildings are collections of tablets engraven from texts written 
 by different Emperors for this place. It has been a fine place in its 
 day, but is now much out of repair. Until recently the "lake" was a 
 stagnant pond, but this spring it was deepened, the ways opened, so 
 that the water flows at a very slow pace, which could hardly be other- 
 wise on this plain. This necessitated the removal of the Lotus roots, 
 and doubtless with them the removal of the cause of much sickness. 
 The whole place needs renovating, and might be made a lovely spot. 
 There are wistarias said to be 600 years old, and trees perhaps equally 
 aged.' 
 
 GEOGRAPHY. The China of to-day is not the 
 China of ancient times ; its boundaries have extended 
 greatly while the history of the Middle Kingdom was 
 being made. Unlike England, which had to go beyond 
 the sea to add to her empire, the nucleus of the 
 Chinese people had all around them their grand future, 
 and having acted well up to their possibilities, these have 
 developed into the actualities of their present extended 
 dominions dominions which, with all their tribute-bearing 
 neighbours, form the most extensive 'ever swayed by a 
 single power in any age or any part of the world.' The 
 germs of this mighty realm are supposed to be found some 
 thousands of years before Christ, in a nomadic people in 
 the present province of Shen-si. Settling in villages, they 
 became tradesmen and agriculturists, and from the dim 
 mists of myths and tradition, amidst which scarce anything 
 can be seen clearly or with certainty, we find the empire 
 growing, getting the sea-board as a boundary, and extend- 
 ing its limits. We do not intend in the course of this 
 short article to give a historical account of the geographical 
 growth of the empire. It would lead us, were we to do so, 
 far beyond our limits, and its scope would necessitate an 
 account of all the petty states into which, at times, China 
 was divided. Suffice it to say, that for many centuries 
 China did not extend beyond the great River, the Yang- 
 tsz-kiang. Eventually an offshoot was sent south into the 
 
 303
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 eastern portion of the present Kiang-nan, and, like the 
 rootlets from the banian tree, grew and formed finally 
 another trunk to support the tree of empire, which was 
 destined to gradually cover the whole land. For a long 
 period the extreme South of China was not embraced in 
 the realm except as a tributary state or with spasmodic 
 attempts at Government, but at last the bonds which united 
 it with the northern portion were strengthened until it 
 formed an integral portion of China. 
 
 The present dynasty has recovered much of the territory 
 that was lost under the last, the Ming ; till now it is nearly 
 equal to what it was under Kublai Khan, when Marco 
 Polo wrote of him ' in respect to number of subjects, 
 extent of territory, and amount of revenue, he surpasses 
 every sovereign that has heretofore been or that now is in 
 the world.' In 1840, it was estimated that the Chinese 
 Emperor ruled over 5,300,0x30 square miles, from lat. 48 
 10' N. to long. 144 50' E. in the N.E. part of the empire, 
 to the island of Hainan in the south, in lat. 18 10' N., and 
 on the extreme West to long. 74 E. It has since lost 
 about half a million square miles, which have gone to add 
 to the dominions of the other colossal empire of the world, 
 Russia, which is China's neighbour in the North, while 
 more is apparently going the same way in the shape of 
 Manchuria. England and France in their colonial empires 
 also touch her territories in the south. 'Of the 12,000 
 miles which form the land girdle of China, 6,000 touch 
 Russian territory, 4,800 British territory, and only 400 
 French, while 800 miles may be described as doubtful.' 
 Japan has also, with the last war, by the acquisition of 
 Formosa, been brought into near neighbourhood to China. 
 Since the greater part of the above was written, Germany 
 has likewise established herself on the coast of Shan-tung 
 at Kiao-chao, Russia has obtained Port Arthur, and the 
 French, Kwong Chau Wan in the South. England has 
 also, besides Wei-hai-wei, obtained a lease of land at the 
 back of the Kaulung Peninsular, Hongkong, and some 
 islands. What the near future has in store for China 
 
 304
 
 Geography 
 
 remains to be seen. Will this great empire so loosely 
 knit together remain intact, or will it fall to pieces from 
 the combined pressure from without and the corruption 
 and disintegrating forces from within ? Efforts are being 
 made to preserve it as a nation, as vide the late Anglo- 
 Japanese alliance. 
 
 In shape, the Chinese empire approaches a rectangle, 
 whose circuit is 14,000 miles, or more than half the 
 circumference of the world ; her coast-line is roughly 
 stated to be 4,400 miles. This vast empire naturally 
 divides itself into the three divisions of China proper, 
 Manchuria, and the Colonial Possessions. 
 
 China proper embraces the whole of the eighteen 
 provinces, as well as the large island of Hainan ; Manchuria 
 lies to the North of Corea and part of China proper ; and 
 the Colonial possessions include Mongolia, Hi, Kokonor, 
 and Tibet. 
 
 These eighteen provinces cover about 2,000,000 square 
 miles. It would take seven Frances, or fifteen Great 
 Britains and Irelands, to cover the same extent of ground. 
 China is surrounded by different mountain chains, forming 
 a wall almost all round it, with their different ranges, 
 such as the Altai, the Stanovai, the Tien-shan, and others ; 
 also four large chains occur inside the boundaries, assist- 
 ing in delimiting territory, the highest peaks of some of 
 which are snow-clad the whole year through ; some of the 
 mountains in Yun-nan, in the south-west of the empire, 
 are the same. 
 
 The three great basins form a great part of China. 
 These are drained respectively by the Yellow River, say 2,500 
 miles long, the Yang-tsz-kiang, 3,000 miles long, while the 
 Canton River and its numerous tributaries drain 130,000 
 square miles. We cannot mention the other rivers, though 
 they are by no means insignificant nor few, for ' the rivers 
 of China are her glory, and no country can compare with 
 her for natural facilities of inland navigation.' 
 
 Among the lakes may be mentioned the Tung-ting, 
 about 220 miles in circumference, and the picturesque 
 
 305 U
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 Po-yang, with its numerous islands, 90 miles long by 20 
 in breadth. 
 
 Besides the three basins drained by the three great 
 rivers, there is the Great Plain of 700 miles in length, vary- 
 ing in width from 1 50 to 400 miles, having the same area 
 as the plain of Bengal, drained by the Ganges. It supports 
 an enormous population; in 1812, the number was 
 177,000,000, that is two-thirds of that of Europe, being the 
 most densely settled portion ' of any part of the world of 
 the same size.' 
 
 China may likewise be ' divided into the mountainous 
 and hilly country and the Great Plain.' (See Article on 
 Geology.) The mountainous is nearly half of the whole of 
 China, the hilly is in the south-east, another Great Plain is 
 in the north-east. 
 
 From the Yang-tsz to Hainan," the whole coast is 
 studded with numerous islands and rocky islets. 
 
 The most important Channels are that of Formosa, 
 between the Island of Formosa and the mainland, and the 
 Straits of Lui-chau, between the Island of Hainan and the 
 Promontory of Lui-chau. 
 
 The most noteworthy gulfs or bays are the Gulf of 
 Liang-tung in Manchuria, the Gulf of Pe-chih-li in the 
 province of the same name, and the Gulf of Tonquin in the 
 extreme south. 
 
 Among the principal promontories may be named that 
 of Liang-tung, forming the Gulf of the same name, the 
 Shantung promontory, and the Lui-chau promontory, 
 already named. 
 
 The principal seas are the Yellow, between Corea and 
 China ; the Eastern, between Japan and the Lew-chew 
 Islands and China ; and the China Sea to the south. 
 
 In political geography, China proper is divided into the 
 eighteen provinces, these again are sub-divided into pre- 
 fectures, the latter are formed of different kinds of districts, 
 which may be compared to the counties in England. It is 
 not an uncommon thing to group two of the provinces 
 together for administrative purposes, such as the two 
 
 306
 
 Geology 
 
 Kwang Kwang-tung and Kwang-si ; the two Hu 
 comprising Hu-peh and Hu-nan. 
 
 Of the principal cities, it is impossible to give an 
 enumeration, so numerous are they. The capital of each 
 of the eighteen provinces would come under this category, 
 some of them boasting of a million or more of inhabitants, 
 such as Peking, Canton, and others. Every province has 
 numbers of important centres of commerce and government, 
 such as the district cities and marts ; the former taking the 
 place of county towns, and often having tens or hundreds 
 of thousands of inhabitants ; the latter forming centres of 
 commercial activity, and distributing centres for agricultural 
 produce, etc., to the surrounding country districts. 
 
 Books recommended. 'Historical Atlas of the Chinese Empire,' by E.L. 
 Oxeuham, gives maps of China during successive dynasties, and shows in a 
 striking form the geographical growth of the Empire, while the preface is 
 most interesting. Several works arc in existence dealing each with one 
 province, such as ' La Province Chinois du Yun-nan,' par Emile Rocher, and 
 ' Shan Tun": a Chinese Province,' by A. Armstrong, F.E.I. S. ilost text- 
 books on China contain a chapter on the geography. One of the best is in 
 E. H. Parker's 'China.' 
 
 GEOLOGY. The geology of the Chinese empire has 
 not been fully investigated. When it is remembered that 
 vast tracts of country have not yet been trodden by the 
 man of science, it will be seen how much remains to be 
 done towards the acquisition of a full knowledge of the 
 geological conditions of the large portion of the globe ruled 
 over by the Chinese. 
 
 In the centre of China is the great alluvial plain 
 produced by the large rivers, the Yang-tsz-kiang and the 
 Yellow River, as Egypt has been created by the Nile. The 
 great quantities of silt brought down by the Yellow River, 
 combined with other causes, such as deforestation, etc., 
 produce the periodical floods (See Article on Floods) and 
 cause ' China's Sorrow,' as it has been aptly termed, to seek 
 new means of reaching the sea. The Yang-tsz-kiang, 
 which has been styled ' The Girdle of China/ carries its 
 silt more out to sea than the Yellow River does. The land 
 it has made during its existence must have been enormous, 
 
 307
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 for it has been estimated that it discharges 770,397 cubic 
 feet of water per second into the sea, and the ' amount of 
 suspended material carried down every year to the sea at 
 6,428,858,255 cubic feet.' An island 32 miles long by 
 10 broad has been formed since the fourteenth century, in 
 the estuary of the Yang-tsz. This mighty river takes the 
 third place in the list of the largest rivers in the world, the 
 Amazon and the Congo heading it, and the Mississippi 
 coming fifth. It has been calculated that the Yang-tsz, 
 the Yellow River, and the Pei Ho, would in sixty-six days 
 form an island a mile square in the sea, and in 36,000 years 
 the Gulfs of Pe-chih-li and Liau-tung, the Yellow Sea, and 
 the Eastern Sea as far south as about half-way between 
 Ningpo and Wenchow, and as far east as about midway 
 between the coast of China and Japan, would become solid 
 ground. Passing from the future to the past it has been 
 reckoned that it has taken 20,000 years for the delta of 
 this gigantic river to be formed. The oscillations of land 
 level do not appear to have had much share in its formation, 
 as they, in this portion of China, seem to have been of the 
 slightest, during this period at all events. 
 
 Even during the historical period, the changes appear 
 to have been great, for the Shii King, which contains the 
 most ancient account of Chinese geography, mentions three 
 mouths of the Yang-tsz, though only one now remains. At 
 the time of Christ a ' great part of the Shanghai plain was 
 not yet reclaimed from the sea ; and the Woo-sung River 
 or Soo-chow Creek was also anciently a large river twenty 
 // (6 or 7 miles) broad at what is now the city of Shanghai.' 
 The land has extended further out into what was then the 
 sea, by 50 miles. With regard to the underlying stratum, 
 or strata, Dr. Macgowan said : ' Whether it rests immedi- 
 ately upon granite, which forms the basis of the nearest 
 mountain ; or immediately upon new red sandstone, of 
 which some of the adjacent hills are composed ; or upon 
 limestone, which is found protruding at the Great Lake 
 (Tai-hii), it is impossible for us without more information 
 to determine.' In A.D. 1865 an artesian well revealed, at a 
 
 308
 
 Geology 
 
 depth of 248 feet, grey sand beneath 10 feet of loam, and a 
 few feet lower, pebbles ; at 240 feet, a fragment of lime- 
 stone. 
 
 At one time the Shan-tung promontory with the 
 contiguous mountainous portion of the province was an 
 island, and the province of Kiang-su had no existence. 
 The steppe-like plains of Pe-chih-li show their recent 
 elevation above the sea. On the other hand, there arc 
 evidences of the encroachments of the sea on the land to a 
 no less remarkable extent. The eastern border of the 
 continent has experienced a slight depression, and the real 
 eastern border included Sumatra, Java, Borneo, the 
 Philippines, Formosa, the Liu Chiu Islands, Japan, and the 
 Kuriles, to Kamtschatka. 
 
 Among the most interesting features of the geology of 
 North China is the loess. It covers a vast extent of 
 country, 'extending over thousands of square miles and 
 often hundreds of feet in thickness,' and is a brownish- 
 coloured, or yellowish-brownish, or greyish earth ; it is 
 split up into numerous clefts ; is of a terrace formation, 
 and steppe-like contour ; but admirably adapted for 
 agricultural purposes ; and lends itself to the picturesque 
 most effectively. One opinion about it is that ' it is a sub- 
 aerial deposit, dating from a geological era of great dry- 
 ness before the existence of the Yellow and other rivers of 
 the northern provinces.' Another, and the latest, is that it 
 is a sedimentary deposit, and probably of marine origin. 
 
 ' Its striking peculiarity is that, while so soft and friable that it 
 may be powdered between the fingers, it is of such firm consistency 
 that, when excavations are made in it, walls hundreds of feet high will 
 remain standing like granite, though quite perpendicular. Its particles 
 are so fine that they are said to disappear on being rubbed into the 
 pores of the skin. In China roads become worn out to depths of 70 or 
 80 feet, the walls being quite perpendicular .... Its greatest thickness 
 in Europe and America is 100 to 200 feet. But in China it reaches a 
 depth ten times as great, and it is held responsible for the frequent 
 shiftings of the Yellow River.' 
 
 In Southern China, between Canton and Hankow, the 
 succession of rocks is first, granite ; second, grits and 
 slates ; these are covered by old limestones, on which rests 
 
 309
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 another series of limestone strata, and over some coal-beds 
 lies red sandstone. Of this part of the country it has been 
 written : 
 
 ' The whole country is ... divided into several isolated basins, 
 any one of which can be studied by itself, whilst in most instances, the 
 lines of demarcation follow roughly the political divisions of the 
 empire. Amongst these natural divisions of the country, we may 
 adduce the provinces of the two Kwang, Kiang-si, Fuh-kien and Che- 
 kiang, Ngan-whui, Kwei-chau, Kiang-su, etc., all forming separate 
 districts, divided by ranges of mountains and distinguished each by 
 geological characteristics.' 
 
 ' The central and eastern portions of Kwang-tung, contain, within 
 a limited area, a connected sequence of formations, ranging upwards 
 from the early paleozoic rocks of Hongkong and the adjacent coast 
 and islands, to the new red sandstone of Canton and the delta of the 
 Pearl River, intermixed with some traces of still later formations, and 
 being accompanied by masses of rocks of igneous origin extending 
 probably over a still more prolonged epoch.' ' From the neighbour- 
 hood of Canton to the sea, the rocks are composed of red sandstone 
 resting on granite, until, on reaching the clusters of islands that line 
 the coast, these are found to consist of a coarse granite only, crossed 
 by perpendicular veins of quartz ; over the irregular surfaces of the 
 islands, and at the summits of the highest, are strewn immense 
 rounded blocks of the same rock. They are generally imbedded in 
 the coarse earth, which is a disintegration of the general substance of 
 the islands, and, as this is washed from under them, roll down the 
 steep declivities until they reach a level space, and commonly stud 
 the sandy margin of the islands with a belt of piled rocks, some of 
 them many tons in weight. The scenery of these islands has often 
 been compared to that of the Hebrides, and is quite as barren.' 
 
 ' The island of Kulangsu (Amoy) is typical of the coast formation 
 of Southern China ; granite is its principal feature, and it seems to be 
 a general, but by no means unexceptional, rule that along the coast, 
 from South to North, the granite becomes coarser grained, less 
 micaceous and more felspathic.' 
 
 The following is an account of the country north of 
 Amoy : 
 
 ' Considerable diversity of the geological structure of the district 
 from Amoy to Tarn-si, the most northern portion of the province 
 visited obtains ; this is not, however, the case with the Physical 
 (ieography, as in the latter respect the whole country is a series of 
 high mountains, the general character being physically very persistent, 
 although geologically ranging from the ingenite or granitic, plutonic, 
 and volcanic rock at Amoy (as observed along the greater portion 
 of the East Coast of China and typically represented in the island of 
 Hongkong) the Transition or Metamorphic sedimentary rocks being 
 developed in proceeding northwards, culminating in the Derivate 
 rocks, the Subaqueous containing the whole series of the Paleozoic 
 
 310
 
 Geology 
 
 period, the Devonian, Carboniferous, and Permian systems being 
 highly developed, particularly the Carboniferous ; and the Sub-aerial 
 being represented in the Mesozoic period, principally by the upper 
 new red sandstone in the Triassic system. The whole country must 
 have been subject, long after the Mesozoic period, to extraordinary 
 convulsions of Nature. One "fault" in the Carboniferous Group, 
 which the writer had a good opportunity of studying, extended a 
 distance of 8 miles; the mountain in which the "fault" appeared 
 being over 1,500 feet above the adjacent valley, standing at a scarped 
 angle of about 8 degrees, exposing, amongst other groups of the 
 system, the coal measures in numerous seams fully 300 feet thick.' 
 
 Shan-tung is a most interesting province from a 
 geological point of view. 
 
 The following extract from ' Across Shan-tung,' by 
 S. B. J. Skertchly, F.G.S., M.A.I., puts in a succinct form an 
 account of the geological formation of the Eastern portion 
 of China : 
 
 ' Travelling northwards from Hongkong by Amoy, Foochow, 
 Ningpo, Shanghai to Chefoo, we pass, speaking generally, from older 
 to newer rocks. The granites of Hongkong with their associated 
 beds of diorite and felspar porphyries are the oldest rocks of China, 
 the backbone, geologically speaking, upon which has been laid down 
 the newer beds which take the surface over by far the greater part of 
 this vast empire. These rocks are again seen at Amoy and Foochow, 
 are hidden beneath newer volcanic rocks at Ningpo, where the 
 beautiful mottled volcanic agglomerate yields the fine building stone 
 which adds such beauty to the architecture of Shanghai ; then the 
 land sinks down to the broad plain of the mighty Yangtsz, to be 
 succeeded by old crystalline rocks, probably of Laurentian age, which 
 run all the way to Chefoo on the Gulf of Pechihli, whose northern 
 shores in Manchuria and Chihli are largely made up of beds belonging 
 to the Carboniferous system. 
 
 ' Travelling inland a similar series of rocks is found, the granites 
 being overlaid by crystalline schist, and gneiss and quartzites, over 
 which again lie the carboniferous beds, with patches of volitic rock 
 here and there, yielding as in Eastern Shantung beautiful fossil 
 fishes. 
 
 ' The granite rocks rise in bold hills and mountains, weathered into 
 rounded masses, which ofttimes become quite isolated, and stand like 
 boulders upon the hill-sides, or lie embedded in the well-known 
 "decomposed granite " . . .; these boulders are simply harder masses 
 of granite which have withstood the dissolving action of the elements ; 
 they tell neither of frost-bound coasts, nor changes of level, nor 
 volcanic outbursts, but are stolid witnesses of the silent forces of rain 
 and river, of tropic showers and burning suns and chilly nights. 
 
 ' In marked contrast to the swelling contours of the granite series, 
 are the jagged and gnarled hills and mountains of the crystalline 
 schists, which beautify the landscape with every variety of crag and 
 peak and sierra, the rocks themselves bent, twisted, and crumpled, as
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 though, instead of being tough enough for nether millstones, they were 
 plastic as dough. 
 
 ' Very different again are the limestone hills of the carboniferous 
 system with their gentle flexures, fretted into picturesque castellated 
 ramparts, and running in long lines along the dip.' 
 
 The province of Shan-si is rugged. The southern part 
 1 presents a geological formation of great simplicity. . . . 
 There are coal formations and limestone,' and a plateau of 
 later rocks sandstones, shales and conglomerates of green, 
 red, yellow, lilac, and brown colours. Some granite peaks 
 rise to a height of 8,000 feet. ' On the eastern side . . . 
 rocks are made up of ancient formations or deposits of the 
 Silurian age.' 
 
 There are most extensive coalfields in China ; for she 
 is credited with possessing the largest coal mines in the 
 world ' covering 200,000 square miles,' ' Most of the rocks 
 belong to the paleozoic or early secondary ages ; the later 
 deposits in the central and seaboard provinces at least 
 being confined to a few sandstones and clays.' The great 
 coalfields of China stretch from ' near Peking along the 
 frontiers of Pe-chih-li and Shan-si, and thence through 
 Honan and Hu-peh, into the great coal and iron district of 
 Hu-nan.' ' The less important fields are those of Kiang-si, 
 Hu-peh, Ngan-hwui, Kiang-su, Cheh-Kiang, Fuh-Kien, and 
 Kwang - tung.' They all belong ' to the true " coal 
 measures " of the carboniferous system.' 
 
 All kinds of minerals and precious stones are found in 
 China. 
 
 Books recommended. There are numerous articles on the geology of certain 
 districts and coal formations, etc. etc., in the Chinese Recorder and Mission- 
 ary Journal, the 'Journals of the N.C. Branch of R.A.S.' and 'Notes and 
 Queries on China and Japan ' ; as well as notices on geology in Williams'* 
 ' Middle Kingdom.' For Xorth China, the great work in German by Baron 
 von Richthoven, ' China,' is the standard work. See also ' Across Shan Tung,' 
 l>y S. B. J. Skertchly, consisting of a series of Articles in the Hongkong 
 Daily Press in September and October 1892. 
 
 GEOMAXCY, OR FUNG-SHUI. This superstition 
 in connection with the worship of ancestors has the greatest 
 hold on the Chinese mind. To them the whole of Nature 
 is alive with influences for good or evil, revealed to those 
 
 312
 
 Geomancy, or Fung-Shui 
 
 who have made their indications a study : the course of a 
 stream, the trend of a mountain, the position of a clump of 
 bamboos, the curve of a road, the site of a grave, and a 
 number of other things too numerous to mention, all form 
 the visible manifestations to the initiated eye, of Nature's 
 future actions, or the good and evil intentions of the 
 departed dead. 
 
 The rudiments of this magic art are to be found in 
 ancient China, but it was not till the twelfth century that it 
 was elaborated into the system of science, falsely so-called, 
 that has now such a hold on the Chinese. Adopting what 
 was popular and attractive in the modern school of Con- 
 fucianism, and being already in consonance with the 
 Taoistic and Buddhistic philosophies, this system, based 
 to some degree on the rudiments of natural science, has 
 subtly laid hold of the whole being and existence of the 
 Chinese people. They believe not only that the comfortable 
 sepulture of their ancestors will redound to their own 
 comfort, but that if the union of the elements, the nature of 
 the soil, the configuration of the ground, and all the other 
 things which enter into this farrago of nonsense are such 
 as to produce a felicitous combination, that riches, honour, 
 and posterity will be vouchsafed to them. It is these 
 beliefs that cause the coffin to be so often kept for months or 
 years unburied, for a site is being searched for which shall 
 combine all that is productive of good to the children and 
 grandchildren. Even when the eldest son has discovered 
 such a site, and is confident that happiness and prosperity 
 will be his lot, it may be that another son has found out 
 that what will benefit his brother will not be productive of 
 good to him, but of evil ; consequently the whole search 
 will have to be gone over again till one favourable to all 
 parties can be discovered. So many different elements 
 come in, in determining the lucky sites, that the professors 
 of geomancy are easily able to make a living out of the 
 gullibility of their employers. When it is added that in 
 building a house, in fixing on a site for an ancestral hall, in 
 commencing a temple, and in numerous other projects and 
 
 313
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 businesses demanding the attention of the Chinese, these 
 doctors of geomancy have to be consulted, it may readily 
 be seen that, in the hands of clever and designing men, 
 much room is open for earning an honest (?) penny. 
 
 The compasses exposed for sale in such numbers in 
 the streets in Chinese cities are not mariner's compasses, 
 which are seldom to be met with, but geomancer's com- 
 passes, which contain the elements of their mystic art, by 
 the aid of which they largely determine their judgments 
 on sites and localities. 
 
 Just one instance of how Fung-Shui is troublesome to 
 Europeans in China : in the phraseology of this occult 
 science ' when two buildings are beside one another, the 
 one on the left is said to be built on the green dragon and 
 the one on the right on the white tiger. Now the tiger 
 must not be higher than the dragon, or death or bad luck 
 will result.' Supposing now a European or American gets 
 a site for a residence next to, and on the right-hand side of, 
 a native dwelling. Here then are all the elements ready 
 for trouble ; for, to begin with, the foreigner will naturally 
 desire to erect a house more suited for habitation than the 
 low abode which would satisfy the average Chinaman. 
 
 Another curious instance of the reasonings, or shall we 
 rather call them insane vapourings, that its professors 
 indulge in, will give a practical illustration of the workings 
 of Fung - Shui : when it was proposed to construct a 
 telegraph between Canton and Hongkong, the ground of 
 the opposition against it was as follows : Canton is the 
 ' City of Rams,' or ' Sheep,' the mouth of the river is known 
 as the ' Tiger's Mouth ' ; the district opposite Hongkong is 
 the ' Nine Dragons ' (Kau Lung). What more unfortunate 
 combination could be found a telegraph line to lead the 
 Sheep right into the Tiger's Mouth and amongst the Nine 
 Dragons ! ! ! 
 
 It is this pseudo science which has so strenuously 
 opposed the introduction of railways, telegraph lines, and 
 foreign innovations, in the past, or was made to do duty as 
 an objection to them. But it has not been an insuperable 
 
 314
 
 Ginger 
 
 obstruction ; for whenever the Chinese Government has 
 made up its mind to the introduction of any of the inven- 
 tions of Western science, Fung-Shui has not been allowed 
 to be an obstacle : while pandering to its absurd ideas 
 as far as is practicable without hindering the feasibility of 
 their scheme, yet the populace, if obstructive, has usually 
 been made to feel that the will of the rulers has to be 
 obeyed. 
 
 Books recommended. ' Fung Shui ; or, the Rudiments of Natural Science 
 in China,' by Rev. E. J. Eitel, M.A., Ph.D. The chapter on 'Ancestral 
 Worship' in Rev. B. 0. Henry's ' The Cross and the Dragon,' and different 
 pages under the heading of geomancy and geomancers in Rev. II. C. Du Dose's 
 'The Dragon, Image, and Demon." Williams's 'Middle Kingdom,' Arch- 
 deacon Gray's 'China,' and Rev. J. Doolittle's 'Social Life of the Chinese.' 
 
 GINGER. Most of the ginger produced in the world 
 is furnished by the root of the Zitigibcr officinale (Roscoe); 
 but that from China, as well as Siam, is the product of 
 another plant, the Alpinia galangas, 'yet, considering the 
 wide distribution of Zingiber officinale, it is quite possible 
 that the true ginger may also be cultivated in some parts 
 of China.' 
 
 It is grown largely in the Kwang-tung province, where 
 it is found in nearly every part, the Miau-tsz aborigines 
 even cultivating large quantities of it. The best and most, 
 in the neighbourhood of the city of Canton, coming from the 
 Nam-hoi District itself, in a portion of which the provincial 
 city is partially situated. 
 
 In another district, some days' journey from Canton, 
 three-tenths of the flat land, and seven-tenths of the 
 cultivated soil in the hills are planted with ginger. 
 
 'A distinction is made between the flat-land ginger . . . which is 
 generally soft and tender, and mountain ginger . . . which is brittle 
 and very pungent. This is generally used for home consumption ; 
 the Chinese pickle it in vinegar. The expensive . . . syrup ginger 
 is almost exclusively consumed by foreigners, or exported.' 
 
 Ginger is also grown to a large extent in Hu-peh and 
 Kiang-si, where it is largely eaten in the green state. This 
 ginger of mid-China is said to be very fragrant, but ' too 
 sticky ' to make ' a very excellent preserve.' 
 
 315
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 Ginger is used as a medicine in China. The author 
 has seen it cure a violent headache when applied in the 
 Chinese fashion, which is to heat fresh ginger in the fire, 
 and slice in thin pieces which are stuck on the forehead 
 and temples. 
 
 The Alpinia galangas grows wild in Hongkong, and 
 forms when in flower a conspicuous object in the glens and 
 on the hill-sides, with its narrow, long leaves and bright 
 panicles of flower, each flower being nearly an inch in 
 length. 
 
 GINSENG. Kaempfer says that next to tea ginseng 
 is the most celebrated plant in the whole Orient, on account 
 of its root. It has indeed well been termed the cure-all, as 
 the Chinese have a most wonderful faith in its curative and 
 strengthening properties, for which reason it has been also 
 styled ' the chinchona of China.' It is considered to be ' a 
 cure for fevers and weaknesses of all sorts the chief and 
 most costly medicine.' 
 
 The plant belongs to the family of the Araliacece, and 
 the scientific name for it is Pamax Ginseng. It is found 
 ' wild in the mountain forests of Eastern Asia, from Nepal 
 to Manchuria.' It formerly grew in Fuh-kien, Kiang-nan 
 and Shan-si ; ' their stock would seem to be extinguished, 
 or the plan of cultivation by seed, described in the " Pen 
 Ts'ao," might have been given up in the face of the grow- 
 ing favour of the Manchurian wild plant." Ginseng is one 
 of the treasures of Manchuria. Dr. Lansdell, in his book 
 ' Through Siberia,' thus writes of it : 
 
 ' Ginseng is found chiefly in the valleys of the Upper Ussuri, where 
 it is cultivated in beds, planted in rows. The earth must be a rich, 
 black mould, and loose ; and when the plant has attained the height of 
 four or five inches, it is supported by a stick. The beds are carefully 
 weeded and watered and protected from the sun by tents or sheds of 
 wood. Wild ginseng is said to be the best. From May to September 
 hundreds go out to seek the plant. . . . The prices named ... for 
 this root were almost fabulous, a single root being valued in Manchuria 
 at from .250 to .300. I was told on the river that ginseng sells for 
 .30 per Russian lb., but that in a bad year the Chinese count it as 
 valuable as gold, and give up to ^40 per lb. . . . The root is straight, 
 spindle-shaped, knotty, and up to half an inch in diameter, and eight 
 
 316
 
 Ginseng 
 
 inches in length. The leaves are cut off, and the root is boiled in 
 water, apparently to remove some injurious quality ; and when it has 
 undergone fitting preparation its colour is a transparent white, with 
 sometimes a slight red or orange tint ; its appearance then is that of 
 a stalactite. It is carefully dried, wrapped in unsized paper, and sent 
 to the market.' 
 
 Dr. Porter Smith, in the course of a long article on 
 ginseng, says : 
 
 'The root is carefully hunted for by Manchus, who boast that the 
 weeds of their country are the choice drugs of the Chinese. The 
 pieces, after carefully trimming with a bamboo knife and drying in 
 still air, are made to assume something of the form of the human 
 body. They generally do resemble a miniature human hand, the 
 larger pieces being of the size of a man's little finger, with some two 
 to four finger-like branching rootlets. They are yellowish, semi- 
 transparent, firm, brittle to some extent, and of a sweet mucilaginous 
 taste, accompanied with a slight bitterness. . . . Fabulous stories 
 are told of the finding of special depots of this root, which is associated 
 with guiding voices, stars, and other good and peaceful omens. . . . 
 The trade in the drug is a speciality. Great care is required to pre- 
 serve choice specimens from the effects of damp and the attacks of 
 worms, to which the drug is very liable. This drug is prepared as 
 an extract, or as a decoction, in silver vessels as a rule. . . . Several 
 cases in which life would seem to have been at least prolonged by the 
 taking of doses of this drug, so as to allow of intelligent disposition 
 of property, indicate that some positive efficacy of a sustaining 
 character does really exist in this species of Ivywort.' 
 
 Manchuria does not supply sufficient quantity to meet 
 the constant demand for it, and Corea and Japan furnish 
 it as well, but they (the Japanese and Corean) are not con- 
 sidered equal in quality to the first-named variety. That 
 found wild in Chinese Manchuria is a government 
 monopoly, and is gathered ' by detachments of soldiers 
 detailed for this purpose.' The Emperor sometimes makes 
 presents of it to high officials, as a mark of great favour. 
 There is even a variety of it which is indigenous in the 
 Appalachian range, and which is exported from 
 Philadelphia and Baltimore (U.S.A.) (and also from the 
 Western States as well) to China. In 1877 nearly 
 8700,000 worth were sent to the Celestial Empire. The 
 trade is not increasing, of late years, remaining ' stationary 
 owing to the gradual extinction of the plant [Pana.r 
 Quinquefolius\ which cannot be grown artificially with 
 success." 
 
 317
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 GODOWN. Godown is a word in use, amongst the 
 foreign residents in China, for a storehouse or warehouse 
 where cargo or goods are stored. It is a corruption of the 
 Malay gedong. 
 
 GOLDFISH. The original habitat of the goldfish 
 appears to have been China : according to the Chinese the 
 native place is Lake Tsau in the province of Ngan-hwui. 
 They were taken to Europe in the seventeenth century. 
 
 Williams says of them : 
 
 ' The effects of domestication in changing the natural form of this 
 fish are great ; specimens are often seen without any dorsal fin, and 
 the tail and other fins tufted and lobed to such a degree as to resemble 
 artificial appendages or wings rather than natural organs. The eyes 
 are developed till the globe projects beyond the socket like goggles, 
 presenting an extraordinary appearance. Some of them are so fan- 
 tastic, indeed, that they would be regarded as lusus natures, were they 
 not so common. The usual colour is a ruddy golden hue, but both 
 sexes exhibit a silvery or blackish tint at certain stages of their growth, 
 and one variety, called the silver-fish, retains this shade all its life. 
 The Chinese keep it [the gold-fish] in their garden ponds, or in 
 earthen jars, in which are placed rocks covered with moss, and 
 overgrown with tufts of ferns, to allow them a retreat from the light. 
 When the females spawn, the eggs must be removed to a shallow 
 vessel, lest the males devour them, where the heat of the sun hatches 
 them ; the young are nearly black, but gradually become whitish or 
 reddish, and at last assume a golden or silvery hue. Specimens 
 upwards of two feet long have been noticed, and those who rear them 
 emulate each other in producing new varieties.' 
 
 Japanese in Japan produce these double-tailed goldfish 
 known as Carassius auratus, by taking the eggs of the 
 single-tailed variety and shaking or disturbing them. The 
 result of which is that unnatural developments take place 
 and double monsters result, some having double tails and 
 some single tails and mirabile dictu double heads. Those 
 with a pair of tails are likely to live and perpetuate in their 
 offspring this peculiar feature. For this to become a fixed 
 trait, it would appear that all that was required was care 
 taken in selection of the fish to breed. 
 
 GOVERNMENT. The Government of China is that 
 of an absolute, despotic monarchy. The Emperor rules 
 by virtue of a divine right derived direct from Heaven, 
 
 ' 318
 
 Government 
 
 and he is styled 'The Son of Heaven.' This divine 
 right he retains as long as he rules in conformity with 
 the decrees of Heaven. When the dynasty falls into 
 decay by the vices of its rulers, Heaven raises up 
 another who, by force of arms, the virtue of bravery, 
 and fitness for the post, wrests the sceptre from the 
 enfeebled grasp of him who is unfit to retain it any 
 longer. This idea has exerted a beneficial effect on 
 the sovereigns of China, who feel that on the one 
 hand they are dependent upon high Heaven for the 
 retention of their throne, and who humbly and publicly 
 confess their shortcomings in times of floods and 
 drought. On the other hand, though there is no House 
 of Commons to exercise a check on the unrestrained 
 power of the Sovereign, there is the general public 
 opinion of the people, who, being educated in the 
 principles that underlie all true government, are ready 
 to apply them to their rulers when they forget, or 
 act grossly in opposition to, them. To see the system 
 of patriarchal government carried out in its entirety, 
 one must come to China. The Emperor stands in 
 loco parentis to the common people, and his officers 
 occupy a similar position. The principles which have 
 formed the framework of government for millenniums 
 among these ancient, stable, and peace-loving people, 
 may be found in a study of the rule of the ancient 
 kings, Yao and Shun, and their successors, and in the 
 precepts inculcated by Confucius and Mencius. With 
 all its defects, their system appears to be better adapted 
 for the punishment of the criminal classes amongst 
 them and the prevention of their fraudulent bankruptcies 
 than our systems, which are the outgrowth of centuries 
 of civilisation, not yet passed through by the Chinese, 
 who consequently are not yet educated up to our 
 standpoint. The unit in China is not the individual, 
 but the family, therefore it is impossible for a fraudulent 
 bankrupt to settle his goods on his wife or family, as 
 the family must make good his losses ; in the same 
 
 319
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 way a family is responsible for the good behaviour of 
 its members ; a neighbourhood for its inhabitants ; and 
 an official for those governed by him. Thus results a 
 system of ' mutual responsibility among all classes.' 
 This acts as a great deterrent of serious crime and 
 defalcations ; and it is much to be regretted that in our 
 rule of the Chinese, such a system could not have 
 been carried out, with such modifications as to free it 
 from its defects, instead of introducing a new system 
 foreign entirely to their feelings and understanding. 
 
 The right of succession to the throne in China 'is 
 hereditary in the male line, but it is always in the 
 power of the Sovereign to nominate his successor from 
 among his own children.' This nomination, most wisely, 
 is not made public during the lifetime of the reigning 
 Sovereign, thus preventing intrigue and obviating all 
 necessity for those bloody scenes which disgrace the 
 accession of so many Eastern potentates to their 
 thrones. 
 
 The Emperor has two councils to advise him and 
 to consult with. One is the Cabinet, or Imperial Chancery 
 (the Nui Koh). A more influential body is the Council 
 of State, or General Council, approaching more to the 
 Ministries of Western nations, though necessarily quite 
 unlike them. It meets in the Emperor's palace daily. 
 Under these two councils are the Six Boards Luk 
 P6 their names give a pretty good idea of their 
 functions : The Boards of Civil Office, Revenue, Rites, 
 War, Punishment, Works and a Naval Board has been 
 added in recent years, and still more recently a Board to 
 deal with the foreign relations of China, forced reluctantly 
 into the comity of civilised and enlightened nations. 
 
 There are other departments of government, one of 
 which, the Censorate, deserves more than passing notice. 
 On account of its peculiar duties it has attracted much 
 attention from Western writers. In conjunction with some 
 of the other Boards, it forms a Court of Appeal ; and, with 
 other departments of government, it deliberates on import- 
 
 320
 
 Government 
 
 ant affairs of State ; it exercises an oversight over all 
 criminal cases ; and superintends the affairs of the metro- 
 polis. These duties call for but little remark, but it is the 
 extraordinary powers that are vested in its members, of 
 censuring, not only the manner in which other officials 
 have performed or neglected their duties, but even the 
 conduct of the Emperor himself powers that are often 
 availed of in the interests of justice, with a boldness and 
 courage most unusual under a despotic rule, that at times 
 meet with their reward, and at other times call forth over- 
 whelming censure and punishment from the Sovereign 
 himself. When rightly used by a high-minded and con- 
 scientious official (for such are to be found in China) in 
 the consciousness of right, and with the best interests of 
 the country at heart, and with broad and enlightened views, 
 these extraordinary powers must be productive of good, 
 though many must be loath to use these privileges of 
 outspoken speech for fear of the consequences which may 
 recoil on their own heads, often indeed so serious, as to 
 make the best intentioned hesitate before committing 
 themselves. 
 
 For the government of the provinces there is a perfect 
 ramification of officials from superior to inferior, from the 
 ten or twelve Viceroys of one or two provinces each, down 
 to the petty officials. 
 
 One very curious feature in Chinese official life is the 
 manner in which judicial, military, naval, and fiscal duties 
 are performed by one and the same official at different 
 stages of his official life. He is transferred from one post 
 to the other, irrespective of former experience in the 
 particular duties of his appointment. With the intro- 
 duction of Western naval vessels and military arma- 
 ments this eclectic system of filling offices is bound 
 in the long run to give way. Were bribery and corrup- 
 tion absent from official ranks, this complete system of 
 officialdom, with all its business-like methods of accom- 
 plishing work, would produce much more beneficent 
 results ; but a premium is put on ' squeezing,' as no 
 
 321 X
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 official is paid a sufficient salary to meet his necessary 
 expenses. Notwithstanding this, there are noble excep- 
 tions to the general rule of corruption, and these honest 
 mandarins meet with the honour of the people, who justly 
 appreciate such conduct. They have no other rewards but 
 this, and that of their own self-approving consciences, for 
 such probity brings no pecuniary benefits in its train ; in- 
 deed, it often lands the noble man in the lowest depths of 
 poverty. 
 
 'A Viceroy in the provinces gets as his yearly official salary about 
 100, and allowances amounting to .900 or 1,200 more ; but he has 
 to defray out of these sums all his yamen expenses, including 
 stationery, etc, salaries and food to his secretaries, writers, and A.D.C., 
 his body-guards and general retinue, to entertain his innumerable 
 guests, and send his annual tributes to the various high officials in the 
 capital, to say nothing of supporting his high station and his numerous 
 family [doubtless consisting of a number of wives and sons and 
 daughters] and relations. As a matter of fact, to meet his expenditure 
 he would require no less than ,10,000 or ,15,000 per annum. . . . 
 From these high magnates downwards, the Chinese officials are 
 underpaid in the same proportion, until we get to the lowest grade, 
 the petty mandarin, whose official pay is scarcely better than that of 
 a well-paid Hongkong coolie, and the soldiers and sailors who receive 
 four to ten shillings a month, subject oftentimes to various unjust 
 deductions and squeezes by their superiors.' 
 
 As an indication of a peculiarity in Chinese life, the 
 following extract, taken from a paper written by a 
 Chinese in the Asiatic Quarterly Review, is given. It 
 touches lightly on the people being allowed to a certain 
 extent to govern themselves so long as no flagrant breach 
 of the laws comes to light : 
 
 'The Central Government does not do its plain duty, and the 
 people have in consequence been compelled to evolve some sort of 
 local administration for themselves. The authorities do not interfere 
 with this, because it is not their interest to do so. It is a cheap and 
 easy way of getting some sort of administration carried on, while the 
 money which should go in administering the country is squandered in 
 other ways.' 
 
 GRAPES. Grapes are very poor in the South of China, 
 and but little cultivated or eaten. Those from Tientsin or 
 the North are much better, but still far behind the English 
 hot-house production in every respect. 
 
 322
 
 Hakkas 
 
 GUAVA. This fruit is very common in the South of 
 China. Its strong odour when fresh is much disliked by 
 many foreigners. Whatever may be the opinion concerning 
 the fruit itself, the jelly made from it is highly esteemed by 
 all. The Chinese have not yet taken up the manufacture 
 of this delicious article. 
 
 HAKKAS. Who the Hakkas are is a question of some 
 interest. The author remembers, when a boy, travelling 
 in the interior, and coming across a village where the 
 people spoke quite a different speech from that of the 
 other inhabitants round them ; it is like this that the 
 Hakkas are often situated in the midst of a population, 
 quite distinct from them in language, differing in customs, 
 to a slight extent in dress, and even in some of the idols 
 worshipped. Those found in the South of China were not 
 originally of that region, but their family genealogies show 
 that they have come from the North, being the last wave of 
 immigration from the North to the South, settling in some 
 cases in different places till they have finally established 
 themselves in their present surroundings. In certain 
 districts they have monopolised the whole country-side, as 
 in the prefecture of Ka-yin-chii, in the Canton province, 
 ' which is entirely peopled by Hakka,' while in other places 
 they form a half, a third, or more, of the population, being 
 interspersed among the Pun-tei, as the older Chinese 
 inhabitants are termed. In some places, partly peopled 
 by them, they have settled on the higher land, leaving the 
 Pun-tei to the low-lying lands, and from this circumstance 
 they have been called Chinese Highlanders by some, but 
 the name is a misnomer, as it is only capable of local 
 application, for in other places they are spread over the 
 plains as well as the hilly ground. They are not confined 
 to the Canton province, where they are considered to form 
 a third of the inhabitants, but are found in different 
 parts of China in Kwang-si, in Fuh-kien, and in Che- 
 kiang ; it has also been said that 'the chief part of 
 the Kiang-si province ' is Hakka, and that the language 
 
 323
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 spoken in the Capital of that province, Nan-chang-fu, is 
 Hakka. 
 
 Their language is more akin to Mandarin, being a half- 
 way house between Cantonese and Mandarin : ' the Hakka 
 dialect is the remnant of a phase of transition through 
 which the common Chinese language passed in developing 
 itself from Cantonese to Mandarin.' It is perhaps spoken 
 by about four millions of people in the Canton province 
 alone ; but for more about their speech we must refer the 
 reader to our article on Dialects in this book. The German 
 Missionaries and English Presbyterians have some most 
 successful missions among this interesting people. 
 
 The sexes are not so strictly separated in domestic life 
 as is the case with some of the other Chinese ; nor do the 
 women bind their feet. Perhaps this last might be taken 
 as an indication that they left their original home before 
 foot-binding came into vogue, and, not having practised it 
 at first, never took to it. 
 
 Taken as a whole, they are a poor people, having to 
 work hard for their living, though there are rich men 
 among them, as well as literary graduates. In dress the 
 women differ somewhat from the Cantonese, their jackets 
 being longer and reaching down nearly to their knees ; 
 their shoes have squarer toes ; they wear a peculiar hat 
 consisting of a broad brim with a valance of cloth round 
 it ; the bunch of hair, done up on the top of the head, 
 goes through the open crown. The women's ornaments 
 are somewhat dissimilar, such as their bangles, which are 
 made of thick silver, and of different patterns from those 
 in use among the Pun-tei' population. The earrings are 
 also of curious construction ; one kind, of silver, hooking 
 through the ear and thickening up to the other end, while 
 every short distance they are embossed with rings of silver ; 
 another kind of earring is formed of tassels of silk. The 
 Hakka children often have a ring of silver round their 
 neck ; Cantonese children do not wear the same, but one 
 or two of the attendants of the Chinese idols have such a 
 ring. 
 
 324
 
 Hakkas 
 
 In the Straits Settlements there were, in 1891, as many 
 as 16,736 Hakkas, out of a Chinese population of 227,989. 
 
 The Hakkas are a simple people, but very contentious, 
 and they show a litigious disposition in the few cases which 
 occur in the English Courts in Hongkong ; for there are 
 a great number of them in the Colony : the barbers, stone- 
 cutters, and foreign ladies' tailors being mostly Hakkas. 
 
 The word Hakka means ' strangers,' and refers to their 
 origin. In the Straits they are known as Khek, or Kehs, 
 so called from the Swatow and Amoy pronunciation of the 
 word Hak. 
 
 We give a short summary of the history of this curious 
 people as far as is at present known about them : 
 
 The North of China is ' the original home of the 
 Hakkas ' where, about the third century before Christ, they 
 were located in Shan-tung principally, as well as to a slight 
 extent in Shan-si, and Ngan-hwui. 
 
 They were subjected to a bloody persecution in the 
 time of the Ts'in dynasty (B.C. 249-209), and this started 
 them off on their travels. Settling in Ho-nan, Ngan-hwui, 
 and Kiang-si, some changed their names, but a more 
 prosperous time followed. Another persecution under 
 another Ts'in dynasty (A.D. 419) finally scattered them 
 entirely from that part of China. This resulted in a 
 general stampede ' which carried some of them even into 
 the mountainous regions in the south-east of Kiang-si and 
 to the very borders of the Fuh-kien province.' At the 
 beginning of the T'ang dynasty (A.D. 618) they were 
 compelled to move again, the majority took ' refuge in the 
 mountains of Fuh-kien, whilst a few hovered on the high 
 mountain chains which separate the Kiang-si and Kwang- 
 tung (Canton) provinces.' 
 
 Under the Sung dynasties (A.D. 960-1278) many became 
 soldiers, and thousands of them perished with the last 
 Chinese prince of the Southern Sung, in A.D. 1279, west of 
 Macao, when the Mongols were coming into power. 
 Under these last they ' made their first appearance within 
 the borders of the Canton province,' but not settling down 
 
 325
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 permanently here, or in large numbers, until the beginning 
 of the Ming dynasty (A.D. 1368), when the Fuh-kien 
 Hakkas, after centuries of residence there, were compelled 
 by disturbances to seek a new home. They came in such 
 overwhelming numbers ' that they drove everything before 
 them ' in the Ka-yin-chii prefecture, which has remained 
 their headquarters ever since. About the same time others 
 came from Kiang-si and settled to the north-west of the 
 Fuh-kienese Hakkas. From these places they have spread 
 more or less over different parts of the province. 
 
 The change of dynasty, which resulted in the present 
 house being established on the throne, caused them to spread 
 to the west and south-west of Canton. The nucleus of the 
 great T'ai-P'ing rebellion was formed of Hakkas from the 
 Canton province, and it was among them that it started. 
 During the present dynasty many have become soldiers and 
 have been employed by government, gaining admission to 
 the competitive examinations for both literary and military 
 degrees. A dreadful internecine strife, in which 1 50,000, at 
 least, perished, took place between the Hakkas and Pun-tefs 
 in the south-western districts of the Canton province, from 
 A.D. 1864 to 1866, and arms and even armed steamers, 
 were procured from Hongkong by both parties. Finally, 
 the Chinese Government took vigorous measures, the half- 
 hearted schemes hitherto pursued having proved ineffectual, 
 afrd, with the aid of money to assist immigration of the 
 Hakkas to waste lands, succeeded in getting some of them 
 to move to the province of Kwang-si, the Island of Hainan, 
 and other parts of the country. 
 
 Books recommended. A series of articles appeared in the Hongkong Daily 
 Press for 1866, dealing with the customs of Hakkas, from a native pen for 
 the most part ; there is also a more interesting set in ' Notes and Queries on 
 China and Japan,' vol. i. , written by Rev. E. J. Eitel, M.A., Ph.D., and 
 another article on their history by the same author in The China He view, 
 vol. ii. p. 160 ; also see an article by Rev. Ch. Piton, in same vol., p. 222. 
 As to books for the study of the language of the Hakkas, see Article on Books 
 for Learning Chinese. 
 
 HISTORY. Chinese history deserves more attention 
 than it has received from Western scholars ; it has both 
 
 326
 
 History 
 
 been unduly lauded and unduly depreciated. Like all 
 histories, it may be divided into the mythological, ancient, 
 and modern. 
 
 The line of demarcation between the first and second is 
 blurred and indistinct. The mythological period covers 
 from 45,000 to 500,000 years, and commences with ' the 
 opening of heaven and earth,' as the Chinese say. Different 
 accounts have been given of the creation, one of the most 
 popular is that of Pwan-ku, who is represented with 
 hammer and chisel bringing the rude masses of chaotic 
 matter into shape and form. His labours lasted for 18,000 
 years, and day by day he increased in stature six feet, while 
 the heavens rose, and the earth expanded and thickened. 
 His task completed, and the earth roughly fitted for its 
 future inhabitants, Pwan-ku by his death benefited the 
 world as much as by his life, for, as the story goes : 
 
 ' His head became mountains, his breath wind and clouds, and his 
 voice thunder ; his limbs were changed into the four poles, his veins 
 into rivers, his sinews into the undulations of the earth's surface, and 
 his flesh into fields ; his beard, like Berenice's hair, was turned into 
 stars, his skin and hair into herbs and trees, and his teeth, bones, and 
 marrow, into metals, rocks, and precious stones ; his dropping sweat 
 increased to rain, and lastly (nascitur ridiculns mus) the insects 
 which stuck to his body were transformed into people ! ' 
 
 The Chinese believe that there were giants in the earth 
 in those days, for Pwan-ku was followed by three sovereigns, 
 named the Celestial, the Terrestrial, and the Human, who 
 were of gigantic form. Another 18,000 years was occupied 
 by their reigns, during which numerous inventions and 
 improvements were effected for the good of mankind, such 
 as good government, the union of the sexes, and, what 
 must have been of paramount importance, men learned to eat 
 and drink, and sleep was invented. Two more sovereigns 
 succeeded these, Yu-chau and Sui-jin ; the latter brought 
 fire down from heaven, and mankind had the blessing of 
 cooked dishes. 
 
 The ancient or legendary history commences with 
 Fu-hsi : he and his four successors are called ' The Five 
 Sovereigns.' Now begins the 'highest antiquity' of the 
 
 327
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 Chinese, B.C. 2852, 2953, or 3322, according to different 
 authorities, which is about the same time as the commence- 
 ment of the Assyrian Monarchy. Amongst other blessings 
 conferred at this period was marriage ; the bounds of the 
 kingdom were extended to the eastern sea ; and Fu-hsi's 
 capital was in the present province of Ho-nan. His successor 
 wasShen-nung,who shortly changed hiscapital to Shan-tung. 
 Fu-hsi and his seven successors reigned 747 years, or an 
 average of 93 years each. This period has, of course, much 
 of the mythical about it, but standing out very prominently 
 is the reign of Huang Ti. He triumphed over his several 
 rivals, and divided his territory according to the decimal 
 system, as follows : 
 
 10 towns = i district. 
 
 10 districts = i department. 
 
 10 departments = i province. 
 10 provinces = the empire. 
 
 Weights and measures were also fixed on the same 
 principle. He is credited with having regulated the 
 calendar, and having introduced in the sixty-first year 
 of his reign the cycle of sixty years, which in its sexagenary 
 periods bridges over the thousands of years from that time 
 (B.C. 2637) to the present, namely, seventy-five revolutions 
 of sixty years. He made roads and built vessels for inland 
 waters, as well as for the open sea. He is looked up to as 
 the founder of the great empire, and his dominions are 
 said to have extended from Sha-chow, in the west, to the 
 sea ; and from the modern Pe-chih-li, in the north, to the 
 Yang-tsz-kiang in the south. He was succeeded by his 
 son, and the latter by his nephew, who is said to have 
 widened the borders of his empire to Tonquin in the 
 south, and to Manchuria in the north. 
 
 Two hundred and forty years (three reigns) intervened 
 between the periods of Huang Ti and a galaxy of China's 
 greatest wo'rthies, the Emperors Yao, Shun, and Yii. 
 Confucius and Mencius have held up to all future time 
 the perfect character and virtues of Yao and Shun 
 they are two of China's greatest sages. During this 
 period occurred the great deluge in China, which the 
 
 328
 
 History 
 
 best authorities concur in considering to be an overflow of 
 the Yellow River, possibly when changing its channel. 
 Years were spent in coping with this great disaster, 
 which must have wrought terrible havoc and destruction, 
 and unremitting toil and energy were expended in remedy- 
 ing it. It is about this time that the first Chinese settlers 
 arrived in their future home, namely B.C. 2200, driving 
 out the earlier settlers into more remote parts of the 
 country, where some of them are now still to be found 
 as aboriginal tribes. (See Article on Aborigines.) 
 
 The history preceding the time of Yao, it has been 
 suggested, must then be considered either as that of the 
 previous inhabitants of the land incorporated into Chinese 
 history, or their own previous history brought over with 
 them to their new home ; for though much, if not a 
 great portion, of what is narrated of the present period 
 under review is mythical, unsubstantial, and unreal, we 
 cannot help considering it the height of folly to agree 
 with the sceptical school of Chinese sinologues, who 
 reject everything because the greatest proportion is incred- 
 ible. It seems wiser, in our eyes, to believe that amidst 
 all the chaff, some grains of wheat are to be found. The 
 great Yii was the founder^of the Hsia dynasty (B.C. 2205- 
 1818) ; and with this period the throne becomes hereditary 
 having hitherto been more or less elective seventeen 
 rulers belonged to the same family ; one was dethroned by 
 the people, and another by a minister, but the heir-apparent 
 was preserved alive in a massacre that ensued 
 in an attempt to recover the throne, and, after man}' 
 vicissitudes ascended the throne of his ancestors. (The 
 whole population of China at this time was only between 
 one or two millions, forming, so it is supposed, stations 
 of colonists dotted about amidst the aborigines. The 
 greater part of China was then, except in Ho-nan and along 
 the Yellow River, overrun by luxuriant vegetation.' Wild 
 beasts abounded, and their trails formed the roads. In 
 certain senses life must have been a harder struggle for 
 existence than at the present day.) Yii's son \vas worthy 
 
 3 2 9
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 of such a sire, but the succeeding nine monarchs were of 
 so little account that but little record is left of their doings. 
 In B.C. 1818, Chieh-kuei and his consort spent all they 
 extorted in unbridled voluptuousness. A pond of wine 
 was formed, able to float a boat, at which 3,000 men 
 could drink at once ; when drunk, they were allowed to 
 attack the pyramids of delicate viands surrounding the 
 lake ; and the vilest orgies were held in the palace. Public 
 opinion was outraged, and one of the ministers, a descend- 
 ant of Huang Ti, assumed the throne, and founded the new 
 dynasty of Shang in B.C. 1766, which lasted for 644 years. 
 The Shu King contains fragments of the annals of this time 
 which show the high standard aimed at by China's rulers. 
 Twenty-eight sovereigns, good and bad, ascended the 
 throne, the fortunes of the State fluctuating in response to 
 the hand that held the helm, the wickedness culminating 
 in the person of Chou Hsin, the last of the line. Two 
 instances of his wanton cruelty may be noted : Several 
 women who were gathering shell-fish, bare-legged, on a 
 river's bank, one winter's morning, had their legs cut off, 
 that the inhuman monarch might see the marrow of those 
 who were so insusceptible to cold : and he, likewise, had 
 the heart of a bold minister, who reproved him, brought, 
 that he might see the difference between it and that of a 
 cowardly statesman. Such conduct in China naturally 
 produced its inevitable result, the passing away of the 
 dynasty ; and the founders of the Chou dynasty (the 
 Chou dynasty lasted from B.C. 1122 to B.C. 660) were the 
 agents in establishing a better order of things. Some 
 sinologues would blot out all that precedes this dynasty 
 and make this the starting-point of Chinese history. We 
 have already expressed our opinion on the subject. 
 
 The founders of the Chou dynasty, Wan Wang, Wu 
 Wang, and Chou Kung, ' are among the most distinguished 
 men of antiquity for their erudition, integrity, patriotism, 
 and inventions.' Wan Wang united the principal men 
 against the reign of misrule, but, dying, left to his son the 
 completion of the work he had begun, while the uncle of 
 
 330
 
 History 
 
 Wu Wang, Duke Chou, advised the actual sovereign. 
 These men were praised and held in the highest esteem by 
 Confucius. Notwithstanding all his ability and reverence 
 for the Supreme Ruler, Wu Wang committed a grand 
 political blunder by dividing the empire into petty states ; 
 and, harassed by attacks of the Tartars, a later sovereign, 
 P'ing Wang, committed an equally grave error of judgment 
 in abandoning his eastern capital to one of his nobles, to 
 form a buttress against the incursions of these nomads, 
 while he retired to the western capital, thus dividing it into 
 the Eastern and Western Chou. These fatal mistakes 
 paved the way for the weakening of the central authority ; 
 and the result, of the first especially, was a multiplicity of 
 feudal states little kingdoms in themselves, engaged in 
 internecine strife, the weaker succumbing to the stronger, 
 and all belittling the authority of the ruling sovereign. 
 The number of these states varied at different times, 125, 
 41, and 52 are numbers that are given. Begun so 
 auspiciously, this dynasty, like its predecessors, reached a 
 period of decadence, though it has the honour of having 
 lasted for 873 years, with 35 rulers, the longest time known 
 in history. 
 
 'A series of wars, intrigues, diplomacy, conspiracies, and plots, 
 much resembling what has been occurring in the empires of Europe 
 during the last 200 years, ensued.' ' The Chinese Empire consisted 
 of Shan-si, Ho-nan, and Shan-tung, and it gradually threw out 
 tentacles to embrace the rest of modern China, just as Rome threw 
 out its tentacles, from Italy, Greece, and Spain, to embrace parts of 
 Asia, Africa, Teutonia, and Sclavonia.' 
 
 Eunuchs probably followed the introduction of the 
 imperial harem at the beginning of this dynasty, the 
 tributary princes copying the bad example of the 
 emperors. 
 
 This period is, however, glorious for having given 
 birth to two of the most remarkable men the world has 
 ever seen, Lao-tsz and Confucius. Dissimilar as two men 
 could possibly be the one, to his contemporaries, a wild 
 visionary, the other a man who occupied himself with 
 ceremonies and moral precepts they were both destined 
 
 331
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 to exercise an important influence on the country. Nor 
 must we forget that Mencius lived during this time : 
 
 'There can be little doubt that the competition in arms, in 
 diplomacy, in military discipline, in material civilisation, and in 
 education, caused the Chinese of that period to reach a very high 
 level of ability, of skill, and of material progress. It was so, under 
 similar circumstances, in Greece, in Arabia, in Italy, and it is so in 
 modern Europe ; and we can no more wonder at the fond pride with 
 which the Chinese regard that famous time than we can at the Euro- 
 pean for his admiration of ancient Greece and Rome. Against Plato 
 and Aristotle place Confucius and Mencius ; whilst China had then 
 statesmen and orators not greatly inferior to those of antiquity.' 
 
 Millions were slain during the constant wars which 
 lasted during the whole of the Chou dynasty ; but out of 
 all this continued strife between the feudal princes them- 
 selves and between them and their own subjects grew the 
 material on which a greater China should be established, 
 for before the Chou, China was, without doubt, but of limited 
 extent. The end of that dynasty saw the southern border- 
 line of the Chinese Empire extended to the south of the 
 Yang-tsz. 
 
 Some foreign writers are again inclined to reject as in- 
 credible the greater part of this period, but when archaeo- 
 logical researches are carried on in a systematic manner in 
 China, confirmatory evidence of the Chinese records may 
 be found similar to the ten stone drums of the period B.C. 
 827. 
 
 One of the most powerful of the feudatory states, that 
 of Ts'in, subdued the sovereign ; and the son of the 
 conqueror assuming the imperial power, destroyed the last 
 vestiges of the famous Chou dynasty, but died in three 
 years, thus forming a dynasty with only one Emperor. 
 His son, ambitious and powerful, took the name of the first 
 Emperor, Shih Huang-ti (B.C. 220-204), and was the first 
 of the Ts'in dynasty. A man of consummate skill and 
 ability, he consolidated the empire, dividing it into thirty- 
 six provinces. His name is known throughout the habitable 
 world by the gigantic work with which it is associated, viz., 
 the Great Wall of China ; but this stupendous labour was 
 not accomplished entirely during his reign, as the first 
 
 332
 
 History 
 
 beginning of it seems to have been commenced in 240 B.C., 
 and even as late as the Ming dynasty, in the year A.D. 
 1547, between 250 and 300 miles of wall were added to 
 that then in existence. 
 
 Were this the only work that had received the impress 
 of his genius, his name would doubtless have lived to all 
 time as that of one of the great benefactors of the empire, 
 but the restless activity of this Napoleon of China also 
 expended its energy in the construction of palaces, public 
 edifices, canals, and roads. The latter, like the Roman 
 roads in England, remain during 2,000 years to this clay. 
 Again, had he contented himself with these engineering 
 triumphs and architectural undertakings, supplemented by 
 his vigorous sway, his name and exploits would have been 
 had in everlasting remembrance ; but one act of his has 
 blasted his reputation to all eternity in the eyes of the 
 Chinese; and they have nothing but ill to say of him. 
 Desirous of blotting out all records of a former China, and 
 wishing to pose before posterity as the First Emperor, he 
 ordered the destruction of all classical works by fire, as 
 well as of five hundred scholars. 
 
 The texts were recovered by transcribing them from 
 the retentive memories of the literati, and a few copies 
 were discovered which had been secreted. To a literary 
 nation like the Chinese, such a crime was never to be 
 forgotten, nor was it to be forgiven. 
 
 On a complete survey of all the facts of the case, the 
 Emperor, though the act was cruel, was not so much to 
 blame as the Chinese make out, for the integrity of the 
 empire was jeopardised by the literati. His son reigned 
 but seven years, and was unable to cope with the feudal 
 chieftains. With this period closes the ancient history of 
 China. 
 
 A soldier of fortune, a commander of the forces of one 
 of the chiefs, captured the capital, and started the Han 
 dynasty (B.C. 206 to A.D. 25) and the modern history of 
 China. 
 
 In the North of China, Men of Han (Han-jin) and Sons 
 
 333
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 of Han (Han-tzu), are still the names by which a Chinese 
 is known, thus perpetuating this glorious epoch, whether 
 looked at from a literary, historical, military, commercial, 
 or artistic point of view. Many public works were under- 
 taken, prominent among which were bridges. The capital, 
 being difficult of approach, had roads cut through 
 mountains, valleys rilled up, and suspension bridges built 
 to it. It was, the 'formative period of Chinese polity 
 and institutions, official and formal.' 
 
 The present competitive examinations for which China 
 has been so famous were started. (See Article on Examina- 
 tions.) A penal Code was drawn up, which has formed the 
 model for subsequent Codes in China. (See Article on Law.) 
 This dynasty is famous for the introduction of Buddhism ; 
 it was 'one of the most popular which ever ruled the 
 Chinese ' ; years of peace, during which the nation prospered, 
 alternated with incursions by the restless Tartars. The 
 modern Fuh-kien, Yun-nan, and Canton, etc., and the 
 greater part of Sz-chuen became Chinese provinces, other 
 territory was incorporated with that of the empire, and 
 tribute-bearers came from remote countries. Chinese armies 
 marched across Asia, and China occupied a foremost position 
 among the nations of the world. 
 
 The short reign of a usurper, who tried to found a 
 dynasty of his own, under the name of Sin, divides the Han 
 dynasty into the Western, or Former, and Eastern, or Later, 
 Han (the Eastern Han lasted from A.D. 25 to A.D. 220). 
 Commercial relations are supposed to have been established 
 with the Roman Empire at this period. The two Hans 
 lasted 467 years, with a total of twenty -eight monarchs. 
 
 Contemporaneous with the latter part of the Han, and 
 extending to a later period, viz., from A.D. 220 to 277, is 
 one of the most interesting periods of Chinese history, and 
 it has been immortalised and a halo of romance thrown 
 over it by the famous historical novel called 'The History 
 of the Three States.' Were any instance needed of the 
 utility of works of fiction, it might be found in this enter- 
 taining book which has spread a knowledge of what took 
 
 334
 
 History 
 
 place in those troublous times in a way in which no cut-and- 
 dried history, though it might have proved more veracious, 
 could possibly have done. 
 
 The Ts'in and Eastern Ts'in dynasties ruled for 1 55 years 
 under fifteen monarchs a time big with disasters and wars. 
 These two Ts'in dynasties lasted from A.D. 265 to A.I). 419. 
 A General then succeeded to the throne, and started the 
 dynasty of the Northern Sung, but, as at former times, the 
 country was divided among separate states, and it did not 
 always happen that the house which the historians have 
 considered as the legitimate one was the most powerful. 
 This observation also holds good with regard to some of 
 the succeeding periods as well. The dynasty ended in a 
 series of crimes, and the Ch'i followed it. Both of them 
 were uninteresting and inglorious, and the line was again 
 extinguished in murders. This brings us to the year A.D. 
 502. Three small dynasties succeeded, thus making five 
 between the Han and T'ang. 
 
 We come, in the T'ang dynasty (A.D. 618-907) to 
 another of those most illustrious periods in Chinese 
 history, which lasted for nearly three hundred years. 
 ' Under that beneficent imperial sway, the peasant tilled 
 his land and the trader sold his goods in peace. The 
 fiercer and more martial spirits found an outlet for 
 their energies in extending the western boundaries 
 of the empire, and the triumphs of war and the tran- 
 quil pleasures of peace were sung and hymned by some 
 of the greatest poets which China has produced.' It 
 augured well for this dynasty that its founder did 
 not cement the foundations of his empire with the 
 blood of his predecessors, as was so frequently the case 
 with those who started a new house in China. Of the 
 second Emperor, it has been well said that : ' no ruler of 
 any country has had sounder claims to the title of great.' 
 His military exploits, with but one exception, were always 
 attended with success, while his genius, military knowledge, 
 and courage, were tempered with the gentleness which 
 maketh great. He gave peace and settled government to 
 
 335
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 the troubled land, while his conquests ensured the same 
 to some of the neighbouring peoples. He patronised 
 literature ; and it was during his reign that the Nestorian 
 tablet was erected. (See Article on Missions Nestorians.) 
 It was during this dynasty that, after a century of struggle 
 and hard-bought victory, Corea became a possession of 
 China ; and so powerful was China that even Persia 
 solicited aid from the Middle Kingdom. 
 
 We find the empire placed at this time in what would 
 be considered an anomalous position for China to be in, 
 namely, under the rule of a woman ; this however, was not 
 so very uncommon, especially in ancient times ; but the 
 most notable instance of it was the Empress Wu, who 
 ruled with a masculine hand, and whose reign, notwith- 
 standing her cruelties, was one of benefit to the people for 
 more than forty years. 
 
 The siege of Tai-yuen claims notice from the use of 
 cannon for its defence, which threw twelve-pound stone 
 shot to the distance of three hundred paces. Civil wars and 
 troubles with Tibet and other neighbouring nations wars 
 which lasted for two centuries dimmed the lustre of the 
 earlier reigns, and the vigorous hands which held the 
 sceptre were succeeded by weaker ones unable to grasp the 
 kingly power with regal grip and pass it on intact to their 
 successors. The eunuchs arrogated to themselves the 
 character of king-makers, and took far too much on them- 
 selves, as has often been the case in the course of Chinese 
 history. The closing chapters of this period are melancholy 
 a desolate country, ruined towns, and the capital in 
 ashes. It had lasted for 259 years, and twenty emperors 
 sat on the throne. 
 
 The people of the South of China have immortalised 
 this dynasty, and marked the time of their civilisation and 
 incorporation into the Chinese rule, by calling themselves 
 T'ong-yan, or Men of T'ong. (In Mandarin, T'ang.) 
 
 In contrast to the dark ages of Europe, China presented 
 the brightest spectacle to the nations of the world. 
 Mohammedanism was introduced ; the Greek Emperor, 
 
 336
 
 History 
 
 Theodosius, sent an envoy, in A.I). 643, with presents of 
 precious stones ; as also did the Persians. 
 
 We next come to a series of petty dynasties ' The 
 Five Dynasties ' or ' Ten States ' (A.D. 9x37 to A.D. 960), as 
 the Chinese call them ; the centre of the empire on the 
 Yellow River formed their arena, while the rest of the 
 country was held by different Generals ' a period of wast- 
 ing and incessant civil war, discord, invasions, and commo- 
 tions.' The whole time occupied by them is less than sixty 
 years ; the most noteworthy thing was the invention of 
 printing. But see another account in Article on Printing. 
 
 The Sung (A.D. 960-1126) is another of the great 
 dynasties of Chinese history. It is divided into two, the 
 Sung and the Southern Sung. There was a greater 
 centralisation of power in the Supreme Government, the 
 almost autocratic power of the governors of the 
 provinces being curtailed, and more peaceful times 
 succeeded, though fierce wars were still waged with the 
 Tartars. The empire was reunited, and literature and the 
 arts of peace were cultivated. Chinese history contains 
 the record of many great names as shedding lustre on 
 this period ; the Sung dynasty, however, lacked the 
 military prowess to hold its own against the warlike 
 ancestors of the modern Manchu-Tartars, the Kins ; these 
 first acted as treacherous allies, then showed their true 
 colours, and eventually founded a kingdom (A.D. 1115-1234) 
 which was more powerful than that of the Sung ; and 
 the two held concurrent sway in China. 
 
 The rise of the Mongol power prevented what might 
 perhaps have happened five centuries sooner, namely, the 
 establishment of a Manchu dynasty over the South as well 
 as the North of China. Constant wars took place between 
 the Chinese and the Kins, the latter compelling the 
 conquered people to shave their heads, as at the present 
 day, until their waning power sank before the rising glory 
 of the Mongols, who overthrew them, though they offered a 
 stubborn resistance. The Sung ruler allied himself with 
 the Mongols, out of hatred to the Kins, but no sooner were 
 
 337 Y
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 the latter conquered, than it became evident that the 
 Chinese and Mongols could not rule together in China. 
 After a war carried on for many years (70), during which 
 parts of China were subdued, the Mongols, under different 
 leaders, but finally under Kublai Khan, gradually 
 conquered China. Among many memorable battles, the 
 siege of Sian-yang, which was defended for four years, is 
 worthy of note. After the conquest of Hankow and its 
 neighbouring cities, the conquerors proceeded in their 
 victorious course, subdued the country, and gained 
 possession of the Yang-tsz-kiang, while the Court retreated 
 to the south of China. Mementoes of the last Emperor's 
 flight are to be found in British territory on the mainland 
 opposite Hongkong, while the last scenes of his life 
 were enacted in one of the estuaries of the Canton River, 
 to the west of Macao, where, after a disastrous naval 
 encounter, one of his courtiers sprang into the sea with 
 him in his arms. Thus ended, after a possession of the 
 legitimate throne for a space of 309 years, the Sung 
 dynasty in its two divisions of Northern and Southern. 
 This House was not equal to that of T'ang. One very 
 interesting feature was the trial of socialistic principles, 
 after long discussion and opposition. They, however, were 
 not of such a nature as to be adapted for a successful issue, 
 and proved a failure, 
 
 'An elaborate experiment in Socialism was tried in the Province 
 of Shansi,' ' in the time of William the Conqueror ; the poor were 
 exempted from taxes, and to every man a plot of land and seed for 
 it was given, with the result that, according to the Chinese historio- 
 graphers, Shansi became a desert, no man caring to work.' 
 
 The Mongol sway (A.D. 1260-1341) was a foreign one 
 to the Chinese, and the latter being the superiors of the 
 former in civilisation, though not in military prowess, the 
 Mongols very naturally allowed the Chinese laws to remain 
 in force, and retained all the advantages of the superior 
 state of the Chinese. To those who are anxious to learn 
 fuller particulars of the ' vigorous and magnificent ' 
 sovereign, Kublai Khan, the gossipy pages of the 
 
 338
 
 History 
 
 mediaeval Venetian traveller will afford many details of in- 
 terest, both of the vast domains and the splendour of the 
 Court of the great Khan at Peking ; this city was first 
 made the capital, and it and the Court were at that time 
 the most splendid in the world. Not content with all his 
 victories on the mainland, this born conqueror resolved to 
 win Japan, but his efforts only met with disaster and defeat ; 
 his armies, though encountering a similar fate in Annam, 
 were successful in Burmah. He evinced a toleration of all 
 creeds. The rule of the invader (the Mongol dynasty was 
 named the Yuan) was not popular with the Chinese, but the 
 grandson, Timur, who succeeded him, endeavoured, with 
 some success, to make it more so. A number of princes of 
 the same house succeeded to the throne, whose reigns were 
 of short duration ; Mongols were put into office in disregard 
 of the Chinese rule of that event following upon literary 
 distinction. This innovation caused disgust to the natives ; 
 abortive insurrections followed one another, gaining 
 strength and force with each renewed effort, until at length 
 the Heaven-sent man arose, and the Mongols were finally 
 expelled, in A.D. 1368, after a sway of 89 years over China. 
 The dynasty had become effete and powerless through 
 luxury, misrule, and weakness, and had to give way to one 
 more vigorous and powerful a native dynasty that changed 
 its capital to Nanking. 
 
 The founder of the Ming dynasty (this dynasty lasted 
 from A.D. 1368 to 1628), having been left an orphan at 
 seventeen, and without any means of support, became a 
 Buddhist priest, according to some accounts. He afterwards 
 joined one of the rebel forces as a soldier, and was soon in 
 a forward position in the strife between the Chinese and 
 Mongols. In A.D. 1356, he made himself master of Nan- 
 king, and, continuing to extend his authority for some ten 
 years, he finally, in A.D. 1366, commenced ' the war for the 
 expulsion of the foreign rulers.' Very little opposition was 
 experienced, so that in a short time Peking was captured, 
 and the last of the Mongol emperors fled, though wars, 
 necessary for the consolidation of the power of the empire, 
 
 339
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 lasted for some years longer, the Mongols still giving 
 trouble by their continued raids. Hung Wu, as the first 
 Ming ruler was called, was a man of ability and prudence, 
 wisdom and moderation ; a man of peace, he promoted 
 literature, which the Mongol rulers, with the exception of 
 Kublai Khan, had foolishly slighted. Among many other 
 deeds conducive to this end, he caused libraries to be 
 placed in all the large cities ; not this act alone, but 
 many others, not least of which was the distribution 
 of salt, showed he had the welfare of his people at 
 heart. 
 
 Hung Wu was succeeded by his grandson, who, after a 
 short reign, was displaced by one of his uncles, who 
 reached the throne after a protracted and frightful civil 
 war. His son was Emperor for a few months only. The 
 Ming dynasty was more firmly established. Envoys 
 bearing presents came from Bengal and Malacca. The 
 son of the last Emperor succeeded to the throne, and 
 during his reign Tonquin, which had been a Chinese 
 province for ten years, was given up, owing to the diffi- 
 culty of its administration. The next reign but one gave 
 another forcible illustration of the ill effects of allowing a 
 eunuch to hold the reins of power, for, owing to the 
 incapacity of one of this class, the Emperor was well- 
 nigh brought to the verge of ruin, he even being taken 
 captive by the Tartars. 
 
 Periods of incessant warfare succeeded wars with the 
 Tartars, insurrections, seditions, movements, and disturb- 
 ances. One of the Emperors was foolish enough to start 
 a Council of Eunuchs a species of Chinese star-chamber, 
 but the public outcry against it was so loud that it was 
 suspended after five years. Another bad measure by the 
 same Emperor was the granting of lands to several 
 members of his family, thus tending to build up Feudal 
 States. This was one of the ' chief causes that operated 
 towards effecting the overthrow and destruction of the 
 Mings.' The Court was extravagant, and orders were 
 given to work the gold mines in Central China, but the 
 
 340
 
 History 
 
 result was next to nothing. Undertakings that were of 
 use must be noted, amongst which was the repair of the 
 Great Wall. 
 
 The difficulties that surrounded the Ming dynasty 
 were increasing : troubles in Cochin - China, further 
 wars with the Tartars, and raids by the Japanese, all 
 kept them occupied ; and the misfortunes culminated 
 in the long reign of Wan Li, when the troubles 
 began with the Manchus, though several Emperors suc- 
 ceeded to the throne before the final overthrow of the 
 native dynasty. The Portuguese arrived in China in 
 the reign of Chia-Ching (A.D. 1522-1567), and Jesuit mis- 
 sionaries in that of Wan Li (A.D. 1573-1620). 
 
 A small Tartar tribe, presided over by a chief of ability, 
 gathered strength and amalgamated its power with other 
 branches, until, after a long and desultory warfare, the 
 opportunity arose in the success of a rebel chieftain who 
 ascended the Chinese throne, and the last of the Ming 
 Emperors committed suicide. Wu San-kwai, a renowned 
 General, called in the aid of the Manchus to expel the 
 usurper, and they, in their turn, after a long contest of 
 forty years, succeeded in conquering the whole empire, 
 notwithstanding that several Ming princes were proclaimed 
 Emperors and fought against the conquerors. Numerous 
 uprisings also took place, but the Manchus were victorious 
 over all. A great part of the reign of the first Emperor 
 (A.D. 1644) of the Manchu, or Ts'ing dynasty, was occupied 
 by these wars ; and it is interesting as being the time 
 when several embassies from the West arrived in China. 
 Shun Chih, for that was the name which the first 
 sovereign of the Ts'ing dynasty was known by on the 
 throne, was succeeded by the renowned K'ang Hsi. These 
 two reigns were also famous for the exploits of the semi- 
 piratical and naval hero Koshinga, who expelled the 
 Dutch from Formosa. The Jesuit missionaries held high 
 positions, on account of their mathematical and astrono- 
 mical knowledge. A bold rebellion, headed by the re- 
 doubtable Wu San-kwai, complicated amongst other things 
 
 341
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 by a threat of the Mongols to attack China, was quelled 
 by the Manchus, and as a result Manchu garrisons were 
 placed in the cities, where they are still maintained at the 
 present day. Formosa was conquered, and a protracted 
 struggle took place with the Eleuths under Galdan, 
 but the Chinese army met with success. This was 
 followed by much trouble with the Central Asian 
 question ; and Chinese authority was rendered para- 
 mount in Tibet. K'ang Hsi reigned for sixty-one years, 
 during which period the Manchu rule over China and 
 the neighbouring States was firmly established. ' The 
 public acts and magnificent exploits of his reign . . . 
 show him wise, courageous, magnanimous and saga- 
 cious.' ' In the smallest affairs he seems to have been 
 truly great.' 
 
 His son Yung Cheng followed him, but his reign was 
 short compared with that of his father. He was a man 
 who cared not for military glory and aggrandisement ; his 
 reign is noted for the restrictions placed on the growing 
 power and influence of the Jesuit missionaries, and after 
 Ch'ien Lung succeeded to the throne they suffered perse- 
 cution. The first few years of this latter monarch's reign 
 were tranquil ; but they were succeeded by a long war in 
 Central Asia, where his authority was set up amongst the 
 turbulent tribes ; and for nearly a century and a half the 
 wisdom of Ch'ien Lung's able and far-seeing policy has 
 been visible in peaceful frontiers. Wars were also carried 
 on against the Burmese and the Miao-tze with success, 
 and also against the bravest of the Indian tribes the 
 Goorkhas in Nepaul who had attacked Tibet. An 
 insurrection in Formosa was put down, as well as some 
 others. This long reign of sixty years is also noted 
 for the close relations that were entered into between 
 China and the nations of Europe. We cannot leave 
 our short summary of some of the principal events of 
 this period without adding our tribute to the universal 
 voice of praise of the energy and thoroughness of this 
 Emperor, and the assiduity with which he devoted him- 
 
 342
 
 History 
 
 self to the subjects requiring his attention. The Manchu 
 power was brought to the zenith of its glory, and had 
 as able rulers always sat on the throne as K'ang Hsi 
 and Ch'ien Lung, much of the misery of later days might 
 have been prevented. 
 
 The succeeding reign, that of Chia Ch'ing was not one 
 of peace and quiet : there were secret combinations against 
 the Government, and insurrections and piracies abounded ; 
 a formidable force of pirates infested the coast of Kwang- 
 tung for some years ; the Portuguese assisted the Chinese 
 in attacking them, but the two piratical leaders quarrelled, 
 and finally submitted themselves to the Imperial Govern- 
 ment. 
 
 Chia Ch'ing's son Tao Kuang was a more energetic and 
 just ruler than his father. Many local insurrections and 
 disasters took place, among which was the first war with 
 England, which, however, resulted in one good thing, the 
 opening of China to foreign trade. The frightful T'ai P'ing 
 rebellion broke out at the close of this sovereign's reign, 
 and demanded the prowess of a K'ang Hsi or Ch'ien Lung 
 to subdue it, but Hsien Feng, who succeeded Tao Kuang, 
 was not cast in the same mould as his grandfather, or great- 
 great-grandfather. A second war with England took place, 
 and resulted in the country being still further opened to 
 Western nations. 
 
 In the next reign, that of T'ung Chih, the great 
 T'ai-P'ing rebellion was subdued, Chinese Gordon having 
 a very great share in the matter ; this rebellion had 
 lasted from A.D. 1850 to 1864 and had desolated 
 several provinces. A Mohammedan rising was also 
 quelled ; and diplomatic intercourse was started with 
 the Treaty Powers. 
 
 His cousin succeeded T'ung Chih, under the style of 
 Kuang Hsu. As far as can be judged by the imperfect 
 light of the historic past, China is better governed now, 
 under the present dynasty, than she has ever been. A slow 
 progress towards Western civilisation has commenced : the 
 construction of railways has begun ; cotton mills have been 
 
 343
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 established ; mints have been opened for the coining of 
 copper and silver after the Western fashion ; a navy of 
 foreign-built vessels was formerly, and is now being again 
 acquired ; bodies of troops, trained in the European style ; 
 arsenals, started ; and various other minor improvements 
 effected. But the almost universal corruption and in- 
 efficiency of the mandarins has resulted in a series of 
 disastrous defeats of the army and navy, the results of 
 which amongst other things were seen in the loss of the 
 magnificent Island of Formosa, the dismantling of Port 
 Arthur, and in the destruction or taking of the vessels of 
 the Northern Fleet by the Japanese. These were followed 
 by the Boxer rising, fomented by the Chinese Government 
 or officials, finally culminating in the siege of the foreign 
 legations in the heart of the capital by the Boxers and 
 Chinese soldiery, and massacres of missionaries and foreign 
 residents and native converts in the North. Since this, 
 signs of progress are visible, and yet again signs of retro- 
 gression to be followed by forward ' spurts.' The Audience 
 Question appears to have been at last settled (See 
 Article on Audience). All who are interested in the 
 future of this mighty empire are watching with keen 
 eyes every sign of progress, now rejoicing in indica- 
 tions of foresight and prudence on the part of her 
 rulers, and now lamenting the apparent ineptitude and 
 inability to grasp the position of affairs on the part of 
 those in power. The future alone will show how the 
 balance will turn. 
 
 What the results of the present condition of affairs will 
 be is hard to say. Russia is extending her hold over 
 Manchuria and holds Port Arthur ; Germany has Kiao- 
 chau ; Great Britain, Weihaiwei ; France, Kwongchau- 
 wan. ' Spheres of influence,' and ' open doors,' and different 
 plans for building up or upsetting the present house are 
 talked about by different persons, but no one knows what 
 will happen next. The latest move, the Anglo-Japanese 
 Alliance, is for the purpose of preserving the integrity 
 of the Chinese Empire : a politically polite way of saying 
 
 344
 
 History 
 
 ' hands off' to all who would desire the dismemberment of 
 China. 
 
 We have thus traced in the shortest manner possible the 
 history of the Chinese nation from a mythological period 
 to a mythical and semi-mythical one, until, under the 
 House of Chou, the facts of Chinese history are more 
 reliable. We have seen the ebb and flow of dynastic 
 changes ; how, with the new vigour of a fresh dynasty, the 
 power of China was extended for a few centuries, to be 
 succeeded, when effete rulers followed, by an ebb of 
 dominion and influence, until, with each successive change, 
 a higher tide of power reclaimed what weak hands had lost, 
 and the boundaries of the empire were again expanded 
 with each rise of fortune to a greater extent : how the 
 Feudal States of China, with a nominal paramount lord, 
 were succeeded by ' the foundations of a coherent empire ' 
 under the first Emperor of Ts'in ; next, we have seen ' the 
 stately House of Han,' ' making vast strides towards a more 
 settled state of prosperity and civilisation ' ; the troublous 
 times of the Three States and other dynasties from which 
 China rose in the brilliant epoch of the T'ang ; another 
 ebb and transition period of the Five Dynasties, when the 
 recurring tide of prosperity came in with the Sung, to be 
 followed by an efflux, and another stormy wave of con- 
 quest under the Mongols, which quickly retired, to return, 
 with renewed force, with the great Ming dynasty on its 
 crest again, to again retire, and with fresh energy, to once 
 more return with the conquering Manchu. 
 
 Books recommended. Boulger's 'History of China,'; 'Historic China 
 and other Sketches,' by Prof. H. A. Giles. "NVilliams's ' Middle Kingdom,' 
 Ross's 'Corea,' and the same authors 'History of the Manchus.' ' Historical 
 Atlas of the Chinese Empire from the earliest times down to the close of the 
 Ming Dynasty,' by E. L. Oxenham, gives maps of China at different periods, 
 and contains a most interesting summary of Chinese history. To all of those 
 we are more or less indebted in the preparation of this paper. Numerous 
 sketches of dilferent epochs of Chinese History will be found treated of in 
 different articles in the China Review, Missionary Recorder and The Enst 
 of ASM ; amongst these, particularly note 'China in the Light of History,' 
 by Rev. E. Faber, Dr. Theol : A series of articles translated from the German 
 and published in the Chinese Recorder, vol. xxvii. ' Macgowan's History of 
 China' is one of the latest histories of China. The historic portion of Williams's 
 ' Middle Kingdom ' has also been published separately as a volume. 
 
 345
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 HORNBILLS:- 
 
 ' These answer to the "Toucans" of America. Their apparently 
 cumbrous beaks and helmets are in reality very light, only one species 
 having the portion above the head solid. It is from this a 
 yellow, wax-hke-looking substance that the Chinese carve brooches, 
 earrings, etc.' 
 
 HOK-LO. This name is applied to the inhabitants of 
 certain parts of the north-eastern portion of the Canton 
 province, who differ in speech, manners, and customs, from 
 the rest of the population. Their language (See Article on 
 Dialects, under the word Swatow) is near akin to the Fuh- 
 kienese, but has several dialects. The Swatow is spoken 
 at that port, and the Hof-fung and the Luk-fung in the 
 districts of country so named, and some other dialects 
 would probably be discovered were the subject fully 
 examined into. 
 
 The Hok-lo occupy the whole of some districts, and 
 are scattered through other parts, having migrated from 
 the Fuh-kien province a few centuries since. It is esti- 
 mated that within the Canton province there are about 
 three million Hok-lo speakers. There are some traces 
 of a very ancient origin in this speech ; it is not so 
 soft and musical as the Cantonese, having many nasal 
 twangs. 
 
 In dress they differ slightly from the Cantonese ; the 
 jackets of the men are rather longer at times, and they 
 often, in common with the Fuh-kienese, wear turbans. 
 They are a rougher, wilder set of men than the Cantonese. 
 There are other points of difference between them, into 
 which we cannot enter. 
 
 The American Baptist and English Presbyterian 
 Missions have many stations in the Hok-lo country. 
 
 There are a number of Hok-lo in Hongkong, many of 
 the chair coolies belonging to that part of the country. 
 They make good bearers, being physically stronger than 
 the natives further south. Many Hok-lo have gone 
 abroad, and are to be found in different parts of the 
 world. By the census of 1891 there were 43,791 Teo 
 
 346
 
 Infanticide 
 
 Chews in the Straits Settlements : Teo Chews is the term 
 applied generally to them in Singapore, Penang, and the 
 Malay States, while Hok-lo is the name by which they are 
 generally known by the Cantonese speakers in China ; the 
 former name being derived from the Departmental city of 
 Ch'ao Chao fu (in the local dialect Tfii Chfu fu, or Teo Chew 
 fu), to which the different districts, from which many of the 
 Hok-los come, belong ; while Hok-lo means Men from 
 the Fuk (or, as it is locally, Hok) province, i.e. Fuh-kien 
 province. The inhabitants of this portion of the Canton 
 province, as we have already said, having been settlers 
 from that, the Fuh-kien, province. 
 
 INFANTICIDE. The longer one lives in China the 
 more one feels the necessity for caution in saying what 
 does and what does not exist here. In our younger days 
 we have been guilty of dogmatically asserting that such 
 and such things were not done in China, to be sometimes 
 confuted in later years by the evidence of our own eyes 
 and ears ; nor are we singular in this respect, as doubtless 
 many other old residents in China could testify. Some 
 authors have been egregious sinners in thus writing about 
 a small portion of China in which they have resided : they 
 have judged of the whole of this vast empire, with its 
 diverse inhabitants, manners and customs, from a small 
 part of it, reversing the mathematical axiom that the 
 whole contains its parts, into 'one small part contains the 
 whole.' 
 
 About no subject is this perhaps more strikingly true 
 than that of infanticide, for what holds perfectly good of 
 one small district, is entirely false when applied to other 
 large tracts. Also what happens at one time, an excep- 
 tional period possibly, may not happen again, even in the 
 same district, for years. 
 
 To form an approximately correct estimate of this evil 
 and crime in China, a systematically carried out investiga- 
 tion, extending over a number of years, all over the land, 
 would be necessary. 
 
 347
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 To premise, as a general statement, it may be said that 
 in certain parts of the empire, and (or) at certain times, this 
 crime is only too alarmingly practised. One writer says, 
 ' thousands of female babies are destroyed every year.' 
 
 That it is prevalent in some regions it is useless to deny. 
 There is a quasi sanction given to it under certain circum- 
 stances by the tale of one who had not sufficient to support 
 his aged parent and his own family, and who thereupon 
 came to the resolve, with his wife, that the infant should be 
 sacrificed in order to have enough for its grandparent. 
 Taking the child for the purpose of burying it alive, the 
 misguided and wicked parent but, according to Chinese 
 ideas, most dutiful son was rewarded by Heaven, and 
 restrained from this murderous act of filial piety by dis- 
 covering a pot of gold in the hole he had dug for his own 
 offspring. And this is held up as an example, it being one 
 of the twenty-four moral (?) tales to encourage others to a 
 performance of filial duties. What wonder if some follow 
 the example thus held up to them. Were it not also a 
 known fact that infanticides take place, proof of it might 
 be found in the proclamations which are sometimes issued 
 against it by the officials. And even another corroboration 
 of its practice may be found in the Chinese mothers, who 
 have acknowledged putting their own children out of the 
 way. Again the author has a small tract issued under 
 the imprimatur of the Goddess of Mercy, which contains 
 illustrations of the methods of committing the crime, and 
 inveighing against it. 
 
 On the other hand, it must not be supposed that all the 
 dead bodies of children that float down the rivers are the 
 victims of infanticide, nor that those which are found ex- 
 posed at the road-side or on the hills are necessarily thrown 
 there by heartless hands, for the Chinese do not go to the 
 trouble of burying little children with the same care that 
 they do older people, and the dead children are often 
 thrown into the river, or cast out in the country. The 
 mortality amongst infants in China is awful. With death 
 statistics in Hongkong, if reliable, it is possible to form 
 
 348
 
 Infanticide 
 
 some idea of what it must be in China where no statistics 
 are available. Out of 1,000 Chinese infants born in this 
 Colony, only 72 survived for a period of twelve months in 
 1900. 
 
 One of the great causes of infanticide is poverty ; 
 another is the low estimation in which girls are held, and 
 all the evils which necessarily ensue from such an inferior 
 position in the social status, for it is seldom, indeed rarely, 
 that boys are killed ; and that brings us to another reason, 
 for if a boy is made away with, it is probably due to some 
 physical defect, this reason also causing the death of some 
 girls. 
 
 ' In his pamphlet on "The Diseases of China," Dr. Dudgeon says 
 (on p. 56) : " One thing is certain, infanticide does not prevail to the 
 extent so generally believed among us ; and in the North, whence 
 Europe derived her ideas chiefly from the Jesuits of the last century, 
 it does not exist at all." These remarks do not apply to Shan-si, 
 where the practice is quite common. The teachers deny that female 
 infants are thus killed, but the common people readily admit that they 
 destroy many of their girl babies. There are comparatively few old 
 women of the poorer classes who have not been guilty of this crime. 
 The writer himself is aware of some instances of the kind.' 
 
 ' It has been calculated that of every thousand girls born in China, 
 sixteen are smothered at birth, to avoid the " calamity and disgrace " 
 of another girl in the house.' 
 
 In the neighbourhood of Hankow there are many cases 
 of it among the poor and rural population. It is also said 
 to be prevalent among the Hakkas. It is practised in 
 Canton, but is much rarer there than in some places. It 
 seems to prevail in certain parts of the Fuh-kien province. 
 From enquiries made in some villages in that part of the 
 country, it was ascertained that an average of 40 per cent, 
 of the girls were thus murdered, as we call it, but neither 
 Chinese law nor opinion seem to consider it as such. 
 
 At the prefectural city of Ch'ao Chau, near Swatow, the 
 author saw, outside the walls of the city, a basket hanging 
 against a wall, looking from a distance something like a 
 cradle. A piece of matting was fastened above it, forming 
 a sort of pent-roof to shelter it from the rain and sun. In 
 this basket, is put any baby whom its parents do not care 
 to preserve, and should any charitable person be so dis- 
 
 349
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 posed, he, or she, may lift out the forsaken infant and take 
 it home. Failing such rescue, the child ultimately meets 
 the fate of so many of the inhabitants of babydom in China. 
 The provision made for infanticide in a large and important 
 departmental city near Amoy is not so merciful, as it is 
 simply a large hole in the city wall into which the infant is 
 cast. In the north of China, baby towers are provided, 
 perhaps amongst other reasons, for the same purpose, 
 though they are principally used for receiving the 
 dead bodies of infants. Occasionally a separate hole is 
 provided on different sides of the tower to keep the sexes 
 distinct, and thus prevent any incentives to immorality 
 amongst the ghosts of the little babies ! No wonder the 
 Chinese consider themselves so far superior to us in 
 this all-important virtue of morality ! 
 
 INSECTS. Insect life is rampant in China. To one 
 who is accustomed to its abundance in the East, it appears 
 as if man had to look for it in the West, the opposite being 
 the case in China ; here the insects find out the man ; for 
 hide as he may from their advances, they follow him every- 
 where, and all his subterfuges to avoid them are unavailing. 
 There is no need for the enthusiastic entomologist to look 
 under stones for beetles, for beetles abound everywhere ; 
 nor need he sally forth at night to catch moths, the moths 
 come, attracted by his lamp, into the room to him. And 
 when the white ants are in full flight, they fly in at the open 
 window in such quantities that the table is soon littered 
 with the wings which the pupa-like insects drop, without 
 the least reluctance, at the slightest hint : they come off in 
 the hands, they are shed on the lamp-globes, anywhere and 
 everywhere, while the wretched little creatures crawl over 
 your book or paper, and, if the lamp is not too attractive, 
 they proceed to explore the genus homo with a persistency 
 worthy of a better cause. A grand thing is to set the 
 lamps into large basins of water, when hundreds of them 
 lose their lives in the moats which thus surround the 
 lights. 
 
 350
 
 Insects 
 
 And these same white ants, when in another stage of 
 their existence, are a worse nuisance than ever, for they arc 
 not simply an annoyance then, but a pest. Nothing is 
 secure from their depredations. Have you a trunk full of 
 valuable documents? You may, after keeping them for 
 years intact, suddenly discover, on opening the trunk, that 
 the papers and pamphlets have been transformed into 
 trash, glued together into one mass and riddled with the 
 tunnelled roads of these indefatigable workers in the dark. 
 Are you fond of books and is your collection a valuable 
 and priceless one of old editions ? With all your care, you 
 may discover some day that these respecters of nothing 
 have eaten up through one of the legs of your bookcase, 
 and run riot here and there throughout all the accumulated 
 treasure of years. Is there anything left untouched by 
 white ants ? One's house is attacked in the flooring and 
 the beams of the roof, and suddenly and unexpectedly 
 collapses ; clothing, carefully packed away for future use, 
 is found, when wanted, to be eaten into holes. 
 
 The only fault to be found with the white ant is, that 
 he has a superabundance of energy that is misapplied, but 
 unfortunately misapplied energy is not appreciated by 
 man, and thwarts his plans in a most aggravating manner. 
 Were the white ant amenable to instruction, he might be 
 yoked in the service of man instead of being his antagonist ; 
 but he has views of his own on the subject, and probably 
 prefers to work on his own lines, instead of drilling holes in 
 wood for the carpenter, or making button-holes for the 
 seamstress. 
 
 From white ants to ants is not a far cry, though they 
 are not relations, not even thirty-second cousins. We want 
 a Sir John Lubbock to study Chinese ants. We do not 
 know how many species there are, but the most casual 
 observer cannot help noticing that, at the very least, there 
 are several : black ants and red ants, tiny ants, small black 
 ants and large black ants. In a country where everyone 
 and everything is busy, the ants do not prove an exception 
 to their world-wide reputation for diligence. It is most
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 interesting to notice how these busy little scavengers 
 perform their work ; a dead cockroach will not lie long on 
 the floor before it begins to move, and an investigation 
 will show that tens of ants are supporting it and carrying 
 it off; also how carefully and systematically they bring up 
 the earth from the neat little holes, which are occasionally 
 seen in one's path ; one by one they bring up a small piece, 
 and, climbing up on the encircling mound, select a little 
 hollow, or what seems to be a suitable spot to them, to 
 deposit it not dumping it down just anywhere. All sorts 
 of devices have to be resorted to, to keep these industrious 
 little creatures out of the stores : the sugar is black with 
 them, and all sorts of edibles are attacked. To keep them 
 away, the feet of cupboards are set in bowls of water, but 
 this water must be often changed, else a scum will coat 
 the top, and the ants cross over as human beings would 
 on ice. 
 
 Cockroaches are even worse plagues than ants in many 
 places. They swarm everywhere, hiding in the daytime 
 in any dark corner, whence they emerge and run riot after 
 dark, running and flying all over the room, much to one's 
 discomfort. They attack clothing, especially that with 
 starch in it, as well as edibles, and books. Woe betide the 
 new-bought book, nicely bound in cloth, lying on your 
 table ; its fine binding will be blotched all over with stains 
 (if you have not already given it a dose or two of anti- 
 cockroach varnish), and a week of such treatment will 
 reduce the volume to so disreputable a condition, that it 
 will look as if a heavy shower of rain had besprinkled it. 
 The female cockroach displays a considerable amount of 
 ingenuity in her endeavours to hide her eggs. These 
 consist of an oblong case, with one edge serrated, of about 
 half or three-quarters of an inch in length and about three 
 or four times as long as broad. This is naturally of a dark, 
 brownish colour ; but if it is laid on a white pith hat, the 
 mother collects some of the whiting off the hat and 
 partially covers the egg-case with it to conceal it ; and to 
 a lesser degree this is also done where the colour of the 
 
 352
 
 Insects 
 
 substance on which the egg is deposited differs much from 
 that of the egg-case itself. 
 
 Insect life knows no rest in the East. Speak not of the 
 silent voices of the night here ! The voices of the night are 
 as many as the day, if not more. This is particularly 
 noticeable to the newcomer on his voyage out, when 
 perhaps he spends a night on shore at Singapore, and first 
 realises that insect life in the East is more intense, more 
 persistent, and universally prevalent. 
 
 We have seen a book called ' Songs in the Night,' but 
 the insect world in Eastern countries provides incessant 
 ' songs without words,' both day and night. 
 
 A walk along a country road after nightfall is through 
 a perfect chorus of chirps and chips, scissors grinding but 
 sufficient words have not yet been invented in the English 
 language to describe accurately all the shrill little voices, 
 pitched in different keys ; soprano, alto, and tenor are 
 present, and, to make up for the want of a bass, the bull- 
 frogs in the neighbouring pond join in a deep, full, well- 
 sustained note, brought out at regular intervals. 
 
 All else being quiet, doubtless the insects have a better 
 chance of being heard. But the day is not silent either. 
 It is sufficient to mention the cicada, an insect about an 
 inch and a half to two inches long. The outline of its shape 
 is somewhat like that of the shot of a breech-loading 
 cannon, for its head is nearly straight across, and its 
 abdomen tapers to a point. In colour it is black, touched 
 with brownish-orange, especially on its under surface; it has 
 four transparent gauze wings, two long, and two short, and 
 absurdly small antennae for an insect of its size ; as to its 
 voice well, to put it mildly, it is not pleasant, though we 
 read in a recent book of travels in Africa a charming 
 account of its angelic notes ! Solitude must have had a 
 soothing effect on the family of cicadas which settled in 
 that dark land, and perhaps the cruel treatment they 
 receive from the Chinese boys has produced an irritating 
 one on those in the Celestial Land ; for young John 
 Chinaman delights, with a long bamboo pole, some 
 
 353 z
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 sticky substance having been placed on the end, to poke 
 among the upper branches of the trees and capture the 
 insect, which then does duty as a rattle, protesting with his 
 strident ' sz-sz-sz-sz ' when he is fingered ; but it is when 
 he is at liberty ' on the tree-top ' that he is in full voice 
 no other insect approaches him in that respect and, as if 
 apparently rejoicing in a knowledge of what his voice is 
 capable of, he starts off with a preliminary flourish, and 
 then settles down to business. This ear-deafening din is 
 kept up for several minutes (its distressing nature is 
 intensified if half a dozen cicadas are within earshot), then, 
 after a short rest, he starts off again with a wearying itera- 
 tion through the hot hours of the day. It is only the male 
 which ' possesses the musical apparatus, consisting of two 
 membranes over air-tubes in its throat, with hollow-sound- 
 ing cavities behind each, which increase the volume of its 
 notes.' (See Article on Cicada.) 
 
 But time, as well as space, would fail us to bring all the 
 insect creation found in China before our readers : the 
 useful silkworms ; atlas moths, nearly as large as two palms 
 of the hands joined together; smaller moths, quaint in 
 contrasts of colours unusual in the West in such insects ; 
 tiny mites of ones like little pieces of marbled paper flying 
 about ; lovely butterflies like bits of rainbow floating in the 
 breeze, and fluttering over the flowers ; gorgeous beetles of 
 all shapes and sizes ; and the ubiquitous mosquito (of 
 which there must be a good many species out of the 1 50 
 species which are known to exist in the world), the plague 
 of one's nights what aggravated torture and torment it is 
 capable of inflicting ! then the hosts of grasshoppers of all 
 sizes and modification of shape and habits, some tiny 
 morsels about a quarter of an inch in length which walk 
 sideways. What myriads there are of them all ! Where 
 do all these insects come from, and where do they all go ? 
 Is it any wonder with their ingenious habits, their wonder- 
 ful adaptation to their surroundings, their marvellous instinct, 
 their wondrous beauty is it any wonder, we repeat, with 
 all these, that the Oriental has endowed them with 
 
 354
 
 Insects 
 
 immortality, and has given them a place in future stages of 
 existence ? 
 
 As to the insects which it is not considered polite to 
 mention in respectable society, they also abound, and the 
 Chinese appear to have no scruples in speaking of them, 
 or in allowing them board and lodging free of expense, 
 though they try to keep down over-population by a 
 judicious thinning-out. The means employed to this end 
 are not always pleasant to a squeamish taste, as the 
 operation is carried on, especially by coolies and beggars, 
 in the open street, the lowest classes using their teeth as 
 the executioners, for the Chinese do not feel any shame at 
 their persons being inhabited. 
 
 As to the Westerner in China, personal contact with 
 these parasites is perhaps, if anything, less common even 
 than in England, where a ride in a London 'bus may 
 introduce one to a stray member of their community, 
 nolens volens, 
 
 With the advance of medical science of late years it 
 becomes more and more apparent that man has more to 
 dread from insects, such as the mosquito, than the mere 
 discomfort of its bite or its buzz ; for it is now known that 
 the mosquito spreads malaria. (See Article on Mosquito.) 
 
 ' Man . . . may become infected by drinking water contaminated 
 by the mosquito, or, and much more frequently, by inhaling the dust 
 of the mud of dried-up mosquito-haunted pools ; or in some similar 
 way.' ' The later researches of Surgeon Ross of the British army 
 have not only proven that malaria can be acquired from a mosquito 
 bite, but that the malaria parasite is mostly one of insects and only 
 an occasional visitor to man. Particular species of malaria parasites 
 even demand particular species of mosquitoes a fact at least partly 
 explaining apparent vagaries in the distribution of malaria. When all 
 is known, Europeans may be able to live in climates now made 
 deadly by this pest.' 
 
 Flies and other insects may likewise help to spread that 
 awful disease the plague. 
 
 ' One can understand . . . how lice, fleas, bugs, and perhaps flies 
 may act as carriers of the virus from person to person, inserting it 
 with their bites. Yersin found that the flies in his Hongkong plague 
 laboratory died in great numbers, their bodies being crowded with 
 the specific bacillus. Sablonowski . . . remarked that during the 
 
 355
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 Mesopotamia!! epidemic (in 1884) a certain species of fly appeared 
 and disappeared concurrently with the plague ; he considered that 
 this insect was an active agent in spreading the disease.' 
 
 ' Mosquitoes infect water with the germs of the disease, to prevent 
 it we have to keep the mosquitoes down, to prevent their preying on 
 already infected individuals, or, and this is the simple plan, to keep 
 them from getting access to our drinking water, or by boiling or 
 filtration to kill the germs which our drinking water may contain.' 
 
 Nor is the deadly list complete of the dreaded diseases 
 which this apparently harmless, though troublesome, insect, 
 the mosquito, may disseminate, for elephantiasis is to be 
 considered as another. 
 
 And now, still later, it has been discovered that the 
 mosquito carries the germs of yellow fever. 
 
 Books recommended. ' Natural History of the Insects of China, containing 
 upwards of two hundred and twenty Figures and Descriptions,' liy E. Donovan, 
 F.L.S., etc. See Hanson's 'Tropical Diseases,' p. 17, 153. Also see pages 
 456-460 for an account of the way the mosquito is conjectured to infect man 
 with the filar ia sanguinis hominis. 
 
 ISINGLASS. A large quantity of isinglass is con- 
 sumed in China, under the name of fish-maws. It is used 
 to make soups, and is an article of considerable export 
 from Malaya. Chinese traders also send large quantities 
 from the Straits to China. 
 
 Dennys gives the names of the following fish as furnish- 
 ing this isinglass, Arius anus, A. militarius, A. truncatus, 
 Johnius dr acanthus, Lates heptadactylus, Lobotes erate, 
 Otholithus argenteus, Otolitus brauritus, Otholitus inaculatus, 
 O. ruber } Polynemus indicus. 
 
 JADE. The mineral held in the highest estimation in 
 China is jade. Under the name yuk (pronounced yook) 
 the Chinese not only include ' the three varieties of the 
 silicate of alumina called jade, nephrite, and jadeite by 
 mineralogists,' but they also apply the same term to a 
 number of different stones. Sonorousness and colour are 
 the two qualities which enhance its value, the best coming 
 from Khoten and Yunnan. It is also supplied to China by 
 
 356
 
 Jade 
 
 the Burmese mines, ' through Bhamo, which is the entrepot 
 for the trade.' 
 
 ' A greenish-white colour is the most highly prized.' 
 Williams gives the following description of jade : 
 
 ' Its colour is usually a greenish-white, or grayish-green and dark 
 grass-green ; internally it is scarcely glimmering. Its fracture is 
 splintery ; splinters white ; mass semi-transparent and cloudy ; it 
 scratches glass strongly, and can itself generally be scratched by 
 flint or quartz, but while not excessively hard, it is remarkable for 
 toughness. The stone when freshly broken is less hard than after a 
 short exposure. Specific gravity from 2*9 to 3-1.' 
 
 The Chinese look upon jade as ' emblematical of most 
 of the virtues ' ; and from the excessive admiration they 
 have for it, it is natural that they should have largely used 
 it in their ceremonious language ; for instance, in address- 
 ing a man, his daughter is styled ' a jade girl,' his hand is 
 ' a jade hand ' ; ' a jade foot ' means his coming, or ' I hope 
 you will transfer your jade ' means ' I hope you will 
 come,' etc. 
 
 It is the ambition of every girl and woman, amongst 
 the Cantonese, to have a pair of jade-stone drops for her 
 earrings, and a pair of jade-stone bangles for her arms. 
 Failing the genuine article, imitation ones are worn. Long 
 pins, six or eight inches in length, having from one to 
 four inches of jade forming the upper part, are stuck into 
 the hair of women ; hair-presses, a curious kind of 
 ornament holding up part of the coiffure ; rings for 
 women ; large thumb-rings, an inch broad, for gentlemen ; 
 vases, sceptres these and many other articles of jeweller)', 
 of ornament, and of virtu, are all made of this stone. 
 
 The jade-stone shops are amongst the neatest and 
 finest-looking Chinese shops. The jade in its different 
 shades, from rich green to white, as well as other specimens 
 of precious stones, already made up into the ornaments so 
 highly esteemed, are tastefully arranged on white paper in 
 glass-covered boxes. Much labour and pains are taken in 
 the production of these different articles, time being of 
 little consequence to the Chinese lapidary, and expense 
 being lavishly incurred by the moneyed man for their 
 
 357
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 purchase, for the adornment of his many wives and 
 numerous daughters, as well as for his own wear, and for 
 seals and bric-fr-brac of various kinds to be placed in the 
 halls of his rambling mansion. 
 
 The Chinese, it is said, will not purchase jade brought 
 from foreign countries. Williams says that a cargo load, 
 brought from Australia, was rejected by the Cantonese, 
 owing to its origin and colour. Giles says that ' whole 
 shiploads of it have been brought from other countries to 
 China, but have found no market, the Chinese declaring 
 it was not the same article as their own.' It was thought 
 at one time that jade was only to be found in three places : 
 which were, New Zealand, the northern slopes of the 
 Karakorum mountains, and Northern Burmah, but it has 
 since been found in situ in Silesia, Monte Video, British 
 Columbia, and Alaska. It also probably exists or existed 
 somewhere in the Alps, as 'jade has often been found in the 
 remains of Swiss lake dwellings,' which are supposed to be 
 at least 3,000 years old, and it has also been found in Asia 
 Minor, in Mexico, the West Indies, and South America 
 particularly in Venezuela and Brazil. 
 
 'The jade of Turkestan is largely derived from water-rolled 
 boulders fished up by divers in the rivers of Khotan, but it is also got 
 from mines, in the valley of the Kar^kcish River .... The jade 
 of Khotan appears to be first mentioned by Chinese authors in the 
 time of the Han dynasty under Wuti (B.C. 140-86).' 
 
 JEWS. Considerable excitement was caused, a number 
 of years since, by the discovery of a colony of these ancient 
 people in the interior of China, in the city especially of Kai- 
 fung, a departmental city in the province of Honan. They 
 are said to have established themselves in China in the 
 Han dynasty, though there is great uncertainty as to the 
 time of their arrival. 
 
 Several visits have been made to them in Kaifung-fu, 
 and copies of Hebrew manuscript have been obtained from 
 them, but 'no variations of any consequence have been 
 found between the text of these rolls and that found in the 
 printed Hebrew Bibles of Europe.' These manuscripts 
 
 358
 
 Jinrickshas 
 
 have been deposited in different institutions, such as the 
 City Hall Library in Hongkong, the British Museum, and 
 the Bodleian. 
 
 The descendants of this Jewish colony at Kaifung-fu 
 have sunk into a state of ignorance and poverty ; not one 
 of them can read Hebrew ; their synagogue is no longer in 
 existence ; no services are held ; their creed has faded out ; 
 and in a few years the last traces of this Jewish community, 
 of from two to four hundred souls, will probably be lost in 
 the mass of their heathen and Mohammedan surroundings. 
 This appears, since the above was written, to have become 
 almost true, if not quite so. 
 
 Besides this colony of Jews in this distant land, 
 others existed in different places. Amongst other cities 
 in which communities of them lived were Ningpo and 
 Peking. Tradition is credited with the statement that 
 they settled in China 249 B.C., but it is thought that the 
 more probable period was between A.D. 58 and A.D. 75. 
 Their language consisted of a jargon of Hebrew and 
 Chinese with a trace of Persian. What seems a more 
 reliable supposition is that ' the first Jewish refugees are 
 supposed to have reached China in company with the 
 last Sassanian King of Persia, whose flight before the 
 Caliph Othman is placed by Gibbon in 651 A.D.' 
 
 Books recommended. In the Appendix to 'Christian Progress in China,' 
 by Arnold Foster, B.A., the general reader will find a succinct account 
 of this interesting Jewish colony. Also see Williams's ' Middle Kingdom.' 
 'The Jews in China,' by J. Finn. ' The Orphan Colony of Jews in China,' 
 by J. Finn, M.K. A.S. ' Facsimiles of the Hebrew Manuscripts obtained at the 
 Jewish Synagogue in K'ae-Fung Foo.' 
 
 JINRICKSHAS. Though not used in the purely 
 native parts of China, as a rule, yet these convenient 
 vehicles are largely employed in several of the Treaty 
 Ports, as well as in Hongkong, not only by Europeans, 
 but also by Chinese. They have been described as a 
 cross between a bath-chair and a hansom cab. 
 
 The Jinricksha is not a native invention. One account 
 says an inventive American missionary in Japan produced 
 
 359
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 the first one, while one of H.M. Consular Chaplains in 
 Yokohama, Rev. M. B. Bailey is credited with having 
 originated what has now become the national vehicle of 
 Japan. 
 
 They appear to have been introduced into the Shanghai 
 foreign settlements from Japan, and some years later into 
 Hongkong, where there are 500 or so. The streets of 
 native cities are not of such a character as to .suit vehicular 
 traffic of any kind, and special roads would usually have 
 to be prepared if it were intended for them to run outside 
 the foreign settlements. This has been done in Nanking 
 where a good carriage road has been constructed by the 
 viceroy, Chang Chih-tung, a great many houses having to 
 be pulled down for it. A score of carriages and a thousand 
 jinrickshas are running on it. 
 
 The Chinese are not such good ricksha coolies as the 
 Japanese, who think nothing of drawing tandem a heavy 
 man fifty miles in one day up and down hill ; but still the 
 Chinese, though not such swift runners or possessing such 
 powers of endurance, make very fair ones. 
 
 To those who have not seen it, the ricksha may be 
 described as a small two-wheeled vehicle, capable of seating 
 one, or sometimes two, persons, with a pair of shafts, be- 
 tween which the coolie runs and drags the vehicle. Private 
 ones have sometimes two or three coolies, the other one or 
 two pushing from behind. They are fitted with hoods which 
 can be raised or lowered at pleasure, and waterproofs to 
 cover the legs are part of the outfit. The rates of hire in 
 Hongkong are quarter-hour, 5 cents. ; half-hour, 10 cents. ; 
 and one hour, 15 cents. In Macao the fares are even less. 
 
 One enthusiast has proposed that they should be 
 introduced into London. They are already half-way 
 there, as their use has not only extended to Singapore, 
 Ceylon, and India, but even to South Africa, where at 
 ' Cape Town, Durban, and Pietermaritzburg they are well 
 patronized, and are crowding out the cabs and public 
 buggies. Kaffirs furnish the motive power.' They are 
 even extending nearer Europe now, 
 
 360
 
 Kites 
 
 JUNK. A name applied by foreigners to the largest 
 Chinese trading vessels. Its derivation is from the 
 Portuguese junco> which was a corruption of the Malay 
 ajong, abbreviated Jong, a ship or large vessel. There is a 
 tendency which has now become so established as to lead 
 to the application of this name to all Chinese vessels above 
 the size of boats, though this was not the original use of 
 the word. 
 
 KINGFISHER. There are three varieties of this bird 
 in the Colony of Hongkong : one the black cap, one white- 
 breasted, and another beautifully coloured one. The writer 
 has seen one skimming along in front of the New Praya in 
 Hongkong before it was built on, and they are frequently 
 to be seen in the streams of the New Territory. 
 
 KITES. China is par excellence the land of kites. 
 They are not relegated here to youthful hands alone and 
 considered as simply childish toys ; they are looked upon 
 as fit for children of an older growth not scientific 
 apparatus a Benjamin Franklin might employ to bring 
 the lightning down from the skies, or such as some present- 
 day aeronauts use for experiments in attempting to solve 
 the problem of a flying machine, or for meteorological 
 purposes ; but as simple objects to amuse themselves 
 with. 
 
 With this higher view taken of kite-flying, it is natural 
 that more pains should be employed in the construction of 
 kites and more ingenuity in their design than is usually 
 the case with us. 
 
 The convenient bamboo in its natural growth of 
 different sizes, tubular and light, easily split, should the 
 whole stick be too large, and almost as easily bent into 
 circles, strong yet flexible seems specially adapted for the 
 framework, be the kite a crude and conventional imitation 
 of a bird to amuse a child (for the pastime of kite-flying is 
 not entirely monopolised by those of maturer years in 
 China), or be it a wonderful structure, the joy and admira-
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 tion of not only its owner, but of a gaping crowd and of 
 the whole neighbourhood. The framework is covered with 
 paper and silk, but no Chinese would think of using old 
 newspapers for such a purpose : any written or printed 
 paper is reverently burned. Such importance do the 
 Chinese attach to this that men perambulate the streets 
 for the express purpose of rescuing any scraps of such 
 paper from being trodden under foot, little wooden boxes 
 are also stuck up on the walls to receive anything of that 
 nature thrust into them. 
 
 But to return to kites so lifelike are some of them 
 made, and so well does the trained hand manipulate 
 them (or rather their strings) in their tethered flight that 
 the simulated hovering of a bird of prey in the air is good 
 enough to deceive, at first sight, even a naturalist. It has 
 well been said that ' the skill shown in flying them is more 
 remarkable than the ingenuity displayed in their construc- 
 tion.' Butterflies, lizards, gigantic centipedes, a pair of 
 spectacles, a huge cash, fish, men, and many other objects 
 may be seen disporting themselves in mid-air, while at the 
 other end of the strings will be found young men, or even 
 middle-aged ones perchance, gravely enjoying themselves, 
 and a group of boys watching them and doubtless wishing 
 they had grown old enough to fly such beauties of kites. 
 
 The festival on which kite-flying is indulged in largely 
 is the ninth day of the ninth moon, and this throughout 
 China. 
 
 1 Doolittle describes them [the kites] as sometimes resembling a 
 great bird, or a serpent thirty feet long ; at other times the spectator 
 sees a group of hawks hovering round a centre, all being suspended 
 by one strong cord, and each hawk-kite controlled and moved by a 
 separate line. On this day he estimates that as many as thirty 
 thousand people assemble on the hills around Foochow to join in this 
 amusement if the weather be propitious.' 
 
 A delightful concomitant to the kite in Chinese eyes, 
 or rather ears, is a small contrivance which is so placed 
 that the wind rushing through it produces a humming 
 sound. 
 
 We wonder if there is anything in China which is not 
 
 362
 
 Lacquer-Ware 
 
 connected with their religion in some way or other, even 
 the thieves and prostitutes have their deities whom they 
 devoutly pray to for success and protection. What 
 wonder then that the innocent kite is often used as a 
 species of scapegoat, as with string deliberately cut for 
 that purpose, it floats on its downward erratic flight, 
 freighted with an imaginary load of disasters, thus carried 
 away from those who otherwise would bear the weight of 
 ills unknown and dreaded. With such a simple expedient 
 to get rid of the dark to-morrow, who need be unhappy 
 even in wretched China? 
 
 LACQUER-WARE. M. Pateologue, in his admirable 
 work on ' L'Art Chinois,' while giving full credit to the 
 perfection to which the Japanese, originally the scholars of 
 the Chinese, have carried this art ' une perfection que les 
 Chinois n'ont jamais e"galee,' says further : ' Mais, pour 
 relever d'un art moins e"leve" et d'une technique moins 
 parfaite, les laques Chinois comptent quelques specimens 
 qui sont remarquables par la qualite de la matiere, par 
 la douceur des tons, par la puissance de la composition, par 
 la largeur et la se'verite' du style.' 
 
 The lacquer is originally a resinous gum obtained from 
 the varnish tree (Rhus vernicifera), cultivated both in China 
 and Japan for the purpose. Its foliage and bark resemble 
 the ash ; it grows to a height of fifteen or twenty feet ; and 
 at the age of seven years furnishes the sap, which is 
 collected in July and August from incisions made in the 
 trunk of the tree near the foot. These incisions are made 
 at night, the sap being collected in the morning. Twenty 
 pounds from one thousand trees in the course of a night is 
 a good yield. The lacquer sap is of a very irritating 
 nature, especially to some constitutions, the writer himself, 
 when a boy, has suffered from it by passing through a 
 wood where varnish trees were growing ; and the Chinese, 
 when preparing it in cakes to enclose in tubs to send to 
 the market, take the precaution to cover up their faces and 
 hands to prevent contact with it. Lacquer ' in any stage, 
 
 363
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 except when perfectly dry, is capable of producing" the 
 following symptoms : ' Blood to the head, swelling, violent 
 itching and burning, and occasionally small festering 
 boils.' 
 
 The best kind of sap is of a tawny or dark-brown 
 colour when in its inspissated state, and tarred paper is 
 used to protect it from the air, but all lacquer turns jet- 
 black on exposure to the light. Other ingredients are 
 added, as wood-oils obtained from plants such as Augia 
 sinensis and others. These, combined with the Rhus 
 vernicifcra, form the different qualities of lacquer-ware. 
 Sz-chuen, Hu-nan, and Kwang-si, produced the finest. 
 
 The preparation, of the best qualities especially, takes 
 a long time, and one reason assigned for the deterioration 
 in quality supplied to the foreign market in China is the 
 ignorance, or ignoring, of this fact by Europeans, who, 
 when giving orders, will not wait the necessary time for 
 producing a first-class article ; and the Chinese manu- 
 facturer, from being forced to supply the articles required 
 at short notice, has got into the way of producing inferior 
 workmanship, which meet with as ready a sale amongst 
 the uneducated in the mysteries of lacquer as the better 
 specimens did. 
 
 The varnish is prepared for use by the addition of oil 
 of the Vemicia montana or Camellia oleifera, sulphate of 
 iron, and rice vinegar ; these ingredients vary according to 
 the condition and transparency required. Different tints 
 are given to the lacquer, likewise, by the introduction of 
 different substances, such as pig's gall and vegetable oil, 
 ivory black, animal charcoal, and tea oil. 
 
 The wood to be varnished is first planed and polished, 
 the joints are stuffed with a kind of fine oakum, narrow 
 slips of paper are pasted over them, and fine paper, or thin 
 silken material is put over the whole surface. A mixture 
 of emery powder, red sandstone, vermilion, or of gamboge, 
 and of cow's gall, is then applied with a hard brush, and 
 when dried in the air it is polished with sandstone, pumice- 
 stone, and powdered charcoal. 
 
 364
 
 Lacquer -Ware 
 
 This double operation is repeated several times. The 
 preliminary work, which takes several weeks to accomplish, 
 forms the foundation for the lacquer, which is applied in a 
 room closed on all sides from wind and dust. A very fine, 
 flat brush is used to apply a slight and very equal film of it. 
 The drying room next receives the article, or articles ; here 
 the atmosphere must be fresh and damp, for it is under 
 such conditions that the lacquer dries most quickly. It 
 next receives a polishing with a kind of soft schist. Each 
 layer of lacquer is subjected to the same slow and minute 
 operations : the least number of layers applied is three, the 
 most eighteen. 
 
 The ornamentation of figures, flowers, and gilding, etc., 
 is done in more than one way : 
 
 'The gilding is performed by another set of workmen in a large 
 workshop. The figures of the design are drawn on thick paper, which 
 is then pricked all over to allow the powdered chalk to fall on the 
 table and form the outline. Another workman completes the picture 
 by cutting the lines with a burin or needle, and filling them with 
 vermilion mixed in lacquer, as thick as needed. This afterwards is 
 covered, by means of a hair-pencil, with gold in leaf or in powder laid 
 on with a dossil ; the gold is often mixed with fine lamp-black.' 
 
 ' Quand, sur le fond uni de laque, 1'ouvrier veut peindre un decor, 
 personnages, fleurs, arabesques, etc., il esquisse directement au blanc 
 de ceruse le sujet qu'il va trailer, ou bien encore il le decalque en 
 suivant avec une pointe de bois les lignes de son dessin, sur lesquelles 
 il a prealablement passe, au verso de la feuille de papier, un trait 
 d'orpiment liquide. II commence alors a peindre sur ce croquis avec 
 les coleurs dont dispose sa riche palette.' 
 
 Much skill, dexterity, lightness of finger, and long 
 practice are necessary to ensure that fineness and requisite 
 delicacy, which at the first touch will produce the effect 
 desired without repetition, for this last is not allowed, the 
 gummy consistency of the lacquer likewise forbidding it ; 
 notwithstanding all these difficulties, some of the lacquer 
 produced by the Chinese is characterised by distinctness 
 of line and a freedom of composition. 
 
 Besides gold and silver spangles, incrustations of ivory, 
 mother-of-pearl, jade, coral, malachite, and lapis lazuli, are 
 employed in the ornamentation of lacquer-\vare, rough 
 
 365
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 mosaics of flowers, animals, etc., being formed of them, and 
 then varnished. 
 
 Foochow lacquer equals the Japanese ; the latter people, 
 it is said, having taught their original teachers, the 
 Chinese, the production of this superior quality. Some 
 fine specimens also come from Ningpo, and command a 
 very high price. 
 
 Carved lacquer is either not now (during the present 
 century) made, or but little is produced, as it requires 
 great labour, rendering its production too expensive. Its 
 mode of preparation is as follows : A dark paste is made 
 of Urtica nivea, of ' papier de broussonetial and egg-shells ; 
 these are beaten together, pounded, and camellia oil added 
 to thicken them. After being applied to the wood and be- 
 coming perfectly dry, it is carved by the artist, who re- 
 quires a firm hand, as no repetition is possible. Several 
 coats of red varnish, the composition of which is unknown, 
 are afterwards applied. The defect, to a European eye, in 
 this style of lacquer is the overburdening of the decora- 
 tion with entangled dragons, phcenixes, the lotus, etc. 
 
 There are no names of Chinese artists to mention as in 
 the case of the same art in Japan. In China it is not the 
 individual that is to be noted, but the schools, differentiated 
 by style, tradition, and tendency. At present, at all events, 
 but little has been discovered of the history of the art. 
 Carved lacquer was known during the early part of the 
 Christian era, though no very ancient specimens are extant, 
 the oldest being of the comparatively modern date of the 
 end of the sixteenth century (Ming dynasty). ' Les laques 
 sculpted de cette epoque sont fort rares, et les Chinois les 
 estiment a tres haut prix : le vernis en est tres epais, le 
 travail en est ferme, d'un style sobre et severe.' 
 
 Great improvement was effected in the reign of the 
 Emperor K'ang Hsi (A.D. 1662) of the present dynasty, both 
 in quality of material and decoration ; and in Ch'ien Lung's 
 time (A.D. 1 736-1796) some fine carved lacquer was produced, 
 as also some exquisite specimens of other lacquer, the best 
 of these being made in the imperial manufactures. We 
 
 366
 
 Language 
 
 cannot resist the temptation to quote once more from M. 
 Pale"ologue's interesting work, ' L'Art Chinois,' as to the 
 last : 
 
 ' M. de Semalte possede une dizaine de pieces ayant, sans aucun 
 doute, cette origine ; ce sont des coupes formulees en calices lobe's, 
 le"geres a la main et delicatement modelees : Tune est d'un bleu paon 
 a reflets verts, chatoyant et intense comme un e"mail ; une autre est 
 d'un rose tres pale que rehausse un rose de corail, et Pensemble est 
 d'une douceur de tons incomparable ; une autre encore est d'un noir 
 uni et profond, de ce beau noir si apprecie des Japonais ; signalons 
 enfin, dans la meme collection, un laque aventurine, a incrustations 
 d'or et d'argent figurant des lotus, qui est une merveille de gout et de 
 finesse. Ces pieces comptent k nos yeux parmi les rares objets de 
 laque chinoise peinte qui meriteraient de figurer dans la collection 
 d'un amateur au Japon.' 
 
 Books recommended. 'L'Art Chiuois,' par M. Paleologuc. Williams's 
 'Middle Kingdom,' vol. ii., p. 30 et seq., to both of which books we are 
 indebted for information. 
 
 LANGUAGE. We remember, some thirty years or so 
 ago, trying to elicit from a lecturer on languages and liter- 
 ature his idea of the position held by the Chinese language 
 amongst that of others. After considerable humming and 
 hawing, he said that it held one of its own, outside of the 
 general scheme of languages as elaborated by philologists. 
 This position is practically the same that it holds to this 
 day amongst many of those who delight to classify 
 language. As the Chinese have been outside the comity 
 of nations, so their language has been relegated to a 
 position of its own with no certain relationship to the 
 other speeches of mankind ; and as the exclusiveness of 
 the nation is being slowly broken down, so it is to be 
 hoped that, before long, in response to the toil of not a few 
 scholars, the affinity of Chinese with that of other languages 
 in the world will be more clearly established and the wall 
 of partition separating it from the others be a thing of the 
 past. Most divergent views have been held on the subject 
 and clearly proved to the satisfaction of those who held 
 and advanced them, but not to the equal satisfaction of 
 their readers. 
 
 There would appear to be some connection between 
 
 367
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 Chinese and the so-called Aryan languages ; to prove this 
 Edkins, Schlegel, and others, have laboured. The latest 
 idea, that of Professor Terrien de Lacouperie, and his co- 
 labourers in the same field, is that of an affinity between 
 the languages of China and Babylon. These views still 
 wait general acceptance, the feeling of many being one of 
 suspense : a waiting till convincing proofs are produced 
 before acquiescing in any of the theories put forth ; 
 there are still immense fields for the patient worker to 
 explore. 
 
 The connection between Chinese and the languages of 
 some of the surrounding nations is deserving of further 
 attention, in order to fix with a greater amount of cer- 
 tainty the relationships which exist between certain of 
 them. 
 
 Some people go so far as to say that Chinese has no 
 grammar. If grammar only consisted of declension and 
 inflection, such a statement might be true ; but the Chinese 
 most cleverly use the relative position of words to express 
 what we, to a great extent, and some continental nations to 
 a greater, and the dead languages of Europe to the greatest 
 extent, show by case, mood, tense, number, and person : 
 position is everything in the construction of Chinese 
 sentences, and does away with those troubles of school- 
 boys, carried to such an excess in the classical languages. 
 
 In addition to position, the use of auxiliary characters 
 is employed, and, in the written language especially, a 
 general symmetry of construction, and use of words in 
 sentences and clauses, which are either in antithesis or 
 juxtaposition to each other, assists materially in the 
 correct development of ideas. 
 
 Chinese is one of the simplest, while at the same time 
 one of the most difficult, languages in the world : most 
 simple from the almost entire absence of these in- 
 flectional forms ; most difficult from the combination of 
 different languages under the one heading of Chinese ; 
 such for instance as the book language in its two or three 
 different forms, the Colloquial or spoken language in its 
 
 368
 
 Language 
 
 different vernaculars, and in its tones, the bugbear and 
 ruin of most European readers and speakers of it. 
 
 The Chinese have spent much time and labour in the 
 cultivation of their wonderful and interesting language. 
 The Shu King mentions writing as being practised in the 
 time of Shun (B.C. 2255-2205). Some doubt, however, has 
 been cast on the genuineness of these passages in the Shu. 
 
 There is no doubt that writing was in use a little later, 
 in connection with Government matters, and in the Chou 
 dynasty it was in common use among the official class. 
 Colleges and schools existed, books were made and 
 libraries formed. Writing was a laborious task, the 
 language at this early period not having attained the 
 rich collection of written characters it now possesses. The 
 nucleus or prototype of the first Chinese dictionary, the 
 Urh-ya, is referable to this period. 
 
 The violent attempt of the execrated monarch Ts'in Shih 
 Huang Ti to introduce one language throughout China, by 
 destroying all trace of the past, was unsuccessful. It was 
 about this time that the transition from the mainly pictorial 
 or symbolic representation of the language took place, and 
 more attention was paid to sound. 
 
 The period of the Han dynasty, or from B.C. 206 to A.D. 
 200, witnessed the commencement of the study of the 
 language, its exciting cause being the elucidation and 
 determination of the characters of the books which had 
 escaped the wholesale destruction. Many of the works 
 of the renowned scholars of these ancient times have 
 disappeared during the lapse of ages. Amongst two to 
 be noted as still extant are the Fang-yen, a comparative 
 vocabulary of dialectic varieties, and the Shuo-wen, an 
 etymological dictionary (A.D. 121), which dealt with the 
 writing of the character. The language at this period 
 ' acquired a considerable degree of exactness and polish,' 
 and many additions were made to the characters in use. 
 The Buddhist missionaries about this time also assisted in 
 bringing into general future use the spelling now in vogue 
 to explain the pronunciation of words. 
 
 369 2 A
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 During the troublous times even of the Three States 
 some sensible men busied themselves with the cultivation 
 of their native tongue. An epoch is marked in this culti- 
 vation, in the period known as the Northern and Southern 
 Dynasties, or from A.D. 479 to 557 ; and the study of etymo- 
 logy began to flourish. The four tones were first noticed 
 in published works, though doubtless previously known to 
 scholars. The Sui dynasty (A.D. 589-618) still saw much 
 attention paid to tones and the sounds of characters. 
 The T'ang dynasty (A.D. 618-905) gave an impetus 
 to this study so congenial to the Chinese nature. The 
 Emperors encouraged learning, and even cultivated it 
 themselves. Renewed enthusiasm was shown in the study 
 of the classics : much learning and ability were displayed ; 
 the tones and sounds of characters received much 
 attention ; and acquaintance with such subjects was re- 
 quired from the competitors for literary employment. 
 Books were also written on Sanscrit Grammar and its 
 alphabet by Indian Buddhist missionaries, or Chinese 
 monks who had studied the language in India, and the 
 knowledge thus acquired was of use to native authors in 
 the study of their own language. ' In several respects 
 the period of the T'ang dynasty forms an era of great 
 importance in the history of the cultivation of the language. 
 It was the time in which China began to have a popular 
 literature. . . . Plays also now began to be written and 
 performed, and romances to be composed in a style often but 
 little removed from that of every-day conversation' This 
 fixed the style and made fashionable the dialect the 
 Mandarin in which they were written. Printing was first 
 invented at this time in China, though it was not till 
 succeeding dynasties that it exerted its full power. 
 
 It is under the Sung dynasty that the language ' is 
 supposed to have reached its acme ; to have become 
 complete in all its formal and material equipment, having 
 everything needful to make it an effective instrument for 
 expressing the national mind ' ; and works on philology of 
 great and permanent value were produced. 
 
 370
 
 Language 
 
 About the time that the Mongols prevailed, a book was 
 published which has been rendered into English under the 
 title of ' The Six Scripts.' 
 
 'The founder of the Ming dynasty (A.D. 1368-1399) 
 was a patron of all kinds of learning, and promoted efforts 
 to recover and preserve the valuable treatises which had 
 been lost, or become very rare.' One of the most widely 
 used works, and the standard dictionary, of the present 
 time, is the K'ang Hsi dictionary, prepared by direction of 
 the Emperor of that name. A revived interest has been 
 taken during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in 
 the philological works of antiquity. 
 
 The Chinese, as far as at present has been ascertained, 
 have confined their studies nearly entirely to ' sounds, 
 meanings, composition, and history of the written 
 characters' ; and the study is not generally pursued for its 
 own sake, but for the purpose of elucidating the ' orthodox 
 canonical literature.' 
 
 ' The Chinese language is very rich in ... nature 
 sounds and " vocal-gestures " ' ; while the interjectional 
 element appears to have had its full share in the formation 
 of some portion of the language. Many of the words and 
 terms in use are imitative of sounds in nature, of noises of 
 falling objects, of calls and cries of animals, birds, and 
 insects ; and of actions by man himself: these have all had 
 their share, and still have, in forming the language. 
 
 On the whole, the Chinese, however, take comparatively 
 little interest in such researches. The Buddhist mission- 
 aries, who introduced Buddhism, did a good work, first, in 
 interesting the Chinese in Sanscrit with its alphabet and 
 grammatical forms, and, secondly, in inducing a study 
 among the Chinese of their own language, leading them 
 to examine and appreciate it. 
 
 The Chinese consider the faculty of speech to be man's 
 natural endowment : expressive sounds are uttered by the 
 promptings of nature ; but as to the development of speech, 
 they believe that the most highly endowed men have 
 been its nursing fathers. 
 
 371
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 It would be highly instructive and interesting were a 
 history of the rise, development, and progress of the Chinese 
 language down to the present time possible. The 
 materials seem at present to be fragmentary. Doubtless 
 with the combined study of numerous scholars, much more 
 may be known of it than at present. The Chinese language 
 retains, to a great extent, the primitive simplicity of early 
 speech ; and this is what makes it of advantage to the 
 student to attempt to peer into its past depths, and to 
 study its present state. 
 
 The Manchu, Mongolian, and Turkish tongues are 
 descended from one source, and this parent language may 
 likewise have been the progenitor of the Chinese, in 
 common with that of these other languages as well. 
 
 The speech of the Chinese was preceded in China by 
 numerous dialects and languages of what are termed the 
 Aborigines. It seems impossible not to suppose that these 
 former speeches must have had some effect on the language 
 of the new-comers, though, if a policy of extermination was 
 adopted towards the former inhabitants, that effect would 
 not be much. Traces are now found in some of the so- 
 called Chinese dialects of relics of some of these former 
 languages. In the Amoy language, a few words are 
 instanced as being remnants of a previous race, the same is 
 supposed to be the case in the Swatow language, and in 
 Cantonese also a word or two is spoken of as being thus 
 taken over into the present language. 
 
 The Chinese language would appear, at first sight, to 
 be, like the Chinese themselves, separated from the rest of 
 the world and self-contained ; though this is true to a great 
 extent of the people as regards their communication with 
 Western nations, yet it must not be forgotten that there 
 has been considerable intercourse between China and the 
 countries whose borders are conterminous with her own ; 
 and so, instead of the language having no admixture of 
 foreign words in it, some such words are to be found. These 
 words of foreign origin are generally of a technical character : 
 names of countries, official designations, names of fruits, 
 
 3/2
 
 Language 
 
 spices, woods, reminiscences of foreign intercourse, conquest, 
 and commerce. The use of these words has not been 
 confined to modern times, but imbedded in the language 
 are found a few fossil remains relics of ancient foreign 
 relations or wars, now well-known matters of history. 
 These words are met with here and there in books and in 
 conversation ; for example, to take a modern one, Ho-lan- 
 shoii, or Holland water = Soda water, because it was first 
 introduced by the Dutch. 
 
 Buddhism has introduced in its train many words into 
 Chinese. They consist of Sanscrit words brought into the 
 language, translations into Chinese of such Sanscrit words, 
 and new phrases in Chinese due to Buddhism, but not 
 translations of Sanscrit words or terms. This religion 
 has also given new meanings to words and phrases which 
 were in use before. 
 
 The Han, the T'ang, and the present dynasties, have 
 especially increased China's knowledge of the outside world, 
 while other periods even bore their share, though a smaller 
 one, in exchange for the arts of peace, and at times for the 
 horrors of war, with the neighbouring states of Japan and 
 India ; even distant Persia, as well as many other king- 
 doms, too numerous to mention, all being known to a 
 greater or lesser extent ; and, latterly especially, the 
 countries of Europe have come within the horizon of 
 Chinese ken. It is not surprising therefore to find a small 
 amount of terms derived from the languages of some of 
 these countries. ' Certain terms even in a comparatively 
 early period of the Chinese language . . . seem to have 
 at least a common origin with their equivalents in Greek 
 and Latin'; Spanish, English, Malay, Persian, Arabic, 
 Turkish, Manchu, and Mongolian, Tibetan, as well as 
 Sanscrit and other Indian languages, have each assisted 
 in giving new words in the past, while with the advance 
 of science and learning this must be more especially the 
 case in time to come. But after all that can be said, 
 these foreign words form but a very small proportion 
 of the whole. 
 
 3/3
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 The language of China may be divided as follows : 
 
 1. The ancient style in which the classics are written : 
 sententious, concise, vague, and often unintelligible without 
 explanation. 
 
 2. The literary style : more diffuse, and consequently 
 more intelligible ; it might be described as poetry written 
 in prose on account of a ' rhythmus] as it has been termed, 
 in which it is written, the ancient language having less 
 of this both forms having a number of particles either 
 difficult or impossible of translation into English. The 
 essays written by candidates at the literary examinations 
 are composed in this style. 
 
 3. The business style which is plain enough to be 
 intelligible : it is prose without, or with but little of, the 
 poetry element, and few, if any, of the troublesome par- 
 ticles. It is in general use for commercial purposes, 
 legal documents, official and business correspondence, 
 and governmental, statistical, and legal works are written 
 in it. 
 
 4. The Colloquial, or the spoken languages. They are 
 divided into numerous dialects (See Article on Dialects), 
 but unfortunately they are despised there is scarcely even 
 one book written in them in the South of China, and yet it 
 is impossible to speak in any other language ; and to the 
 great majority of the lower classes, no other is intelligible 
 in its entirety. When we learn to speak a Western 
 language, we nearly always learn consequently to read it ; 
 but a knowledge of Chinese, as spoken, only places one on 
 the threshold of the Chinese of books. This has not 
 inaptly been compared to a man who knows French 
 fluently, but who, if he wishes to read Latin, has, after his 
 knowledge of French, to apply himself to Latin ; the 
 French in this instance being the colloquial, and the Latin 
 the language of the book. Again, let us suppose the 
 ancient language, as compared with the business style, to 
 be that of the English of Chaucer as compared with that 
 of the modern writer. 
 
 The difference between the book style and the collo- 
 
 374
 
 Larks and other Songsters 
 
 quial might be likened perhaps to the difference between a 
 common English book and some highly scientific or tech- 
 nical work so bristling with scientific terms, or technical 
 expressions, or mathematical formulae, that it would be 
 entirely, or nearly entirely, incomprehensible, except to 
 one who had been specially educated for years, making 
 such a subject a speciality. This way of putting the 
 matter may throw some light on what seems such a 
 mysterious matter to English-speaking people, and show 
 how difficult of comprehension the book language is to 
 all except those who have received a special and sufficient 
 training. 
 
 Writers on the Chinese have differed as to the richness, 
 or otherwise, of the language. Putting aside all prejudiced 
 statements, it may fairly be affirmed that in some respects 
 its vocabulary is very full, where some of our languages 
 are poor, and vice versd. The Chinese have no difficulty 
 in expressing themselves so as to be understood by their 
 own countrymen and others, though Europeans and 
 Americans have not sometimes the patience to make the 
 good listeners which the want of mood, tense, and all 
 inflections occasionally requires in order to get at the 
 meaning. 
 
 On the other hand, the statements are often more con- 
 cisely expressed than is the case in the general run of 
 European languages. What strikes a foreigner as strange 
 in the language, is the ease with which a word does duty 
 as a noun, or verb, an adjective, adverb, or preposition. 
 Marshman says : ' A Chinese character may in general 
 be considered as conveying an idea without reference to 
 any part of speech : and its being used as a substantive, 
 an adjective, or a verb depends on circumstances.' 
 
 Books recommended. 'Essays on the Chinese Language,' by T. "\Vatters, 
 'The Structure of Chinese Characters,' by J. Chalmers, M.A., LL.D., and 
 chapters on language in standard works, such as Willianis's ' Middle 
 Kingdom,' etc. (See also Article on Dialects in this book.) 
 
 LARKS AND OTHER SONGSTERS. The lark is 
 one of the most prized of song-birds among the Chinese. 
 
 375
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 Their fondness for birds and flowers, as Williams has well 
 noted, being 'one of the pleasant features of Chinese 
 character.' No Chinese gentleman, at least in the South 
 of China, takes a dog out to walk with him ; but on a fine 
 day numbers may be seen each with a lark in a cage in 
 the outskirts of a town, or sauntering leisurely along the 
 streets, or standing in some square, or squatting on their 
 haunches on some green spot, while their favourite bird 
 enjoys himself, occasionally even with a little ramble on 
 the grass. His master cum dignitate gravely taking his 
 pleasure in watching his pet, or even unbending so far as 
 to occupy himself with the pursuit of grasshoppers 
 amongst the turf, though more frequently such a hunt is 
 left to the boys or to the wretched grasshopper hunters, 
 who, armed with a bunch of twigs and tiny baskets to hold 
 their victims, from dewy morn till darkest twilight, wander 
 up and down the hills, beating every tuft of grass for the 
 active, springing, startled insects, which, when caught, they 
 sell for a cash or two apiece, to the bird shops or bird- 
 fanciers ; their ultimate fate, of course, to be gobbled up by 
 pet birds. Chinese houses are so often, in cities especially, 
 shut out from the breezes, that it must be a positive 
 pleasure to these active songsters to get such airings ; but 
 caged up as they are in close and narrow streets they may 
 often be heard pouring out their melodious sonnets from 
 the purlieus of some confined shop, trying in shrillest notes 
 a musical contest with some imprisoned neighbour 
 such emulation is there that they get almost frantic at 
 times. 
 
 The lark's cage is round, made of neatly rounded 
 splints of bamboo, and varnished brown, with a removable 
 bottom sprinkled with sand and furnished with a perch, in 
 shape like a large mushroom, the Chinese evidently know- 
 ing that the lark does not alight on twigs or branches. 
 
 Williams informs us that ' the species of wagtail and 
 lark known amount to about a score altogether.' Amongst 
 them may be noted the field lark (Alauda calivox and 
 arvensis}. Large numbers of Chihli larks are brought 
 
 376
 
 Larks and other Songsters 
 
 down every year to the South of China, where they are 
 preferred. The Mongolian lark commands a high price 
 825 being a common figure for a good one; it is called 
 the pdk ling or ' hundred spirits.' 
 
 Next in importance, if not in equal favour, as a songster 
 is the thrush. Amongst the most common in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Canton is the wd ;////, a greyish-yellow thrush 
 (Garrulax perspicitatus], a ' well-trained bird is worth 
 several dollars.' The spectacle thrush derives his name 
 from a black circle round each eye ; it is very graceful and 
 lively, though not a very sweet singer. Another thrush 
 (Suthoria webbiana) is kept for fighting death or victory 
 being its song. 
 
 The canary is a great favourite, large numbers being 
 reared and even exported as far as England. Its colour is 
 not only yellow but some seem to display a tendency to 
 revert to the dusky hue of the original bird in the Canary 
 Islands. It is commonly known as the white swallow, its 
 usual light yellow, or canary colour, being a near enough 
 approach to white to satisfy the Chinese philologist. The 
 canary is generally kept in a round cage made of bamboo 
 and varnished, with a removable bottom and perches of 
 twigs. The cage is rather larger than the English wire 
 canary cage, but smaller than the Chinese bird-cage used 
 for larks. Besides this cage very neat canary cages of 
 the same materials are made in imitation of houses and 
 boats, as well as large squarish cages of unvarnished 
 bamboo, these last being especially useful for breeding 
 purposes. 
 
 The prices of canaries vary with the season of the year. 
 In Hongkong about 70 cents, is an ordinary price charged 
 for one to a European. It is said that large numbers of 
 canaries are sent to China every year from Germany. 
 
 Many other birds, some of which might fairly be 
 entitled to the name of songsters, as well as others which 
 can only boast of one or two notes, are kept as pets by 
 the Chinese. 
 
 Book recommended. Jour. N. C. Br. R.A.S., May 1859, p. 289. 
 377
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 LAWS. It has been observed that : 
 
 'The laws of a nation form the most interesting portion of its 
 history.' ' The laws of the Chinese, if taken in the most comprehen- 
 sive sense of the term, framed, as they have been, by the wisdom and 
 experience of a long series of ages, and suitably provided as they are 
 for the government of an empire, unparalleled in the history of the 
 world in extent and population, must, it will readily be imagined, be 
 proportionally numerous and complicated. They are also, which is 
 still more embarrassing, generally intermingled in such a degree with 
 details, concerning the ancient history and actual condition of the 
 civil, political, and ceremonial institutions of the empire, that in- 
 dividual works on these subjects are sometimes extended to the 
 enormous length of a hundred volumes, and the aggregate is, of 
 course, enormous in proportion.' 
 
 The Chinese code of penal laws has been described as, ' if not 
 the most just and equitable, at least the most comprehensive, uniform, 
 and suited to the genius of the people for whom it is designed, perhaps 
 of any that ever existed.' 
 
 ' The civil and military establishments, the public revenue and 
 expenditure, the national rites and ceremonies, the public works, and 
 the administration of justice, are, each of them, regulated by a 
 particular code of laws and institutions ; but the laws of the empire in 
 the strictest and most appropriate sense of the term, and which may 
 be denominated Penal Laws by way of contradistinction, are the 
 peculiar and exclusive province of the last of these departments.' 
 
 The Chinese, as in nearly everything of importance that 
 concerns their commonwealth, carry back the first promul- 
 gation of their system of laws to a remote antiquity, namely, 
 the time of Yao (B.C. 2356) and his successor Shun, though 
 according to their account of that sovereign (Yao), there 
 would appear to have been but little need of any repressive 
 legislation ; for his rule was the beau ideal of perfect govern- 
 ment in China a state of almost perfect blessedness due 
 to the virtues of the ruler or official, for such an one by his 
 conduct and precepts changes the thief into an honest man, 
 and produces such a state of security, that a bag of money, 
 dropped by the wayside, will be left untouched or carefully 
 put in a place of safety till the return of the loser. Yet, 
 notwithstanding the resplendent virtues of these early 
 monarchs, the second, Shun, is credited with having 
 established the following five punishments : Branding on 
 the forehead, cutting off part of the nose and feet, castra- 
 tion, and death. So innocent and virtuous, however, were
 
 Laws 
 
 the people at that period, that many centuries are said 
 to have passed before it was necessary to enforce 
 them. 
 
 Each change of dynasty in China may be compared to 
 a new geological period, for, notwithstanding the entire dis- 
 solution of the government and abrogation of the constitu- 
 tion established by the preceding dynasty, yet, as in the 
 deposit of new strata, the same general conditions and 
 principles are adhered to in the formation, or laying down 
 of the new laws, a new code being generally made with 
 each successive change of family on the throne. That in 
 present use came into force when the Manchu Tartars 
 assumed the rule over China ; but, to again use the same 
 illustration as above, imbedded in this new code, as in the 
 newer geological strata, are to be found remains of antiquity ; 
 and, if a minute investigation be substituted for a cursory 
 survey, it will be found, as in the material forming the 
 later deposits on the earth's surface, that the mass of the 
 laws are of the same stuff and substance as the more 
 ancient ones, codified and altered in conformity with the 
 changed conditions of time and life, some of the older 
 forms dying out, and more recent enactments, necessitated 
 by the progress of events, giving fresh life and vigour 
 to the whole. 
 
 The first regular code of penal laws is attributed to 
 Li-kwai, two thousand years ago. It is described as ' simple 
 in its arrangement and construction, having been confined 
 to six books only, two of which appear to have been 
 introductory, the third relative to prisons, the fourth to 
 the administration of the police, the fifth to the lesser or 
 miscellaneous offences, and the sixth to all the great and 
 capital offences against public justice.' This code is 
 supposed to have come into operation under the Ts'in 
 dynasty (B.C. 249.) Though codified at this period, the 
 principal characteristics belong to a remoter antiquity. 
 Alterations and enlargements took place with the advent 
 of each successive dynasty, both in the plan and divisions 
 of the code, viz. : under the Han, Ts'in, T'ang, Sung, Yiian, 
 
 379
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 Ming, and some of the lesser dynasties, and the latest, 
 under the present one, the Ts'ing, or Ch'ing. 
 
 As in European codes, the building up of new material 
 on an old structure, and in conformity with an antiquated 
 plan, instead of pulling down and rebuilding on a new 
 scheme better adapted for the requirements of an altered 
 and progressive state of society, gives rise to ambiguity, 
 confusion, complications, intricacies, and inconveniences. 
 The artificial and complex construction of the code is 
 another cause of obscurity. It is not to be supposed that 
 all those principles, some of which are excellent, contained 
 in our English system of laws, the result of many years of 
 a progressive struggle towards the attainment of justice, 
 and the outcome of a different system of life and its 
 surroundings, will be found in a body of laws produced 
 under such different conditions. Yet, on the whole, the 
 Chinese Penal Code is admirably adapted to the require- 
 ments of its teeming population of law-abiding subjects, 
 taking into consideration the great difference in the 
 fundamental principles on which the superstructure is 
 founded. 
 
 The parental authority is clearly seen as one of the 
 great conditioning causes in operation from remote times to 
 the present. From the small circle of the family of a few 
 individuals it spreads in ever-widening circles to the clan, 
 composed of the aggregate of many families, and reaches 
 its final limits in the Government which is based upon the 
 same principle, that of parental authority ; and to this 
 principle is doubtless due, in union with some others, the 
 conservative and preserving force, which has, amidst, and in 
 spite of, many heterogeneous elements, knit the Chinese 
 people together as one through so many past ages ; and 
 which still preserves its unifying power, and may for count- 
 less generations to come. 
 
 The following extract from a Chinese newspaper, 
 published in the Colony of Hongkong, viz. : The Chung 
 Ngoi San Po, will give some idea of what process of law 
 entails in China : 
 
 380
 
 Laws 
 
 ' Governor Luk Chuen-lam has given instructions to the Magistrates 
 of Nam-hoi and Pun-yii districts that they are not to detain people 
 connected with the cases brought before them, whether the prosecutor 
 or prosecuted, except in cases of emergency. The order is warmly 
 appreciated by all the Chinese, for the detention of people in the 
 yamens, pending the investigation of the cases concerned, afforded 
 chances to the yamen people to make their squeezes, and it is a fact 
 that the Chinese are willing to stand any amount of suffering rather 
 than present themselves before the mandarins to be maltreated and 
 squeezed by the yamen people, who do not receive any wages from 
 the mandarins and simply watch for chances of squeezing. People 
 ordered to be detained by the Magistrate in the yamen are kept under 
 the custody of the yamen people, who lock them up in exceedingly 
 dirty rooms, . . . giving them no food and no bedding until their 
 friends and relatives come forward to amply bribe the custodians. 
 Sometimes a person is detained in the yamen for many years, although 
 the case may be only a minor one, if there is no influential Shan-sz to 
 stand bail, which bail is represented by influence and not by money. 
 It is not uncommon for the Chinese to successfully bribe the yamen 
 runners not to take them before the Magistrate if a warrant is issued 
 for their arrest.' 
 
 The prisoner, whether he may turn out to be innocent or 
 guilty, is not treated with that tenderness incident to our 
 twentieth-century civilisation : every effort is not made to 
 prove his innocence, if possible, and points are not strained 
 in his favour, which would be dropped if against him. The 
 Chinese law would appear to be better adapted to ensure 
 the punishment of a greater number of guilty persons than 
 the English law ; but it is probable that occasionally an 
 innocent person is caught in its meshes, and, unable to escape, 
 is punished ; but English law is not free from this defect, 
 even when such a sacred thing as human life is at stake. 
 There is no doubt that, notwithstanding misfortune over- 
 taking a few innocent ones in China, the well-being of the 
 mass, on the whole, is better conserved than in a system 
 where sentiment is apt to get the upper hand. This for 
 the moment leaving out of sight the universal bribery and 
 corruption prevalent and the infliction of torture. 
 
 The English principles of a man being considered 
 innocent till proved guilty, and of no man criminating 
 himself, are unknown ; but on the other hand, a prisoner is 
 required to confess before he can be punished ; for no 
 criminal case is complete without this confession. Un-
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 fortunately, however, the utility of this safeguard is some- 
 what, if not entirely, nullified by the introduction of torture, 
 if necessary, to induce confession. The application of this 
 must necessarily depend a good deal upon the character of 
 the official within whose power the criminal chances to be. 
 A cursory examination of the penal code might lead one to 
 infer that corporal punishment, and, as a consequence, torture 
 was universal ; but, before arriving at such a hasty conclusion, 
 several things which have a tendency to modify such a 
 decision have to be considered : In the first place, the 
 Chinese should be compared with other Asiatic nations, 
 whose punishments will often be found to be of a most 
 ferocious character. Viewed under such circumstances, the 
 use of torture to extract the truth does not seem so awful 
 for an Eastern people ; it must also be remembered that 
 it is only a few centuries since torture was in use in 
 our enlightened lands in the West ; and, finally, there 
 are so many exceptions and grounds of mitigation, that 
 universality of corporal punishments, and consequently 
 of torture, will be found to be much affected thereby. 
 
 The law in China likewise interferes with many acts 
 which in Europe are without its pale ; on this point it has 
 been remarked that : 
 
 ' In a country in which the laws have not in any considerable 
 degree the active concurrence either of a sense of honour, or of a 
 sense of religion, it may perhaps be absolutely requisite that they 
 should take so wide a range. Experience may have dictated the 
 necessity of their interfering in this direct manner in the enforcement 
 of all those national habits and usages, whose preservation, as far as 
 they are of a moral or prudential tendency, must undoubtedly be of 
 essential importance both to the security of the government and to the 
 happiness of the people.' 
 
 We quote again from Staunton's ' Penal Code of China ' 
 (Introduction) : 
 
 'Another object which seems to have been very generally con- 
 sulted is that of as much as possible combining, in the construction 
 and adaptation of the scale of crimes and punishments throughout the 
 Code, the opposite advantages of severity in denunciation and lenity 
 in execution.' 
 
 The laws are divided into the lnt, or fundamental laws, 
 
 382
 
 Laws 
 
 and lai, supplementary laws : the former are permanent ; 
 the latter, which are liable to revision every five years, are 
 the ' modifications, extensions, and restrictions of the funda- 
 mental laws.' Each article of the fundamental laws has 
 been likewise further explained or paraphrased by the 
 Emperor Yung Cheng, ' and the whole of the text is further 
 illustrated by extracts from the works of various com- 
 mentators. These appear to have been expressly written 
 for the use and instruction of magistrates, and accordingly 
 form a body of legal reference directly sanctioned for that 
 purpose by government' 
 
 The laws are classified as follows : ' General, Civil, 
 Fiscal, Ritual, Military, and Criminal Laws, and those 
 relating to Public Works,' comprised in 436 sections of the 
 original laws, and a more numerous quantity of the 
 supplemental laws, or ' Novelise, which bear the same 
 relation to the code as the judiciary law and subsequent 
 enactments in France, and the new laws and authoritative 
 interpretations in Prussia, respectively do to the Code 
 Napoleon and Code Frederic.' 
 
 Staunton characterises the Penal Code as remarkable 
 for the conciseness and simplicity of its style of language, 
 at the same time he calls attention to the difficulty, with- 
 out ' various references and considerable research,' of 
 ascertaining the punishment which a criminal ' is actually 
 liable to suffer.' He proceeds to say : 
 
 ' That the sections of the Chinese Code may thus, perhaps, not 
 unaptly be compared to a collection of consecutive mathematical 
 problems with this additional circumstance of perplexity that a just 
 and entire comprehension of each section individually requires a 
 general knowledge of those that follow, no less than of those which 
 precede it.' 
 
 'By far the most remarkable thing in this code is its great 
 reasonableness, clearness, and consistency, the business-like brevity 
 and directness of the various provisions, and the plainness and 
 moderation in which they are expressed. There is nothing here 
 of the monstrous verbiage of most other Asiatic productions none 
 of the superstitious deliration, the miserable incoherence, the tre- 
 mendous non-sequiturs and eternal repetitions of those oracular 
 performances nothing even of the turgid adulation, accumulated 
 epithets, and fatiguing self-praise of other Eastern despotisms but 
 
 383
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 a calm, concise, and distinct series of enactments, savouring through- 
 out of practical judgment and European good sense, and, if not always 
 conformable to our improved notions of expediency, in general 
 approaching to them more nearly than the codes of most other 
 nations. When we pass, indeed, from the ravings of the Zendavesta 
 or the Puranas to the tone of sense and business in this Chinese 
 collection, we seem to be passing from darkness to light, from the 
 drivellings of dotage to the exercise of an improved understanding.' 
 The legal maxim de minimis non curat lex is not known in China ; 
 much minute attention is paid to trifles. ' We scarcely know any 
 European code that is at once so copious and so consistent, or that is 
 so nearly free from intricacy, bigotry, and fiction. In everything 
 relating to political freedom or individual independence it is indeed 
 woefully defective ; but for the repression of disorder and the gentle 
 coercion of a vast population, it appears to be equally mild and 
 efficacious. The state of society for which it was formed appears 
 incidentally to be a low and wretched one ; but how could its framers 
 have devised a wiser means of maintaining it in peace and tranquillity.' 
 
 'The people have a high regard for the code,' 'and all they seem to 
 desire is its just and impartial execution, independent of caprice and 
 uninfluenced by corruption. ... It may be observed, as something 
 in favour of the Chinese system, that there are substantial grounds for 
 believing that neither flagrant nor repeated acts of injustice do, in 
 point of fact, often, in any rank or station, ultimately escape with 
 impunity.' 
 
 ' Besides these laws and their numerous clauses, every high 
 provincial officer has the right to issue edicts upon such public matters 
 as require regulation, some of them even affecting life and death, 
 either reviving some old law or giving it an application to the case 
 before him, with such modifications as seem to be necessary. He 
 must report these acts to the proper board at Peking. No such order, 
 which for the time has the force of law, is formally repealed, but 
 gradually falls into oblivion, until circumstances again require its 
 reiteration. This mode of publishing statutes gives rise to a sort of 
 common and unwritten law in villages, to which a council of elders 
 sometimes compels individuals to submit ; long usage is also another 
 ground for enforcing them.' 
 
 'The Chinese customary law . . . undoubtedly rests, as did the 
 Roman Law before the publication of the Twelve Tables, upon the 
 mores majorum, " that is," as Lord Mackenzie says of the latter, upon 
 " customs long observed and sanctioned by the consent of the people." 
 We are inclined to think it improbable that the Chinese have added to, 
 or more than superficially changed any of their fundamental social 
 principles since the compilation of the "Ritual of Chau" by Chau 
 Kung, and that of the " Record of Rites " by Confucius, both of which 
 collections . . . most probably reduced to a definite code the social 
 principles of the Chinese, whilst blending them with those of the then 
 ruling dynasty, and to this day continue to exercise a profound in- 
 fluence upon the Chinese mind. We mean by fundamental principles, 
 those such as the Patriarchal Principle . . . and the Fraternal Prin- 
 ciple . . . which, especially the former, apparently the progenitor of 
 
 384
 
 Laws 
 
 the others, pervade the Law and Customs of the Chinese as completely 
 as the Patria Potestas ever did the Jurisprudence of Rome. The 
 Chinese Customary Law furnishes a standing "caution" (in the 
 language of Sir Henry Maine) "to those who with Hentham and 
 Austin resolve every law into a command of the law-giver, and 
 obligation imposed thereby on the citizen, and a sanction threatened 
 in the event of disobedience.'" 'The principle of hiao, which, in its 
 broadest sense, we think we may take to include friendship (stn), and 
 loyalty (c/iung), as well as filial (hiao), fraternal (yu and kung), or 
 (/'/'), and conjugal piety or duty (shun), is undoubtedly the substratum 
 of the Chinese social and legal fabric.' 
 
 'The Chinese Law, both Customary and Statute, furnishes an 
 immense amount of collateral evidence in support of Maine's theory, 
 that the movement of the progressive societies has hitherto been a 
 movement from Status to Contract, or from families as units to 
 individuals as units. It is pcirticularly fruitful in illustration, perhaps 
 more so even than the Hindoo Customary Laws. . . . The numerous 
 illustrations are the more valuable, inasmuch as China has not yet 
 emerged from Status ; and, as regards the Patria Potestas, the 
 Testamentary Power, the position of women and slaves, the fiction of 
 adoption, and the almost entire absence of any written law of contract, 
 remains in the position of the Roman Law, not of the latter Empire, 
 not even of the Antonine era ; not even, again, of the early Empire, or 
 the Republic at its prime ; but of the Roman Law anterior to the 
 publication of the Twelve Tables 2,200 years ago. In fact, with the 
 Chinese law, as with the Chinese language, we are carried back to a 
 position whence we can survey, so to speak, a living past, and converse 
 with fossil men.' 
 
 ' The law secretaries . . . whether Provincial or Metropolitan,' are 
 ' the true and almost sole depositories in China both of the life of the 
 law and the life of official language. They are the jurisconsults of the 
 officials, as the Roman lawyers were those of the people. True, most 
 Chinese officials are thoroughly cognizant of the main principles, and 
 fairly acquainted with the details of their not very voluminous codified 
 law, but the law secretaries are they who search out and apply the law 
 in each case, and who draw up the records for submission to the Courts 
 of Appeal at Peking, The Grand Court of Revision and the Board of 
 Punishment, . . . and to the Supreme Tribunal, consisting of the 
 Emperor, either alone, or aided by such commissioners as he shall see 
 fit to appoint which commissioners, again, are assisted by their 
 secretaries. A highly paid class, possessing immense indirect power, 
 and usually plying their vocation with the least possible outward show, 
 they furnish not unfrequently some of the ablest statesmen in the 
 Empire. Tso Tsung-fang, the strategist who . . . recovered Kash- 
 garia to the Empire, may be cited as an illustrious example ; and a 
 . . . memorial presented by him to the Throne, praying for posthumous 
 honours to be conferred on four of his secretaries, evidences the value 
 which is attached to the services of these men, and the important part 
 they take in the concerns of the Empire.' 
 
 The punishments now inflicted for an infringement of 
 the law are : Flogging with the bamboo ; banishment 
 
 385 2 B
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 within a limited distance for a limited time or permanently ; 
 death of which there are two modes by strangling and 
 decapitation. 
 
 Manacles of wood, and iron fetters are used, and the 
 cangue, a species of stock consisting of a heavy framework 
 of wood in which the neck and hands are confined. Two 
 instruments of torture are legally allowed : one for com- 
 pressing the ankle-bones and one for the fingers, but others 
 are used as well, though perhaps not to the extent that is 
 sometimes supposed. 
 
 It is not every crime that is brought up before the 
 Courts, but some, such as trifling thefts, are summarily 
 punished by the people of the neighbourhood, the thief 
 being whipped through the streets of the locality where his 
 larceny was committed. 
 
 In cases coming before the officials, the prosecutor must 
 file his charge at ' the lowest tribunal of justice within the 
 district,' from which, if not summarily dealt with, it may 
 proceed on to higher Courts. There are no lawyers in our 
 sense of the term, though there is a class of men who assist 
 the parties, unknown to the judge, by preparing witnesses 
 and drawing up petitions, etc. : 
 
 For these 'lawyers are a disreputable class in China, not recognised 
 by law, and not allowed to appear in Court. They can simply prompt 
 their clients from behind the scenes, and write out their petitions and 
 counter petitions for them.' 
 
 ' Everything connected with law and law matters is so different 
 in China that a European is in constant danger of misunderstanding 
 and misjudging the people in connection with such matters. In the 
 first place, hearsay evidence is perfectly permissible, and a man would 
 suffer the extreme penalty of the law even if such were the only 
 evidence against him. No oath is taken in a Chinese Court. The 
 oaths, if a matter is in dispute, take place in the temple before the 
 gods, or out in the open air in the presence of Heaven, and consist of 
 worshipping and either the chopping off of a live cock's head, or the 
 burning of imprecations written on yellow paper. In the country 
 something earthen ' a ' vessel is sometimes broken by way of an 
 oath. The appeal to Heaven is undoubtedly the best.' 
 
 Consequently in our Courts of Justice in Hongkong 
 when a suitor fears his case is going against him, or sees 
 that his opponent as strongly sticks to his version as he 
 
 386
 
 Laws 
 
 does to his, he often suggests a reference to what are more 
 binding to him than the simple declarations of our Courts, 
 viz., an oath on a cock's head, which is chopped off. 
 
 Again a Chinese suitor in a native Court does not bring 
 his witnesses with him or subpoena them to attend. That 
 is the magistrate's or judge's duty, or function : he sends 
 his lictors for them if it appears, either in the course of 
 giving evidence or earlier, that their presence is necessary, 
 consequently in our Courts of Justice, litigants are constantly 
 coming up without their witnesses, and they often, more 
 Sinico, ask the judge to send for them. 
 
 The lengths to which the Chinese idea of the sanctity 
 of the life of the parent carries them may be seen from 
 a cutting from the North China Daily News in 1897: 
 
 ' A child, barely eleven years old, was escorted by a number ufyamen 
 runners into Soochow city on the 2Oth August, having come from the 
 district city of Chinkuei, not far from Soochow, for his final trial 
 before the Provincial Judge on the fearful charge of murdering his 
 mother. As a matter of fact the affair was a simple accident. The 
 child was swinging a small bamboo stool about him when he acci- 
 dentally struck his mother on the left side with it. She died almost 
 immediately, with the result that her son will have to suffer for his 
 so-called " crime " at the hands of the executioner, not merely by simple 
 decapitation, but also by the "slicing process " the penalty for parri- 
 cides and matricides, no matter how accomplished, whether acci- 
 dentally or premeditated, for the Chinese laws do not recognise any 
 difference where life has been taken.' 
 
 A Chinese judge acts as prosecutor as well as judge, 
 more in the French style (there being no lawyers in our 
 sense of the term, there is consequently no prosecuting 
 counsel, or Solicitor-General, or Attorney-General), and he 
 sometimes allows the parties to set to and bandy words 
 and recriminate each other while he quietly sits by and 
 listens to see if he can pick up any more facts about the 
 case. 
 
 Amidst all the anomalies of the Chinese administration 
 of justice there is one good point, and that is, that the 
 magistrate or judge endeavours, if not influenced by 
 bribery, etc., to give a reasonable common-sense verdict. 
 Though there are both law and custom to guide him, he is 
 not bound by the iron bands of precedents, and law and 
 
 387
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 custom, within certain limits, may go to the wall should 
 he be sufficiently clear-sighted to see a better and more 
 reasonable course to pursue. 
 
 The following extracts will illustrate one or two more 
 traits of Chinese character with regard to legal matters: 
 
 ' Though there is an elaborate Penal Code and there are distinctions 
 between different kinds of murder and homicide, yet it is all one to the 
 common people, and a life for a life is their cry. However, a money 
 compensation often pacifies wounded feelings in a case of accident. 
 Though if the relations insist on revenge, the matter must come before 
 the mandarins.' 
 
 ' When a Chinese witness comes into the box he 'expects the 
 magistrate to ask him the name of his native district, his own name, 
 his age, the age of his father and mother (if alive), the maiden name 
 of his wife, her age, the number and ages of his children, and many 
 more questions of similar relevancy and importance, before a single 
 effort is made towards eliciting any one fact bearing upon the subject 
 under investigation. With a stereotyped people like the Chinese, it 
 does not do to ignore these trifles of form and custom : on the 
 contrary the witness should rather be allowed to wander at will 
 through such useless details until he has collected his scattered 
 thoughts, and may be safely coaxed to divulge something which par- 
 takes more of the nature of evidence.' 
 
 ' No provision is made for fresh legislation as such. The Penal 
 Code, which is the only body of statutory law in existence, is supposed 
 to contain enactments to meet every possible case, but if by chance 
 some difficulty occurs for which there is no precedent, it is referred to 
 the Board concerned, which in turn reports to the Throne. A decree 
 or rescript is thereupon issued, which settles the case. Periodically 
 the Code is revised, and these various decrees are consolidated or 
 incorporated, and become part of the Statute Law.' 
 
 Books recommended. 1 Ta Tsing Leu Lee ; Being the Fundamental Laws 
 and a Selection from the Supplementary Statutes of the Penal Code of China,' 
 translated by Sir G. T. Staunton, Bart, F.R.S., "Williams's ' Middle Kingdom,' 
 vol. i. p. 384 et seq., Giles's 'Historic China and other Sketches,' p. 125 et 
 seq., and Parker's 'Comparative Chinese Family Law,' to all of which we 
 are indebted in the above article. ' Xotes and Commentaries on Chinese 
 Criminal Law and Cognate Topics, witli Special Relation to Ruling Cases, 
 together with a brief Excursus on the Law of Property, chiefly founded on 
 the writings of the late Sir Chaloner Alabaster, K.C. M.G., etc., sometime 
 H.B.M. Consul-General in China,' by Ernest Alabaster. (Also see Article on 
 Tenure of Land in this present work. ) 
 
 LEPROSY. One of the most loathsome diseases to 
 be met with in China is Leprosy ; and one that the civilised 
 world has had prominently brought before its notice of 
 recent years. ' As to the cause of its prevalence, the 
 
 388
 
 Leprosy 
 
 poverty of the great bulk of the people, poor food, over- 
 crowding, generally dirtiness, absence of segregation [in 
 some districts], and the hot, moist climate, provide a chain 
 of conditions very suitable for the propagation of leprosy.' 
 China is not a land where statistics arc available ; the 
 Chinese mind needs a considerable tonic of Western science 
 and ideas before it will be braced up to that definite and 
 precise form of statement which will prepare the way for 
 this useful branch of knowledge. At present the Chinese 
 delights in a vague statement of even facts well known to 
 himself. He calls certain of his relations brothers, which 
 term includes real brothers, cousins of more than one degree, 
 and clansmen. He tells you a thing took place between 
 2 and 3 o'clock, when he might as well say 2.15 P.M. ; he 
 says there were between ten and twenty present, when he 
 might as well say fifteen or sixteen. Statistics from such 
 an individual, it can be readily understood, are well-nigh 
 impossible, else China would present a splendid field for an 
 array of facts on leprosy ; for not only is it existent all 
 over China, but it prevails extensively in the South, 
 especially in the Canton province, where cases are very 
 numerous in the silk districts. The Government has Leper 
 Asylums at different centres of population in the South for 
 the purpose of segregation, doles from the Emperor's 
 bounty being granted to the lepers. These asylums are 
 badly managed, as unfortunately most native charitable 
 institutions are. The village for lepers at Canton is 
 situated about two or three miles north of the city ; there 
 is accommodation there for 400 or 500, but it is not 
 sufficient ; they are allowed in boats on the river as well, 
 and outside the east gate of the city. 
 
 The lepers in the leper village occupy themselves in 
 making rope of cocoa-nut fibre, and brooms, etc., which, 
 though the inhabitants of the city are in mortal dread of 
 the afflicted inmates, yet find a ready sale ; females, who 
 have lost the outward symptoms of the disease, sell them 
 in the market. Lepers also waylay funerals and demand 
 alms, which are given, for fear that leper ghosts may 
 
 339
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 torment the departed. The sums demanded are on a 
 varying scale, and fixed by the lepers according to their 
 idea of the rank and wealth of the deceased. Such 
 exorbitant sums are asked that they are sometimes refused, 
 and then the lepers leap into the grave and prevent the 
 interment. They accept promises of payment, but, if these 
 are not kept, they exhume the corpse and retain possession 
 of it until their demands are met. These payments to the 
 lepers form an item in the funeral expenses. 
 
 In the leper boats, a single leper often resides who 
 paddles about seeking charity ; in such cases the boats are 
 tiny little canoes with a mat-covering over the centre. 
 They sometimes strip the dead bodies that float down the 
 river, and, if they find one respectably dressed, occasionally 
 advertise it for the reward that they hope to obtain. In the 
 silk districts there would appear to be no asylums on land, 
 but the lepers are restricted to the boats, from which they 
 solicit cash by means of a long bamboo pole with a bag 
 at the end. In some of the districts they occupy certain 
 shrines on the river bank, and beg alms with rod and bag. 
 
 The Chinese at Canton will have nothing to do with 
 lepers ; and if the family of a rich man who has taken the 
 disease tries to hide it, the neighbours, as a general rule, 
 soon compel his segregation. They are unable to cure it ; 
 and ascribe it to different causes ; one reason given is the 
 rain-water dropping from a certain kind of tree on anyone; 
 another is, that the droppings from spiders cause it. They 
 suppose it to work itself out in three or four generations, 
 and it would appear to be a well-established fact that in 
 some of the large leper villages the proportion of lepers is 
 but small, the disease having died out in the course of a 
 century or so. Lepers in Canton marry amongst them- 
 selves, but not with others. When the disease is well 
 developed, the sight is sickening ; the parts affected, such 
 as the face, ears, hands, and feet are enlarged, and red, 
 smooth, and glossy. At certain stages of the disease, 
 spontaneous amputation of the fingers and toes takes place, 
 for they rot and drop off. An improvement in diet, and 
 
 390
 
 Leprosy 
 
 tonics, better the condition of the patient, but there is still 
 much to be learned as to the cause and treatment of this 
 dreadful scourge. In two and a half years 125 lepers 
 presented themselves at the Alice Memorial Hospital in 
 Hongkong. 
 
 'Throughout the greater part of the province of Shangtung leprosy 
 is seldom seen, and where it does exist it is mainly anesthetic leprosy. 
 But in the prefectures of Yi-chou Vu and Yen-chou Fu leprosy is quite 
 common. The majority of cases met with in missionary hospitals 
 through the province come from these two prefectures, the one 
 including the home of Confucius and the other, Yi-chow, lying to the 
 south of it. The cases exhibit all the characteristics of true leprosy, 
 and often in an extreme stage. It is not uncommon for villages in Yi- 
 chou prefecture to have several lepers. Dr. Hunter, of Chining-chou, 
 who has kindly furnished facts, regards the causes of the prevalence 
 of leprosy in one section of a province, most parts of which are free 
 from it, to be mainly climacteric.' 
 
 In Soochow the lepers live in their own homes and 
 mingle with other people without any restriction. In the 
 North of China there are no leper villages, and, it would 
 appear, no attempts at segregation whatever. It is stated to 
 be ' comparatively rare in the northern provinces of China, 
 excessively common in the southern.' 
 
 On the basis of the number seen at the Soochow 
 Hospital, a calculation has been made that there are prob- 
 ably 150,000 lepers in China ; but this must be very much 
 a guess. China is supposed to be the country in which 
 there is the largest number. ' In India there are said to be 
 500,000.' Again it is stated that ' according to the census 
 of 1891, after making allowance for error, it is estimated 
 that in British India there were 105,000.' 'Judging from 
 what is seen in the coast towns and treaty ports [in China], 
 the number of lepers there is even greater than in India.' 
 It is questionable whether a place such as Soochow, where 
 ' less than one in two thousand of the sick are afflicted 
 with this disease,' affords a reliable basis to form an 
 estimate of the prevalence of the disease throughout China. 
 (Another estimate puts down the number in China, India, 
 and Siberia as 1,000,000. In Russian Turkestan there are 
 said to be 2,000.) Another of these attempts at guessing 
 
 391
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 puts the lepers in China as 300,000. As an example of 
 districts where leprosy is more common, it may be 
 mentioned that during a week at Chao Chow-fu from two 
 to three or four a day, so diseased, appeared amongst about 
 forty or more patients, and this was not an exceptional 
 week. In the tract of country round Swatow with a 
 population not much less than that of Scotland, it is 
 estimated that there are 25,000 lepers ; and, to one 
 accustomed to the horror the Cantonese have of the disease, 
 it was extraordinary to see the utter carelessness the 
 natives evinced in their contact with the subjects of this 
 loathsome malady. Just outside the city of Chao Chow-fu 
 the author saw a leper lad sitting at the roadside and eat- 
 ing out of a bowl which had evidently been obtained from 
 a hawker's stall, such a thing being utterly out of the 
 question at Canton. In a shop in one of the principal 
 streets of the same important city, a leper was pointed out 
 to the writer. He was busy at work in a tailor's shop. 
 The utter nonchalance with which the people in this part 
 of the country regard the lepers, and the utter absence of 
 all precautions in their intercourse with them is most 
 extraordinary. There are leper villages, so we were 
 informed, in some of which the disease has died or is 
 dying out ; some poor miserable huts and temples are also 
 tenanted by lepers on the roadside. 
 
 Leprosy does not appear to be on the increase in China, 
 though in some parts every opportunity is given for its 
 spread. Doubtless were every precaution taken against 
 the possibility of contagion from it, and a rigid system of 
 segregation enforced throughout the empire it might be 
 stamped out, as it is said it was in England some centuries 
 since. 
 
 From historical references to it, it seems to have been 
 known in China some two or three hundred years before 
 the time of Confucius ; the sage himself had a disciple 
 who died of this dreadful disease. It is very curious to 
 find some districts of country quite free from this horrible 
 infliction while other parts in the neighbourhood are 
 
 392
 
 Leprosy 
 
 affected with it. It is a great comfort to the European 
 residents in China to find that its power of contagion is, 
 comparatively speaking, so slight. It is, however, con- 
 tagious and perhaps communicable in some way or other 
 as well, so that it behoves those that are brought into 
 contact with cases of it to take every precaution instead of 
 being so foolhardy as to ignore its communicability. The 
 author knows of one notable case where the disease was 
 taken by an American missionary, who died after some 
 years in all the horrors incident to it : the cause evidently, 
 in this case, being a Chinese who had the disease having 
 his quarters in the same dwelling as the missionary. After 
 his removal from the house a Chinese woman, who 
 occupied the same room that the leper had previously had, 
 also took it. It is said that some European women in 
 Australia have taken it from their leprous Chinese 
 husbands. There are 19 Chinese lepers in Little Bay, 
 N.S.W. lazar-house amongst a total of 36. The bacillus of 
 leprosy is i-ioo,oooth of an inch in diameter* ' In length 
 it is from half to two-thirds, and in breadth about one- 
 sixteenth, the diameter of a blood-corpuscle.' There are 
 2,000 lepers in Crete ; the disease is said to be spreading in 
 Russia, over 600 new cases a year, in the Eastern Province 
 of Prussia, in North Prussia, as well as in the Austrian 
 Province of Bosnia, and even some cases have occurred in 
 England. 
 
 It is with delight we hail the change of front that has 
 taken place with regard to the communicability of leprosy 
 during the last few years, amongst the medical profession, 
 as the result of the conference on leprosy held in Berlin in 
 1897, for we have always felt it was a most dangerous 
 disease. 
 
 'The conference declared [and rightly so] that leprosy is a contagious 
 disease, and that every leper is a danger to his surroundings. The 
 conclusion come to is, in short, that, as leprosy is dangerous and 
 incurable, lepers should be isolated.' ' The communicability of leprosy, 
 by direct or indirect means, from lepers to the healthy must now be 
 accepted as an established fact, the evidence in support of this belief 
 being conclusive ; . . . there is no evidence of the disease arising or 
 spreading in any other way.' 
 
 393
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 ' Hospitals were originally intended for the reception of 
 lepers.' The number of lazar-houses in Great Britain 
 testifies to the prevalence of the disease there at one time. 
 
 There are 30,000 lepers in the Philippine Archipelago, 
 where it was introduced in 1663 by a shipload of 150 
 lepers sent to the Romish priests there to be cured by the 
 Emperor of Japan. The Spaniards, it is said, took no 
 measures to cure or cope with the disease. Another esti- 
 mate says there are 10,000 in these islands. 
 
 The want of cleanliness and contact appear to be the 
 causes of the disease. ' In Norway there were 1,600 lepers 
 in 1880, out of a population of 1,850,000.' In the Sandwich 
 Islands 1800, in Greece 100 lepers, and 60 leper deaths a 
 year in Mauritius. There are supposed to be 714 cases in 
 Ceylon. 
 
 It is generally believed that leprosy is incurable, but we 
 note that in 1900 inoculation for leprosy in Hanoi was 
 being carried out with satisfactory results ; and Sister 
 Gertrude states positively that she has known several cases 
 of leprosy cured. A curious cure for it in China is noted 
 by one writer. A buffalo \vas killed and the leper was 
 placed inside its body and remained in it for some time. 
 To all appearance he was cured ; but most people will 
 doubtless require stronger evidence before accepting this 
 or other statements of the cure of this loathsome and 
 apparently incurable disease. Isolation has been tried with 
 marked success in Norway. 
 
 We close this article with a short extract from Dr. 
 Manson's recent work, ' Tropical Diseases ' : 
 
 ' Seeing that leprosy is caused by a specific germ, there must have 
 been a time in the history of every leper when the infecting germ 
 entered the body. In the case of many specific diseases . . . the 
 time of infection can usually be ascertained. So far as present know- 
 ledge goes, this much cannot be affirmed of leprosy. . . . We are 
 equally ignorant as to the condition of the infecting germ, whether 
 it enters the organ or organs through which it gains access as spore 
 or as bacillus ; and, also, as to the medium in or by which it is 
 conveyed. We cannot say whether it enters in food, in water, in 
 air ; whether it passes in through the broken epithelium, or whether 
 it is inoculated on some broken breach of surface, or, perhaps, 
 introduced by some insect bite. But, though we are in absolute 
 
 394
 
 Lighthouses 
 
 ignorance as to the process of infection, we may be quite sure that in 
 leprosy there is an act of infection, and that the infective material 
 comes from another leper. Leprosy has never been shown to arise de 
 novo.' 
 
 Books recommended. 'Leprosy,' by G. Thin, M.D., pp. 52-61, sjwaks 
 about leprosy in China. The Reports of difl'erent Medical Missionary 
 Hospitals in South-Eastern China have occasionally contained notes on 
 leprosy and accounts of treatments with more or less beneficial results. 
 ' Leprosy in Hongkong,' by J. Cantlie, M.A., M.B., F.K.C.S., also contains 
 notes of cases and treatment at the Alice Memorial Hospital in Hongkong, 
 attached to a monograph on the subject. Gray's 'China,' vol. ii. p. 51. 
 Some interesting papers on this disease have appeared in The China Medical 
 Missionary Journal; see especially vol. ii. p. 59. 'The Chinese, tbeir 
 Present and Future; Medical, Political, and Social,' by R. Coltman Jr., 
 M.D. , chap, ix., Leprosy. 'Tropical Diseases: A Manual of the Diseases of 
 Warm Climates,' by P. Manson, M.D., LL.D., etc., chap. xxvi. pp. 383- 
 422. 
 
 LIGHTHOUSES. The lighthouse system in Chinese 
 waters is under a department of the Imperial Maritime 
 Customs, and is only one of the many advantages which have 
 resulted from a foreign staff being in the employ of the 
 Chinese Government. ' The lighthouses on the China Coast 
 have a luminous intensity equal to that of the best non- 
 electric lighthouses in the world. The lighting and main- 
 tenance are attended to with the greatest punctuality, and 
 there has never been a complaint as to the regularity of 
 working and amount of safety afforded.' Some of the most 
 important positions have been selected for their display; and 
 these indispensable aids to the navigator extend from New- 
 chwang in the North to the island of Hainan in the South, 
 and along the Yang-tsz and Canton Rivers. They are mostly 
 on land, though a few are lightships ; and they are either 
 fixed, fixed and flashing, or group-flashing, revolving, or 
 occulting ; the illuminating apparatus is either catoptric or 
 dioptric. Besides these, there are a number of buoys (86), 
 and beacons (82), light-vessels (4), and light-boats ( 1 9). The 
 lights, etc., are being added to, and the department increased 
 as time goes on. Since the first lights were started in the 
 years 1855, 1859, and 1863, up to 1895 or 1896, there have 
 been but nine years in which a new light has not been ex- 
 hibited, while in a few years the total of new ones for the 
 year rose as high as nine or ten. At the end of 1897 there 
 
 395
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 were 105 lights, 4 light-vessels, 82 buoys, and 65 beacons, 
 making a total of 256 under the control of this department 
 of the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs Service. In 
 1901 there were a total of 288. 
 
 Leaving out those on the Canton River as well as those 
 at Chinkiang, Kiukiang, and Hankow, there are approxi- 
 mately about one light to every hundred and two miles of 
 coast line. A few years ago there was a lighthouse to every 
 fourteen miles of English coast, one to every thirty-four 
 of Irish coast, and one to every thirty-nine of Scotch shore 
 line. It must, however, be remembered that about two- 
 thirds of the Chinese lights are at those ports mentioned 
 above. The staff required for the maintenance of the 
 lights is composed of both foreigners and natives ; the 
 former numbering fifty-eight and the latter two hundred 
 and twenty-two. 
 
 Lord Charles Beresford in a speech at Shanghai in 1899, 
 thus speaks : 
 
 'Sir Robert Hart, if he had done nothing else beyond lighting the 
 coast of China which I say as a seaman is as well lighted as any in 
 Europe deserves the lasting gratitude of all nations.' 
 
 Besides these there are three lighthouses in the British 
 Colony of Hongkong, and one in the Portuguese Colony of 
 Macao. 
 
 LIKIN AND SOME OTHER TAXES. The in- 
 cident of taxation in China seems strange and mysterious 
 to the stranger, who finds it difficult to understand the 
 various taxes. 
 
 Likin, which maybe termed 'Inland Transportation Tax,' 'is a 
 tax originally of one cash per tael on all sales, voluntarily imposed on 
 themselves by the people, among whom it was very popular, with a 
 view of making up the deficiency of the land tax in China, caused by 
 the T'df P'ing and Nien Fei troubles. It was to be set apart for 
 military purposes only hence its common name, "war tax"; and was 
 said by the Tsung Li Yamen to be adopted merely as a temporary 
 measure.' It has been 'collected at rates differing in different 
 provinces and at different times. The Chefoo Agreement makes the 
 area of the foreign concessions at the various Treaty Ports exempt 
 from the levy of Lekin. This tax has been a bone of contention 
 between Chinese officials and European merchants, and no small 
 
 396
 
 Likin and some other Taxes 
 
 amount of irritation, on both sides, has been excited thereby. The 
 Transit Pass System, stipulated by Treaty, arranged that all foreign 
 goods, which entered the interior of China, under this regulation, 
 should be freed from further taxation.' 
 
 ' It has been continued in defiance of promises that when the 
 finances of the country had recovered their normal condition the 
 likin should be abolished.' 
 
 ' As a guarantee for a portion of China's indebtedness, it was 
 agreed that the likin collection at the Yangtsz ports and at Ningpo 
 should be placed under the control of the foreign customs.' 
 
 Likin, as well as the Salt Revenue, is now being 
 transferred to the Imperial Maritime Customs for 
 Collection. 
 
 The Lotishui, or laying-down tax, is levied on goods 
 when they arrive at their destinations inland, having run 
 the gauntlet of the different likin stations en route and 
 been mulct the duties charged at these stations, but it is 
 commonly levied 'to save time,' at port of departure. 
 
 This Lotishui ' was not especially provided for in the 
 earlier treaties, and has nothing to do with transit lekin as 
 such. And it is these unforeseen taxes which have figured 
 so largely in public discussions, though they have all been 
 lumped under the general heading " likin." ' 
 
 There is also the Cheng-fei, or Ching-fei, or military 
 defence tax. 
 
 All the numerous stations for paying taxes offer much 
 friction and hindrance to goods in transitu. Some of the 
 barriers only collect likin, or lekin, as it is often written, 
 sufficient to pay for the staff employed to collect. This, 
 however, cannot be a very common practice. 
 
 It is feared by some that the abolition of lekin and 
 the substitution of J\ per cent, on all sea-borne commerce 
 will prejudicially affect foreign mercantile interests in 
 China. 
 
 Likin was in its incipience a temporary measure, but 
 it has developed into a permanent burden, very onerous 
 on account of its lack of definition. 
 
 ' It has been estimated that of every Sioo collected under the old 
 likin organisation Sio reached the State coffers, and 890 stuck on the 
 way, whereas, when judiciously managed, the result ought to be 
 precisely the converse. The levy of likin was most unfortunately 
 
 397
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 and mistakenly recognised by the British Government long ago, and, 
 having been so long tolerated, it will be difficult, if not impossible, 
 to get rid of it, except on a basis of compromise. . . . The Kowloon 
 Customs collect the Chingfei, or military defence tax, for the Viceroy 
 of Canton, on the trade with which they have to deal ; the amount of 
 that tax may be varied from time to time, and all the Customs have 
 to do is to collect it and account for the proceeds.' 
 
 The following explains exactly the incidence of taxa- 
 tion as it affects the Collectors the Provincial Authorities, 
 and the ultimate receivers the Imperial Authorities, or 
 the Court at Peking. 
 
 ' The great principle underlying the financial administration of the 
 Chinese Empire up to the present is that the Imperial Government 
 makes demands on the provinces in lump sums, leaving the Pro- 
 vincial Governments to apportion the details. Experience in a rough 
 way has pointed out the proportionate sum each province is capable 
 of transmitting, and beyond this there is at present no machinery 
 whereby the provincial levies can be controlled either in amount or 
 in incident. To add to this difficulty, there exists on the part of the 
 Provincial Governments and Peking a profound want of confidence. 
 Each deeply mistrusts the other, and tries to deceive as to its income 
 and expenditure.' 
 
 The Imperial Government has drawn the revenues to 
 be derived from the sea-borne commerce it has always 
 'been looked upon as an appanage of Imperial power, and 
 the provinces have never openly ventured to interfere 
 in the Imperial arrangements ; but when the cargo 
 was once landed for local consumption, the position 
 was at once altered, and the Imperial Government had 
 no more right to interfere than had the provincial in 
 the first instance. Such has been the theory.' Interfer- 
 ence has, however, taken place from time to time on 
 both sides, when either found itself more powerful than 
 the other, but with normal conditions the interference 
 ceased. 
 
 ' When one considers the delays, the squeezes, and above all the 
 uncertainties to which goods are subjected in China, one is inclined 
 to marvel, not that the trade of China is so small in proportion to its 
 population as compared with other countries, but that any trade 
 exists at all. One of the greatest curses of China is the detestable 
 system of likin barriers which everywhere obstruct the trade.' 
 
 It was proposed 'that in return for the raising of the import tariff, 
 from 5 per cent, ad i>olo rem to 15 per cent.,' the Chinese Government 
 
 398
 
 Literature 
 
 should 'abolish entirely all internal taxation, whether Imperial, pro- 
 vincial, local, or municipal, on all merchandise, foreign or native, 
 whether for import, export, or internal consumption (salt and native 
 opium alone exccpted), and' ' remove all likin and other barriers, . . . 
 the British Government to reserve to itself the right to cancel this 
 arrangement and revert to the now existing conditions, should the 
 Chinese Government fail to carry out the stipulation of the agree- 
 ment.' 
 
 Hazell's Annual for 1903 thus puts the position of 
 affairs at the present moment, with regard to the Scheme 
 proposed by Sir J. L. Mackay, and approved by several 
 high Chinese Officials, as well as Imperially sanctioned : 
 
 ' The Scheme was embodied in a Commercial Treaty with Great 
 Britain ... by which it was provided that all likin dues, stations, and 
 barriers, and every form of internal taxation on British goods should be 
 abolished in return for a surtax equivalent to a duty of one and a half 
 times the duty leviable ' under the 1901 Protocol. This to ' become 
 effective in January 1904,' should the other Powers likewise agree. 
 
 LITERATURE. 'Untold treasures lie hidden in the 
 rich lodes of Chinese literature.' This may be considered 
 a sufficient answer to those who question if there is any- 
 thing worth seeking for in what has been termed by 
 another equally learned sinologue the barren wilderness of 
 Chinese literature. 
 
 Numbers of books of great antiquity have left no 
 remembrance behind them but that of their names, or, at 
 the best, but little else. Some fragments are reputed to 
 have survived from before the time of Confucius (B.C. 550). 
 The sage said of himself that he was a transmitter, not an 
 originator, and, as such, he utilised material, that was in 
 existence to a great extent previously, in the production of 
 the works which are attributed to his hand. From the 
 time of Confucius onward, for some centuries, the 
 numerous writings produced by the different philosophers 
 give evidence of mental vigour and activity. The power 
 of the literary class, backed up by their arsenals of learning, 
 and their muniments of classical lore, were forces that 
 threatened to thwart, by their conservative and other 
 tendencies, the iron will of the monarch, who rendered 
 himself infamous in Chinese history by his despotic and 
 
 399
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 cruel attempt to sweep the obstructive literati and their 
 books out of his path of progress. Works on medicines, 
 divination, and husbandry, were the only ones that were 
 exempt from the storm of destruction that swept over the 
 land, with the exception of those, not a few in number, that 
 surreptitiously weathered the tempest buried in mountain 
 holes and hidden behind walls, or stored up in the memory 
 of some who prized them better than life itself. After the 
 night of desolation rose the brighter dawn of the Han 
 dynasty, when every effort was made to recover the lost 
 treasures, and with such success that considerably over ten 
 thousand volumes, or sections of books, the work of some 
 hundreds of authors, were gathered together. But unfortun- 
 ately this library, collected with such care, was destroyed 
 by fire at the close of the dynasty, and other destructions 
 of valuable imperial collections have taken place more than 
 once since. It has, however, been the pride of succeeding 
 dynasties to follow the example of the Han, and every 
 encouragement has been given to literature. 
 
 The T'ang dynasty especially deserves notice for its 
 patronage of letters. The classification now extant was 
 then adopted, viz. : The four divisions of Classics, His- 
 tory, Philosophy, and Belles Lettres ; but these are so 
 numerously subdivided, that a mere list of them would 
 occupy a page and a half. It will thus be seen that, except 
 in a work especially devoted to that purpose, it would be 
 impossible to give even a rtsumt of the vast field thus 
 covered. We must content ourselves with the indication of 
 a few of the more salient points. 
 
 The Classical writings occupy the foremost position not 
 only as regards antiquity, but they are also regarded as 
 the foundation of all learning by the Chinese; and they 
 have been the cause of the production of not a small pro- 
 portion of Chinese books. 
 
 The ' Four Books ' and the ' Five Classics ' are the chief 
 amongst the classical works of the Chinese. The ' Four 
 Books' consist of 'The Confucian Analects/ ' The Great 
 Learning, ' The Doctrine of the Mean,' and ' The Works of 
 
 400
 
 Literature 
 
 Mencius.' The ' Five Classics ' consist of ' The Book of 
 Changes,' ' The Book of History,' ' The Book of Odes,' ' The 
 Book of Rites,' and ' The Spring and Autumn Annals.' 
 The last is the only one of which Confucius is actually the 
 author, though he compiled 'The Book of History' and 
 ' The Odes.' ' The Book of Changes ' is regarded with 
 almost universal reverence, both on account of its antiquity, 
 and also for the unfathomable wisdom which is supposed 
 to be concealed under its mysterious symbols. 
 
 ' The Four Books,' which rank next after ' The Five 
 Classics,' are composed, for the most part, of the words, con- 
 versations, and opinions of Confucius and Mencius, as re- 
 corded by their disciples. Around these, and a few other 
 works, has gathered an immense collection of commentaries 
 and works elucidative of the Classics ; among these the 
 Chinese class dictionaries, over the production of which 
 much labour has been spent by eminent Chinese scholars, 
 in order to conserve the purity of the language. 
 
 Historical works, or dynastic histories, are sub-divided 
 into a number of divisions. These have been compiled 
 dynasty after dynasty on a general plan, dealing first with 
 the Imperial Records, then the Arts and Sciences, followed 
 by a Biographical Section. The latest compilation of them 
 is called 'The Twenty-four Histories,' comprised in 3,264 
 books by over twenty different authors, commencing with 
 Sz-ma Tsin, the Herodotus of China. 
 
 HISTORICAL ANNALS. This class of histories contains 
 a concise narrative of events on the plan of ' The Spring 
 and Autumn Annals.' Among the most celebrated of 
 these is the Tsz Chi Tung Kin, of the famous historian Sz- 
 ma Kwang, in 294 books, which occupied the author 
 nineteen years in writing. 
 
 Another division of historical works is that of ' The 
 Complete Records ' in which a general view of a particular 
 subject is taken, ' The Historical Classic ' being taken as 
 the example. 
 
 Besides these, there are several other divisions of 
 Historical Works, such as 'Separate Histories,' ' Miscel- 
 
 401 2 C
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 laneous Histories,' ' Official Documents,' and ' Biographies,' 
 which last are very numerous and some ancient, one being 
 more than two thousand years old. Added to these, are 
 1 Historical Excerpta,' 'Contemporary Records,' which deal 
 with other co-existent states, and ' Chronography/ this last 
 heading comprising a small category. ' The Complete 
 Antiquarian Researches of Md Twan-lin,' A.D 1275, is 'a 
 most extensive and profound work.' 
 
 Another division is that of Geographical and Topo- 
 graphical Works. Among these is the famous ' Hill and 
 River Classic,' containing wonderful accounts of countries 
 inhabited by pigmies and giants ; of men with a hole 
 through the middle of their bodies, who when going out for 
 an airing have a pole thrust through it and are thus hoisted 
 on the shoulders of two men and carried along ; of one- 
 sided people, who have only one arm and one leg, and who 
 have to walk in couples, as they cannot stand alone ; of 
 tiny pigmies who, like Alpine travellers, rope themselves 
 together to prevent large birds carrying them off; of 
 numerous wonderful and strange objects in the animal 
 creation, as well as fish and snakes with many heads, and 
 fish with many bodies to one head. It is very amusing 
 to look through an illustrated edition of this book, and 
 though it contains many strange vagaries, it was probably 
 originally a bona fide attempt at an account of what were 
 actually considered to exist ; it is a work of great antiquity. 
 In this connection it is interesting to note that Pliny speaks 
 of the Blemmyans, an African tribe that were headless, the 
 eyes and mouth being in the breast ' Blemmys traduntur 
 capita abesse, ore et oculis pectori affixis.' ' Historia 
 Naturalis/ Bk. V. ch. 3. See also the 'Tempest,' Act. III. 
 Sc. 3 . 
 
 ' When we were boys, 
 
 Who would believe that there were 
 
 such men 
 
 Whose heads stood in their breasts ? ' 
 
 Every small division of the empire has its topographical 
 work dealing with its own history, antiquities, towns, curi- 
 osities, and anything of interest connected with it ; one on 
 
 402
 
 Literature 
 
 Kvvang-tung, being a historical and statistical account of 
 that province, is in 182 volumes. The late Dr. Wylie well 
 said of this department of Chinese literature : ' The series 
 of topographical writings in China are probably unrivalled 
 in any nation, for extent and systematic comprehensive- 
 ness.' Works on the water-courses also find a place in this 
 section. 
 
 There are categories under which come bibliographical 
 and other works. ' One of the finest specimens of 
 Bibliography possessed by this or perhaps any other 
 nation ... is a descriptive catalogue (in 40x5 books) of 
 the Imperial Library of the present dynasty.' The Index 
 Expurgatorius is also contained in this division, and several 
 tens of thousands of volumes are prohibited in whole or in 
 part. The Historical division ends with the section of 
 ' Historical Critiques.' 
 
 The third great division, that of philosophers, includes, 
 not only that class, but writers on Religion, the Arts and 
 the Sciences, etc. Original thinkers are found amongst 
 the Chinese authors, .who have not subscribed to the 
 Confucian teaching, and some of our modern Western ideas 
 have already seen the light of day in the Far East, long 
 before they were ever dreamt of by our Western moral 
 philosophers. 
 
 The immense mass of matter to be found under this 
 grand heading may be judged from its subdivisions, 
 viz. : 
 
 1. Literati. 
 
 2. Writers on Military Affairs 
 
 3. Writers on Legislation. 
 
 4. Writers on Agriculture. 
 
 5. Medical Writers. 
 
 6. Astronomyand Mathematics. 
 
 8. Arts. 
 
 9. Repertories. 
 
 10. Miscellaneous Writers. 
 
 1 1. Cyclopaedias. 
 
 12. Essayists. 
 
 13. Taoism. 
 
 7. Divination. 14. Buddhism. 
 
 Under this heading come ' The Sacred Edicts ' : moral 
 maxims written by the second Emperor of the present 
 dynasty for the instruction of the people. Taking these 
 maxims for texts, a series of homiletic sermons were 
 composed on them by his successor, and they are read 
 
 403
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 aloud to the public on the ist and 5th of every month 
 throughout the empire. 
 
 Medical works claim attention from the numerous 
 writers on this branch. The oldest work was written 
 several centuries before the Christian era. It has been 
 supposed from their minute account of the human body, 
 that the Chinese, at one time, practised dissection. If so, 
 however, the remembrance of it has long been forgotten, 
 and their medical works are characterised by groundless 
 theories, which, considering the low state of science until 
 recent years even in the West, is not much to be wondered 
 at. (See Article on Doctors.) 
 
 ASTRONOMY AND MATHEMATICS. The Chinese in 
 ancient times represented the starry firmament by three 
 different methods. First, as a concave sphere ; secondly, 
 a globe is taken to represent the universe, and stars are 
 placed on the outer surface ; the third method is not known 
 at present, but it is supposed to bear a close analogy to that 
 of the West. The Jesuit missionaries assisted the Chinese 
 materially in righting their calendar, and in other matters 
 connected with astronomy, contributing their quota also to 
 the books on astronomy and other mathematical matters. 
 One of the native books on Mathematics has quite an 
 interesting history. It is supposed to have been in use in 
 the Chou dynasty, was destroyed in the general burning 
 of books by Ts'in Shih Hwang-ti, after which imperfect 
 fragments of it were gathered together during the Han 
 dynasty, when additions were made to them ; a commentary 
 was written on it, and an exposition ; it was well known in 
 the T'ang dynasty, preserved as a rarity in the Sung, and 
 entirely lost in the Ming ; but fortunately it was possible 
 to gather up the fragments that were found in one of those 
 gigantic cyclopaedias, which the Chinese have been so fond 
 of forming, containing copious quotations from thousands 
 of books, and taking years of toil to compile. The copy 
 now in existence has thus been gathered together piecemeal 
 in this way, and has been found to agree with quotations 
 and with the description given of the book. ' It is divided 
 
 404
 
 Literature 
 
 into nine sections, viz. : Plain Mensuration, Proportion, 
 Fellowship, Evolution, Mensuration of Solids, Alligation, 
 Surplus and Deficit, Equations, and Trigonometry.' It 
 contains 246 problems. The illustrations have unfortunately 
 been lost. 
 
 Under the heading of Divination are not a few works ; 
 books on dreams coming under the same section, the 
 counterparts of ' The Napoleon Dream-Book ' and ' The 
 Egyptian Dream-Book ' in English. 
 
 As to books on Arts, Wylie remarks : 
 
 ' However the Chinese may differ from Western nations in matters 
 of mere convention, the fact that they have methodical treatises, of 
 more than a thousand years' standing, on Painting, Writing, Music, 
 Engraving, Archery, Drawing, and kindred subjects, ought surely to 
 secure a candid examination of the state of such matters among them, 
 before subjecting them to an indiscriminate condemnation.' 
 
 Under Repertories of Science are Cyclopaedias. The 
 most remarkable under this heading is that prepared by 
 direction of the second Emperor of the Ming dynasty ; two 
 thousand two hundred scholars were employed on the work, 
 which was to include the 'substance of all the classical, 
 historical, philosophical, and literary works hitherto 
 published, embracing astronomy, geography, the occult 
 sciences, medicine, Buddhism, Taoism, and the arts.' It 
 was published in 22,877 books, and the table of contents 
 filled 60 books. Wholesale selections were made of some 
 books ; in this way ' 385 ancient and rare works have been 
 preserved, which would otherwise have been irrecoverably 
 lost.' 
 
 A fine specimen of the voluminous encyclopaedias the 
 Chinese so delight in is to be found in the British Museum. 
 It consists of 6,109 volumes. The Museum authorities have 
 had it rebound in 1,000 volumes, which require ten table- 
 cases to accommodate it. 
 
 ESSAYISTS. Works of fiction are despised, as a rule, by 
 the Chinese literati, but they form a most interesting and 
 valuable portion of the vast body of literature which has, 
 for more than twenty centuries past, been in ever-increasing 
 volume seeing the light of day. The most popular is the 
 
 405
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 historical romance. ' The San Kwok Chi,' dealing with the 
 period from A.D. 168 to 265. The plot 'is wrought out 
 with a most elaborate complication of details/ it abounds 
 with the marvellous and supernatural, and is laid amidst 
 the stirring scenes after the fall of the Han dynasty. ' The 
 Dream of the Red Chamber' is another popular novel 
 dealing with domestic life, but not moral in its tone. 
 Another holding the highest estimation, in the opinion of 
 all classes, from the purity of its style, is ' The Pastimes of 
 the Study,' full of tales of wonder and mystery. This has 
 been translated into English by Prof. Giles, under the title 
 ' Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio,' in two volumes. 
 Chinese novels contain much that would be considered 
 tedious by an English reader. Minute details are entered 
 into about the characters and the localities ; trifling 
 particulars and lengthy conversations are given ; long 
 digressions, prolix descriptions, and sermonising are all 
 indulged in ; but the ' authors render their characters 
 interesting and natural.' The characters are well sustained 
 at times ; there is, of course, a plot, and much of what goes 
 to make up the main portion of a tale in Western lands is 
 also introduced, such as the troubles of the hero and 
 heroine, complicated by the evil machinations of the 
 villain, and all the accessories of plot and counterplot, and 
 at last the grand finale arrives in a happy marriage. All 
 showing that human nature is alike the wide world over, 
 the surroundings, of course, having an Eastern cast in the 
 one case. There is, however, a large class of this literature 
 which cannot be commended. 
 
 BUDDHIST LITERATURE. Buddhist books include 
 many translations of Buddhistic works from the Sanscrit, as 
 well as original compositions. 
 
 TAOIST LITERATURE. The Tao Teh King is the only 
 work known to be produced by Lo-tsz. The aspect of 
 Taoism has changed since its early days ; its votaries, who 
 believed in alchemy, and the subduing of animal propensities, 
 have been succeeded by a set of most base charlatans (See 
 Article on Taoism). Books dealing with the gods and 
 
 406
 
 Literature 
 
 genii are found under this heading. One of the most 
 popular of all Taoist works is ' The Book of Recompenses 
 and Rewards ' (of a future state), which has gone through 
 innumerable editions, and is sometimes issued embellished 
 with anecdotes and illustrated with woodcuts. It is 
 thought a great act of merit to distribute it. 
 
 BELLES LETTRES, in which are included Polite Litera- 
 ture, Poetry, and Analytical Works. There are numbers 
 of divisions. The class of ' Individual Collections ' deserves 
 attention, as it is ' one of the most prolific branches of 
 Chinese literature,' but short-lived. In this class may be 
 noted the collections of the two celebrated poets of the 
 T'ang and Sung dynasties, Li Tai-peh and Su Tung-po, 
 comprised in 30 and 1 1 5 books, and that of the celebrated 
 historian and statesman Sz-ma-Kwang in 80 books. Most 
 of the emperors of the present dynasty have contributed 
 their share to this branch of Chinese literature. 
 
 Under the heading of ' General Collections ' are classed 
 selections of choice specimens of acknowledged merit from 
 the pens of various authors. One of ' the greatest enter- 
 prises in the history of book-making' may be noted in this 
 connection ; it saw the light of day in the time of the Sung 
 dynasty, and consisted of 1,000 volumes, being an 'ex- 
 tensive collection of all specimens of polite literature sub- 
 sequent to the Liang dynasty. . . . Nine-tenths of the 
 whole were made up of the writings of the T'ang scholars.' 
 
 RHYMES AND SONGS. (See Article on Poetry.) 
 
 DRAMA. The Drama is not included in native book 
 catalogues, though considerable works are found of that 
 nature. It was developed at a comparatively late date 
 the latter end of the T'ang dynasty saw its origin. It con- 
 tinued to improve until the time of the Yuan dynasty, when 
 the best collection of plays was published as ' The Hundred 
 Plays of the Yuan Dynasty.' (See Article on Theatre.) 
 
 Professor Douglas thus writes of Chinese literature as a 
 whole : 
 
 ' In the countless volumes which have appeared and are appearing 
 from the many publishing centres, we see mirrored the temperament 
 
 407
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 of the people, their excellences, their deficiencies, and their peculi- 
 arities. Abundant evidence is to be found of their activity in research 
 and diligence in compilation, nor are signs wanting which point to the 
 absence of the faculty of imagination, and to an inability to rise 
 beyond a certain degree of excellence or knowledge, while at the 
 same time we have seen displayed the characteristics both of matter 
 and manner, which most highly commend themselves to the national 
 taste. 
 
 ' As a consequence of the very unplastic nature of the language, 
 there is wanting in the literature that grace of diction and varying 
 force of expression which are found in languages capable of inflection 
 and of syntactical motion. The stiff angularity of the written language, 
 composed as it is of isolated, unassimilating characters, robs eloquence 
 of its charm, poetry of its musical rhythm, and works of fancy of half 
 their power ; but in no way interferes with the relation of facts, nor 
 the statement of a philosophical argument. 
 
 'And hence to all but the Chinese mind, which knows no other 
 model of excellence, the poetical and fanciful works of Chinese authors 
 offer fewer attractions than their writings on history, science, and 
 philosophy. Unlike the literatures of other countries, one criticism 
 applies to the whole career of Chinese letters. It is difficult to 
 imagine a nation of busy writers pursuing a course of literature for 
 more than 3,000 years, and yet failing to display greater progress in 
 thought and style than Chinese authors have done. That their works 
 vary in quality, no one who has read two Chinese books can doubt ; 
 but the variations are within limits, and . . . the width of thought and 
 power of expression have in no wise increased, at least, since the 
 revival of letters under the Han dynasty, B.C. 2O6-A.D. 25.' 
 
 It is unfortunate that many of the finest passages of 
 Chinese literature lose, when translated, their epigrammatic 
 force, the play of words loses its sparkle, the glittering 
 poetry is transformed into prosy periods, and what is full 
 of life and spirit falls flat and tame on the foreign ear. 
 The freshness of the flowers of speech is gone when the 
 ideas of the original are plucked and transferred into the 
 Englishman's receptacle of thought. In other words, just 
 as the Chinese himself looks best in his native costume, the 
 thoughts of his mind appear in their best when clothed in 
 his native language the foreign dress often fits them 
 badly ; and, in short, many of the productions of a Chinese 
 pen have to be read in the original, if the reader would 
 appreciate to the full the brilliancy of some of these jewels 
 of the first water ; for not a few stray passages, ripe with 
 the love of the beautiful, are to be found scattered through 
 the pages of Chinese literature, instinct with true poetic 
 
 408
 
 Literature 
 
 genius glowing with the deep feeling caught from a com- 
 munion with the hills and mountains, rivers, streams 
 and babbling brooks, woods and forests, sunshine and 
 storm, in solitudes away from the busy haunts of men. 
 These ecstatic raptures of the true child of nature strike a 
 responsive chord in the breast of the Western barbarian. 
 So charming are they in their simplicity, so in unison 
 with every touch of nature, that one feels that the ardent 
 lovers of the beauties of God's beautiful world speak but 
 one language, equally understood by all who have revelled 
 in such simple delights, and that there is no place round 
 this wide, wide world ' where their voice is not heard,' 
 whether it be in the confines of the Middle Kingdom, or in 
 what was the Ultima Thide of barbarism when man}- of 
 these fine passages were penned. 
 
 It is, however, in comparison either with the literature 
 of other Eastern countries, or with our own some centuries 
 since, remembering at the same time their isolation and 
 the want, to a comparatively great extent, of the vivifying 
 influences of the competition of other countries pursuing 
 the same researches and branches of knowledge, that the 
 most just view can be taken of what Chinese literature is 
 as a whole. With the patient toil, love of research, and 
 passionate ardour for literary pursuits, it is an interesting 
 speculation to give rein to one's fancies to wonder, in 
 short, what would have been the result had the Chinese 
 possessed all the advantages we have been blessed with in 
 the West, instead of presenting the unique spectacle of a 
 nation self-contained and self-sufficient in all its require- 
 ments. The few chances they have had of assistance from 
 the West, when once appreciated (for the Chinese, unlike 
 the Japanese, are slow in accepting what is offered to them 
 until fully proved and approved of), have been accepted and 
 made good use of, as in the case of a knowledge of Sanscrit 
 introduced by the Buddhist priests, and more lately in the 
 introduction of Western knowledge and science, which no 
 doubt is destined eventually to exercise a wonderful effect. 
 One of the greatest boons that can be conferred on this 
 
 409
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 ancient and conservative empire, will be the knowledge 
 that true wisdom consists in the publication of books in the 
 language of the people, and not in the book style a style 
 as remote from that of the former almost as Latin is from 
 that of English. Then knowledge and learning will be the 
 property of everyone instead of being confined to the 
 lettered masses. 
 
 Books recommended. Prof. H. A. Giles's 'Gems of Chinese Literature,' con- 
 tains a selection from all times and classes. ' Notes on Chinese Literature,' by 
 the late Rev. A. Wylie, LL.D., is a list of hundreds of Chinese books, classified 
 according to their subject matter, with notes of great interest on them, and a 
 preface giving an account of Chinese literature. We cannot give a list here 
 of the native works which have been translated into English and the other 
 European languages : they are legion. 
 
 MALT SWEETS AND OTHERS. Malt sweets 
 are made by soaking grains of wheat in water for three or 
 four days (a day longer is required in winter and a day 
 shorter in summer) until they send out sprouts a couple of 
 inches long or so. They are then washed in water, when 
 the husks float to the surface and are thrown away, not being 
 wanted. They are next boiled with glutinous rice and form 
 a sweetmeat which is sold in little black pots. The Chinese 
 are very fond of sweets, and candied melon rind, cocoa-nut 
 strips, ginger, and many other kinds of sweetmeats too 
 numerous to mention. 
 
 MANCHUS. The family that now occupies the 
 throne in China is not a native one, but one of Manchoo 
 Tartars, being a small branch of the Tungusic nomads. 
 Their original habitat was in the neighbourhood of the 
 Long White Mountain. Transplanted from thence by the 
 ambition of a capable leader, they have flourished in the 
 wider area of China, which has given greater scope to their 
 abilities than the narrow confines of Manchuria. 
 
 The history of the whole of the region is a long one, 
 and is blended with that of China through many genera- 
 tions and dynasties. 
 
 Repeated waves of incursions have swept into the North 
 of China, or beaten against its borders to be driven back, 
 
 410
 
 Manchus 
 
 and, losing their power for a period, have finally gathered 
 strength and united their forces for another effort ; this, 
 perhaps, proving more successful than the last, has resulted 
 in a partial or complete sway over the Middle Kingdom, 
 which with its riches, has ever proved a tempting prey for 
 its nomadic neighbours. 
 
 The Manchoos have been known by various names ; in 
 their quiescent periods by that of Sishun, Sooshun, or 
 Niijin, as well as by their numerous dynastic titles assumed 
 when, under the vigorous guidance of a skilful chieftain, 
 their power was consolidated and a simple tribal rule was 
 developed into that of an incipient state, having within its 
 comparatively small bounds the potentialities of mighty 
 empires and kingdoms. History has only repeated itself 
 in their case, as in that of many others ; for the incursions 
 of the Huns are only the movements in Europe of the 
 same species of tribes who originated from the same 
 neighbourhood, and who, on account of their selection of 
 modern Europe as their stage in the one case, brought 
 themselves more prominently before the eyes of the 
 Western historian than the Manchu Tartars did when they 
 overthrew the native Chinese dynasty in the other case. 
 That overrun of Europe is more akin to the partial 
 conquest of China that part of it lying to the North of 
 the Yellow River by the Niijin or Sooshun, the ancestors 
 of the present Manchus, where they ruled as the Kin 
 dynasty for more than a century, A.D. mS to 1235, 
 contemporaneously with a native dynasty in the South of 
 China, until both were deposed by another foreign dynast}-, 
 that of the Mongols under Genghis Khan. 
 
 In common with the other nomadic neighbours of China 
 on her Northern frontier, the ancestors of the Manchu 
 Tartars play a conspicuous part in the history of ancient 
 China. Wars, intrigues, subterfuges, plots and counterplots, 
 treachery, cruelty, and lies, fill up the pages of this history 
 as much as they do those of the West, and, except to those 
 specially interested in such incidents, prove but dry reading. 
 The Manchu power enlarged its realms, swallowing up 
 
 411
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 neighbouring states, until it extended between the Gulf of 
 Liau-tung and the Amoor ; and Manchuria was more 
 populous than at any subsequent period, though the 
 emigration into it now bids fair to raise it to an equally 
 populous condition. Nor at this time could it have been 
 in a low state of civilisation, as we are told that ' learning 
 flourished and literature abounded.' This strong and 
 extensive kingdom was battered to pieces by the Khitans ; 
 and broke up into a number of small independent clans 
 under separate chieftains, which, it would appear, relapsed 
 again into a nomadic, rude, and primitive style of life. 
 Consolidating again under the name of Nujin, they 
 commenced activity once more and became a force and 
 factor in the ceaseless wars with, and against, the divided 
 states of China, as well as the neighbouring kingdoms. In 
 passing, we may notice that such seems to be the history of 
 all the Mongolic tribes, viz. : first, a nomadic, primitive state, 
 followed by increase of numbers and power, and a settled 
 and highly civilised condition, to be followed, on final defeat 
 and overthrow, by an abandonment of literature, cities, and 
 agriculture, and a return to the primitive nomadic condition. 
 
 But to return to the Nujin, who were rapidly developing 
 into the second condition when their chief took the word 
 Gold, Kin, for the title of his dynasty in contradistinction 
 to that of the Liao, or Iron dynasty, that of the Khitans or 
 Mongols, then ruling in Northern China, and whom he had 
 defeated in battle, ' for iron, if strong, rusted ; while gold 
 always remained bright.' 
 
 By the combination of the Sung and the Kin, the Liao 
 dynasty was driven from the throne out of Northern China, 
 and the Kin substituted for it. The Yellow River had 
 been the boundary between the Liao and Sung, whereas the 
 Yang-tsz was the boundary between the Kin and the 
 Southern Sung, which succeeded the broken-down Sung. 
 The Amoor was the northern boundary of the Kin. They 
 'established themselves at Peking in A.D. 1118, whence 
 they were driven, in A.D. 1235, by Genghis Khan, and 
 fled back to the ancestral haunts, on the Songari and Liau 
 
 412
 
 Manchu Language 
 
 Rivers.' Their modern descendants, after some centuries, 
 again established themselves at Peking, and have reigned 
 longer than their ancestors from A.I). 1644 to the 
 present day and over a larger extent of country, for the 
 whole of the China of the present day is subject to them. 
 We refer our readers to our article on History, where, 
 under the T'sing, or Ch'ing dynasty, the name they have 
 elected to rule under, some short account will be found 
 of their doings. 
 
 Amongst the modern Manchus, Buddhism is in vogue, 
 and spiritualism is believed in in the shape of the fox, the 
 stoat, or the tiger. They seem more religiously disposed 
 than the Chinese, and Christian missions have also met 
 with success amongst them. They are not so opposed to 
 Western innovations as the Chinese. 
 
 Their peaceful life and dependence upon charity has 
 eaten much of the hardihood and bravery out of the men 
 as a nation ; but the rulers are still able men. They do 
 not bind the feet of the women. 
 
 Books recommended. A series of articles appeared in The PJm'ni.r, for 
 1871, entitled 'The Origin of the Manchus,' by H. H. Howarth. 'History 
 of Oorea,' by Rev. J. Ross, contains a good deal about the early history of the 
 Manchus ; and the 'Manchus or the Reigning Dynasty of China,' by the same, 
 author, gives a full account of their modern history. The same author has 
 written a short essay on them entitled 'The Manchus,' published in the 
 'Records of the Missionary Conference held at Shanghai, 1890,' 'The 
 Manchns in China,' in China Review, vol. XT. p. 263, by E. H. Parker. 
 
 MANCHU LANGUAGE. The Manchu language 
 belongs to the Turanian stock of languages, is entirely 
 unlike Chinese, and is polysyllabic. It has been inferred 
 that all the languages of Mongolia, Manchuria, and Corea, 
 were originally one language at all events they were 
 polysyllabic 2,000 years ago. It will thus be seen that 
 this language then boasts of a considerable antiquity ; but 
 knots in strings, notches in sticks, and such like devices of 
 unlettered people were the only means of record. When a 
 pressing need of a more intelligible mode of perpetuating 
 their speech by visible signs was felt, the Manchus, in the 
 time of the T'ang dynasty, turned to the Chinese and 
 
 413
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 studied Chinese letters and literature ; a desire to have a 
 writing of their own arose amongst them, the Khitanes 
 being the first to adopt some of the Chinese characters to 
 stand for the syllables of their own language. This was in 
 A.D. 920. Two kinds of characters were employed, but, 
 though it is not a thousand years ago, not a trace of them, 
 as far as is known, has been left behind. 
 
 It would appear, however, that the Khitans only 
 perfected former attempts made by others. The ancestors 
 of the present Manchus used both this Khitan and Chinese 
 writing, but, after conquering half of the Khitan empire, the 
 Emperor ordered a new style of writing to be devised, and, 
 pretty much in the same way as before, parts of Chinese 
 characters were used to express the sounds. In A.D. 1119 
 and 1135, two different styles were invented, and, as with 
 the Khitans' former essay, were extensively used. This 
 second written language was again forgotten and disused ; 
 and the modern Manchus only learned from Chinese history 
 that their ancestors possessed a written language of their 
 own. Unfortunately it also appears to be irretrievably lost. 
 These two written languages were written horizontally. 
 The Mongols, successors of these ancient Manchus 
 (Churchens or Niichen), used Uigur writing for governmental 
 matters, which is very like the ancient Syriac, or Sabaean 
 (whether it was introduced to this part of the world by the 
 Nestorian missionaries [See Article on Missions], or earlier, 
 is not known) ; and the Churchens or Manchus, who were 
 subject to the Mongols, used this Uigur writing. They 
 also used the Mongol language until the foundations of the 
 Manchu empire were laid, when they discarded it, still using 
 the Mongol alphabet to write the Manchu language ; but 
 when many Chinese works had been translated into Manchu, 
 it was found that it, the Mongol alphabet, was not a suitable 
 medium to employ in writing Manchu. Improvements 
 were then introduced, by which the ' Manchu writing 
 acquired an alphabet distinct from Mongol ; and, although 
 for two hundred years no further radical changes have been 
 introduced, it has during that time, in the course of long 
 
 414
 
 Manchu Language 
 
 and extensive use, developed a roundness, elegance, and 
 grace which still further distinguish it from its rude parent.' 
 The alphabet is syllabic. There are six or eight vowels, 
 eighteen consonants, and ten marks used in rendering 
 Chinese syllables into Manchu. Modern Manchu is like 
 Chinese, written in vertical columns. 
 
 Every effort was made by the Manchu Government to 
 foster the acquisition of their own language by Manchus : 
 books were translated from the Chinese, for they had 
 no literature of their own, and every means taken to make 
 the Manchus a literary race, but all to no purpose, for the 
 conquered race, the Chinese, have vanquished their 
 conquerors. Though numbering five millions in 1848, 
 they live scattered in garrisons amongst the Chinese, and 
 having to learn Chinese, and possessing no indigenous 
 native literature, they have turned to Chinese books. 
 ' There exist in all about 250 works in Manchu, nearly all 
 of which are translations from the Classics, some historical 
 and metaphysical works, literary essays, collections of 
 famous writers, novels, poetry, laws and regulations, 
 Imperial edicts, dictionaries, phrase-books, etc. Most of 
 these translations are excellent, but they are all literal.' 
 Not only with the common people, but with the Manchu 
 Government itself, Chinese was of more importance, for 
 what are five millions of people compared with three or 
 four hundred millions ; so the consequence has been that 
 Manchu is being rapidly forgotten, and is becoming an 
 extinct language in China, though probably spoken in the 
 wilds of Manchuria. 
 
 Books recommended. 'History of the Manchu Language, from the 
 Preface to Professor I. Zacharoff's Manchu-Russian Dictionary, 1875, 
 translated from the Russian by M. F. A. Fraser,' being two articles in the 
 March and April, 1891, numbers of The Chinese Recorder, 'Essay on 
 Manchu Literature,' in 'Journal of China Br. of R.A.S.' vol. xxiv. (18f0) 
 pp. 1-45. 'Translation of the T'sing Wen K'eung: a Chinese Grammar of 
 the Manchu Tartar Language, with Introductory Notes on Manchu Literature,' 
 by the late A. Wylie, Esq., LL.D. 'A Manchu Grammar with Analysed 
 Texts,' by P. G. von Mollendortf. In an Appendix at the end of the "last 
 work, is a list of the principal European works for the study of Manchu. A 
 Romanized Manchu Translation of the ' Tao Teh King ' appears in some of the 
 last numbers of the China Review. 
 
 415
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 MANDARIN. The nomenclature applied to certain 
 things Chinese has cast a glamour round them which a 
 simpler naming would have avoided. A case in point is 
 the term mandarin : with the rhythmic flow of this word 
 and with its foreign flavour, a certain soup^on of the poetic 
 and the mysterious is imported into it, so that the distant 
 Westerner is apt, when reading about mandarins, to picture 
 in his mind's eye some highly exalted and privileged 
 class, the members of which are born to the purple, and 
 dwell amidst halls of pleasure surrounded by affluence and 
 luxury and ministered to by the poor down-trodden popu- 
 lace. A better appreciation of what mandarin means 
 would doubtless have resulted had the terms used been 
 officers of governments, or civil and military officials. 
 
 The method by which the ranks of the civil and 
 military services are recruited, and some details about 
 them, will be found in our articles on Army, Examinations, 
 Government, and Navy. 
 
 The word mandarin is derived from the Portuguese 
 mandar, to command. The term mandarin is only applied 
 to such officials as are called kwun (kwoon) by the Chinese, 
 and not to the subordinate class of officials. In other 
 words, it is restricted in its application to those officials 
 who are entitled to wear a button. There are nine ranks 
 of such officials, the buttons which distinguish them are as 
 follows : for the first and second ranks, a transparent and 
 opaque (ruby and coral) red button respectively ; for the 
 third and fourth, a transparent and opaque blue (sapphire 
 and lapis lazuli) button respectively ; for the fifth and 
 sixth, a transparent and opaque white (crystal and stone) 
 button respectively ; for the seventh, a plain gold one ; and 
 for the eighth and ninth, a worked gold one. 
 
 These buttons, as they have been called in English, are 
 commonly of a round shape, about an inch in diameter, 
 and form a knob on the apex of the conical-shaped official, 
 or dress, hat. 
 
 The different grades of civil and military officials also 
 wear, as insignia of their rank, certain birds (in the case of 
 
 416
 
 Mangrove 
 
 those in the Civil Service) and certain animals (in the case 
 of those in the Army and Navy), embroidered in a large 
 square, of about a foot in size in its two dimensions, on 
 the breast and back of their robes, as well as girdle clasps 
 of different materials both branches of the service using 
 the same. The following is a list of these insignia : 
 
 CIVIL. ARMY & NAVY. GIRDLE CLASPS. 
 
 ist rank Manchurian crane. Unicorn. Jade set in rubies. 
 
 2nd Golden pheasant. Lion of India. Gold set in rubies. 
 
 3rd Peacock. Leopard. Worked gold. 
 
 4th Wild Goose. Tiger. Worked gold with 
 
 silver button. 
 
 5th Silver pheasant. Bear. Worked gold with 
 
 plain silver button. 
 
 6th Egret. Tiger-cat. Mother-of-pearl. 
 
 7th Mandarin duck. Mottled bear. Silver. 
 
 8th Quail. Seal. Clear horn. 
 
 9th Long-tailed jay. Rhinoceros. Buffalo's horn. 
 
 Mandarin, when applied to language, refers to the 
 lingua Franca in use throughout China in official inter- 
 course and in Courts of Justice ; it is very poorly spoken 
 by many, being mixed up with localisms ; it is also the 
 speech, in its various dialects, in considerable parts of 
 China. (See Article on Dialects.) 
 
 The word mandarin has also been used, by foreigners 
 in China, to distinguish a lovely species of duck of beauti- 
 ful plumage the mandarin duck (anas galericulald), which 
 is an emblem of conjugal fidelity with the natives. For the 
 same reason probably, that of superiority over others, it 
 has also been used to designate a species of orange, the 
 mandarin orange. (See Article on Fruit.) 
 
 MANGROVE. The mangrove is found growing 
 largely near Swatow, and it grows on the south side of 
 the Island of Hongkong, near Aberdeen. The following 
 account of mangroves in Sierra Leone will show the work 
 Nature has designed this shrub for : 
 
 ' Mr. Scott Elliot states that the effect of the mangroves in creating 
 alluvial soil could be very clearly seen at Mahela and in the 
 Samu country generally. Mangrove trees seem, in fact, he says, to 
 have been designed by Nature to change any bay or indentation of the 
 
 417 2 D
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 coast-line into fertile soil. As the level of the ground gradually rises 
 above high tide, the mangroves, which require a constant supply of 
 brackish water, die off, and the whole grove advances seaward, 
 leaving behind it a mass of rich, vegetable, alluvial mud, better suited 
 for rice than probably any other soil in existence.' 
 
 The above rapid growth of soil by their means is what 
 follows apparently under the most favourable conditions. 
 
 Mangrove bark is used for dyeing the fishermen's nets in 
 the South of China a ruddy brown to preserve them. 
 
 MAPS. The purely native maps of China are most 
 curious productions. The eighteen provinces are com- 
 pressed into an oblong shape to meet the requirements of 
 the map. Double lines mark the boundaries of the 
 provinces where not otherwise divided by the rivers. 
 These latter are represented by broad, wavy meandering 
 masses, joining and separating in a most wonderfully 
 mysterious manner, one of the junctions being due, no 
 doubt, to a desire to represent the Grand Canal. The 
 Great Wall runs across the top of the map, being represented 
 by an immense battlemented structure an inch in height. 
 The other three sides of the map are nearly surrounded by 
 water represented by tumultuous waves. On the east 
 is the source of the Yellow River, from which the Yangtsz 
 seems to rise in the Sea of Stars and Constellations. 
 Cartouche-like frames of different patterns contain the 
 names of principal places. For foreign countries these 
 names are found placed in the seas surrounding China. In 
 a series extending down the east coast and close to the 
 land are thus arranged the names of Corea, the strange 
 Fu-song, Japan, the Great Loo-Choo, the Little Loo-Choo, 
 and other names. To the south are Portugal, Annam, and 
 other countries. There is a want of exactitude even in the 
 position of places in China itself ; for instance, the 
 celebrated L6 Fau Mountains are put up at the north of 
 the Canton Province. With the exception of these noted 
 mountains in this province, the whole country might be a 
 level plain instead of diversified with numerous ranges of 
 towering hills and rugged mountainous ramparts. The 
 
 418
 
 Marriage 
 
 same is true of other provinces for one height a piece, 
 occasionally varied, is the quantum sufficit of the carto- 
 grapher, and he is quite content with two or three in some 
 of the provinces. To make up for this, a mountain range 
 is depicted at the very top of the map, and another shares 
 with the seas a place at the bottom. This geographer has 
 been content with filling up the provinces with the names 
 of Prefectures and Districts. 
 
 The Jesuits, some three centuries ago, were employed 
 by the Chinese Emperor in trigonometrical surveys and 
 the construction of maps of the different provinces of the 
 empire. 
 
 Of recent years numbers of maps have been made by 
 foreigners of the whole Empire of China, and numerous 
 ones of districts where they have settled, or travelled, or 
 of rivers which they have ascended, or descended. 
 
 MARRIAGE. Marriage is the one end and aim set 
 forth for a girl : this is the goal to which she is taught to 
 look forward, or to which her parents look forward for her, 
 for it matters little about the girl herself. She is almost a 
 nonentity in the matter : her wishes are not consulted ; she 
 has often never seen her future husband ; she is even some- 
 times hypothetically betrothed to a contingent husband, 
 that is to say, two married couples agree that if one should 
 have a son and the other a daughter, they shall be married 
 when they grow up. From the last, it will be seen that 
 the man is not much better off than the woman in these 
 matters. Sometimes in the Swatow district, two families 
 change girls in order that when grown-up they may be 
 daughters-in-law in the respective families which have 
 adopted them in this way. A great advantage in this 
 method is its economy. It is not the parties themselves 
 that are considered so much for the individual is nothing 
 in China it is the respective families that are taken into 
 account. A man in China does not marry so much for his 
 own benefit as for that of the family : to continue the 
 family name ; to provide descendants to keep up the 
 
 419
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 ancestral worship ; and to give a daughter-in-law to his 
 mother to wait on her and be, in general, a daughter to her. 
 So far are these ideas carried that if her future husband die 
 before marriage, his intended wife, if a model girl, will leave 
 her own family and go and live with that of her deceased 
 betrothed, and perform all the services which her position 
 then requires of her. 
 
 Nearly all the fun of life, and very little she has at the 
 best, is gone as soon as a girl is engaged. She retires into 
 a stricter seclusion than ever, and has to be very circumspect 
 in her intercourse even with her own brothers. It would 
 not be human nature if she did not manage sometimes to 
 get a glance at her future husband, that is to say, it is not 
 always impossible for her to see him ; but as to love-making, 
 the prudery of Confucianism, and social customs and usages 
 utterly forbid such a thing : it is highly immoral. 
 
 The marriage customs vary in different parts of the 
 country, but the essential ceremonials preliminary to, and 
 connected with, marriage are six ; and even the details of 
 these vary greatly. (See Article on Betrothal.) 
 
 All having been satisfactorily arranged, and the money 
 agreed upon in the contract having been paid to the girl's 
 father, the final ceremonial which hands her over to her 
 husband is performed. She is dressed in her best, and, 
 when the procession comes for her, is placed in the grand, 
 red, marriage sedan-chair, in which she never rides again. 
 This chair is a heavy cumbrous article of wood, highly 
 ornamented with carving and kingfishers' feathers ; the 
 bride inside is completely secluded from profane gaze, and 
 on a hot summer's day the position cannot be an enviable 
 one, though a Chinese girl probably stands it better than an 
 English girl (so accustomed to fresh air and freedom of 
 motion) would ; but even for Chinese girls the ordeal is 
 sometimes greater than they can bear, and when the 
 bridegroom opens the door, it is sometimes found that the 
 poor little bride has escaped from all the future troubles of 
 married life. At times the wedding chair has to cross a 
 river on its route, and woe betide the girl if the heavy chair 
 
 420
 
 Marriage 
 
 causes the cranky boat to capsize. Should the bride-elect 
 die before her marriage, the future husband marries his 
 dead bride ; but as the Chinese customs with regard to 
 men are different from those with regard to women, he 
 is free to marry again. The young lady does not 
 name the day, as with us, but the father of the bride- 
 groom does that, 
 
 Her trousseau is sent to her future home before her 
 marriage, and is made the occasion for a procession, the 
 bearers of the various objects being clad in red jackets, and 
 parading through the streets. For some days preceding 
 the wedding, the girl, with her sisters and friends, ' bewails 
 and laments her intended removal from the home of her 
 fathers.' The bridal chair, which we have already men- 
 tioned, is carried last in the wedding procession ; many 
 carved wooden pavilions (carved, open, wooden stands 
 with, or without, covers over them, as the case may be) 
 with sweetmeats, and the inevitable music, lanterns, and 
 other objects which go to make up a Chinese procession 
 are not absent. It wends its way to the bride's home, 
 where the friend of the bridegroom presents a letter to her, 
 written on red paper tinged with gold, urging the bride to 
 come. This letter is carefully kept by the bride, and is 
 somewhat the equivalent of ' marriage lines ' in England. 
 After certain ceremonials are gone through, the bride 
 makes her appearance, but her features are concealed 
 effectually, not by a white veil (white is mourning), but by 
 a piece of red silk. After saluting the friend of the 
 bridegroom, she enters the chair and is borne with the 
 clashing of gongs and the playing of the Chinese Wedding 
 March to the bridegroom's house. Preceding her are the 
 only equivalents of bridesmaids, female attendants ; and 
 her younger brother follows in an ordinary chair. Arrived 
 at her future home, the chair is set down. The bride- 
 groom is at the door with his fan, with which he 
 knocks at the door of the chair, which the bridesmaids 
 open, and the red-veiled bride, still with face unseen, 
 steps out. 
 
 421
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 ' She is placed on the back of a female servant, and carried over a 
 slow charcoal fire. . . . Above her head, as she is conveyed over 
 the charcoal fire, another female servant raises a tray containing 
 several pairs of chop-sticks, some rice, and betel-nuts. By this time 
 the bridegroom has taken his place on a high stool, on which he 
 stands to receive his bride, who prostrates herself at the foot, and does 
 obeisance to her lord. This high stool is intended to indicate the 
 great superiority of the husband over the wife. . . . Descending from 
 his elevated position, the bridegroom removes the veil of red silk. 
 Now for the first time he catches a glimpse of his wife's face. It is 
 still, however, more or less hidden by the strings of pearls which hang 
 from her bridal coronet. The bridal pair are conducted to the 
 ancestral hall, where they prostrate themselves before the altar on 
 which the ancestral tablets are arranged. Heaven and Earth, and 
 the gods of the principal doors of the house, and the parents of the 
 bride are the next objects of their worship. A further act of homage, 
 which consists in pouring out drink-offerings to the ancestors of the 
 family, having been duly performed by the bridegroom only, the 
 happy couple are escorted to the bridal chamber, where they find 
 the orange-tree with its strings of cash, emblems of fruitfulness and 
 wealth, and the burning tapers, which formed a part of the procession, 
 placed on the nuptial couch. From the top of the bed are suspended 
 three long strips of red paper,' containing good wishes : one being, 
 ' May you have a hundred sons and a thousand grandsons.' ' The 
 bridegroom having now saluted the bride, they sit down and partake 
 of tea and cake.' The bride tries hard at this time to get a piece of 
 her husband's dress under her when she sits down, for, if she does, it 
 will ensure her having the upper hand of him, while he tries to prevent 
 her and to do the same himself with her dress. The strings of pearls 
 on her coronet are now ' drawn aside by the maids in attendance, 
 in order that the bridegroom may have an opportunity of seeing the 
 features of his bride, who, that he may receive a correct impression of 
 them, has carefully omitted the use of rouge in her toilet operations. 
 . . . While the bridal pair are thus engaged, many of the 
 relatives and friends assembled to celebrate the wedding, enter 
 the chamber, and freely remark on the personal appearance of the 
 bride.' This must be a trying ordeal to a modest retiring girl, as the 
 observations are loud enough for all to hear. Her new relatives and 
 friends wish her many children ; and the bridegroom soon leaves her 
 to mix with his guests. 'At seven o'clock in the evening a banquet 
 in honour of her parents-in-law is prepared by the bride. When all 
 things are ready, the parents enter the banqueting-hall, where the 
 bride, after bringing the principal dish, or caput ca'num, from the 
 kitchen and placing it on the table with her own hands, assumes the 
 position of a waiting-maid. Filling the cup of her father-in-law with 
 wine, she presents it to him with both hands, and whilst he is 
 drinking the contents, she kneels at his feet and twice knocks her 
 head upon the ground. To her mother-in-law, whose cup she now 
 fills, she is equally reverential. The banquet over, and the parents- 
 in-law having washed their hands, the bride is called upon to partake 
 of a repast. On a table which her father-in-law orders the servant to 
 place at the top of the steps by which the dining-hall is approached, 
 various viands are set, and she is invited to occupy a chair on the 
 
 422
 
 Marriage 
 
 east side of the table. Her mother-in-law fills a cup of wine and 
 presents it to her. Before receiving it, however, she rises from her 
 chair, and kneeling at the feet of her mother-in-law, does obeisance by 
 twice knocking her head upon the ground. ... In some of the 
 districts round Canton it is not unusual for the bride to be kept up 
 during the greater part of the night,' answering riddles put to her 
 generally by the bridegroom's relatives and friends. The gentlemen 
 sometimes get drunk, and disturbances arise. 
 
 It only remains to be said that on the third day the 
 ancestors are worshipped again, and a visit is paid by the 
 young lady to her own father and mother, the bridegroom 
 also paying a visit on the same day. On the evening of 
 the fourth day, there is a dinner party for the friends of the 
 newly-married couple, women and men eating separately 
 the bride and bridegroom waiting on their guests. This 
 is a brief account of some of the ceremonials attendant on 
 weddings in Canton. The boat people have different 
 customs, and each district of country differs more or less 
 in these matters. 
 
 In Swatow the bride does not ride in a red wedding- 
 chair like the Cantonese bride. The chair is not made of 
 wood, as it is in Canton, nor is the bride fastened up in it ; 
 red cloth hangings are put over the chair and it is a larger 
 one than the one in common use, being like an official 
 chair. A catty or two of raw pork is hung by a string 
 outside the door of the sedan chair. When she arrives at 
 the bridegroom's house she steps over a flare-up fire on the 
 ground, made by burning a few whisps of dry grass. The 
 idea is said to be to purify the bride from the contamination 
 of any devils or other dangers that she may have come 
 across on the road. The bride does not return to visit her 
 parents on the third day after marriage, but four months 
 after. On the third day after marriage, the Swatow bride 
 receives a visit from her younger brother or from some 
 boy in the neighbourhood of her parents' house in case 
 she has no younger brother. This younger brother or boy 
 brings a little pea-nut oil for lights (lamps). The Swatow 
 bride goes to worship at the Ancestral Hall, on the I5th of 
 the ist moon, for the first three years after her marriage 
 (a woman is a bride for three years) ; men as well as
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 women, strangers as well as those who know her, are all 
 free to go and have a look at her. Most of those who go, 
 go in the first year. At such a time she gives loose- 
 skinned oranges to the children to eat, and to the 
 grown-up people she offers tea ; while the married 
 people give presents of cash or silver in red paper parcels' 
 to her. 
 
 A curious marriage custom prevails in the province 
 of Yunnan. Chinese call it the woman marrying the 
 man. It has been described by a traveller as follows : 
 
 ' The ceremonies attending this kind of marriage are on a smaller 
 scale than those observed in the case of ordinary marriages, and 
 consist principally, in the man coming to the woman's house, where 
 she has her family and friends gathered for the occasion. The door 
 is shut and the man must knock. His intended then asks who is 
 there, in reply to which he gives his name and particulars. She 
 then asks him if he wishes to come to her house and stop with her, to 
 which he replies that he will come and live with her in good partner- 
 ship. The door is then opened, the man is admitted, and the festivities 
 commence. The wife, by marrying a man in this way, agrees to keep 
 her husband in everything, but contracts no other obligation towards 
 him. It is her house, and she may do in it as she likes. On the other 
 hand, as long as the husband stops at home and behaves like a good 
 boy, he performs his part of the agreement, for no work is expected of 
 him. Such marriages take place where parents, having only daughters, 
 are sufficiently rich to keep their husbands and wish for grandchildren, 
 for the children take the wife's family name and belong to her and 
 her family.' 
 
 When a man is absent from home and unavoidable 
 circumstances prevent his return to be married, a strange 
 marriage by proxy takes place sometimes in some districts 
 of the Canton Province ; we are not aware whether it 
 prevails in other parts of the empire or not. But the 
 curious thing about it is that, instead of a man acting as 
 the proxy, a cock does duty for the bridegroom. This 
 fowl is sent by the latter to the marriage ceremonies, 
 though it is not even necessary that he should be sent by 
 the bridegroom, the presence of the fowl at the wedding 
 being sufficient. 
 
 A girl is but once legally married in China ; she rides 
 in the bridal chair but once, and only if she is a legal, 
 principal wife. Not so the man, he can be married over 
 
 424
 
 Marriage 
 
 and over again. Only one woman in a man's household 
 holds the position of a proper wife ; all the others and he 
 may take as many as he likes are not principal wives, or 
 legal ones, but secondary wives, or concubines, though their 
 children are on an equality with those of the first wife. 
 The women who are taken as concubines are sometimes 
 told by their husbands, in order to humour them, that they 
 are to be considered as equal wives with the first. 
 
 As to whether Chinese married life is happy or not, 
 there is this to be said, that neither Chinese men nor 
 women know any other kind of married life. One fruitful 
 source of trouble is the polygamy allowed by custom ; 
 for quarrels and fights, jealousies and envy, bickerings 
 and disputes, are more or less the inheritance of the 
 many-wived household ; and lawsuits for property left by 
 the much-married Chinaman are rendered more com- 
 plicated by the different interests of the four, five, or six 
 women who all own the deceased as their late husband. 
 
 It is sometimes a question with Europeans what 
 really constitutes the binding part in a Chinese marriage. 
 With us the kernel of the whole matter is contained in 
 the proper preliminaries having been carried out as laid 
 down by the law of the land and the few sentences in 
 which the married couple promise to take each other as 
 husband and wife respectively, and perhaps the charge 
 delivered to them. If all the requirements of the civil 
 law have been complied with, as exemplified in a civil 
 marriage before a Registrar, the marriage is a valid 
 one, and all the rest of the ceremony which in a 
 religious marriage is added, often ad nauseam, is super- 
 fluous. But with the Chinese there are no notices to be 
 given to a Registrar of Marriage ; there is no marriage 
 before a priest, clergyman, minister, or Registrar ; there 
 are no such officials appointed to celebrate marriages. 
 What then constitutes a valid marriage from the Chinese- 
 standpoint ? 
 
 Before the actual marriage ceremony takes place, the 
 most important thing is ' the Three Documents and Six 
 
 425
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 Ceremonials.' Of these again, the most important is ' The 
 Three Generations' ; this must be present ; all the rest may 
 be wanting. It must again be pointed out and remembered 
 that the standpoint of viewing the marriage is totally 
 different from that taken in the West. With us, as we 
 have said, the actual ceremony of the service, and, in it, the 
 sentences, which the bridegroom and bride repeat, are the 
 essential portion of the ceremony ; but with the Chinese it 
 is the preliminaries, as above, which are the essentials. 
 Without these even the different incidents, such as red sedan- 
 chair, the worshipping of the ancestors, etc., which go to 
 make up the complex mass of ceremonies are invalid to 
 make it a kft fat (keet f ah f) marriage. 
 
 As has already been said, the ceremony itself is made 
 up of a mass of minor details, out of which rise into 
 importance several ceremonials, one of which is the bride 
 riding in the red sedan-chair, and the worshipping of 
 ancestors. To emphasize again the comparative import- 
 ance of the preliminaries, it may be noted that should 
 rebellion, or robbers running riot in a district of 
 country, make the quiet (or shall we say, noisy ?) carry- 
 ing out of the marriage ceremonials impossible, it would 
 be quite a keet faht (or proper marriage of a first wife) 
 marriage, under the circumstances of the case, if the 
 preliminaries having been already properly carried out, 
 the man should take the woman without any other 
 ceremony as his wife and live with her, nor would it be 
 necessary at a future time to go through the ceremony. 
 But it is needless to say that, with the love of the 
 Chinese for a procession, this mode of taking a wife 
 would be very exceptional. 
 
 A go-between is one of the most important matters : a 
 marriage is not a proper marriage without one. How very 
 important this is may be seen from the following passage 
 from the Li Ki, one of the ' Five Classics ' : 
 
 ' The master said, " The ceremonial usages serve as dykes to the 
 people against bad excesses (to which they are prone). They display 
 the separation which should be maintained (between the sexes), that 
 
 426
 
 Marriage 
 
 there may be no occasion for suspicion, and the relations of the 
 people be well defined. It is said in the Hook of Poetry (I. viii. Ode 
 VI. 3, 4)- 
 
 " How do we proceed in hewing an axe-handle ? 
 Without another axe it cannot be done. 
 How do we proceed in taking a wife ? 
 Without a go-between it cannot be done. 
 How do we proceed in planting hemp? 
 The acres must be dressed length-wise and cross-wise. 
 How do we proceed in taking a wife ? 
 Announcement must first be made to our parents." 
 
 ' In this way it was intended to guard the people (against doing 
 wrong), and still there are some (women) among them, who offer 
 themselves (to the male),' p. 297. 
 
 The first important ceremony is the bride going in 
 the red sedan-chair to the bridegroom's house. When 
 a bride has to be taken at once on account of her 
 parents' death, or sometimes, in the case of poor 
 people, the real red chair is dispensed with, and a 
 common chair is taken and some strips of red cloth 
 thrown over it, or with poorer people strips of red paper 
 pasted on it. 
 
 Another important thing is for the bridegroom to 
 receive his bride, he coming to the chair to do so. 
 
 Another thing which is always done when the proper 
 preliminaries have been carried out, is the worship of 
 ancestors. If the tablets are not present, then it suffices to 
 write on a piece of red paper the words, ' The ancestors 
 
 of for generations back,' which represent the ancestors 
 
 in all their generations of that surname. The bride and 
 bridegroom, and, if father and mother of bridegroom are 
 present, they as well, worship together this paper or the 
 spirit tablets. 
 
 It is important to pay obeisance to the father and 
 mother of the bridegroom only. 
 
 It is Chinese etiquette for the guests invited to a 
 marriage to call to congratulate the father of the bride- 
 groom on the morning of the marriage. 
 
 With all the Chinese feelings on marriage, it is strange 
 
 O O ' t3 
 
 to find that in one district of country at least, the girls 
 
 427
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 stand out against the fulfilment of the marriage 
 contract : 
 
 'The high-spirited disposition of the' women of Lung Kong is 
 shown ' in the organisaton of an anti-matrimonial league, in which the 
 fair damsels of this fortunate district bind themselves under solemn 
 pledges never to marry. Such a course is so contrary to the whole 
 history and spirit of Chinese institutions and so daring a challenge to 
 the practices of ages, that one cannot but admire the spirit of inde- 
 pendence and courage from which it springs. The existence of this 
 Amazonian league has long been known, but as to its rules and the 
 number of its members no definite information has come to hand. It 
 is composed of young widows and marriageable girls. Dark hints are 
 given as to the methods used to escape matrimony. The sudden 
 demise of betrothed husbands, or the abrupt ending of the newly- 
 married husband's career suggest unlawful means for dissolving the 
 bonds. When they submit to marriage they still maintain their powers 
 of will.' ' One of their demands being that the husband must go to the 
 wife's home to live, or else live without her company.' 
 
 'There is a peculiar custom in the village of Tai Leong and 
 [other villages in] Shun Tak [Kwong - tung], which may be well 
 characterised as misanthropical, and is highly deprecated even among 
 the natives. Nearly all the girls there have a habit of swearing 
 sisterhood to each other and taking vows of celibacy, looking upon 
 their future husbands as enemies. On the third morning of the 
 wedding, which is generally contracted by their parents, they go home, 
 and refuse to return to their husbands again. Some of them will 
 rather pay money to their husbands to buy concubines, and others, 
 who are poor and cannot afford to do so, prepare to die together by 
 poison, by throwing themselves into the river, by cutting their throats, 
 or by hanging themselves, so as to be free from the thraldom of their 
 lords.' 
 
 This is an old-established custom. There is a small 
 brochure, written long ago, containing a ballad about six 
 maidens of this district throwing themselves into a pond to 
 escape matrimony. The girls who belong to this league, 
 if it may be so called, swear sisterhood with several others 
 of like mind, going before the gods to do it ; but it 
 is not known what the oath is. The first object in 
 refusing to marry is stated to be a dread of the troubles 
 of motherhood ; secondly, to escape the thraldom of 
 serving a father-in-law and mother-in-law ; and lastly, in 
 all probability, the nuns have superadded their notions 
 about celibacy being a purer state of existence than the 
 married one. 
 
 Those belonging to such an association are taught by 
 
 428
 
 Marriage 
 
 the nuns, so it is said, to kill their husbands by saying 
 certain charms or incantations, by taking hairs out of their 
 husbands' queues for some certain hidden purpose, by pro- 
 curing the bones of dead infants or children, getting them 
 from what are styled the Liin tsong te"f, and these latter 
 are buried under the bed, fireplace, and family rice-jar. 
 The societies to which such women belong are called Mai 
 Fii Kau. They will not enter their husbands' houses for 
 the purposes of permanent residence (called lok ka) ; but 
 on their occasional visits to their husbands' residences their 
 food is even sent them from their own homes, and not as 
 much as a cup of tea will they take from their husbands' 
 houses. These girls went about formerly with four ounces 
 of arsenic, supplied by the nuns, who, it is said, not only 
 used to charge them ten taels for it, but often cheated them ; 
 one instance is known when some red ashes from the fur- 
 nace was supplied under the pretence that it was arsenic. 
 At the present day opium is carried on their persons, 
 and they threaten to take their lives if forced to marry. 
 More than half of them, after residing the most of 
 the time with their parents, are persuaded to become 
 good wives, and the number appears to be increasing 
 of late years. When the rest of the whole band of 
 sworn sisters, in number from six to twenty, as the 
 case may be, are married, the one who is left sometimes 
 ceases holding out any longer and takes up her proper 
 position as wife. 
 
 It is not an uncommon thing to read of girls in various 
 parts of China committing suicide rather than be forced into 
 marriage. Doubtless many a girl must feel it a dreadful 
 ordeal to face an unknown husband and come under the 
 power of a Chinese mother-in-law. 
 
 Books recommended. Archdeacon dray's 'China,' vol. i. chap. 7, 
 contains most minute particulars about the ceremonials connected with 
 marriages in Canton, from which we have largely quoted. Doolittle's ' Social 
 Life of the Chinese,' details the customs prevalent in Foochow. An article 
 in the China Mail, of 10th July 1890, would appear to be written from a 
 Northern standpoint. The marriage customs of the Hakkas are noted in 
 one of a series of articles on those people, in the Hongkong Daily I'rrss for 
 1861. 
 
 429
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 MENDICANTS. If numbers form any criterion, 
 "China should be the happy hunting ground for beggars. 
 Mendicancy is reduced to a fine art a science ; backed up 
 by the charitable tenets of Buddhism, the Chinese beggar, 
 armed with an amount of assurance and audacity, proceeds 
 to lay siege to a Chinese city, not in a haphazard way, but 
 with a systematised organisation which gives him a hold 
 on the shopkeeper, and a vantage ground to attack him 
 with effect and perseverance. In some, if not in many, 
 cities the beggars are united together under a head, ' The 
 King of the Beggars/ who has complete authority over his 
 subjects. The payment of a fixed sum to the King by 
 any shop will secure immunity from all visits of his 
 subjects ; otherwise the collection of their tax of one or 
 two cash will be undertaken with that pertinacity and 
 disregard of time and convenience so characteristic of the 
 Chinese beggar. In Nanking there is a royal order of 
 beggars established by Hung Wu, the first Emperor of the 
 Ming dynasty. In this city the beggars are allowed to 
 live in certain arches in the city wall, and 'their chief is 
 appointed by the police authorities of the district.' 
 
 Beggars in China may be divided into several classes, 
 viz. : Those who go in strings of three or four ; solitary 
 beggars, divided into stationary and peripatetic ones ; 
 those who inflict wounds upon themselves ; those who are 
 suffering from sores ; and, last but not least, blind beggars. 
 The demarcations between these different classes are not 
 always strongly accentuated, as the one class may merge 
 into the other. 
 
 A business like this requires preparation ; it is 
 commenced by some in early life, the youngsters generally 
 being found leading the strings of three or four blind 
 beggars, otherwise it is a case of the blind leading the 
 blind, and, all things considered, they appear to get on very 
 well. It is not an unknown thing, by any means, for 
 mothers to deprive their children of eyesight in order that 
 they may earn their living as blind singing girls ; and some 
 of the beggars may owe their blindness to the same cause. 
 
 430
 
 Mendicants 
 
 No doubt many others have lost their eyesight from 
 disease ; for different affections of the eyes are very 
 common in China, where there is no proper knowledge of 
 preventives, nor of curatives ; the hot sun, bad air, poor 
 living, and the reprehensible practice of the barbers of 
 scraping and cleaning the socket of the eye must induce 
 blindness in others. Next to blindness, open and festering 
 sores and wounds, and deformities of limbs, of any and 
 every kind, either form a good capital to start on, or, shut- 
 ting out all other means of gaining a livelihood, reduce the 
 sufferer to beggary of position and beggary as a calling. 
 Failing genuine wounds, and armed with a knife, a sturdy, 
 impudent vagabond, with strength of limb and body and 
 good eyesight, may cut himself in a shop, with noisy and 
 wild yells, and thus gather a wide-mouthed crowd, which, 
 flocking in and obstructing trade, draws a cash or two from 
 the accountant, the Chinese horror of blood being also a 
 sufficient ready-drawer of alms. The next shop, or one a 
 few doors further on, forms another stage for the repetition 
 of the performance. These nuisances, for whom one feels 
 no sympathy, but disgust, are fortunately not so common 
 as some of the other varieties of the genius beggar. 
 
 One of the most common is the string-beggar. Almost 
 always blind, this class goes about in small bands of three 
 or four, sometimes five, mostly females, but one or two 
 males are not uncommonly found in the string, each with a 
 slender long bamboo, the equivalent of the foreign beggar's 
 stick. They make their way, tapping with short quick 
 taps, now uncertainly feeling with their bamboos, which 
 serve as antennae, lifting their sightless orbs in vain appeals 
 for light, raising their faces with that pathetic helplessness, 
 though possibly in the exercise of that facial perception 
 with which those born blind are accredited a new sense 
 vouchsafed to those deprived of sight which enables them 
 ' by some singular insight ' to tell when they are opposite 
 some object, as to its dimensions and characteristics, such 
 as height, breadth, etc. 
 
 Happy are these Bartimaeuses with their sisters, wives,. 
 
 431
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 and cousins, if some bright-eyed youngster, not smitten 
 with the darkness of night in broad midday, is found to 
 lead their devious course through the crowded streets. 
 Such a one is also better able to see the white fan kwai, 
 whose pockets are filled with gold, or, who, at least, has not 
 hoarded up a store of bad cash to pass off on the beggar 
 tribe as their countrymen have. As soon as he appears in 
 sight, their monotonous whine is exchanged for more 
 vigorous appeals, and higher titles of respect follow each 
 other in rapid succession in the hope of loosing the purse- 
 strings of the young clerk, who has instant brevet rank of 
 Taipan, Cap-i-tan (Captain), Worship, Honour, Lordship, 
 and everything else worth having. 
 
 Let us watch their modus operandi. It is a combination 
 of street and shop begging a general business not confined 
 to any one branch each shop is most carefully and 
 religiously visited, unless exemption has been purchased by 
 a commuted sum paid to the ' Lord of All the Beggars.' 
 
 Should the shopkeeper be a good-natured man, a cash 
 or two may be flung to the string, who may get it without 
 even the trouble of going further than the doorstep, but as 
 often as not, if not more often than not, more patient toil 
 is necessary to earn even a broken cash. Then the whole 
 string file in, each holding on to the back of the other, and 
 the monotonous, whining, singsong appeal begins ; the 
 shopmen turn a deaf ear to everything, titles are thrown 
 away, the pearls are cast before the swine, who in this one 
 case, dare not turn to rend them, perhaps for fear of 
 vengeance ; though also is not one string of beggars for 
 half an hour better than half a dozen strings of them in 
 the same time ? And, as long as one string is in possession 
 of the place, the others pass by. Wearied, some of the 
 band, if not all of them, crouch down on the tiled floor, 
 waiting for their opportunity, for it is bound to come 
 sooner or later ; and here it is at last, for several customers 
 of another sort step in purchasers, at sound of whom the 
 din and clatter of the beggars begin with renewed energy, and 
 the surly shopmen, whom no amount of pity could move, 
 
 432
 
 Mendicants 
 
 hasten, for fear of losing a good customer, to get rid of the 
 wearisome noise, by tossing a few coins into the shallow 
 basket of the mendicants, who renew the same tactics at 
 each shop in the street. 
 
 Better when the round happens at meal-time, for then 
 the beggar will get some broken victuals to fill his empty 
 stomach, receiving them in the first place in his shallow 
 basket, or in his bowl, which latter Shakyamuni Buddha 
 has sanctified, and his numerous priest-followers have 
 hallowed by the use of centuries. 
 
 The solitary beggar wends his way through the mazy 
 street, picking up an odd cash, here and there, from those 
 more charitably disposed than the rest, or from those who 
 seek immunity from the pest that the beggar is to the 
 whole of the respectable world. 
 
 Some select a space in a busy spot, sit down and wait 
 for alms, with a written-out appeal spread before them, 
 setting forth that, natives of other provinces, they are 
 stranded in what is, to all intents, almost a strange land to 
 them ; others select some quieter spot, but where the 
 stream of passers-by is still sufficient to give a hope of an 
 occasional dole from unwilling hands, the donors hoping 
 that merit for the deed, though performed unwillingly, 
 may mitigate the horrors of a future hell. One feels 
 a pity for some of these beggars stranded wayfarers ; 
 broken-down tradesmen ; ruined gamblers, roues, with 
 the punishment of all their profligacy on them ; and, 
 saddest of all, some poor old woman whose undutiful 
 son has turned her out on the street, penniless, and 
 with no shelter for her grey hairs, to depend on the 
 uncertain charity of her neighbours, who, though 
 virtuous in their indignation, give no, or but little, 
 practical proof of their sorrow, and who are in constant 
 dread lest the old dame should give up the ghost on their 
 doorsteps ; harsh words and angry rebuffs, therefore, 
 forbid her sheltering herself under what were erewhile 
 friendly roofs : for would not the economy of Chinese social 
 life, as well as its judicial system, render the tender-hearted, 
 
 433 2 E
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 who should overstep the limits of prudence and on whose 
 premises she might die, liable, at least, to the expense of a 
 coffin and funeral ? The presence of a ghost haunting the 
 house would follow ; and, even worse still, some trumped- 
 up charge of having caused her death might bring the 
 charitably disposed within the clutches of the law a law 
 hard to escape, with all its concomitants of torture and 
 pre-Howard-day prisons. 
 
 It is curious how very polite the chair-coolies are to the 
 blind beggars in the street, addressing them as ' Sir,' when 
 requesting them to get out of the way a nice trait in 
 Chinese character, due to their innate politeness, and perhaps 
 also to self-interest, as a want of it might lead to bad 
 language. These beggars are not always most polite ; the 
 writer was once knocked, with not a light hand, by a woman 
 in the streets of Canton, but there was some excuse for her, 
 as she seemed to be crazy. Many of the beggars in Canton 
 sleep in an asylum in the east of the city, and go out by 
 day to ply their trade. 
 
 MINTS. Nearly every provincial city has a mint for 
 the issue of the native cash ; but of late years different 
 mints have been established at a number of the principal 
 cities for the coinage of silver dollars and subsidiary coins 
 and copper cents. Amongst other places where mints have 
 been started, are Nanking, Nganking, Tientsin, Foochow, 
 Wuchang, Canton, and Chengtu. A mint was opened in 
 Changsha in 1897, and was in working existence for two 
 years. Some, if not all, of these have a European Super- 
 intendent. The Chengtu Mint after issuing a supply of 
 coin, sufficient as it was thought, was closed and its 
 Superintendent dismissed, and this may be the case with 
 some of the others as well. 
 
 'The Kiangnan [Nanking] Mint was closed in June, in consequence 
 of financial difficulties, but the events in North China created a sudden 
 demand for dollars, and it was re-opened, and turned out 20,000 to 
 40,000 dollars a day until the market was choked. It then closed 
 again and the English Superintendent left.' 
 
 434
 
 Missions 
 
 MISSIONS ANCIENT MISSIONS. Tradition points 
 to an early proclamation of Christianity in China. The 
 apostle Thomas has been mentioned as the first missionary 
 to this Empire ; at all events, it seems that some of the 
 first teachers of the new faith must have selected China as 
 their mission field. It would be most interesting to have 
 had some particulars of this enterprise, but we must be 
 content with rumours and detached notices in ancient 
 ecclesiastical writings, which give but a vague and misty 
 idea of the extent of the work and its results. 
 
 NESTORIAN MISSIONS. The first really solid ground 
 that we have to rest upon is the historical fact of the 
 Nestorians having carried on missions in China. A 
 thousand questions present themselves to one's mind as to 
 the work done by these men, the extent of country they 
 travelled over, the numbers that came to China, their 
 modus operandt, the success that attended their labours. 
 But to these and many others we get answers which only 
 whet our appetite for more information. 
 
 ' The time of the arrival of the Nestorians in China 
 cannot be specified certainly, but/ Williams states, ' there 
 are grounds for placing it as early as A.D. 505.' One of the 
 most interesting of the ancient monuments in China, while 
 at the same time ' the most ancient Christian inscription 
 yet found in Asia,' is the Nestorian monument. It is ' the 
 only record yet found in China itself of the labours of the 
 Nestorians.' It was discovered in A.D. 1625 by some 
 workmen in the suburb of Ch'ang-an, a district city in 
 Shen-si. It was erected in A.D. 781. 
 
 'The contents are threefold: Doctrinal, Historical, Eulogistic. 
 The first part gives a brief outline of the teachings of the religion, 
 and of the ways and practices of its ministers ; the second part tells 
 of its first entrance into China, and of the patronage extended to it 
 for the most part for nearly 150 years by various emperors ; in the 
 third part, to which, though it be the shortest, the two others are 
 introductory, the Christians express, in verse, their praise of God and 
 their religion, and also of the emperors whose protection and favour 
 they had enjoyed.' 
 
 From this inscription we learn that a priest, Olopun by 
 name, made his way through difficulties and perils from the 
 
 435
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 West, guided by the ' azure clouds ' to China, bringing with 
 him the ' True Scriptures.' He was favourably received by 
 the Emperor in the palace, in A.D. 635, where a portion of 
 the Scriptures was translated in the library of the palace, 
 and approving of the new doctrine, with that eclecticism 
 the Chinese are so noted for, the Emperor gave special 
 orders for its propagation, and a proclamation issued a few 
 years after with regard to it ended with the words : ' Let 
 it have free course throughout the Empire.' A monastery 
 was built ' sufficient to accommodate twenty-one priests ' ; 
 succeeding sovereigns vied with each other in the benefits 
 they conferred on the new religion which had the aegis of 
 imperial patronage thrown over it; it spread throughout the 
 then ten provinces of China ; ' monasteries filled a hundred 
 cities.' Then came a period of persecution, for twenty or 
 twenty-five years, from a bigoted Buddhist Empress, when 
 another time of prosperity ensued, the buildings being 
 restored and more helpers coming from the West. Not 
 only did the imperial favour shine on them again, but an 
 eminent Buddhist from India appears to have embraced 
 Christianity, and ' threw all his wealth and influence into 
 the promotion of the Christian cause, manifesting especially 
 an extraordinary charity.' Thus we have a summary of 
 the history of Nestorian Christians in China for nearly 150 
 years, till A.D. 781. Of its history subsequent to that date 
 there is not much to be said ; for sixty years or more it 
 continued ; during this time Buddhism made vigorous 
 progress, which called forth spirited protests from the 
 literati. The Taoists, in A.D. 841, finding their oppor- 
 tunity come, succeeded in getting the Emperor to launch 
 a proscription against Buddhism, and Buddhist monas- 
 teries were destroyed ; this persecution also affected the 
 Nestorians, as they were referred to in the edict, and 
 the Nestorianism of Si-ngan-fu never recovered from the 
 blow. 
 
 Marco Polo, in the thirteenth century, mentions 
 Nestorian churches in China; but it is not thought that 
 these were descendants of the former Nestorian Church. 
 
 436
 
 Missions 
 
 It is probable that the monument we have already 
 mentioned was buried at the time of this great persecution, 
 and so, after a period of two hundred years or more, ended 
 an interesting chapter of missions that of the Nestorians 
 in China. Its failure was doubtless due to two causes : the 
 one being the reliance on the Emperor and men in 
 power ; the other being the absence of the Gospel in 
 their presentation of the truth. It is to be hoped that 
 future researches may discover further evidence of this 
 church at the different periods of its existence in China. 
 Some have thought it possible that such may be the case, 
 and that remains of this ancient Nestorian Church may yet 
 be found that converts, buried in some isolated region, with 
 possibly the ancient translation of the Scriptures made by 
 their first missionaries, still in their possession, will be come 
 across, as the descendants of the Hebrew community were 
 some half a century ago in the interior of China. (See 
 Articles on Buddhism and on Jews.) 
 
 ROMAN CATHOLIC MISSIONS. We now come to the 
 prosecution of missions on a larger scale. 
 
 The founders of Jesuit missions in China were Michael 
 Ruggiero and Matteo Ricci, who arrived in this Empire 
 in A.D. 1579 and A.I). 1581 respectively. The latter has 
 been described as 'a man of great scientific acquirements, 
 of invincible perseverance, of various resource, and of 
 winning manners, maintaining, with all these gifts, a single 
 eye to the conversion of the Chinese, the bringing the 
 people of all ranks to the faith of Christianity.' They 
 found it difficult to obtain a footing, but Ricci established 
 himself at Shiuhing, the ancient capital of the Canton 
 Province, and worked his way up, till he finally reached the 
 capital, where he died in A.D. 1610. He was favourably 
 received by the Emperor Wan Li, of the Ming dynasty. 
 He was the author of a number of learned works as well as 
 books on Christianity, and left many converts behind him, 
 the most noted of whom was Hsu Kwang-si, a member of 
 the Han-lin college and an official of high rank. One of 
 Hsii's daughters, known as Candida, built thirty-nine 
 
 437
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 churches, printed one hundred and thirty books, and sent 
 many blind story-tellers, instructed in gospel history, out 
 in the streets to tell what they had learned. 
 
 The Church of Rome was wise in her generation in 
 sending out at first men of the stamp of Ricci, among 
 whom may be named Adam Schaal and Verbiest ; it was 
 not only Jesuits, but the different Roman Catholic sects, 
 such as Franciscans, Dominicans, and others, which sent 
 their members to China. 
 
 'The Dynasty of Ming, . . . was drawing near to its close, 
 and the Manchus were preparing for the conquest of the Empire. 
 Many difficulties and perils encompassed the missionaries, but Schaal 
 was able to maintain his position at Peking by his astronomical 
 knowledge in correcting the calendar, and by establishing a foundry, 
 where he cast cannon to be used against the Manchus. And this 
 position he continued to hold when the Empire fell to those invaders. 
 He was made head of the Board of Astronomy and Mathematics, and 
 was a favourite with the first Manchu sovereign, though he did not 
 shrink from remonstrating with him against certain severe measures, 
 and urging him rather to justice, forbearance, and mercy. He was 
 able to lay, in A.D. 1650, the foundation of a grand church in the 
 neighbourhood of the Imperial palace. 
 
 'When the second Emperor, known to us as K'ang Hsi by the 
 name of his reign succeeded to his father at the early age of eight, 
 there was trouble during the minority ; but as soon as he took the 
 Government into his own hands, he gave his full confidence to the 
 missionaries. He was, probably, the most able and enlightened 
 sovereign who ever sat on the Chinese throne, and his reign lasted 
 sixty-one years. Schaal and Verbiest regulated the calendar and 
 cast cannon for him. Regis and several others conducted for him 
 the survey of the Empire, which Remusat correctly describes as " the 
 most complete geographical work ever executed out of Europe." ' 
 
 Disputes, however, arose amongst the Roman Catholic 
 missionaries as to the correct terms to use for God (as to 
 what words were to be applied by their Christians to the 
 Deity) ; as to the worship of ancestors and Confucius 
 whether it were a mere homage or real worship, and 
 whether their converts consequently might engage in it. 
 Unable to agree amongst themselves, the dispute had grown 
 to such a head that they referred it not only to the Pope 
 but also to the Emperor of China ; each of whom gave a 
 different verdict. The missionaries, of course, were bound 
 to obey the Pope, and this setting up of an outside authority 
 over that of their own Emperor, incensed the Chinese, and 
 
 438
 
 Missions 
 
 the storm which was gathering burst in the .next reign, 
 when in A.D. 1724, an edict was issued against them, pro- 
 hibiting the propagation of Roman Catholicism, and only 
 retaining the few missionaries required for scientific purposes 
 in Peking ; all the others were required to leave the country. 
 Some obeyed the edict, while others remained in secret. 
 Many of the Chinese converts remained firm, notwith- 
 standing the persecutions which arose now and then. 
 Matters remained in this state for about a century, when in 
 A.D. 1842 Christianity was tolerated by treaty. There are 
 now numbers of priests and numerous bodies of Roman 
 Catholics in the country. When the priests care to use a 
 Bible, the translation they employ is said to be that of the 
 first Protestant missionary, Dr. Morrison ; for though trans- 
 lations of portions have been made by them, yet, like the 
 Church of Rome, they seem never to have printed the whole 
 Bible and given it to the people ; they have, however, quite 
 a literature of their own in Chinese. They do not seem 
 to practise any public preaching ; but retain hold of the 
 communities of converts already made. In one point they 
 are very aggressive, and that is in the baptising of infants, 
 for every one so sprinkled becomes a unit in their grand 
 total of Christians. 
 
 The Roman Catholic Register, a paper published a few 
 years since in Hongkong, gave the following as the 
 statistics of Romish missions in China: Bishops, 41; 
 European priests, 664; native priests, 559; colleges, 34; 
 convents, 34; native converts, 1,092,818. One well-known 
 writer speaks thus of their work : 
 
 ' Had they adhered to religious teaching, their converts would 
 doubtless have been legion ; but the usual rash meddling with politics 
 soon aroused fear of foreign aggression, leading to violent opposition 
 and terrible persecution, which have been repeated with every fresh 
 scare of undue political influence. . . . It is this arrogation of temporal 
 authority which has so incensed the Chinese, and accounts for much 
 of the hostility to missionaries and converts of all Christian churches 
 and denominations, as the ignorant masses naturally could not dis- 
 criminate between Protestants and Roman Catholics. Hence, in the 
 Edict of Toleration, proclaimed in 1886, the Imperial Government 
 deem it necessary to state that men who may embrace Christianity 
 do not cease to be Chinese, but, as such, are entitled to all protection 
 
 439
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 from their own Government, to which alone they owe obedience. The 
 promulgation of this Edict followed immediately on the decision of 
 the Pope to send a Papal Legate to the Court of Peking, to represent 
 him as the sole foreign power interested in the Chinese Roman 
 Catholics, thereby totally disclaiming all political protection from 
 France.' 
 
 PROTESTANTS. The first Protestant missionary to 
 China was the Rev. Robert Morrison, who arrived in A.D. 
 1807. There was such a strong feeling against all 
 Europeans at that time that he was unable to preach in 
 public or carry on direct evangelistic work ; but he engaged 
 in some literary undertakings, which not only redounded to 
 his credit, but prepared the way for future labourers. A 
 gigantic dictionary of the language and the translation of 
 the whole Bible have made his name famous, and it is a 
 marvel how, confined within the foreign factories (as the 
 European settlement in Canton was called) in a godown, and 
 assisted by a teacher who was in terror of being discovered, 
 this wonderful man, nearly single-handed, accomplished 
 such tasks. It is true he had a former translation of a part 
 of the New Testament which he used as a basis, and he 
 had the help of Dr. Milne in translating part of the Old 
 Testament, but with all these aids the labour must have 
 been herculean. ' It was printed from wood blocks and 
 published in 21 volumes in 1823.' Thus Protestant 
 Missions in China took their start on the Bible, and it is to 
 this reliance on the word of God at their inception, that 
 their wonderful success is due. Of his other herculean task 
 it has well been said : ' There is no finer monument of 
 human perseverance than the dictionary of Dr. Morrison.' 
 Unable to penetrate into China, a number of missionaries 
 settled in the Straits, and, learning the language, were 
 ready when their opportunity came, to land, fitted for 
 work in China. One of them prepared founts of movable 
 type, and these were the precursors of the numerous 
 printing presses, which, now that the Chinese have seen 
 their utility, are not confined to mission premises, but are 
 used by the natives themselves, at the treaty ports, to a 
 limited extent, for the production of their own books. In 
 
 440
 
 Missions 
 
 addition to the English missionaries, some came to Macao 
 from America. After the Nanking Treaty of 1842, by 
 which Hongkong was ceded to Great Britain and five 
 treaty ports opened, the missionaries came up from the 
 Straits and more arrived from home. Better translations 
 of the Bible were made, schools established, dispensaries 
 opened, and books printed. There were at that time only 
 a few Chinese converts all told. Since then more treaty 
 ports have been opened, and residence in the interior has 
 been possible in many places, till a few years since there 
 were forty different societies at work, and a few in- 
 dependent workers unconnected with any society. There 
 were 589 men, 391 married women, and 316 single ladies, 
 making a total of 1,296; these were British, American, 
 German, and Canadian. Of native helpers, there were 
 1,657. There were 522 organised native churches (but this 
 number may be stated as more than a thousand if each 
 company of believers is termed a Church), of which 94 were 
 self-supporting, and nearly 50 partially so. These native 
 churches are a sufficient answer as to whether missions 
 have been a success in China or not, for a Chinese will not 
 pay away money for Christianity unless he is convinced of 
 its truth. There were also 38 churches which were under 
 a general endowment scheme, the money being contributed 
 by natives alone ; beside this there was a group of sixty 
 congregations which were to support themselves ; there 
 were other cases also which might be included, so that the 
 number of self-supporting churches given above fall short 
 of the reality. The amount contributed in money was 
 $36,SS4'54, but ' no account is taken of the value of houses 
 and land given by natives to the churches to which they 
 belong.' As the \vork has increased, the figures are now 
 very much larger. 
 
 Extra to these were the concomitants of mission work, 
 such as schools, with 16,836 pupils, and medical work of 
 hospitals there were 61, of dispensaries 44, with hundreds 
 of thousands of patients passing through them annually. 
 There were 12 religious journals published by missionaries, 
 
 441
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 and hosts of books are being annually issued from the 
 mission presses not only religious ones, but scientific 
 manuals as well, of every kind and character. Had 
 Protestant missionaries done nothing else in China than 
 prepared and published the books issued by them in 
 Chinese ; started the schools ; written the books in English, 
 containing narratives of their own travels, and accounts of 
 the natives, and of their religious customs and manners ; 
 translated native works ; instructed the youth of both 
 sexes ; and founded hospitals and dispensaries had these, 
 we say, been the only things accomplished by Protestant 
 missionaries, they would have done a noble work ; but 
 added to all these more secular labours is the directly 
 religious work of preaching the Gospel, tract and Bible 
 distribution, visiting, gathering together the converts, etc., 
 all of which, though less appreciated by the general 
 mercantile community of China, have been as signally 
 successful as the other class of undertakings. 
 
 The statistics here given are those compiled some years 
 since. Wonderful advances are being made each year in 
 almost all the various branches of missionary labour. 
 
 It is nearly a hundred years now since Protestant 
 missions were started in China, and at first the missionaries 
 were but a handful in number, restricted in their opera- 
 tions, and confined to a few localities. They have had 
 hard up-hill work, prejudice and ignorance opposing them, 
 a difficult language to learn a language requiring years 
 of unremitting, diligent study, before a sufficient knowledge 
 of it can be acquired for general use, but little sympathy 
 from their fellow-countrymen on the spot, and yet the 
 following statistics will show what has been the result of 
 one phase alone, of their labours: in 1842 there were 6 
 communicants; in 1853, 35 5 m ^65, 2,000; in 1876, 
 1 3*03 5 ; in 1886, 28,000 ; in 1889, 37,287. At the present 
 day there must be in round numbers some 40,000 or more 
 communicants, and besides these 100,000 of a Christian 
 community. 
 
 ' If Christian missions advance in the next thirty-five 
 
 442
 
 Missions 
 
 years in the same ratio as in the past thirty-five years, 
 there will be at the end of that time twenty-six millions 
 of communicants and a Christian community of one 
 hundred million people' -- one-fourth of the Chinese 
 nation. 
 
 As to the character of the converts are the native 
 Christians genuine ? Unfortunately some false professors, 
 who have joined merely for the dollars which they hope to 
 obtain, have given a bad name to native Christians 
 amongst certain classes of people. It ought to be remem- 
 bered that it is these very hypocrites among them who 
 obtrude themselves on public notice, as what these desire 
 is the opportunity of making money, and they thus push 
 themselves into prominence for that object, while the 
 genuine ones are content to occupy the humble position 
 they already fill. The centuries of heathenism, in which 
 the Chinese have been steeped, must also be taken into 
 account in judging of those just come out of it : a wild 
 flower transplanted into a garden does not produce the 
 beautiful flowers of the cultivated species that grows at its 
 side, but care and labour have to be expended, and the 
 skill of the gardener exercised, to develop its best character- 
 istics ; so we can scarcely expect one transplanted out of 
 all the debasing concomitants of idolatry to be on a par 
 in all respects with (in fact, sometimes they are expected 
 to be superior to) those who have been surrounded by 
 centuries of Christian influence in our more highly 
 favoured Western lands. But, notwithstanding all this, 
 there are amongst the Chinese converts those who com- 
 pare favourably with any in the West. It is not from 
 hearsay that this is said, for the author himself has seen 
 such. 
 
 Books recommended. 'Christianity in China: Xestorianism, Roman 
 Catholicism, Protestantism,' by Professor Legge, of Oxford University. 
 'Christian Progress in China,' by Rev. A. Foster, B.A. There are numerous 
 other works dealing with different sections of the mission field, which are 
 good as far as they go. Some idea also of what has been done, and is doing, 
 may be gathered from a study of ' Records of the Missionary Conference, held 
 at Shanghai, 1890.' Also sec China Review, vol. xviii. p. 152, and 'The 
 China Mission Hand-Book.' 
 
 443
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 MOHAMMEDANS. The introduction of Moham- 
 medanism into China is interesting, resulting as it did in 
 the settlement of followers of that religion in China, and 
 the consequent proselytising, till now there are large com- 
 munities of the followers of the prophet scattered here and 
 there throughout the empire. The word proselytising, 
 used above, must, however, be taken in a mild sense, for it 
 has not been carried on with that vigour which uses com- 
 pulsion to accomplish its objects and makes its converts 
 at the point of the sword. There is no rapid growth of 
 Mohammedanism in China. Content with a foothold in 
 the land, and with the achievements of the past, it is 
 now satisfied with the increase due to the natural enlarge- 
 ment of its borders from within, owing to the growth of 
 the families of its professors. 
 
 Arabia has the honour of introducing Mohammedanism 
 into this land, and commerce was the motive force which 
 brought the most of the early followers of the false prophet 
 to these distant shores. Wos Kassin, supposed to be a 
 maternal uncle of Mohammed, is credited with having 
 introduced the Moslem faith into China: he came to this 
 country in the seventh century, with a band of followers. 
 Its missionaries arrived at different sea-ports, especially 
 at Canton and Hangchow ; they also travelled in the 
 caravans from Central Asia. With such a measure of 
 success was the propagation of the Islam faith carried on, 
 that large numbers of Mohammedans are to be found 
 in China, especially in the Northern and Western provinces 
 where the inhabitants of whole villages are followers of the 
 Arabian prophet ; there are 200,000 in Peking. In one of 
 the large cities of Szchuen there are 80,000. In Yunnan 
 there are said to be between three and four millions. In 
 Kansuh they are estimated as 8,350,000 in number, and in 
 Shensi as 3,500,000. These three provinces contain nine- 
 tenths of the whole Mohammedan population of China. 
 (In some places Mohammedans form one-third of the 
 population) ; it is estimated that there are more than 
 10,000,000 North of the Yang-tsz-kiang ; there are not so 
 
 444
 
 Mohammedans 
 
 many in the South. ' According to an official estimate 
 there are from twenty to twenty-five millions of Moslems 
 in China.' There are mosques in many of the cities ; 
 Canton boasts of four, two of which were built by Wos 
 Kassin. This apostle was buried, after a residence of 
 fifteen years in China, outside the Great North Gate of 
 Canton. One of the two pagodas in Canton, different 
 rather in style from the ordinary pagoda, was erected in 
 connection with one of these mosques, in order that the 
 muezzins might call the faithful to prayers from it. The 
 followers of this religion would appear, in this distant land 
 of their adoption, to have held strictly to the tenets of their 
 faith, such as circumcision, alms deeds, observance of the 
 feast of Ramadan, and prayers in the mosque. In all 
 their mosques is to be found a tablet on which is inscribed 
 in letters of gold : ' May the Emperor reign ten thousand 
 years,' the penalty of the recognition of their faith by their 
 sovereign ; Confucian, Buddhist, and Taoist temples, if 
 of any size, all having the same reminder of the homage 
 due to, and worship demanded by, the Son of Heaven. 
 His subjects may worship whom they choose, but, whether 
 they choose or not, adoration must be paid to him, except 
 in the case of Christians, who will not bend the knee nor 
 offer the incense of worship to any but the one living and 
 true God. 
 
 ' Unlike' what it has done 'in other countries, Islam in China has bent 
 itself to the national ideals, and has become Chinese, not only in habits 
 and manners, but in patriotism and character. The treatment of their 
 Mahommedan subjects by the Emperors of China has been characterised 
 by the broadest toleration, provincial rulers having been often degraded 
 or dismissed for failing to enforce equal treatment of them by their 
 fellow-subjects.' 
 
 A large literature has been brought into existence by 
 the Mohammedans. The author had in his possession a 
 well-got-up work published under Imperial auspices ; the 
 title-page had two dragons encircling the name of the 
 book this being the sign of the imprimatur of the 
 sanction, or approval, of the Emperor. 
 
 There have been several rebellions of considerable 
 
 445
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 magnitude by the Mohammedans against the Government, 
 of which may be mentioned that of A.D. 1863, in the North 
 of China, and that in Yunnan, lasting for many years. 
 
 Books recommended. Williams's 'Middle Kingdom,' vol. ii. pp. 268-271, 
 Gray's 'China,' vol. i. pp. 137-142. An article by Rev. H. V. Noyea in the 
 Chinese Recorder and Missionary Journal, vol. xx. pp. 10-18 and 68-72. 
 For an account of the literature published by them, see Chinese Recorder and 
 Missionary Journal, vol. xxii. pp. 263, 354, 377, 401. The larger half of the 
 second volume of Rocher's ' La Province Chinoise du Yun-nan ' is taken up 
 with a narrative of the great Mohammedan rebellion in that province in 
 1855-1873, 
 
 MONGOLS. The Mongols are another of those 
 nomadic races bordering China, who have forced themselves 
 into relationships with that Empire. The Huns, or Hwing- 
 noo, were the ancestors of the present Mongols. As Attila, 
 with his hordes of savage Hun, was styled the ' Scourge of 
 God,' and proved to be veritably the ' Terror of the West ' 
 in the fifth century ; so, early during the time of the Han 
 dynasty (B.C. 202 to A.D. 190), the Hwing-noo proved 
 entitled to a similar appellation as regards the China of 
 that period, for they ofttimes became ' virtual masters of the 
 Empire.' 
 
 The Heanbi, another Mongolic tribe, made themselves 
 famous in Chinese history during the Han dynasty for 
 about a hundred years. They also proved an annoyance 
 to succeeding dynasties, becoming a formidable State, 
 ranging over northern China and engulfing parts of it. 
 
 A number of these Mongols, as well probably as some 
 of the Huns and other Mongolic tribes, were settled in 
 North China ; and so not only were there foes without, but 
 foes within ; and in preparation for a war with the external 
 foes, the Emperor ordered a Chinese ' St. Bartholomew's 
 Day ' of all the nomadic tribes within his borders, so that 
 200,000 families were slain. To prevent them turning 
 traitors, many Chinese also suffered in the indiscriminate 
 slaughter ; but, even after such treatment, Tibetan and 
 Hunnish families collected in China, and harsh laws were 
 enacted against them, which drove large numbers of them 
 out. Before that, Hienbi Mongols had returned to China, 
 
 446
 
 Mongols 
 
 and they continued to do so afterwards. There was a 
 Hunnish Kingdom, one of the most powerful of the many 
 rival ones into which China was divided, in A.D. 435. 
 
 Mongols, under the name of Too-kiie, assisted the first 
 Emperor of the Pang dynasty to gain the throne of China. 
 These same Turks, as they were called, plundered the north- 
 western and northern borders of China during the whole of 
 the T'ang dynasty. 
 
 The Khitans, another Mongolic tribe originally, have 
 also made for themselves a chapter in Chinese history. 
 Harrying the frontiers and plundering the country ; 
 defeated by the Chinese, who employed 1,800,000 men to 
 build a great wall to protect the Empire from their ravages 
 in the time of the Chi dynasty ; eclipsed by the so-called 
 Turks, they rose, to be again defeated. After acknowledging 
 the supremacy of the Chinese, they again fought with them, 
 and threatened the North of China after the T'ang dynasty 
 had crippled its strength in its exhausting and foolish war 
 against ancient Corea ; two expeditions were sent against 
 them, which proved ineffectual, and it was found im- 
 possible to oust them from the new territories they had 
 acquired. It is impossible, however, to follow the fortunes 
 of the Khitans through all the intricacies of the history of 
 Chinese dealings with their nomadic neighbours. Suffice 
 it to say, that eventually, in A.D. 926, the Khitans, after 
 Eastern Mongolia had been formed into a kingdom, began 
 to lay the foundations of that Empire under Abdoji, ' one 
 of the great conquerors of mankind.' Under his successors 
 they assumed the Imperial power as the Liao, or Iron 
 dynasty, overthrowing the Ts'in Emperor. They carried 
 on incessant wars with the Sung, and reigned over the 
 country north of the Yellow River, their dominion extend- 
 ing as far north as the Songari and Hoorha rivers. The 
 Khitans are said to have had a curious custom, that of 
 drinking human blood, which the husbands drank from the 
 living bodies of their wives by cutting a small slit in the 
 wife's back. Their higher civilisation in other matters 
 would almost appear to throw some doubt on this strange 
 
 447
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 propensity, as they were painters, and had, at the time 
 when they entered China, a literature comprising thousands 
 of volumes, including medical works ; they were hospitable, 
 and fond of drink. It may be here proper to remark, that 
 'Huns,' 'Turks,' and 'Mongols' 'differ only as the Han, 
 T'ang, and Sung of China differ. They are but dynastic 
 titles of the same people.' They were finally driven out of 
 Northern China by the help of the ancestors of the present 
 Manchus, who succeeded them as the Kin dynasty, after a 
 reign by the Liao dynasty of 240 years. It is interesting 
 to note that Peking was first made a capital during their 
 time. 
 
 We next find the Kins, as well as the native Chinese 
 dynasty in the south, swept off their thrones by the Mongols. 
 The name, Kin, is said by Ross to mean ' silver.' Genghis 
 Khan had gathered together the numerous bands ' of rest- 
 less cavalry on the north of Shamo and the west of the 
 Hinganlin.' Defeated tribes swelled his numbers, and he 
 entered on a career of conquest ; his sons completed his 
 work as far as China was concerned, the Yuan dynasty, as 
 it was called, reigning over the whole of China for a period 
 of eighty-eight years, until the Ming, a native dynasty, was 
 founded on the ruins of the destroyed and hated power of 
 the Mongols. (See Article on Chinese History.) 
 
 MONGOLS, CHARACTERISTICS AND CUSTOMS OF. The 
 distinguishing features of the Mongols are described, by 
 the late celebrated Russian traveller, Col. Prejevalsky, as 
 ' a broad flat face, with high cheek-bones, wide nostrils, 
 small narrow eyes, large prominent ears, coarse black hair, 
 scanty whiskers and beard, a dark sunburnt complexion, 
 and lastly, a stout thick-set figure, rather above the average 
 height.' The Chinese face is ' cast in ' a ' more regular 
 mould.' The men shave their heads like the Chinese, but 
 the women plait their hair ' in two braids decorated with 
 ribbons, strings of coral, or glass beads, which hang down 
 on either side of the bosom.' The Mongols live in felt huts 
 or tents, and are very dirty, never washing their bodies and 
 faces, and their hands but seldom. They drink great 
 
 448
 
 Mongol Language 
 
 quantities of tea and ' milk prepared in various ways, either 
 as butter-curds, whey, or kumiss,' and are much addicted to 
 drunkenness. Mutton is eaten in great quantities. ' Their 
 only occupation and source of wealth is cattle-breeding, 
 and their riches are counted by the number of their live 
 stock.' The Mongols are very fond of their animals, and 
 lay themselves out completely for them, being very 
 considerate of them ; their cattle, etc., are bartered for 
 manufactured goods. They are very lazy, never walking, 
 always riding on horseback, and are great cowards, but are 
 fond of hunting, and kind and simple-minded. ' A Mongol 
 can only have one lawful wife, but he can keep concubines, 1 
 the children of the latter 'are illegitimate, and have no 
 share in the inheritance.' ' Bribery and corruption are as 
 prevalent as in China.' ' Religious services are performed 
 in Tibetan.' 
 
 Books recommended. Col. Prejevalsky's 'Mongolia.' The late Rev. J. 
 Gilmour's 'Among the Mongols,' and 'More About the Mongols.' For a 
 ' depository of all available Mongol lore ' on their history, etc. , there are the 
 huge volumes of Howorth's ' History of the Mongols.' 
 
 MONGOL LANGUAGE. The Mongolian and 
 Chinese languages are quite distinct and not related : Chinese 
 is monosyllabic to a great extent, Mongolian abounds in 
 words of several syllables ; Chinese is non-alphabetic, 
 Mongolian alphabetic. Mongolian is said to be an easier 
 language to acquire than Chinese, especially is this the case 
 with the written language. Gutturals and aspirates are largely 
 used, 'so much so that their speech seems mostly gasping and 
 sputtering.' One very curious feature in the language is 
 the facility with which terminations are added to the verb, 
 and by this agglutinative process a great variety of mean- 
 ing is introduced without the need of using additional 
 words ; and it is not surprising to find from the ' dis- 
 proportionately large part occupied by the verb ' in the 
 language that ' sentences are run out to an indefinite length, 
 consisting of an indefinite number of participial clauses 
 strung together like the links of a chain.' The Mongol 
 language ' is rich in words and several forms and dialects, 
 
 449 2 F
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 which, however, are not very distinct, except as between 
 Northern and Southern Mongolian, where the difference is 
 strongly marked,' where 'even the construction of the 
 sentence changes ' ; but, notwithstanding all, it seems a very 
 rare thing for Mongols from different parts of the country 
 not to understand each other, thus forming a sharp contrast 
 to the Chinese-speaking natives. There is a great difference 
 between the colloquial and written language, and the 
 natives appear to find it well-nigh impossible to write the 
 language as it is spoken. A line of Mongolian writing has 
 been compared to a knotted cord ; the people themselves 
 say of it that it is like ' a stream of water poured out from a 
 jug.' They read from left to right in vertical coloumns : 
 
 ' There are a good many printed books, the Chinese Government 
 having appointed a special commission, at the end of last century, to 
 translate into Mongol, historical, educational, and religious works.' 
 'But it may be remarked, in passing, that outside of the sacred books 
 and Buddhist liturgies, there is very little in the shape of literature 
 to be found in the Mongolian language. The book collector may 
 find numerous manuscript copies of parts of Buddhist scriptures, 
 some histories of famous monks, and a few tales written with the 
 purpose of enforcing Buddhist doctrines, but secular writings are very 
 hard to find, religion having taken such entire possession of the 
 Mongolian mind that it is thought a waste of time to write and copy 
 anything that has not a religious value.' 'There are schools at 
 Peking and Kalgan for teaching the language, and an almanac and 
 some books are from time to time printed in it. The learned classes 
 are the princes, nobles, and lamas, the latter also learning Tibetan, 
 the princes and nobles, Mongol and Manchu. The common people 
 are in general illiterate.' 
 
 There are three styles of the written language : first, that 
 of the sacred books, ' being that in which the translations of 
 the Buddhist scriptures are made,' stiff in its style and ren- 
 dering foreign idioms literally ; second, the documentary 
 style characterised by ' formality and the use of uncommon 
 words ' ; and, lastly, the correspondence style in which 
 letters and business documents are written. The last is 
 pure Mongol, and nearer to the colloquial than either of the 
 other styles. 
 
 The Mongols appear first to have borrowed the charac- 
 ters used by the Uighur Turks of Kashgaria, and this style 
 of writing was commonly used by Chinghiz Khan and his 
 
 450
 
 Mosquito 
 
 immediate successors. The Uighur character was borrowed 
 from the old Syriac, which was probably brought into 
 Eastern Turkestan by the Nestor ian clergy. This Syro- 
 Uighur alphabet was modified in the latter part of the 
 thirteenth century, in Kublai Khan's time, to better adapt 
 it for the Mongol language. Continuous lines connecting 
 the letters vertically were introduced, but the system was 
 not completed. After this, a square character was invented 
 instead of the Uighur. This square character was ' founded 
 on a Tibetan modification of the Devanagari.' This was 
 not acceptable, though Kublai Khan tried to ' force it into 
 use.' Finally, after a reversion to the ' Uighuresque charac- 
 ters ' with some additions, this form was, in A.I). 1307-1311, 
 brought to perfection. ' This is substantially the character 
 still in use among the Mongols, though some additions 
 have been since made to it.' The Manchu alphabet, again, 
 was modelled upon this Mongol one. ' Roughly speaking, 
 there is about as much difference between the Mongolian 
 and Manchu character as there is between French and 
 English writing.' But, though very similar in their written 
 forms, the Manchu and Mongolian languages in their 
 spoken forms are quite different. 
 
 Books recommended. The best books for learning Mongol appear to be in 
 Russian. For a general account of the Mongolian language, see Appendix No. 
 3, in a book entitled 'James Uilmour of Mongolia : His Diaries, Letters, and 
 Reports,' by R. Lovett, M. A. 
 
 MOSQUITO. This apparently insignificant insect in 
 fact, a gnat has always been considered a nuisance in 
 tropical countries ; of late, with the new knowledge acquired, 
 it is now known to be not only an object of annoyance but 
 of danger, from being one of the principal factors in the 
 transmission of malaria (and also elephantiasis, and yellow 
 fever), the parasites of malaria running their cycle through 
 man and the mosquito. The result is that the science of 
 medicine is being, or will be, revolutionised as regards its 
 application to these diseases, for the adage that prevention 
 is better than cure has received fresh point with the new 
 discoveries. Millions and millions of human beings will 
 
 451
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 rejoice in a fresh lease of life and health as the result of the 
 war of extermination that has commenced against this 
 ubiquitous insect. The history of this discovery, or series 
 of discoveries, is one of great interest ; but this is not the 
 place to enter upon a lengthened description of how, step 
 by step, what were originally suspicions were confirmed, 
 and eventually the whole process as regards malaria was 
 revealed. 
 
 The mosquitoes of the world were said, some years ago, 
 to number over 200 species. Doubtless, with the discovery 
 of new species made of late, due to the careful attention paid 
 to this insect, the number of known species has increased 
 considerably. As far as Dr. Thomson's investigations at 
 present have shown, there are sixteen species in Hongkong 
 and the New Territory, several, at least, of which were 
 unknown to science before. Three out of the sixteen belong 
 to the Anopheles, and the rest are species of Culex. All 
 the Anopheles have spotted wings, at least this is the 
 case in Hongkong, and the Culex unspotted. It is the 
 Anopheles which carries the malaria germs, while certain 
 species of the Culex give elephantiasis. Several species, 
 one of which at least is present in Hongkong, transmit, 
 it is believed, the yellow fever germ. The fecundity of 
 the mosquito is a great difficulty in dealing with its 
 extermination. 
 
 ' Ficalbi said one mother mosquito might in the fifth generation 
 be the progenitor of fifty milliards. Howard showed that one rain 
 barrel might contain 19,110 larva?, and that they may produce at 
 least twelve generations in one summer. This, at seventy eggs a 
 mosquito, would produce a number of mosquitoes expressed by 
 twenty-five figures.' 
 
 ' The proboscis of the mosquito, as revealed to us beneath the 
 magnifying eye of the microscope, is indeed a marvellously con- 
 structed organ. It is a perfectly equipped case of the most delicate 
 surgical instruments. Here are its contents named in order of use: 
 the keenest of lancets ; a pair of fine-toothed saws, set back to back ; a 
 powerful suction-tube, through which the blood of its victim is drawn ; 
 and lastly, an injection pipe, through which is spirted the subtle 
 poison that causes the irritation and subsequent swelling, and which 
 by the light of corroborated investigation, we know, holds the parasite 
 that generates malaria, elephantiasis, or some other of the many 
 disagreeable ills to which frail flesh is heir in the tropics. Accurately 
 
 452
 
 Mosquito 
 
 -described, the wound inflicted by the mosquito is not a bite at all ; 
 for the flesh is not pinched, nipped, held, or seized in any manner 
 either by teeth or by anything equivalent to teeth. It is rather a 
 comparatively deep incision. The intolerable smarting sensation 
 may be partly the result of contact of the exposed edges of the wound 
 with the air, directly the glutted insect withdraws its proboscis ; but 
 it is more probably very largely due to the after-effects of the 
 injection.' 
 
 ' There is, it appears, a microscopic, parasitic little beast an amoeba 
 which lives and multiplies in the blood of man, and which also 
 lives and multiplies, after another fashion, in the mosquito. The 
 creature is, strange to say, " metoxenous " ; that is to say, it emigrates. 
 Having lived one life in man, later on it lives another life in the 
 mosquito. Malarial fever is due to the presence and development of 
 these parasites in the blood. Ultimately they produce "zygotes," and 
 the mosquito, having bitten a person in whom the zygotes are present, 
 takes them into its own system. There they develop themselves 
 again and, passing to all parts of the insect, make their way to the 
 salivary gland, ready for the blood of a fresh human victim. It is the 
 injection of the secretion of the mosquito's salivary gland which causes 
 the lump which follows the mosquito's bite. A large series of ex- 
 periments has shown conclusively that malarial infection is caused by 
 the bite of the mosquito.' 
 
 ' Mosquitoes cannot fly long distances, though they may be carried 
 by a strong wind 1 5 miles. . . . Another plan, where it is not desired 
 to contaminate the water, is to introduce into the breeding waters 
 carp and other small fish which devour the eggs of the mosquito. 
 Another remedy is to drain the swamps, and still another is to plant 
 eucalyptus trees. There is considerable testimony to the effect that 
 this tree will drive them away, and that a branch of it on the pillow at 
 night will afford protection to the sleeper. In a rather unpractical 
 way the dragon-fly is a remedy against mosquitoes, as he feeds upon 
 them at every stage of his varied career. When darting about in the 
 air, as he seems to in summer, he is snapping up mosquitoes.' 
 
 There are three methods of combating malaria : one is 
 to saturate the human system with doses of quinine ; 
 another is to have fine wire at all windows and doors 
 in malarial districts and prevent the mosquitoes from 
 entering the house ; and the third is to destroy the breeding 
 places of the Anopheles. 
 
 With regard to precautions, the following abstract, 
 made by the Honourable Dr. Clark, M.O.H., of Hongkong, 
 of Reports furnished to the Malarial Committee of the 
 Royal Society by Dr. Christophers and Dr. Stephenson, is 
 interesting : 
 
 ' I. The Anopheles larvae breed in small sheltered pools, 
 especially those containing organic matter in suspension 
 
 453
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 These pools may be either natural or artificial, the latter 
 being most commonly rain-water tanks. The larvae may 
 even be found in deep wells when the surface of the water 
 is some 20 or 30 feet down. 
 
 ' II. Anopheles can fly a distance of a quarter of a mile or 
 more. 
 
 'III. At the end of a dry season, living ova do not exist 
 in the earth of the dried-up pools. 
 
 ' IV. Anopheles usually exist in the neighbourhood of 
 native dwellings throughout the whole of the dry season, 
 even when it may extend to several months, and from 5 to 
 10 per cent, of such Anopheles will be found to be infected 
 with the malarial organism. 
 
 ' V. In tropical countries Europeans are mostly infected 
 with malaria from the natives, not from other Europeans, so 
 that the first means of protection for Europeans consists in 
 avoiding the native quarters with their infected population 
 and infested Anopheles. 
 
 'VI. European dwellings should, therefore, be distant 
 not less than 400 or 500 yards from the nearest native 
 dwellings other than those servants' quarters which are a 
 necessary adjunct to the dwelling and which come under 
 the personal supervision of the European occupants of the 
 dwelling.' 
 
 Pools in which mosquitoes may breed should be filled 
 up, nullahs trained so as to offer no facilities of lodgment 
 for the Anopheles, and brushwood, undergrowth, and grass 
 kept closely cropped, for the insect frequents such places of 
 shelter ; and in houses, dark corners cleared out and 
 fumigation with sulphur occasionally carried out in winter 
 months to dislodge the mosquito while hibernating in 
 servants' quarters, basements, box-rooms, stables, etc. The 
 following directions by Dr. Thomson, of Hongkong, who has 
 made the study of the mosquito a speciality, are herewith 
 appended. The directions are for the destruction of 
 the larvae of mosquitoes, and they are published as an 
 appendix to Dr. Thomson's able and interesting annual 
 report on his systematic examination and classification 
 
 454
 
 Mourning 
 
 of the mosquitoes that prevail in Hongkong and its 
 dependencies. This appendix is dated the i8th October 
 1901, and appeared in the Hongkong Government Gazette 
 for that year : 
 
 'The one great principle to act on is to prevent or abolish all 
 stagnant water. 
 
 ' Careful search should be systematically made in the neighbour- 
 hood of all dwellings for any vessels that might contain stagnant 
 water from rain or any other source ; and arrangements should be 
 made to keep them empty, or to have them emptied, or the water 
 changed, once a week. 
 
 'If running streams or ravines should be near . . . efforts should 
 be made to confine the water to a central channel. Side pools should 
 be filled up ; rock hollows should be smoothed out by cement or 
 concrete, or a channel should be made from them by means of 
 hammer and chisel ; and a ready exit, or drainage under ground, 
 should take the place of all oozings of water from the ground 
 surface. 
 
 ' Where this guiding principle cannot be applied, or until it can be 
 applied, still or stagnant water surfaces should be systematically 
 inspected for the presence of larva; of mosquitoes, and measures 
 adopted to destroy them. This is most conveniently done in this 
 locality by sprinkling the water surface with kerosene oil. The oil 
 spreads in a very thin layer over the surface and prevents the larva? 
 from rising to breathe the air, which results in their speedy death. 
 About one tea-spoonful of oil to each square yard of water surface is 
 sufficient, and, if there is little movement of the water, once a week is 
 often enough. 
 
 'As the colour of the larva? assimilates itself to the colour of the 
 water it inhabits, the larvae cannot usually be easily seen in the 
 water-pool itself. It is necessary to dip up the water with a rapid dip 
 of a large spoon or a saucer.' 
 
 Books recommended. 'Tropical Diseases,' by Patrick Manson, M.I). 
 'Mosquitoes and Malaria,' by 0. Christy; Sampson, Low, Marston & Co. 
 'Gnats or Mosquitoes,' by G. M. Giles, I. M.S., John Ball, Sons, & 
 Danielson. 'A Monograph of the Culidie or Mosquitoes,' by F. V. Theobald, 
 Entomologist to the British Museum. Published by the British Museum. 
 
 MOURNING. The Chinese are very punctilious in 
 their observance of mourning. At the funeral the mourners 
 are clothed in coarse sackcloth, while the sons and nearest 
 of kin wear caps of the same. Mourning, especially deep 
 mourning, is not graceful in the East. No Chinese widow 
 looks well in her weeds ; and to enhance the unsightliness 
 of the mourning costume, the finger-nails are not cut, and 
 the mourner goes unshaven and unshorn for seven weeks. 
 No marriages of course, take place in the family, nor can 
 
 455
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 its members go to theatres. The two large, red, globular 
 lanterns hung up outside the front door are changed for 
 white ones ; the pieces of red paper pasted over the door 
 are replaced by white strips. The widow and children sit 
 on the ground for seven days, and sleep on mats on the 
 floor near the coffin ; food is not cooked, the friends and 
 neighbours supplying what is required ; chop-sticks are not 
 allowed to be used, but the deep sorrow, supposed to be 
 felt, is symbolised by the employment of the hands in eating, 
 and needles and knives must be eschewed as well. After 
 the deepest mourning of sackcloth is discarded, white is 
 worn as deep mourning white shoes, white robes, a white 
 button on the cap, and white cord braided into the queue. 
 Blue is used as lighter mourning ; it must not, however, be 
 supposed that a simple blue jacket implies that anyone 
 has been bereaved of friends, as a great majority of the 
 Chinese would then be in mourning every day of their lives ; 
 but a blue knob on the top of the cap instead of a black or 
 red one, also a blue cord braided into the end of the queue, 
 are other signs of it, as well as certain styles of blue 
 shoes ; blue earrings are worn by women. In the North 
 of China, white is the only mourning used. The visiting 
 cards also show that one is in mourning, a different shade 
 of colour being used. The whole nation goes into mourn- 
 ing, to a certain extent, on the death of the sovereign : no 
 one is allowed to shave for 100 days after it is proclaimed ; 
 the poor barbers must have a sad time of it. The dis- 
 comfort and distress are minimised by the natives getting 
 a clean shave before the decree enforcing it is promulgated. 
 The writer chanced to be in Shanghai on the death of the 
 Emperor T'ung Chih, and it was curious to see all the 
 wheel-barrows come out with blue clothes on their seats 
 (for wheel-barrows are the cabs of the native population 
 in Shanghai) instead of the red ones. 
 
 A Chinese wears mourning for his superiors and equals 
 in relationship ; he does not require to put it on for his wife, 
 but an affectionate husband, as the author himself has seen, 
 will sometimes put on white at his wife's funeral, though it 
 
 456
 
 Mourning 
 
 is not incumbent on him to do so, or even to. attend the 
 corpse to the grave ; in the same way, some abstain from 
 red cord in the queue, and bright colours, though it is not 
 obligatory to do so. As some who profess horrible creeds 
 are often better than their beliefs, so there are Chinese 
 who are better than their heartless ceremonials, which 
 take no, or but little, account of women or children. 
 
 A period of seven times seven days is observed in 
 mourning, funeral rites being performed on each seventh 
 day up till the forty- ninth. 
 
 There are five degrees of mourning, as follows : for 
 parents ; for grandparents and great-grandparents ; for 
 brothers, sisters, etc.; for uncles, aunts, etc.; and for distant 
 relatives in line of descent or ascent. 
 
 In the first, sackcloth without hem or border ; in the 
 second, sackcloth with hem or border ; in the third, fourth, 
 and fifth, pieces of sackcloth are placed on certain parts of 
 the dress. When sackcloth is worn, after the third interval 
 of seven days is over, the mourners can cast it off, and then 
 wear plain colours, such as white, grey, black, and blue. 
 For a parent, the period of mourning is nominally three 
 years, but really twenty-seven months, and for all this time 
 no silk can be worn ; during these months, officials have to 
 resign their appointments, as a general rule, and retire from 
 public life. There is an immense amount of ceremonial 
 connected with Chinese mourning, and different duties to 
 be performed, certain of them devolving on the chief 
 mourner, such as carrying a certain mourning staff in the 
 procession. The whole subject is one that much might be 
 written upon, as there are many curious customs connected 
 with deaths, such, for example, as the chief mourner, 
 supported on each side and accompanied by friends, going 
 out with a musician playing a discordant flageolet, till they 
 come to a well or pool, when a cash or two is flung into the 
 water, of which some is dipped up in a basin they have 
 brought with them, taken home, and the corpse washed in 
 it ; while lanterns with blue characters on them arc hung 
 up at the front door instead of the usual red ones with 
 
 457
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 black characters ; and the ornament over the front door (a 
 curious shaped sort of tablet suspended over the doors of 
 officials, and at weddings and funerals) is of white paper 
 pasted on a framework of bamboo. 
 
 A shed constructed of bamboo and mats, or a roof made 
 of the same materials, is put up over the street in front of 
 the house in which the death has taken place ; a paper 
 stork is erected on the top of bamboo poles, rising to the 
 height of twenty or thirty feet above the street for it is 
 believed that the spirits take their flight into the other 
 world on such birds, and paper, many feet in length and a 
 yard or two in breadth, is posted up on the outside wall of 
 the house, giving notice of the spirit's departure and the 
 route to be taken, and warning others from coming across 
 the road, in case any disaster should happen. Funeral cards 
 are sent out by the family, giving intimation of the death 
 to friends. These are large documents, and amongst other 
 matters, they contain the date of birth and death of the 
 deceased and a list of the children ; a slip is enclosed with 
 them, giving the date when the reception of friends to 
 worship the spirit of the departed one will take place. A 
 small present of money (perhaps a sum of fifty cents., that 
 being a very common amount) is sent to the bereaved 
 family to purchase candles, joss-paper, and incense for the 
 ceremonies. As an instance of what may take place, 
 we quote from a Chinese novel the directions given 
 by the Astrologer for the funeral rites of an official's 
 wife : 
 
 ' (This Astrologer) decided that the coffin should remain in the 
 house for seven times seven days, that is forty-nine days ; that after 
 the third day, the mourning rites should be begun and the formal 
 cards should be distributed ; that all that was to be done during these 
 forty-nine days was to invite one hundred and eight Buddhist bonzes 
 to perform, in the Main Hall, the High Confession Mass, in order to 
 ford the souls of the departed relatives across the abyss of suffering, 
 and afterwards to transmute the spirit (of Mrs. Ch'in) ; that, in 
 addition, an altar should be erected in the Tower of Heavenly 
 Fragrance, where nine times nine virtuous Taoist priests should, for 
 nineteen days, offer up prayers for absolution from punishment, and 
 purification from retribution. That after these services, the tablet 
 should be moved into the Garden of Concentrated Fragrance, and 
 
 45 8
 
 Mourning* 
 
 that in the presence of the tablet, fifteen additional eminent bonzes 
 and fifteen renowned Taoist priests should confront the altar and 
 perform meritorious deeds every seven days.' 
 
 Further on we have, in the same novel, the follow- 
 ing : 
 
 ' This day was the thirty-fifth day, the very day of the fifth seven, 
 and the whole company of bonzes had just (commenced the services) 
 for unclosing the earth, and breaking Hell open ; for sending a 
 light to show the way to the departed spirit for its being admitted 
 to an audience by the King of Hell ; for arresting all the malicious 
 devils, as well as for soliciting the soul-saving Buddha to open the 
 golden bridge and to head the way with streamers. The Taoist 
 priests were engaged in reverently reading the prayers ; in worship- 
 ping the Three Pure Ones and in prostrating themselves before the 
 Gemmy Lord. The disciples of abstraction were burning -incense, 
 in order to release the hungered spirits, and were reading the Water 
 Regrets Manual. There was also a company of twelve nuns, of 
 tender years, got up in embroidered dresses, and wearing red shoes, 
 who stood before the coffin, silently reading all the incantations for 
 the reception of the spirit (from the lower regions), with the result 
 that the utmost bustle and stir prevailed.' 
 
 In this connection it may be interesting to give an 
 account of a Chinese funeral procession, and we select for 
 that purpose a tolerably full description of that of the late 
 Mr. T'ong King-sing taken from the North China Daily 
 
 News : 
 
 ' At the head of the procession were two gigantic paper figures, 
 one in black and the other in red. The first represented a fierce- 
 looking soldier, and the other a mild-looking minister of state ; the 
 functions of these being to scare away any malignant spirits that 
 might be inclined to trouble the spirit of the deceased. Next came 
 five men on ponies, in single file, followed by sixty dirty young 
 ragamuffins bearing boards containing the names of the offices and 
 titles of the deceased. Then came two flags ; four more men dressed 
 in blue on ponies, followed by an umbrella, thirteen soldiers carrying 
 many coloured banners, twenty-four men on foot bearing weapons 
 with pewter heads and wooden handles, two men blowing clarions, a 
 mandarin on a pony, four soldiers with banners, twenty-three soldiers 
 with bayonets fixed, behind them being a three-flounced umbrella and 
 mandarin runners. Next came ten musicians very well dressed, and 
 another umbrella and attendants. A green chair, borne by eight 
 carriers, with a mourner on each side, and two handsome scrolls im- 
 mediately preceded the Taotai's band, who were followed by thirty 
 well-dressed soldiers, a number of tables on which were a roasted pig, 
 a skinned goat, fruit, and pewter wine-bottles, while some paper tables 
 had on them gold and silver mock sycee, scrolls, and representations 
 of Chin Shan and Yin Shan, the Gold and Silver Mountains all these 
 
 459
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 latter intended to be burnt. The handsomest part of the procession 
 was the " myriad name umbrellas," of which there were twenty-four, 
 presented by the people whose names appeared in velvet characters 
 on the lower flounces, while round the upper ones were quotations 
 from the classics. These umbrellas were very handsome, and were 
 mostly of silk and in many colours. Then there were two more chairs, 
 some Taoist and Buddhist priests, satin scrolls, and a chair containing 
 the picture of the deceased, on either side of the chair being a mourner. 
 Next came some Buddhist priests playing on flutes, and then behind 
 them boys carrying flowers on stands. A hundred of the friends of 
 the deceased in their official robes followed, each bearing a lighted 
 joss-stick. Many handsome scrolls succeeded, and then came the 
 Town Band, four mourners, the sons of the deceased, gongs, and 
 images. The catafalque was carried by thirty-two bearers, the pole 
 which ran through it having the head and tail of a dragon, a token 
 of Imperial favour, and the end of the procession was brought up by 
 hundreds of Chinese in carriages and chairs and on foot.' 
 
 What value the Chinese attach to such matters may be 
 judged by the saying that, ' the most important thing in life 
 is to get buried well.' 
 
 No one who has not been married is entitled to a 
 funeral procession. The coffin in such a case would simply 
 be carried to the grave without all the concomitants of 
 music, and all the chairs and open stands, lanterns, insignia, 
 et hoc genus omne, which brought together into a trailing 
 picturesque confusion form that delight of the Chinese, a 
 procession. When children die they are not always 
 coffined, but the bodies are often put into a box. 
 Amongst the Cantonese this may, perhaps, be done in 
 eight cases out of ten, and the corpses of infants which are 
 seen floating in rivers and pools and lying by the wayside 
 or on the hill slopes are many of them those which are 
 thus indecently cast aside without heathen burial, though 
 some of them are the bodies which have been exposed or 
 killed outright by their inhuman parents. 
 
 There are many superstitions prevalent with regard to 
 funerals : some firmly believed in by some people, and by 
 others thought of little account. Again, different super- 
 stitions are found in different parts of the country ; some 
 places being extremely superstitious and others less so. 
 The following will serve as instances : 
 It is not lucky for certain people to go to a certain 
 
 460
 
 Mourning 
 
 funeral. or even to see the corpse when the encoffining takes 
 place. The man who selects the auspicious time and date 
 for burial, etc., states what persons of a certain age 
 (dependent on the time the deceased died) should not be 
 present. 
 
 There is an idea that if two coffins come together, i.e., 
 meet while going in opposite directions, should the death 
 or deaths be recent, this will cause another death in the 
 family ; and if two coffins meet another it will cause two 
 deaths. Such circumstances are supposed to be unlucky 
 for the living and even for the spirit of the dead, and will 
 prevent in the last case the family of the deceased from 
 having good luck. In this connection also, see Article on 
 Geomancy. 
 
 The bringing of several corpses together while only 
 recently dead is much objected to by some Chinese. 
 
 The distinction between the sexes as to meeting one 
 another, etc., is overlooked to a certain degree at times of 
 death. 
 
 People of a certain age should not attend a certain 
 funeral or even see the corpse at all ; this depends on the 
 hour the deceased died and the age of the living persons. 
 In order to find this out, the dates and hours of birth and 
 death of the deceased are taken to a man whose business 
 it is to select the lucky dates for events, i.e., for starting 
 business, for encoffining, and for burial ; the same man 
 decides whether two persons should marry, and the day for 
 boys to start going to school, and sometimes, as well, the 
 day to start on a journey, but this is seldom done ; and the 
 people also look in the almanacs for the time for digging 
 foundations for a house and for putting up ridge-poles. 
 This man may be a fortune-teller as well or not. He gives 
 directions as to what aged people are not to look at the 
 corpse at the encoffining and not to look on at the burying. 
 There is a propitious time for the funeral to start, and a 
 lucky time for the corpse to be lowered into the grave. 
 Again, in Amoy they are intensely superstitious over all 
 these things, and funerals in consequence are fixed for all 
 
 461
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 hours of the day and night midnight, or any other hour 
 which may turn out to be lucky. 
 
 Books recommended. Archdeacon Gray's 'China,' for Cantonese customs. 
 Rev. J. Doolittle's ' Social Customs of the Chinese,' for those at Foochow ; 
 and one or two articles in the Hongkong Daily Press, for 1861, for some 
 account of those of the Hakkas. Also see the 'Li-Ki' as to the ancient 
 mourning customs on which the modern ones are based, modified by local 
 usages and practice. The China Review, vol. xvii. pp. 47 and 48, contains 
 a list of Days of Official Mourning in China. For a short account of some 
 of the funeral rites performed once every seven days until the forty-ninth day 
 see China Review, vol. xvii. p. 38. 
 
 MUSIC :- 
 
 ' Music in China has undoubtedly been known since the remotest 
 antiquity. It is said to have been invented by the Emperor Fu-hsi 
 (B.C. 2852). ... It is, say the Chinese, the essence of the harmony 
 existing between heaven, earth, and man. . . . The first invaders of 
 China certainly brought with them certain notions of music. The 
 Aborigines themselves had also some kind of musical system which 
 their conquerors admired, and probably mixed with their own.' 
 
 Different systems seem to have been evolved by 
 different emperors and were differently styled, but it 
 assumed its ' characteristic form ' with the Emperor 
 Huang Ti (B.C. 2697), when, amidst other innovations, 
 names were given to the sounds, and one fixed upon as a 
 base note. Theoretically, music holds a position of para- 
 mount importance in the good government of a State. 
 Either this ancient music was of an extraordinary character 
 for Confucius was so ravished on hearing a piece, com- 
 posed by the great Shun 1,600 years before his time, that 
 he did not taste meat for three years or the Chinese were 
 sensitively responsive to certain combinations of sounds, in 
 a manner unknown to Europeans. Unfortunately we have 
 no means of testing which is true, for the knowledge of 
 this ancient music is lost. If the descriptions of it are true 
 to the reality, no one who has heard Chinese music of the 
 present day will have any hesitation in accepting the 
 statement of its being unknown now, for it has been re- 
 marked, in a comic strain, that the music of the Chinese is 
 ' " deliciously horrible," like cats trying to sing bass with 
 sore throats.' Some most abstruse theories are all that 
 
 462
 
 Music 
 
 remain for us. At the great destruction of books, those on 
 music, as well as musical instruments, shared ' the same 
 fate as every object which could give rise to any remem- 
 brance of past times.' 
 
 Great efforts were made to resuscitate the lost art ; some 
 of the books and instruments were recovered from their 
 hiding places ; but the times were not favourable for the 
 cultivation of peaceful arts ; the memory of the great 
 music-master, in whose family the office had been heredit- 
 ary, was not sufficient to bridge over the chasm which the 
 great catastrophe had occasioned ; different authors dis- 
 agreed in their theories, and a confusion of the different 
 systems has resulted. Two Emperors of the present 
 dynasty, K'ang Hsi and Ch'ien Lung, used their best 
 efforts ' to bring music back to its old splendour,' but 
 without much success. 
 
 ' Modern music really dates from the T'ang dynasty 
 (A.D. 600).' Mr. Van Aalst divides Chinese music into 
 two kinds ; ' ritual or sacred music, which is passably sweet, 
 and generally of a minor character ; and the theatrical 
 or popular music. . . . The present Chinese theoretically 
 admit seven sounds in the scale, but practically they only 
 use five, and that as well in ritual music as in popular 
 tunes.' Chinese music cannot be exactly represented on 
 our Western musical instruments, as the intervals between 
 the notes are not the same as ours. 
 
 Ritual music is used in the acts of worship in which 
 the Emperor either takes part himself or is represented by 
 a deputy, such as the worship of Heaven and Earth, of 
 Ancestors, of the Sun and Moon, etc., and of Confucius. 
 The popular music includes all other kinds, and there are 
 not a few. Not a procession of any importance winds its 
 meandering course through the busy narrow lanes, that do 
 duty for streets in a great part of China, but has bands of 
 musicians, sometimes scores of bands, having small drums 
 and clashing cymbals, etc. That music should take a pro- 
 minent part in a marriage is naturally to be expected, but 
 it takes an equally prominent part in funerals, the poorest 
 
 463
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 of which has at least one musician, and the better ones 
 more, playing a dirge on shrill clarionets in the latter case 
 also bands of performers on instruments are seen as well. 
 No officer of a high grade proceeds on an official visit 
 without the deep-toned boom of the sonorous gong pro- 
 claiming, by the number of beats, the rank of the ' great 
 man,' while its other uses are not a few. In evening 
 worship on board ship, it [and the drum provide the 
 music. 
 
 Much of the attraction of the theatre to the natives 
 consists in the music and singing attractive to the native, 
 but ear-splitting and headache-producing to the foreigner. 
 The singing on the stage 'is not unfrequently in the 
 " recitative " style, and the way the orchestra accompanies, 
 in broken, sudden chords, or in long notes, bears a striking 
 resemblance to our European recitative.' 
 
 Ballad singing is much appreciated ; blind men play one 
 species of guitar, while blind singing girls accompany 
 themselves on another. The courtesans are given a 
 musical education according to Chinese ideas ; and 
 scarcely a boy or coolie but delights in singing to 
 his heart's content from a book of songs of one kind or 
 another, or screeches a song in imitation of some theatrical 
 character. Grass-cutters and field-labourers beguile the 
 time by singing responsive songs, the men and boys sing- 
 ing one verse and the girls the other. The Buddhist 
 priests chant in their services ; while the Taoists also 
 chime their instruments and sing their liturgies. 
 
 There is quite a variety of musical instruments in use, 
 some being confined to the Chinese sacred music in their 
 ritual ceremonies, and other to popular music. One of the 
 most ancient is called the ' stone chimes,' consisting of a 
 series of sonorous stones of varying thickness, hung in 
 a frame. There is also the ' single sonorous stone ' and 
 a marble flute. This employment of stone for musical 
 instruments is peculiar to China. A ' conch,' a large shell, 
 is used by soldiers, watchmen, and bands of pirates. 
 
 Bells of different shapes square and round, and of all 
 464
 
 Music 
 
 weights, from over fifty tons downwards are much used, 
 every temple of any size having one large one at least, as 
 well as a large drum. Amongst curious ancient Chinese 
 musical instruments may be noted the chimes of small bells 
 suspended in a framework ; and the chimes of gongs, ten 
 in a frame ; while another outrt object is a wooden mortar 
 struck with a wooden hammer. The cymbals in use are 
 said to have come originally from India. 
 
 Some -of the stringed instruments are also most ancient ; 
 there are a number of lutes, guitars, and violins, some of the 
 latter with the bow passing between the strings. 
 
 Of wind instruments, there are flutes and clarionets, or 
 flageolets. 
 
 Wooden instruments are also made : one of the most 
 common is the wooden fish, it is shaped somewhat like a 
 skull, and hollowed out ; it is struck with a piece of wood, 
 and is much used by priests. Of drums there are not a few 
 varieties. 
 
 'The shng is one of the most important of Chinese musical 
 instruments. . . . No other instrument is nearly so perfect, either for 
 sweetness of tone or delicacy of construction. The principles em- 
 bodied in it are substantially the same as those of our grand organs. 
 Indeed, according to various writers, the introduction of the sheng 
 into Europe led to the invention of the accordion and the harmonium. 
 Kratzenstein, an organ-builder of St. Petersburg, having become the 
 possessor of a sheng, conceived the idea of applying the principle to 
 organ stops.' 
 
 The following notes written to the author by a scientific 
 Professor of Music will be of interest : 
 
 ' It is strange that the Chinese found out perfect Intonation cen- 
 turies before we ever dreamt of such a thing, and that the scale of 
 music is based not upon the ist sound or tonic, but upon the 4th. 
 The sets of tubes kept to tune instruments by (that is the standard 
 cones kept at the Capital, gauged by their holding so many grains of 
 millet) are scientifically exact, with one curious exception, at the 
 6th, which is 81, while the true scale is only 80, the difference being a 
 comma of 81/80, which is the cause of all our trouble in tempered 
 tuning. The scale of Nature is in the proportion of 
 
 ist 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 
 True 48 -54 60 64 72 80 90 96 
 
 Chinese 48 54 60 64 72 Si 90 96 
 
 This has been caused by the fact which has stumbled all our learned 
 
 465 2 G
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 musicians, viz., that the 2nd tone of the scale 54 does not bear a 
 perfect fifth of 2 to 3, but is imperfect by a comma. 
 
 'Another misleader to all writers on Chinese Music is that the scale 
 is used in the same way as the Moderns do, viz., from the ist or Tonic 
 to its Octave. Chinese Music is quite different, and, like our old 
 Scotch, Irish, and English Music indeed, all the old music of the 
 world. It may begin on any note of the scale, reading the tones from 
 the ist to the ist, 2nd to the 2nd, 3rd to the 3rd, and so on ; for 
 instance, if you look at " Madame Wang," page 38 of the treatise 
 [Chinese Music], you will see it runs from the 3rd to the 3rd of the 
 scale, that is from Mi to Mi. Page 42, " Haunts of Pleasure," is in 
 the mode of the ist of the scale; 44, "Oh Manima," mode of the 
 2nd ; so is the " Wedding March," page 46. The " Funeral March," 
 same page, is in the mode of the 3rd ; please compare this melody with 
 Macrimmon's " Lament," or with Alackintosh's in the " Thistle," 
 and you will see how much they are of the same character. . . . 
 Read the Introduction to the "Thistle" . . . specially as to the 
 modes ; what is explained there of Scottish Music is equally true of 
 Chinese.' 
 
 Chinese music, as looked upon from a foreign standpoint, 
 has been thus described : 
 
 'The intervals of the Chinese scale not being tempered, some of 
 the notes sound to foreign ears utterly false and discordant. The 
 instruments not being constructed with the rigorous precision which 
 characterises our European instruments, there is no exact justness of 
 intonation, and the Chinese must content themselves with an a pen 
 pres. The melodies being always in unison, always in the same key, 
 always equally loud and unchangeable in movement, they cannot 
 fail to appear wearisome and monotonous in comparison with our 
 complicated melodies. Chinese melodies are never definitely major 
 nor minor ; they are constantly floating between the two, and the 
 natural result is that they lack the vigour, the majesty, the tender 
 lamentations of our minor mode ; and the charming effects resulting 
 from the alternation of the two modes.' ' The Chinese have, 
 theoretically, a perfect scale and a fairly good notation ; there is, 
 however, one great lack in their system, they have no satisfactory 
 method of expressing time. . . . This is all the more strange, seeing 
 that in practice they are strict timists.' 
 
 Professor C. J. Knott, D.Sc., F.R.S., thus writes : 
 
 'The Chinese musical school, as it is developed in Japan, is 
 peculiar in the high pitch in which the leading female voice chants 
 the libretto. There is melody in the airs and truthfulness in the 
 instrumental ensemble of fiddles, guitars, and flutes. But there is no 
 harmony in our sense of the term. Each piece is very long and 
 wearisome in its apparently endless repetitions.' 
 
 The Chinese do not appreciate our music any more than 
 we do theirs. A Chinese, who was listening to the military 
 band playing in Hongkong, was asked his opinion of it, 
 
 466
 
 Names 
 
 and he said the music lacked harmony. That they fully 
 appreciate their own music needs but a glance at the crowd 
 round a Chinese band performing ; their writings equally 
 show this appreciation, for example, take the following from 
 ' Gems of Chinese Literature ' : 
 
 'Softly, as the murmur of whispered words ; now loud and soft 
 together, like the patter of pearls and pcarlcts dropping upon a marble 
 dish. Or liquid, like the warbling of the mango-bird in the bush ; 
 trickling like the streamlet on its downward course. And then, like 
 the torrent, stilled by the grip of frost, so for a moment was the music 
 lulled, in a passion too deep for words.' 
 
 Who will say after that, that the Chinese have no soul 
 for music ? 
 
 Books recommfndcd.' Chinese Music,' by .1. A. Van Aalst published 
 as No. 6 of the ' Special Series' of the publications of the Imperial Maritime 
 Customs, 1884 is a most interesting and learned monograph on, the subject. 
 See China Review for August 1882, on the Slu-iig, by F. \V. Eastlake ; also 
 see same magazine, vols. i. and ii., Cor a series of articles on 'The Theory of 
 Chinese Music,' by Rev. E. Falter, Tli.I). Two articles in The Chinese 
 Recorder and Missionary Journal contain some very interesting particulars, 
 they are 'Chinese Music and its Relation to our Native Services,' by Rev. 
 "W. E. Soothill, vol. xxi. p. 221, and 'Chinese Music,' by Mrs Timothy 
 Richards, vol. xxi. p. 305. 
 
 NAMES. The different names that a Chinese has are 
 a perfect puzzle to a European ; for nearly every Chinese 
 has several names. He keeps his surname through life, of 
 course, as we do, but at every memorable event in his life, 
 such as first going to school, and getting married, he takes 
 another name. It must not, therefore, be supposed that 
 because a native gives you different names for himself he 
 is attempting to palm himself off as someone else, though 
 this system of a plurality of names offers facilities to one 
 who is inclined to be tricky. 
 
 A Chinaman's surname then is unchangeable, and 
 generally consists of one syllable, though there are a few of 
 two or three. The surname comes first, and the other 
 names afterwards in fact the Chinese follow the convenient 
 order used in our directories. A remembrance of this 
 would prevent the foreign resident from prefixing our 
 ' Mr.' to the personal name of a Chinese. It sounds incon- 
 gruous enough to prefix ' Mr.' to a Chinese surname an 
 
 467
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 attempt to mix two civilisations which will not blend 
 together in harmony, but it sounds ten times worse to call 
 a perfect stranger by his personal name and then prefix a 
 ' Mr.' to it. To illustrate : Say a Chinese bears the 
 euphonious designation of Ch'un Wa-fuk. Now the first, 
 Ch'un, is his surname, and Wa-fuk is what he elects to be 
 called by, his Christian name in fact. If the ' Mr.' must be 
 used, then he is Mr. Ch'un or Mr. Ch'un Wa-fuk, but not 
 Mr. Wa-fuk or Mr. Fuk any more than Mr. John Harry 
 Jones is Mr. John Harry, or Mr. Harry, to a stranger. 
 
 Though it generally happens that the first syllable or 
 word in the string of three words, which usually form the 
 surname and name of a Chinese, is the surname, it does not 
 always follow that it is, as Chinese have a few double 
 surnames as well as English, they have even a very few 
 trisyllabic surnames. One of the most common of these 
 bisyllabic surnames in the South of China is Au-yong, so 
 therefore in the combination Aii-yong Tat the two syllables 
 form the surname and the last syllable the name. 
 
 About a month after birth a feast is given, and the boy 
 gets his ' milk name,' as it is called. This name clings to 
 him through life, as in fact all his names do after they are 
 once bestowed. This milk name is, if anything, more 
 especially distinctive, as it is used by his relatives and 
 neighbours, and in official matters if he has no ' book name.' 
 This name of infancy often consists of but one character, 
 and in that case has, in the extreme South, the prefix Ah 
 put before it, so that a boy named Ch'un Luk will commonly 
 be called Ch'un Ah luk, though the Ah is not really a part 
 of his name. In the Fuhkeen so-called dialects, this Ah 
 is not used. 
 
 On first going to school the boy has another name 
 given to him, the 'book name.' It 'generally consists 
 of two characters, selected with reference to the boy's 
 condition, prospects, studies, or some other event connected 
 with him.' This name is used by his master and school- 
 fellows, in official matters, and in any matters connected 
 with literature. 
 
 468
 
 Names 
 
 On marriage the young man takes still another name, 
 his style or 'great name/ and this his father and mother 
 and relations use as well as the ' milk name.' 
 
 Another name called 'another style' may be assumed, 
 which is employed by acquaintances and friends, not by 
 relatives and parents. The latter have a right to use the 
 ' milk name,' but with well-to-do people, who have more 
 than one name, it is not considered the proper thing for 
 outsiders to call a man by his ' milk name ' ; of course it is 
 different with farmers, labourers, and others who only own 
 one name. 
 
 On taking a degree, on entering official life, or on 
 having official distinction or rank conferred on him, a man 
 takes yet another name, known as the ' official name.' 
 
 After death he is known by his posthumous name in 
 the Hall of Ancestors. 
 
 Besides all these, we may notice one or two other 
 designations. It is a very common thing for the Southern 
 Chinese to give a suggestive sobriquet to anyone who 
 may have some personal defect or characteristic, and the 
 euphonic syllable, Ah, is often used before these, leading 
 foreigners to think that such a nickname is a real name ; 
 it is at the same time tantamount to a real name, as every- 
 one speaks of the person so-called as such, and calls him or 
 her by it. The individual bears it complacently, knowing 
 that he must accept the inevitable. Such names are called 
 ' flowery names.' When they consist of more than one 
 syllable the Ah is dropped : they are used in combination 
 with the personal name or not ; as instances of this class 
 are such names as Giant Ah Yong (here Ah Yong, of 
 course, is the man's right name), other terms of a similar 
 kind are Dwarfy, Fatty, etc. A very common one, used 
 alone, without any name with it, is Ah Pin = flat, meaning 
 flat nose, another often heard is Tau-p'ei, Small-pox 
 Marked, and there are a few others. 
 
 To cheat the evil spirits which may wish to rob a man 
 of his son, the boy may be called by some name that will 
 convey the idea of vilifying the young child, such as 
 
 469
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 ' Puppy,' or his head may be shaved and he be called 
 ' Buddhist priest.' It is not at all uncommon to call the 
 children in a family Primus, Secundus, Tertius, etc., but 
 this practice sounds rather ridiculous when it is not limited 
 to the first few numbers, and one hears a child or boat- 
 woman called Duodecima. 
 
 There is also yet another name, which is a very im- 
 portant one, it is the fong name. It is difficult to convey 
 its import by an English translation, but it may be 
 rendered by ' ancestral name,' or ' family name,' or ' house 
 name,' remembering that all these terms must bear a re- 
 stricted meaning if applied to the Chinese. A man of 
 means, having a house of his own, is sure to possess such a 
 name, and he has, in all probability, inherited it from his 
 father or ancestors, unless he has risen from the lowest 
 ranks of society, and has to select such a name for himself. 
 This name will generally be found up at his door on a small 
 board. It represents himself and it also represents his 
 family in a way. If he dies, his sons (if they continue to 
 live together, as the Chinese so often do, in the same family 
 house) retain the name, and together, or separately, make 
 use of it. This Pong name is often used in business, some 
 partners appearing under such names, while others appear 
 under some of their other names. In such a case the fong 
 name in the partnership may only represent one man or 
 the whole branch of the family, with what result of 
 confusion and shiftiness when bankruptcy occurs may 
 readily be understood, for only one member of the family 
 may be down in a firm's books under his fong name, and in 
 other cases this fong name in a firm's books may not 
 represent one man but the family, and there may be, which 
 often happens, no proof of what it really stands for. If, 
 however, the brothers separate and live in different houses, 
 they add certain words to the fong name signifying 
 'second family,' or 'third family,' etc., as they may chance 
 to be second or third sons, etc. The fong name has the 
 word fong attached to the end of it, and is otherwise 
 composed of some happy sounding combination of words, 
 
 470
 
 Names 
 
 such, for example, as Wing Shin T'ong, which might be 
 rendered into English as ' The Hall of Eternal Goodness.' 
 
 One of the most ridiculous mistakes which foreign 
 residents make in China is calling natives by the name of 
 the business they are engaged in. True enough a Chinese 
 when asked who he is, or ' Who you b'long ? ' in pidgin- 
 English, will perhaps answer ' Sun Shing' : so a man from 
 a foreign business might say at times, ' I am Smith, Brown 
 & Co.' It is, however, in fact more absurd to call such a 
 man Mr. Sun Shing, or look upon that as his name, than it 
 would be to call the other Mr. Smith Brown ; in the latter 
 case it is possible the man's name may be Smith or Brown, 
 in the other it is almost impossible that the man's name 
 could be Sun Shing. A clearer idea of the incongruity of 
 thus styling Chinese might be got by supposing that a 
 foreigner in England, seeing the name ' Royal Oak ' over a 
 public house should style the proprietor Mr. Royal Oak. 
 At the same time, some of the very small master masons, 
 etc., occasionally add the character Kef to the end of their 
 surname and name, and take this combination as their 
 business style ; for instance, a man named Ch'an Ah Luk, 
 might take as his business style Ch'an Luk Kef. This is 
 the only approach to a man's name appearing in his 
 business on his signboard ; for the majority of ' business 
 styles' are such combinations as 'Mutual Advantage,' 
 ' Extensive Harmony,' and ' Heavenly Happiness.' 
 
 A man engaging in different branches of business will 
 also often take different business names for each branch, or 
 use some other method of distinguishing the different 
 businesses. 
 
 Girls are left out in the cold as far as names are 
 concerned. They have to be content with a milk name, a 
 marriage name, and nicknames. They retain their own 
 surnames when married ; that is to say, a married woman 
 considers her maiden surname as her own, and gives it as 
 such ; by courtesy she is addressed by her husband's 
 surname, being the equivalent of our Mrs. So and So. In 
 official documents her two surnames are given one after the 
 
 4/1
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 other, and the combination serves as her name ; for example, 
 a woman's maiden surname may be Le"f (pronounced 
 Lay), her married surname Ch'un. She would then be 
 known as Ch'un L&i Shf, the Shi denoting that she 
 belongs to the Lei family by birth. 
 
 A lady will not give her name. The author has heard 
 a Chinese lady, when asked her name in Court, answer that 
 she had no name. The stranger must be content with 
 simply knowing the combination of two surnames, such as 
 given above ; for there is a feeling, partly of modesty, 
 partly of fear, that an impudent stranger might, in sheer 
 impertinence, call her by it if it were known. The wives of 
 labourers and of the lower classes do not have the same 
 feeling, and will tell their names freely, at least the 
 Cantonese will ; and with this experience of them it was 
 curious to the author to find the same class of people in 
 Ch'ao Chow-fu not prepared to respond freely to such 
 inquiries, the questioner having to be content with the 
 husband's name (not surname) followed by the word sister, 
 aunt, or mother, according to the age of the woman. 
 
 Emperors in China also rejoice in a multiplicity of 
 names which are very confusing to the foreign student of 
 Chinese history. After his death the Emperor is known by 
 his posthumous title, such for example as ' The Great 
 Ancestor/ ' The Martial Ancestor,' etc. While he is on the 
 throne, the years of his reign have a designation which 
 serve as the equivalent of his name. This ' year style ' is 
 composed of two characters, which, in combination, will 
 sound well, such for example, as ' Compliant Rule.' 
 Fortunately, in this present reigning dynasty, the one 
 designation serves for the whole reign, but it has not always 
 been so, and confusion seems worse confounded when 
 every few years in one sovereign's reign the ' year style' is 
 changed, owing possibly to some untoward event having 
 happened. Such changes have taken place half a dozen or 
 more times. It will thus be seen that the name by which 
 an Emperor is known is not one of his own personal names, 
 as in the case of King Edward or any of our Western 
 
 472
 
 Navy 
 
 sovereigns. In fact, a Chinese Emperor's personal name is 
 too sacred to be used by the general public, no one is 
 permitted to utter it or even write it, as long as the same 
 family remains on the throne, even though the Emperor who 
 bore it is dead ; and to prevent this difficulty, the characters 
 composing it are changed by the alteration or addition of 
 parts of the character. Nor is it proper for a child to use 
 his father's own name ; it is considered disrespectful. His 
 father's name is tabooed, so is a husband's name to a wife ; 
 so far is this carried that some wives amongst the Chinese 
 do not even know their husbands' names. After this it will 
 excite no surprise to learn that no one is allowed to use the 
 names of Confucius and Mencius. The surnames of these 
 sages, however, are not considered sacred. The great sage 
 of China has many descendants to this day bearing his 
 honoured cognomen. 
 
 Literary men are fond of the disguise of a nom de plume 
 in China as well as in the West ; and, when it is remembered 
 that China is the ' Flowery Land,' it may readily be 
 understood what a fanciful form such a name sometimes 
 assumes. 
 
 NAVY. In the first and second editions of this book 
 we wrote : 
 
 'We have a very fine coat, but there is no man inside it,' such 
 was the estimate of the Chinese Navy by a Chinese naval officer of 
 the Northern Fleet, and probably a very just estimate, not only of 
 that portion of the navy, but of the whole of the modern Chinese fleet 
 made on Western lines ; for very fine vessels they are, but the Chinese 
 cannot yet, with all their inexperience of them and their bribery and 
 corruption, be proper masters of their own vessels. 
 
 When we turn to the native junks, which were all the navy she 
 had till of late, we find that for conflict with Western powers, China 
 is as ill-prepared as a soldier of the time of the Norman Conquest 
 would be at the present day. 
 
 We may now add she was almost as ill-prepared with 
 her modern ironclads. A fleet of twenty-five vessels of all 
 sizes and armaments forming the Northern Squadron, or 
 the greater part of it belonging to that portion of the 
 Chinese navy, some of the number being powerful ironclads 
 
 473
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 built in Europe, were lost to the Chinese during the late 
 disastrous war with the Japanese in 1894. These vessels 
 were sunk, or destroyed, or set on fire, or surrendered to 
 the Japanese, while one or two of them were wrecked, the 
 Japanese gaining a considerable addition to their navy. 
 As the Chinese fleet of ships built on foreign models con- 
 sisted in 1892 of 47 men-of-war of one class or another, it 
 will be seen that half of their vessels, and of those many of 
 them of an advanced type, were lost at almost one blow. 
 ' The officers and men had both received much careful 
 training ' a most complete one and of ' a very efficient 
 standard ' ; but official corruption, added to the vanity and 
 ignorance so frequently displayed by the Chinese naval 
 authorities in recent years worked out their natural result 
 in the first serious conflict with the foe. This is not the 
 first serious disaster that the Chinese have suffered in try- 
 ing their prentice hands at the modern game of war, for a 
 fleet of vessels, 1 1 in number, built on the foreign model, 
 were sunk or destroyed by the French in August 1884, at 
 Foochow, by a fleet immensely their superiors ; but this 
 last one in 1894 was a far more severe blow and a far 
 greater loss than the previous one. To repair this annihila- 
 tion and carrying off of the major portion of their modern 
 naval force, the Chinese began to reconstruct their navy ; 
 the first instalment of this new fleet, built in Europe, was to 
 consist amongst other ships, of 2 battleships of 8,000 .tons, 
 2 armoured cruisers of 5,000 tons, and 4 protected cruisers 
 of 3,000 tons. 
 
 One writer well said, ' It may be predicted, however, 
 that unless the Chinese improve their present system of 
 recruiting and training, the fleet, which they are now 
 seeking to re-form, will be exposed to ... a disaster 
 similar to that of Weiheiwei.' 
 
 In addition to these vessels we should mention four 
 powerful torpedo-boat destroyers of 6,000 horse-power, to 
 steam at the rate of 32 knots per hour. 
 
 The Chinese do not depend for their war vessels 
 entirely on those constructed in foreign lands, but they are 
 
 474
 
 Navy 
 
 able to turn out new ships for their navy at the various 
 arsenals established of late years on the models of those 
 amongst Western nations. A steel cruiser of about 1,800 
 tons was completed at the Foochow arsenal. She was to 
 be armed entirely with quick-firing guns, and was probably 
 to be employed as a training vessel for the new graduates 
 of the Tientsin Naval Academy. It will thus be seen that 
 the Chinese were gradually building up their ruined navy 
 again, or at least the northern portion of it, before the 
 last war, for with but one or two exceptions it was only 
 the Northern Squadron that was engaged in the Japanese 
 war; and an amusing story is told of the Captain of a 
 vessel belonging to another portion of the Chinese navy, 
 when taken by the Japanese, requesting to be let off, as 
 his ship did not belong to the Northern Squadron which 
 only was fighting the Japanese. 
 
 A writer in 1899 thus describes the Chinese navy: 
 
 ' Little progress is being made with the reconstruction of the 
 Chinese Navy, and unless it is taken in hand by another Lang it is 
 feared by those who have an intimate knowledge of it, that it will be 
 one of the biggest of the many failures in China. The mismanage- 
 ment by the Chinese authorities is simply appalling. More Europeans 
 are required at the very least a captain and an engineer for each 
 ship. Suitable men would be difficult to get, however, for few would 
 have patience to endure the Chinese methods, and fewer still have 
 the tact to work along with the incompetent Chinese officers who are 
 appointed to the ships. It is very difficult, apparently, to get them to 
 understand the difference between an officer and a member of his crew, 
 and, in consequence, there is always lacking that spirit of discipline so 
 necessary for the proper management of a warship. We hear that 
 the higher Chinese officials are anxious to get rid of all the foreigners 
 in the service. If this is true, then the speedy dissolution of the 
 Chinese Navy is in sight ; but we expect it will manage to weather 
 the threatened storm. China does not know how to reward faithful 
 service by foreign employes, and so it will be difficult to get another 
 Lang ; but the miraculous may happen some day, and China herself 
 produce a clean-handed official who will reconstruct the Naval 
 Department, and place it on a sound footing.' 
 
 'The Statesman's Year Book' for 1902 says: 
 
 ' At the conclusion of the war with Japan the Chen Hal and the 
 Kang Chi alone remained to China, of her effective Pei Yang squadron. 
 Some swift vessels have since been added to the fleet. Among these 
 are the cruisers Hai Chi and Hai Tien (4,300 tons\ launched in the 
 Tyne in 1897 and 1898. They have 6-inch armoured shields and a 
 
 475
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 5-inch deck, and they carry two 8-inch, ten 47 inch, and twelve 3 pr. 
 Armstrong quick-firers. The speed is 24 knots. The small cruisers 
 Hai Yung, Hai S/ie;i, and Hai Shew (2,900 tons), have been launched at 
 Stetton (1897), four destroyers, built at Elbing, have been captured, and 
 distributed to England, France, Germany, and Russia. A French 
 engineer, M Doyere, has reorganised the Arsenal of Foochow, and a 
 torpedo gun-vessel (817 tons) and a 2o - 5-knot torpedo-boat are in 
 hand there [1901]. The Chinese blue-jacket is good as any in the 
 world.' 
 
 Besides these are three or four other protected cruisers, 
 four torpedo gunboats, six floating batteries, twenty-two 
 river gunboats, and twenty-one torpedo boats. 
 
 The Chinese fleet is divided into the North Coast 
 Squadron, the Foochow Squadron, the Shanghai Flotilla, 
 and the Canton Flotilla. 
 
 The Foochow Squadron was stated in 1892 to consist 
 of ' nine cruisers of from 1,300 to 2,480 tons, three gunboats, 
 nine despatch boats, and three revenue cruisers ' ; but this 
 Nanyang (i.e., South Coast) fleet was described in 1894 as 
 consisting of the cruisers Kaichi, lost by explosion in 1902, 
 Huantai, Chingtsung, NanisJieng, Nainshui (German built), 
 Paoning, and the sloops WeicJiing, and CJmnJio, and the 
 mosquito gunboats (one 36-ton gun each), Lungsiang, 
 Huwei, Feising, and Ts'eticn. The Southern Squadron 
 has its headquarters at Foochow ; its officers have a 
 slight acquaintance with foreign methods. 
 
 The Viceroy Chan Chi-tung also possessed in 1894 
 ' four sloops built either at Shanghai or Foochow, whose 
 names ' commenced ' with the characters T'su, denoting the 
 provinces (Hunan and Hupeh) they are intended to 
 protect.' 
 
 In 1892 the Shanghai Flotilla consisted ' of an armoured 
 frigate, 2,630 tons, a gunboat, six floating batteries (wood), 
 and three transports.' 
 
 In the same year the Canton flotilla consisted of '13 
 gunboats . . . of 100 to 350 tons displacement.' Since then 
 there has been added to the last flotilla three large steel 
 cruisers, named the Knangchia, Knangping, and Knangyi. 
 These three ships ' are commanded and officered for the 
 
 476
 
 Navy 
 
 most part by young men who received their first foreign 
 education in the United States. Their commodore is 
 named Yii, and is reported to have seen some active 
 service.' Most of the principal officers of the late Northern 
 Squadron, it may be remarked, had also been taught the 
 European methods of war, though the late Admiral Ting, 
 who was in command, had not had such a training, being a 
 purely native untrained Mandarin, his substantive appoint- 
 ment being that of a General of Cavalry ; the Chinese have 
 not yet learned with regard to Government officials, in the 
 words of Herbert Spencer, that ' the transformation of the 
 homogeneous into the heterogeneous, is that in which 
 progress essentially consists ' ; for a Mandarin is considered 
 to be in a general way competent to undertake any duties, 
 civil, military, naval, judicial, fiscal, or even those connected 
 with civil engineering. The more progressive officials see 
 that this plan will not do with regard to a navy on foreign 
 lines, and consequently the inferior officers have been 
 educated in Europe as well as at different places in China, 
 where naval colleges and arsenals have been established of 
 late years. There has been an arsenal at Foochow for a 
 number of years past, where Chinese youths are trained; 
 besides this there are naval and military colleges at 
 Tientsin, Nanking, Shanghai, and Foochow. 
 
 ' Several viceroys and governors of provinces have taken in hand 
 the reorganisation of their forces. Yuan Shih-kai has led the way, by 
 his vigorous steps for the enrolment of 100,000 men in the capital 
 province and the reorganisation of the Northern fleet. The Governor 
 of Shan-hsi has now announced his purpose to enlist fifteen regiments 
 of trained men. They are to be newly recruited and trained by 
 competent instructors. The Governor of Shan-hsi has applied to 
 Yuan Shi-kai for assistance in the supply of instructors, some of whom, 
 it is presumed, will be foreign.' 
 
 A number of small gunboats are found at different 
 ports in connection with the revenue service, the Imperial 
 Maritime Customs, as well as others under the control of 
 the high provincial authorities or others. 
 
 The purely native craft are uncouth-looking objects, 
 and utterly unfit to cope for a moment with foreign 
 vessels. 
 
 477
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 Books recommended. Brassey's 'Naval Annual.' ' The Statesman's Year 
 Book.' For an account of the destruction of the Chinese fleet at Foochow, 
 see 'The French in Foochow,' by J. F. Roche and L. L. Cowen, U.S.N. 
 
 NEWSPAPERS AND PERIODICALS. There are 
 foreign newspapers at several of the Treaty Ports. In 
 Shanghai five dailies are published in English and French, 
 viz.: The North China Daily News, The New Press, and 
 LEcho de Chine, in the morning ; and The Shanghai 
 Mercury and The China Gazette, in the evening. There are 
 four weeklies : The North China Herald, The Celestial 
 Empire, The Union, and Der Ostasiatische Lloyd. There is 
 the Chefoo Express at Chefoo. In Amoy a small shipping 
 sheet is printed, called The Amoy Gazette, and a weekly 
 appears, named The Amoy Times and Shipping Gazette. 
 The Foochow Echo is the one paper that that city boasts of. 
 In Hongkong there are three dailies: The Hongkong 
 Daily Press, a morning paper, and The China Mail and 
 The Hongkong Telegraph, both evening papers. The 
 weeklies are The Overland China Mail, The Hongkong 
 Weekly Press, and the Telegraph also issues a weekly paper. 
 The clientele of these are principally foreigners, but a few 
 natives who know English subscribe to them. At Kiaochao 
 there is a German newspaper published daily and weekly, 
 called Der Deutsche Asiatische Warte. And every now and 
 then newspapers are started at different ports. 
 
 There is a German newspaper published in Shanghai, and 
 an Italian paper in Tientsin in 1902. The latter starting 
 in English and Chinese, Italian to be substituted for 
 English later on. It was stated a short time since that a 
 paper was to be started in Peking in seven languages, 
 surely a unique venture. These were to be Chinese, 
 Japanese, English, French, German, Russian, and Italian, 
 at a subscription of $10 a year. 
 
 There are several Portuguese papers in Macao and 
 Hongkong, one of which publishes a portion of its 
 contents in English. 
 
 Of periodicals, in English there is published in Shanghai 
 The East of Asia, a new magazine, with a German edition, 
 
 478
 
 Newspapers and Periodicals 
 
 Der Feme Os ten, started in 1902, The Chinese Recorder and 
 Missionary Journal, issued monthly, and Women's Work in 
 the Far East, issued half-yearly. (See Article on Books on 
 China.) Besides these, there are two or three journals of 
 different societies, and The China Medical Missionary 
 Journal, issued quarterly. 
 
 The first European journal published in China was 
 The Canton Register, issued in 1827. 
 
 As regards papers published in Chinese, many of which 
 are commercial ventures, there are in Shanghai the Shun 
 Pao, and some sixteen newspapers sold at the price of ten 
 and eight cash each ; these have a very large circulation, 
 some have a circulation of 10,000 a day. There is the 
 monthly illustrated journal, The Wan Kwo Kung Pao; 
 The Chung Si Cliao Hui Pao, a monthly journal ; The 
 Shin Cliang Hwa Pao, issued thrice a month ; the Hwa 
 Tu Sin Pao, a monthly journal. There are five Chinese 
 daily papers in Hongkong : The Chung Ngot San Pb, 
 issued from the Daiiy Press office ; The Wd Tsz Yat Pb, 
 or Chinese Mail, published at the China Mail office ; The 
 TS'UH Wan Yat Pb, and The Wai San Yat Pb, The Chung 
 favok Pb and the Hong Hoi Yat Pb. In Canton there 
 are The Yilt Kin Kei Man, The On Ngd Shu Kuk Shai 
 Shiit P'in, and The Shong Mb Pb. In Macao there is at 
 present no Chinese newspaper. Tientsin, Hankow, and 
 Foochow have each two, besides others at other ports. 
 Soochow has a daily, and an occasional one issued once, 
 or several times a month. In Kiaochaii, one, assisted by 
 the German Government. In Peking, besides the ancient 
 Gazette, there are four papers.. 
 
 One of the latest ventures is a first attempt to issue a 
 regular newspaper in Hainan by the Taotai, in the form 
 of a small daily gazette. 
 
 All these native papers mentioned are the direct result 
 of foreign influence, as before the arrival of foreigners in 
 China the Chinese had no newspapers according to our idea 
 of the term. In 1895 there were only nineteen native news- 
 papers ; in 1898 this number was quadrupled, and now, 
 
 479
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 ' There are some 6p or 70 native newspapers and periodicals 
 being regularly issued [in China], the circulation of many, especially 
 in Central China, being very large.' 
 
 The Chinese living abroad have also native newspapers. 
 There are three Chinese newspapers in Singapore ; in 
 Penang, one; in Sydney, two; Manila, one; San Fran- 
 cisco, seven ; Honolulu, four ; and in Japan, two, but not 
 dailies. 
 
 The Peking Gasette is the only newspaper the Chinese 
 had till recent years, and it is the oldest newspaper in the 
 world. It is published daily, being more of the nature of a 
 Government Gazette than an ordinary newspaper. 
 
 'It is simply the record of official acts, promotions, decrees, and 
 sentences, without any editorial comments or explanations ; and, as 
 such, of great value in understanding the policy of Government. It is 
 very generally read and discussed by educated people in the cities, 
 and tends to keep them more acquainted with the character and 
 proceedings of their rulers than ever the Romans were of their 
 sovereigns and Senate. In the provinces, thousands of persons find 
 employment by copying and abridging the Gasette for readers who 
 cannot afford to purchase the complete edition.' 
 
 ' The printing is effected by means of wooden movable types, 
 which, to judge from some specimens examined, are cut in willow or 
 poplar wood, a cheap if not highly durable material. . . . An average 
 Gazette consists of 10 or 12 leaves of thin, brownish paper, measuring 
 1\ by 3$ inches, and enclosed between leaves, front and back, of 
 bright yellow paper, to form a species of binding. The whole is 
 roughly attached or "stitched" by means of two short pieces of paper 
 rolled into a substitute for twine, the ends of which, passing through 
 holes, punched in the rear margin of the sheets, are loosely twisted 
 together. [This being the usual manner of "stitching " small pam- 
 phlets in China.] . . . The inside leaves, being folded double in the 
 usual Chinese fashion, give some twenty or more small pages of matter, 
 each page divided by red lines into seven columns. Each column 
 contains fourteen characters from top to bottom, with a blank space 
 equal to four characters in height at the top.' 'As everything which 
 the Emperor says takes precedence of everything else, his replies to 
 memorials appear in advance of the documents to which they relate, 
 and this produces an effect much like that of a Puzzle Department, 
 where all the answers should be printed one week, and the original 
 conundrums the next.' 
 
 It has been well remarked that : 
 
 'Although as a matter of antiquarian interest, it may be said that 
 China in her Peking Gazette had the first newspaper in the world, yet, 
 as a matter of fact, newspapers are but of yesterday. The . . . 
 
 480
 
 Newspapers and Periodicals 
 
 [native] newspapers of Hongkong and Shanghai have been the true 
 pioneers of the native press. That work has borne fruit in a remark- 
 ably short time. Take, for example, Canton, which had until the 
 other day four dailies and one newspaper of a more literary nature, 
 published once in ten clays. . . . The number of readers is immense, 
 for it must be remembered that newspapers are written in the "book 
 style" of language, which is understood throughout the Empire. Any- 
 one who has even only occasionally glanced at these papers, must 
 have noticed a tendency to pander too much to native tastes and 
 ideas, that are recognised by the Chinese of any education as false and 
 degrading. But it would not be fair to lay hold on these blemishes, 
 not acknowledging that for the most part they have exercised a 
 beneficial and enlightening influence over their readers. A few years 
 ago, the one newspaper then in existence in Canton had suddenly to 
 move from the city to the Shamien, to avoid the persecution of the 
 officials. When the pressure passed away, that paper was again 
 removed to the city, and in the interval three more papers have 
 been started. A visit to the offices of these papers is an inspiration 
 and a splendid testimony to the spread of ideas in China. Most of 
 the printers have received their training in Hongkong. The old 
 printing-blocks and hand-presses have given place to modern steam- 
 printing machinery. One of the Canton papers has on its staff a 
 Chinaman who was educated in Germany, and who is therefore well 
 abreast of the times.' [1900 or 1901.] 
 
 Several newspapers and periodicals are published by 
 the missionaries in different parts of China, some partaking 
 more or less of a scientific and religious character as well 
 as detailing news. A few of these have been mentioned 
 already by name. A small monthly in Romanised Col- 
 loquial has been started in Canton. 
 
 The Chinese abroad have copied us in instituting 
 papers in their own language. San Francisco, with a 
 Chinese population of over 60,000, has a Chinese daily with 
 a circulation of 3,500, and several prosperous weeklies. 
 
 The following extract marks a new departure. There 
 is a talk of similar enterprise in Canton, and one of the 
 Hongkong native papers prints [1902] occasionally a piece 
 in Colloquial. We hope to see this extended throughout 
 China. 
 
 ' Some time ago it was announced that Hangchow scholars were 
 issuing a newspaper in Colloquial language. Some scholars of advanced 
 view in Peking are emulating the example thus set them, and purpose 
 publishing a paper in Pekingese on the same lines as the Hangchow 
 paper, and with the same object, viz., to enlighten the people. They 
 also think it will help people in the study of Pekingese, and thus 
 accomplish a double purpose. They also intend to send men into the 
 
 481 2 H
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 country to distribute the paper free to all who wish to read it, and for 
 Chihli alone 50,000 will be required. The capital is at present 
 furnished by one or two patriotic men, but as such a large enterprise 
 requires much capital, it is hoped that others will come forward and 
 give financial help.' 
 
 There can be no doubt that the modern newspaper is 
 destined to be an important factor for good in China, if it 
 falls into judicious hands. Unfortunately, a tendency very 
 occasionally reveals itself to pander to depraved tastes in 
 articles not conducive to public morality, and a rabid 
 hatred of the foreigner is sometimes visible in some dis- 
 torted account of them and their doings, but on the whole, 
 the ' tendency seems towards morality, etc.' 
 
 Books recommended. ' List of Periodicals in the Chinese Language ' being 
 Appendix F. to Records of the Missionary Conference held in Shanghai, 1890. 
 'The Peking Gazette' : being an article in The China Rr.view, vol. iii. p. 12. 
 See also article on ' The Peking Gazette and Chinese Posting,' by E H. 
 Parker, in Longman's Magazine for November 1896. An article on the 
 European Press in China, by M. Henri Cordier, appeared in the China Mail 
 some time ago. 
 
 NOBILITY. There is no real nobility in China. 
 Mayers, in his invaluable work on Government Titles, 
 says : 
 
 'The existing Chinese system of conferring patents of nobility, 
 and honorary titles is linked by an unbroken chain of descent with the 
 history of the feudal states of the sixth century before Christ, 
 perpetuating in its nomenclature, on the one hand, the titles of the 
 semi-independent Princes of that era, and, on the other, the names of 
 official degrees which have ceased for many centuries to exist in 
 practical operation. . . . The titles now conferred are not to be 
 regarded as other than official distinctions of a peculiar class, and 
 cannot rightly be considered as bestowing aristocratic position or 
 privilege in the European sense. The nine degrees of nobility, 
 indeed, which are conferred at the present day, and which are either 
 heritable within certain limits, ... or hereditary for ever, . . . 
 are granted exclusively as rewards for military services.' 
 
 The five highest ranks of hereditary nobility then are 
 Kung (Koong), Hau (How), Pak (Pahk), Tsz, and Nam 
 (Nahm), generally rendered into English as Duke, Marquis, 
 Earl, Viscount, and Baron. Each of these is subdivided 
 into classes or degrees. 'To the titles of the first, second, 
 and third ranks laudatory ' titles or terms ' are appended, 
 
 482
 
 Nobility 
 
 significant of the special services by which the rank has 
 been earned.' We are not aware whether an attempt has 
 ever been made to render the four lower ranks into an 
 English equivalent. Any such attempt would probably be 
 even less successful than that already made as regards the 
 five higher ranks. These lower titles ' have occasionally the 
 degree next above them " annexed "... the bearer being 
 thus enabled to rank " with, but after," possessors of the 
 title immediately preceding.' All the different ranks, 
 except the lowest, are ' hereditary during a specified 
 number of lives, ranging from twenty-six ' for a Duke of 
 the first class, to one for the eighth rank, the next but 
 lowest of all. Any of them also become hereditary by 
 being ' conferred posthumously ... on officers killed in 
 battle.' Meritorious public servants are also rewarded by 
 having hereditary official rank bestowed upon their sons, 
 grandsons, younger brothers, or nephews. The whole 
 principle it will thus be seen is against perpetuating here- 
 ditary rank, the son with but few exceptions so few as to 
 be scarcely worthy of notice taking a lower title until at 
 length the status of a commoner is reached. The most 
 noticeable exceptions are the following : the lineal de- 
 scendant of Confucius, who is a Duke ; and the descendants 
 of Mencius, and of Koxinga (the Conqueror of Formosa), 
 each of whom is a Marquis. The son of a man of 
 exceptional renown, such as of the first Marquis Tseng, 
 whose son, the well-known minister to England, has 
 the title continued ; but it goes no further unless the 
 son's deeds have been such as to merit its bestowal on 
 the grandson. 
 
 Titles of honour are also conferred as rewards ' for 
 merit or service, or of Imperial bounty, on occasions of 
 rejoicing.' These are bestowed upon the official himself, 
 his wife, parents, or grandparents while they are living, or 
 ' as a posthumous distinction ... to his deceased 
 progenitors.' These titles differ for each of the nine degrees 
 of official rank (See Article on Mandarin) and their 
 subdivisions, making in all eighteen, while the wives have 
 
 433
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 nine. Military officials also receive honorary titles of a 
 martial character. 
 
 Posthumous titles of honour may be granted to officials 
 losing 'their lives at sea or on any of the inner waters, 
 whilst engaged in the public service,' and their eldest sons 
 are given official rank. Most sensibly the Chinese have 
 put before them merit as the cause of their nobility, and 
 not the mere circumstance of blue blood. The class which 
 in European lands would form the aristocracy, is in a very, 
 comparatively, inferior position in China. There are 
 certain classes who own titles on account of kinship with 
 the Emperor ; but here again heredity is the exception, 
 and extinction of the title (which decreases in degree from 
 father to son) happens in the case of descendants of a 
 prince in about twelve generations. The only exceptions 
 to this rule amongst these classes are the eight ' Iron-Capped 
 Princes,' who are descendants of the Chieftains who 
 immediately preceded the Sovereigns. Another is the 
 Prince of I, a descendant of the thirteenth son of K'ang 
 Hsi, the second Emperor of this dynasty. These all retain 
 the title in perpetuity. 
 
 NOVELS. There are thousands of books of this class 
 in China, at least 18,000 well-known ones, classified con- 
 temptuously by the pedantic literary class as ' small talk.' 
 
 ' " Novel," as the name of a thing came to us with the 
 thing itself from Italy in the reign of Elizabeth.' The 
 ' thing itself,' as this writer thus describes the novel of the 
 West, was known in China long before the time of our good 
 Queen Bess. '"Tell me a story" is among the earliest 
 expressions of our wants in life,' and amongst John 
 Chinaman's numerous children this want was early 
 expressed. ' Stories told for their own sake,' and stories 
 furnished with morals, all doubtless held their 
 sway over the progenitors of the seemingly phlegmatical 
 Chinese, who will listen spellbound to the raconteurs in 
 public squares and streets. To the East is ascribed the 
 first taste for the romance, and it is stated that there is even 
 
 484
 
 Numerical Categories 
 
 a Chinese variant of Petronius's ' Widow of Ephesus.' And 
 to come to more modern times and a more recent 
 development of the tale of the West, we have it stated by 
 one sinologue, in comparing the construction of Chinese 
 novels with those of Richardson, that the ' authors render 
 their characters interesting and natural by reiterated strokes 
 of the pencil which finally produce a high degree of illusion.' 
 
 A Chinese novel is generally a finished sketch in black 
 and white very black and very white, no softening down, 
 nor shading : the characters stand out in bold relief. The 
 villains are as black as black can be, and form the deepest 
 background to throw into relief the virtuous hero and 
 heroine and their friends, helpers, and well-wishers. The 
 hero is a paragon of excellence, physically, mentally, and 
 morally. He often possesses the prowess of a warrior, the 
 intellect of a senior wrangler, while as regards the virtues 
 he stands at high-water mark. The heroine but what need 
 to describe her: it is needless to say she is charming, as 
 seen through Chinese spectacles ; her lover will generally 
 find her in this so different from the real Chinese women 
 so well acquainted with letters as to lift her from the 
 mere position of a doll, and withal ' a clever, resourceful, 
 and a modest young lady.' Apparently insuperable diffi- 
 culties are, of course, piled up by the novelist for him 
 to clear away by his consummate skill in the unravelling 
 of the plots and intrigues against hero and heroine, and 
 all comes well at the end. There are historical novels as 
 well as social ones in China. (See Article on Literature 
 and History, p. 334.) 
 
 Novels are largely read, not only by men, but some 
 women even manage to pick up a sufficient "knowledge of 
 the printed character to be able to enjoy them, and 
 circulating libraries are carried through the streets with 
 novels for the delectation of their clientele. 
 
 NUMERICAL CATEGORIES.' Number has long 
 exercised a peculiar fascination over the Far-Eastern mind. 
 Europeans, no doubt, sometimes use such expressions as 
 
 485
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 " The Four Cardinal Virtues " and " The Seven Deadly 
 Sins," but it is not part of our mental disposition to 
 divide up and parcel out almost all things visible and 
 invisible into numerical categories fixed by unchang- 
 ing custom, as is the case among the nations from 
 India eastward,' so writes Mr. Chamberlain in ' Things 
 Japanese.' The Chinese have thus grouped together 
 any and everything into such classes, beginning with 
 two and ending with ten thousand. The fact that 
 Mayers' ' Chinese Reader's Manual ' has a second part, 
 consisting of sixty-seven pages, devoted to this portion 
 of Chinese literature, will show its importance, and 
 even it is not an exhaustive list ; to it we refer the 
 curious reader, while we only give a dozen of the most 
 common : 
 
 THE Two EMPERORS of Antiquity, Yao and Shun, 
 who reigned B.C. 2357 and 2287 respectively. 
 
 THE THREE LIGHTS : The Sun, Moon, and Stars. 
 THE THREE POWERS OF NATURE : Heaven, Earth, 
 and Man, which, taken together are used in the sense of 
 the universe, or creation in general. 
 
 THE FOUR CARDINAL POINTS: North, South, East, 
 and West. When the centre is included, they are called 
 The Five Points. 
 
 THE FOUR BOOKS, which with THE FIVE CLASSICS 
 may be called the Bible of the Confucianist. (See Article 
 on Literature.) 
 
 THE FIVE BLESSINGS : Longevity, Riches, Peacefulness 
 and Serenity, the Love of Virtue, and An End Crowning 
 the Life. 
 
 THE FIVE ELEMENTS OR PRIMORDIAL ESSENCES: 
 Water, Fire, Wood, Metal, and Earth. ' Upon these five 
 elements or perpetually active principles of Nature the whole 
 scheme of Chinese philosophy ... is based.' 
 
 THE FIVE METALS : Gold, Silver, Copper, Lead and 
 Tin, and Iron. 
 
 THE FIVE ESCULENTS OR GRAINS : Hemp, Millet, 
 Rice, Corn, and Pulse. 
 
 486
 
 Numerical Categories 
 
 THE FIVE COLOURS: Black, Red, Azure (Green, Blue, 
 or Black), White, and Yellow. 
 
 THE EIGHT GENII, or, ' EIGHT IMMORTALS, venerated 
 by the Taoist sect ' ; each celebrated for possessing some 
 mystic power or owning some wonderful, magic-working 
 instrument. One, if not two of them, were females. 
 One went about with one shoe off and one shoe on. 
 Another, having gone up to heaven, and left injunctions 
 that his body was to be preserved for seven days 
 for his return, found on his soul desiring to re-enter 
 it after six days, that his disciple, who had been left to 
 watch it, had been called away to his mother's death-bed, 
 and consequently his master had no vitalised body of his 
 own, but was forced to enter that of a beggar just expired. 
 Another had a white mule, by which he was carried 
 thousands of miles in a single day, and which was folded 
 away and put into his wallet at night, and resuscitated in 
 the morning by his master spurting water from his mouth 
 on him. 
 
 THE EIGHTEEN ARHAN : Eighteen of Buddha's 
 immediate disciples, which are found in Buddhist temples. 
 Besides these there are THE FIVE HUNDRED DISCIPLES 
 of BUDDHA, also found in some temples, the number is even 
 carried up to ten thousand sometimes. 
 
 The following are in common use likewise amongst 
 the people of Canton, and similar geographical and other 
 combinations are doubtless used in other parts of China as 
 well. 
 
 THE THREE DISTRICT CITIES : Nam, P'un, and Shun ; 
 that is Nam Hoi, P'un Yii, and Shun Tak. 
 
 THE FOUR GREAT TRADING MARTS, viz., Fatshan, 
 Hankow, Kintak (the great porcelain manufactory), Chii 
 Sin. 
 
 THE FOUR DISTRICT CITIES : Van, Hoi and San, in 
 concise terms ; but in full, Yan P'ing, Hoi P'ing, San 
 Ning, and San Wui, all in the Canton, or Kwongtung 
 Province. 
 
 THE LOWER FOUR PREFECTURES : K6, Lou, Li'm, and 
 
 487
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 K'ing, in concise terms ; in full K6 Chau fu, Lou Chau fu, 
 Lfm Chau fu, and K'ing Chau fu. 
 
 OPIUM. The poppy seems to have been cultivated in 
 China as an ornamental flower in the Sung dynasty, or 
 before, and the healing virtues of its seeds were commended, 
 while ' the medical use of the capsules was of course early 
 known.' Opium was used for medicinal purposes, and it 
 was a highly esteemed drug, being imported overland from 
 Burmah and through Central Asia. There would appear 
 not to be sufficient warranty for the opinion that the 
 poppy was grown in China at an early date for other than 
 ornamental purposes ; everything points to a contrary 
 conclusion It was ' an article of trade at Canton in the 
 middle of the last century,' but, up to nearly the close of 
 that century, it was a limited trade. 
 
 We quote from Dr. Dudgeon, of Peking, a short 
 summary of the origin of that destructive vice, opium- 
 smoking : 
 
 ' Opium-smoking was introduced from Java by the Chinese 
 from Chien-chieu and Chang-chow in the early years of the eighteenth 
 century and towards the end of the reign of K'ang Hsi, 1662- 1723. 
 The first edict issued against it was in 1729, and was directed against 
 the practice in Formosa, and was the result of a report of an official 
 sent by K'ang Hsi to inquire into the unseemly proceedings in the 
 island. K'ang Hsi died, and his successor was some six or seven years 
 on the throne before steps were considered necessary . . . 
 to stop the evil there. It had been introduced by people from the 
 above two prefectures on the mainland. From Formosa and these 
 southern ports, the practice spread gradually, and very slowly. As 
 late as the end of the century, the import and consumption of opium, 
 both for medicine and smoking, was comparatively trifling. The 
 use of opium, first as capsules and then as an extract, is of older origin, 
 and was used solely as a medicine. Part came by land through 
 Central Asia by the Mohammedan merchants and travellers, part by 
 sea to Canton, and part also overland from Burmah and India. The 
 opium which came overland was for the most part as tribute, and 
 we read in the Ming history of as much as 200 catties for the 
 Emperor and 100 catties for the Empress being presented as tribute. 
 Other drugs were likewise presented. ... At the time when 
 smoking began, a short bamboo tube filled with coir, opium, and 
 tobacco was the regular mode of insufflation. 
 
 'The present pipe is more modern, and is said to have been 
 invented in the province of Canton. . . . The native growth 
 is of still more recent origin. The cultivation of the poppy, for 
 
 488
 
 Opium 
 
 the sake of its extract, began about 70 years ago. Since that time 
 it has been gradually making its way over the Empire, until now 
 there is not a province where it is not grown. . . . The native 
 growth and consumption of the native drug having thus largely 
 increased in the North, it has, year by year, been driving the Indian 
 article out of the market. This process bids fair to continue to 
 increase, and at no distant day in all likelihood the foreign import 
 will cease, unless it can compete with the native in price. Its 
 superior quality and freedom from adulteration would in these 
 circumstances always command a sale. . . . The great dimensions 
 to which the native growth is reported latterly to have grown 
 is only, it is evident, within the past few years. The native 
 growth has been stimulated by the growing demand for opium 
 and its profitable nature, the poppy not being taxed as a cereal. 
 . . . The increase of the native growth is accounted for by 
 the fact that it is profitable to admix with the Indian, and the 
 proportion given is native ^ with foreign /. . . . The consumption 
 of opium, where it was formerly strictly forbidden, has greatly 
 increased since the relaxation caused by the late agreement, by 
 which the Imperial Government collects both Import and Likin 
 duties at the ports, and opium is allowed to pass freely throughout 
 the Empire.' 
 
 With regard to this increase of the native opium we 
 are informed from another source that : 
 
 ' The Chinese are every quarter increasing the native - grown 
 opium . . . the import of the foreign drug is steadily declining in 
 consequence.' Again, 'The Customs' returns for 1895 show that the 
 market falling in the import for 1894 was not arrested in 1895, but 
 on the contrary, the decline in the trade was even more conspicuous 
 in the latter year. ... It is a question of cost. . . . The 
 poppy is rarely met with in Kwongtung, and as the soil and 
 climate are not favourable it is not likely to be extensively cultivated 
 there.' 
 
 'In 1887, the value of the opium imported was Hk. Tls. 
 27,926,865, and the figure for 1897 stands at Hk. Tls. 27,901,056 ; but 
 whereas in the former year the sum expended procured a supply of 
 74,350 piculs, the almost identical amount in 1897 purchase only 
 49,217 piculs. The cost of the foreign drug has increased since the 
 closing of the Indian mints, and the quality of the native drug is 
 said to be undergoing an improvement which brings it more into 
 demand.' 
 
 It is but natural after this to find the following as a 
 newspaper summary, made within the last few years, of one 
 item of our Indian revenue: 
 
 'OPIUM. Decrease R. 1,550,000. This represents a distinct 
 worsening of the financial position with no corresponding gain to the 
 people of India. This part of the revenue has nothing to do with 
 the consumption of opium in India (which is taxed under Excise), 
 
 489
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 and is in reality the profit of the Government of India as a monopolist 
 manufacturer and exporter to foreign markets (chiefly China). At 
 all times subject to great fluctuations, this source of income shows 
 a steady tendency to decline.' 
 
 The following on the taxation of native opium in China, 
 was published in 1897, and will be interesting in this 
 connection : 
 
 'According to a memorial of the Board of Revenue recommending 
 a new system of taxing native-grown opium, the chief opium pro- 
 ducing provinces in China are stated to be Szechuan, which will 
 produce this year a crop of 120,000 piculs ; Yunnan, 80,000 piculs ; 
 Kueichou, 40,000 piculs ; Chekiang, 14,000 piculs ; Kiangsu, 10,000 
 piculs ; Kirin, 6,000 piculs ; Anhui, 2,000 piculs ; Fukien, 2,000 
 piculs ; and the provinces of Kansu, Shensi, Shantung, Shansi, 
 Honan, and Chihli, an aggregate amounting to 60,000 piculs, or a 
 total of 334,000 piculs from 14 out of the 21 provinces which 
 constitute the present empire of China not including Outer Mongolia 
 and Tibet. The memorial further states that according to the above 
 estimate, which the Board has reason to believe to be quite accurate, 
 having been compiled by Sir Robert Hart at the Board's request, 
 the duty on the native opium this year should amount to at least 20 
 million taels, at the ordinary tax of Tls. 60 per picul ; but, so far, 
 not a third of this amount has found its way to the Imperial exchequer, 
 the rest having gone to enrich the provincial authorities and their 
 tax collectors. It is now proposed to begin with the provinces of 
 Kirin, Szechuan, Yunnan, and Kiangsu, for the collection of native 
 opium duty which is to be handed over to the I.M. Customs at 
 Shanhaikuan, Chungking, Mengtze, and Chinkiang, respectively.' 
 
 When the liking for it began, the English, to their shame, 
 be it said, continued to bring the fatal drug to administer 
 to the depraved tastes of the Chinese, whose rulers made 
 most piteous attempts to prevent its introduction. And 
 the feeling of dislike to the English, and, through them, to 
 the hated and despised foreigner in general, partially due 
 to this cause, is not confined solely to the upper classes, as 
 anyone may find who knows the language and mixes with 
 the people ; for it is not an unfrequent question : Why do 
 you foreigners bring opium to China ? And the only reply 
 that can be given is : There are bad people (there is no 
 use combating the idea of the badness of the people who 
 do such a thing it is a foregone conclusion in a China- 
 man's mind) in every nation as well as good ; and if you 
 Chinese would not smoke it, they would not bring it. 
 
 It is impossible to say what proportion of Chinese 
 
 490
 
 Opium 
 
 smoke opium, but immense numbers of all classes of the 
 community do so ; in some parts of the country the pro- 
 portion is larger than in others. From the Imperial 
 Palace down to the lowest hovel every class has its 
 smokers, even women and children are, in some places, 
 preys to this insidious vice. Many smoke it, as we have 
 already said, at the present day, and the number is in- 
 creasing. It has been estimated that there are 25,000,000 
 of opium smokers in China ; another estimate, considered 
 to be moderate, puts them at 40,000,000, that is a ninth, or 
 tenth, of the whole population. In the city of Foochow 
 alone there are said to be 1,000 registered opium dens, they 
 ' being more numerous than tea or rice shops.' 
 
 The habit is easily begun ; the offering of it, as a glass 
 of wine amongst many classes of Englishmen, easily leads 
 the fashionable votary into the practice ; the fast man takes 
 it sometimes as an aphrodisiac ; the prostitutes take it 
 because their visitors do ; others take it first to ease pain, 
 or disease ; while others are led into it by their friends and 
 acquaintances. In this connection it is interesting to note 
 that, ' figures taken from the Perak Hospital returns during 
 1893 ar >d part of 1892 show that no protective influence 
 against malaria can be claimed by the opium smoker.' 
 
 Once formed, the habit is very difficult to break some 
 try, over and over again, to wean themselves from the pipe. 
 One man actually came to a hospital no less than five times 
 for that purpose. Five hundred smokers in the course of 
 one year were desirous of entering a refuge, which was 
 opened in Foochow, in order to cure themselves. 
 
 'Terribly rapid is the ascendency of this fatal vice. A few weeks' 
 indulgence will rivet its chains for life. Thenceforth the unhappy 
 captive must have his stimulant at accustomed hours, or even his 
 feeble labour is impossible, and griping pain and intolerable depres- 
 sion lay hold of him. Many a labourer whose wages amount to 3 
 or 85 a month expends twice such sums on opium. How is this con- 
 trived ? The smoker borrows on all sides ; the pawnbroker fattens 
 on his wretchedness. The poor mother toils all day at embroidery 
 to earn food to hush her little ones' hunger-cries. Clothing of wife 
 and children, and lastly their very home is sold over their heads, even 
 if they themselves are not bargained away for opium. Every resident 
 in the interior of China has seen once well-to-do people changed to 
 
 491
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 out-cast vagabonds by this noxious vice ; " whole bands of beggars," 
 as one has described them, " pleading on their knees for the ashes 
 from a neighbour's opium pipe." 
 
 ' " No flesh, no strength, no money," is a native proverbial summing- 
 up of the dismal case ; it is well known that three or four generations 
 will exhaust an opium smoking family. 
 
 'The increasing frequency of opium suicide in China is awakening 
 the anxiety of even Chinese statesmen.' 
 
 Opium is the most common means of committing suicide 
 at present in China, and China is said to have the unenvi- 
 able notoriety of being the country in which suicides are 
 most frequent. ' Since the introduction of opium in China, 
 suicides have become alarmingly frequent.' 
 
 ' Some twenty years ago few Chinese women smoked opium, but 
 now it is estimated that at least one-tenth of the female population 
 are its slaves ; nor can we wonder that those whose lot in Eastern 
 lands is so joyless should seize on such antidote for suffering and 
 relief from ennui.' 
 
 The evils which arise from opium-smoking are many. 
 It injures the health and physical powers, especially of the 
 working and poorer classes, whose wages are only sufficient 
 to meet their necessities, and who curtail the amount spent 
 on food and clothing to gratify their craving for the vice, 
 and, consequently, are less able to resist its inroads on their 
 system ; whereas the wealthy buy certain foods with the 
 purpose of nourishing and strengthening their systems 
 against it. All these factors, and others, have to be taken 
 into account ; and it must also be remembered that there 
 are some men who have such a resolute will (though like 
 many other vices, the opium habit weakens the will power) 
 that having fixed upon a certain amount as the limit of 
 their indulgence, they do not overstep it, thus staving off 
 some of the worst effects of opium-smoking. Those who 
 have yielded to it for years, and who are slaves to the pipe, 
 are miserable if circumstances should arise to debar them 
 from their accustomed whiffs : it is extraordinary to see 
 how perfectly wretched they are ; every attitude, every 
 feature of the face, every sentence, is a living witness that 
 they are in agony till the craving is satisfied. The opium 
 sots or ' opium devils,' as the natives term them, are pitiable 
 
 492
 
 Opium 
 
 objects, emaciated almost to a skeleton, until they finally 
 succumb to their vice. 
 
 As to wealth, it often melts away when the pipe is 
 indulged in. The author remembers especially one case 
 where a man smoked away a valuable property consisting 
 of a number of houses advantageously situated in the city 
 of Canton, and eventually smoked himself into his grave. 
 It is a great waste of time, as the process of smoking is a 
 slow one and requires long preparation, and, as the habit 
 increases, more has to be smoked to produce an effect, and 
 consequently longer time spent over it : from a quarter, or 
 half an hour at first, it increases till hours are required, and 
 a great part of the night is wasted in it instead of being 
 spent in sleep. The smokers lie down in couples across a 
 wide couch, with a small stool-like table between them con- 
 taining the opium-tray, on which are the pipe and pipe- 
 bowls, opium-lamp, and the different instruments used in 
 connection with the pipe. Taking up the pipe, one of the 
 smokers lifts up a small quantity of opium on the end of a 
 long needle-like instrument. The bowl of the pipe is held 
 over the lamp, and the drug, which has been already pre- 
 pared so as to be of the consistency of treacle, is worked by 
 him in the heat of the flame over the small orifice of the 
 pipe-bowl. This takes some time, and, when all is ready, 
 a few whiffs exhaust it, so that the whole process has to be 
 gone over again, each smoker often taking the preparation 
 of the pipe in turn. The following account by a doctor 
 who has paid much attention to the subject, gives with 
 minute exactness the whole process summarised above : 
 
 ' The smoker, lying on his couch or divan, with the pipe, lamp, 
 and other implements on a tray, takes a portion on the point of a 
 wire and warms it carefully over the flame of the lamp. He dips 
 it again into the little jar of opium until the requisite quantity adheres, 
 alternately warming it over the flame and pressing it on the flat bowl 
 of the pipe, turning it over and over and working it carefully on the 
 end of the wire, until it is reduced to the state of a soft solid by the 
 evaporation of a portion of the water. During this process it swells 
 up into a light porous mass from the formation of steam within, and 
 must therefore be heated up to the boiling point of water. When the 
 little bolus has been brought to the exact state fitted for smoking, it 
 is worked into a conical-shaped ring around the wire, the point of 
 
 493
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 the wire inserted into the round hole of the pipe, and, by twirling the 
 wire around while withdrawing it, the opium is deposited on the 
 pipe, the hole in it corresponding to the hole in the bowl of the pipe. 
 The stem of the pipe being applied to the lips and the bowl held over 
 the lamp, the heat of the flame is drawn in over the opium, convert- 
 ing into vapour all the volatilizable material in the bolus. To 
 understand what takes place, it is important to note that, preparatory 
 to smoking, the bolus of opium has been slowly and carefully heated 
 until steam has been generated in its substance. While in this 
 heated state, and with water enough to prevent charring and to form 
 more steam, the flame of the lamp passes over it, converting part of 
 it into the so-called smoke, and leaving a solid residuum known as 
 " ym-she," opium dross, and also as " yi-ym," seconds.' 
 
 ' The vapour is inhaled into the lungs, and comes in contact with 
 the immense surface of the respiratory mucous membrane, by which 
 the alkaloids are absorbed into the blood, and thus act upon the 
 whole system.' 
 
 1 Notwithstanding the theory of some scientific gentlemen . . . 
 that none of the alkaloids are carried by the smoke into the system, 
 it is demonstrated a thousand times a day by every whiff a Chinaman 
 takes of his pipe that certain constituents of the watery extract of 
 opium are converted into vapour: and the sallow complexion, stupid 
 visage, and wasted frame of old smokers, and especially the remorse- 
 less grip of the craving on every fibre of their nervous system, afford 
 strong reason to believe, if they do not absolutely prove, that every 
 inhalation of the vapour conveys a portion of the alkaloids into the 
 victim's blood.' 
 
 Opium-smoking induces laziness, idle habits, and 
 unwillingness to exertion, shortens life, and diminishes 
 vitality. 
 
 'Among the well-to-do, with healthy constitutions, good food, 
 comfortable surroundings, and especially if there be pressing business 
 to attend to, the drug may be used for a lengthened period without any 
 apparent deleterious results, but at the same time it will be observed 
 that any indulgence in the vice, even under the most favourable 
 circumstances, diminishes functional activity in the nervous system, 
 impairs and arrests the process of secretion, and ultimately produces 
 structural changes in important organs, and a general undermining 
 of the constitution all round. Although the effects are more gradual, 
 they are none the less sure. Vital resistance to its evil effects is soon 
 diminished as the smokers become poor, thus depriving the victims, 
 not of opium, for the supply must increase with the craving, but of 
 the necessary sustenance, thus enfeebling the system, and rendering 
 it more susceptible to its evil influence .... Sooner or later retribu- 
 tion overtakes them, and they are suddenly cut off. . . . That there 
 is no more harm in its continuous use than smoking the mildest 
 cigarettes is an utterly absurd statement. It is pernicious in itself 
 apart from its too frequent conjunction with other well-known social 
 evils. In such cases opium tells with redoubled violence .... The 
 
 494
 
 Opium 
 
 reasons for believing the habit to be harmless and that it can be 
 abandoned without suffering, have been made by some to depend 
 upon the bodyweight of the smokers when admitted to gaol and once 
 a week afterwards. The weight is not much affected, provided the 
 habit is not great nor of great duration, and the material surroundings 
 are good.' 
 
 'After the imperious craving has been established, then the smoker 
 smokes not for positive enjoyment but to relieve the pains and aches 
 which the non-satisfaction of the craving sets up. It is ... foolish 
 to read of the stalwart races which are addicted to opium. It is quite 
 fallacious to reason thus : the Chinese are given to opium: but the 
 Chinese are industrious, therefore, opium is beneficial. The poor, 
 lazy, good-for-nothing people in China are the opium smokers,' and 
 if they are not that when they begin to smoke it, the vice soon does 
 its best to hurry them to these conditions. ' No doubt, immediately 
 after the craving has been satisfied, there is unwonted brilliancy and 
 activity, both physical and mental, and this requires constantly to be 
 renewed. . . . There does not seem much hope for the rejuvenescence 
 of China so long as this terrible evil remains in their midst, the vice 
 is enthralling, the craving is imperious, and the abandonment of the 
 habit extremely difficult.' 
 
 The following is from a native newspaper, the Shcnpao, 
 of Shanghai : 
 
 ' Opium came from abroad, but the poison is left with China. The 
 drug wastes time, destroys energy and health, and dissipates one's 
 property. There is no poison more deleterious. It is hated by non- 
 smokers who merely behold its ravages in others. But even smokers 
 also hate it, for they know its awful power to destroy them. At first all 
 opium was contraband, for China hoped to interdict the curse. But 
 soon it became apparent that the attempt to exclude it was hopeless. 
 Hence China devised a new plan to check the evil, if the evil could not 
 be eradicated, viz., a high tariff on opium. But alas ! make the duty 
 as high as we please the stream keeps flowing in, in ever-increasing 
 volume, and every province besides grows native opium. Smokers 
 increase apace, and sellers of the drug are more numerous every day. 
 Our Government knows the evil of opium, but poverty makes it loth to 
 give up this source of revenue, especially in view of the load of 
 indemnities upon its back.' 
 
 The Viceroy Chang Chi-tung thus writes about 
 opium : 
 
 4 In all provinces the nuisance has appeared, and causes incalcul- 
 able damage. It ruins the people, enervates the soldiers, pauperises 
 the rich, and makes the officials useless.' ' Opium has pauperised 
 and poisoned the Chinese, and is the greatest evil of the ages.' 
 
 A new vice, that of the subcutaneous injection of 
 morphia, appears now to be following that of opium- 
 smoking, and the habit is spreading rapidly, in some parts 
 
 495
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 of the country at all events. It was making enormous ad- 
 vances in Hongkong until put down by law a few years 
 since. As an instance of what a hold the habit takes on 
 the people already prepared for it by opium-smoking, the 
 following facts as to the practice, taken from a British 
 Consular Report, and the Imperial Customs' Annual Report, 
 may prove of interest : 800 ozs. were imported in one 
 month in 1894, in Amoy, and there was a decrease in the 
 import of opium. Some of it was doubtless used for pills, 
 powders, etc., and not all for hypodermic injections. 
 
 The habit of injecting morphia was greatly on the in- 
 crease in Amoy in 1894, there being many establishments 
 in the city where the practice was carried on. 
 
 ' Habitual opium smokers taking to morphine injections are enabled 
 to abstain from the opium pipe, but are by no means cured of opium 
 smoking, as a cessation of the injection habit inevitably leads to an 
 increased indulgence in smoking.' In 1895 the total amount of 
 morphia imported into Amoy was 4,835 ozs. and of hypodermic syringes 
 128, in Shanghai for the same period 64,043 ozs. were imported, 
 being double that of 1894 and more than four times that of 1892. 
 The Commissioner of Customs thus speaks of it in that part of the 
 country: 'Though partly consumed as a liquid decoction, it is 
 chiefly used to make pills and tabloids, which are taken as a sub- 
 stitute for opium by those who find it inconvenient to smoke during 
 business or when travelling. This easily becomes a habit.' The 
 Commissioner at Canton says, ' morphia ... is largely being availed 
 of amongst [opium] smokers.' In the general report on the foreign 
 trade of China for the same year (1895) we find it noted that, 'there 
 is a large increase in the importation of morphia, which indicates a 
 greater use of so-called anti-opium pills and that indulgence in 
 morphinism is spreading.' 
 
 It appears that the amount and consequently the habit, 
 must be increasing, for in the Annual Returns for 1897, 
 it is stated that in Amoy, 9,103 ozs. of morphia, valued at 
 Hk. Tls. 15,473, passed the Customs, the highest total 
 yet reached. In Shanghai, for the year 1897, it had risen 
 to 68, 1 70 ozs. ; and in Canton the amount for the same year 
 was 1,580, value Hk. Tls. 2,429, as against a value in 1895 
 of Hk. Tls. 954. A large quantity of opium pills are also 
 made, and sold under the name of anti-opium pills. Some, 
 in the endeavour to give up opium-smoking, try these ; but 
 they seldom cure anyone of the habit ; they simply, by the 
 
 496
 
 Pagoda 
 
 opium they contain, satisfy the longing of the smoker and 
 enable him to stave off the desire to smoke for a while. 
 Those who take them can also conceal the opium habit from 
 their friends ; they require less waste of time, as they are 
 swallowed at once, whereas the smoking, if much is taken, 
 runs away with hours which a poor man can ill afford. 
 They are mostly prepared from opium dross mixed with 
 soft-boiled rice, or paste, and various medicines, according 
 to the different prescriptions. They would appear to be 
 somewhat cheaper than the opium. 
 
 There are Chinese opium dens in the United States and 
 in London. It was stated on good authority a few years 
 ago, that 2,500 Chinese visit the port of London in the 
 course of the year chiefly sailors, firemen, carpenters, cooks 
 and stewards employed on steamers running between 
 China and England, as well as a few more permanent 
 residents ; so that there are quite sufficient out of that 
 number to patronise these places and keep them going. 
 Opium probably costs the Chinese at least 168,000,000 
 taels annually. 
 
 Books recommended '. 'The Evils of the use of Opium,' by J. Dudgeon, 
 M.D. 'British Opium Policy,' by Rev. F. S. Turner, B.A., London. 
 Sampson Low, Marston, Searle and Rivington, gives a good account of the 
 opium question up to about twenty years ago. 
 
 PADDY. The Malay name for rice in the ear or un- 
 husked, hence so styled by foreigners in China from the 
 Malay padi. A paddy-field is a rice-field, and paddy- 
 birds are a certain species of birds, the white egret, 
 Egretta modesta, that frequent these fields. (See Article 
 on Rice.) Rice-birds are a different bird altogether. 
 
 PAGODA. The word Pagoda is descended from the 
 Sanscrit Chagavati through the Persian bootkuda or the 
 Hindustanee pout&hoda or bootkhoda, and means 'the house 
 of idols,' ' the abode of God,' or ' Holy House.' ' According 
 to the original use of the word in India, it is a name given 
 to the various buildings where they worship idols,' and it 
 has been employed in the same indiscriminate way by 
 
 497 - f
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 some writers on China, but the majority of modern 
 writers restrict the use of the term to the tower-like 
 structure common in China, described as ' a peculiar class 
 of buildings that rise several storeys high in the form of a 
 narrow and polygonal obelisk, whether tenanted by idols 
 or not.' 
 
 These picturesque objects that crown a jutting eminence 
 or stand on a swelling hill ; that rise from the general dead 
 level of the shanty-like buildings forming a Chinese city ; 
 or again are seen breaking the monotony of low-lying lands; 
 so common that they seem almost a natural feature in a 
 Chinese landscape: these are not native but of foreign origin, 
 and introduced, so it is said, after the Christian era. 
 
 The great majority of pagodas in China are ancient, and 
 in Chinese scenery take the place of the old and ruined 
 castles to be met with in the West. The stiffness of the 
 lines has been toned down by the kindly hand of time, in 
 the course of the centuries which have generally passed 
 since their erection. Decay has dislodged a brick here and 
 there in the galleries (placed often at each storey) round the 
 tall shaft-like structure, while sometimes the lightning in its 
 play, or the wild winds in their sport, have robbed the 
 ambitious tower of its topmost storeys, or, at least, of its 
 crowning glory, an imitation of ' a big bottle-gourd.' Nature, 
 in another of her aspects, has dropped a seed in the mother 
 earth ; unnoticed it has lain till, mixed with the other 
 materials, it has been used in the building, and the fierce 
 tropical sun has warmed it into maturity ; or, failing that, 
 the feathered songsters of the air have plucked the ripe 
 berries and left the seeds on the pagoda ; in either case the 
 result is a growth of shrubs and bushes and young trees, 
 which add to the beauty of the tower and also accelerate 
 its decay. 
 
 Pagodas are usually of seven or nine storeys in height, 
 though any odd numbers such as three, five, eleven, or 
 thirteen storeys are known odd numbers being most 
 propitious : those above nine storeys are very rare, though 
 there have been one or two, if not more, constructed of that 
 
 498
 
 Pagoda 
 
 height. It has been the intention to erect some of thirteen 
 storeys, but want of funds or fear of destruction by the 
 elements (the Chinese have no lightning rods) have caused 
 the Chinese to desist from the attempt. With regard to 
 their dimensions it has been stated that ' the average height 
 of the loftiest pagodas is about 170 feet.' The famous 
 Nankin pagoda was 261 English feet high. The walls of 
 pagodas are of great thickness, especially at the base, 
 reminding one of the old walls of castles in England. They 
 decrease proportionately in circumference and in thickness 
 as they ascend. One in Soochow (in which city there are 
 five) is nearly 300 feet in circumference, or about 100 feet 
 in diameter at the bottom, ' and its ninth or uppermost 
 storey is about one-third in circumference ' of the base. 
 They are generally hexagonal or octagonal in shape 
 externally. The number in China must be enormous, 
 Williams estimates there must be nearly 2,000 in the 
 empire. 
 
 On each storey are openings doorways, or windows 
 neither furnished with doors, nor glazed, adding much to 
 the picturesque details of these interesting buildings. There 
 are cornices at each storey on the outside, forming at times 
 'only ornamental details, while at others they are developed 
 into outside galleries, or balconies, going round the whole 
 pagoda. These galleries are either unprotected or railed, 
 and the openings in the brickwork of the tower, already 
 mentioned, give on to these cornices or galleries. From 
 them, magnificent bird's-eye views of the city at one's feet, 
 or of the surrounding country, are obtained, increasing in 
 range as the visitor ascends succeeding storeys ; but it is 
 not every pagoda that is open to ascent. Some are in too 
 dilapidated a condition to be safe, and the officials prohibit 
 visitors going up, and close the entries ; others, though safe 
 enough, have proved too common and easy a point of 
 departure for giddy or weak-brained mortals to essay a 
 flight into the great unknown. As to the modes of ascent 
 they may be divided into two categories ; none, or some. 
 In the former case, none being provided by the builders, the 
 
 499
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 inhabitants in the neighbourhood appear with a long plank 
 ready to assist, for a remuneration of course, the aspirant 
 to giddy heights. This long plank is thrown from the 
 windows of a lower storey to those of the next, and, once 
 crossed, it is pulled across and the further end raised again 
 to the next higher storey. Thus slowly, stage by stage, the 
 traveller ascends, crossing his improvised bridge, while a 
 slip, or a fall of brickwork, would precipitate him to the 
 foot of the hollow tower. A trick with the Chinese in the 
 olden days was, when half-way up, or when the top had 
 been reached, to take possession of the plank and refuse to 
 place it in position for the descent until their rapacity had 
 been satisfied by the bestowal of some coin, thus cruelly 
 extorted by them. A steady brain is required in such a 
 mode of ascent, as well as when a staircase winds round the 
 interior of the structure without any railing or protection 
 whatever. In some pagodas, however, each stage has a 
 floor. In one the author ascended at the District City of 
 Tie-yea, near Swatow, such was the style, and there were 
 separate stairways round the interior of the building for 
 each storey. The lowest of all was unprotected for the 
 greater part of its ascent, after which it entered the wall of 
 the building and landed one on the first floor ; the* 
 succeeding staircases being all within the thick walls. The 
 galleries were protected by balustrades, and were of sufficient 
 width to allow of those going in one direction to push past 
 those going in the opposite. 
 
 Buddhist temples are often erected at the foot of a 
 pagoda, the primary object of a pagoda having been to 
 preserve the relics of a Buddha, or saint. The Chinese have 
 improved on this, and firmly believe that, in order to 
 conserve or improve the propitious geomantic influences of 
 a place, it is necessary to have pagodas ; and they conse- 
 quently take a prominent position in the curious medley of 
 superstition and glimmerings of natural science known 
 as Fung Shui (See Article under that heading). Their 
 presence is supposed to ward off evil influences and attract 
 those conditions which go to make up the Chinese idea of 
 
 500
 
 Pagoda 
 
 a state of prosperity, so much prized by them, and for the 
 attainment of which they will sacrifice almost everything. 
 As a concrete example of the good they produce, it may be 
 noted that the presence of a pagoda in a city will cause 
 numbers of its studious youths to gain literary distinctions 
 in the Civil Service examinations. 
 
 The geomancers of Canton say that the two pagodas 
 inside that city are like the two masts of a junk, the stern 
 sheets being the huge, five-storeyed, barn-like structure on 
 the walls at the north of the city. To an imaginative 
 people, like the Chinese, such a comparison is highly 
 felicitous. A large commercial centre is thus symbolised, 
 and a concatenation (of pagodas and buildings) producing 
 such a symbol is looked upon as not only being an emblem 
 of what the city actually is at present, but as a means of 
 ensuring (for such probably would be the train of thought 
 evolved) a future continuance of such commercial prosperity 
 as long as such emblems continue to exist. The prosaic 
 Englishman spends thousands on a grand system of under- 
 ground drainage to improve the sanitary conditions of the 
 city he lives in : the Chinese knows nought of, and cares 
 less about, sanitary science, but he firmly believes in spend- 
 ing money to secure long life, health, and prosperity, and to 
 preserve him from all the evils and dangers that surround 
 him. He as firmly believes, as the Englishman in his 
 system, and that centuries of experience have proved that 
 the means of obtaining such blessings is to erect new 
 pagodas or to repair those already in existence in his 
 district. The four winds may blow, but under the benign 
 influences of the pagoda they are averted ; the dire waters 
 may flow, but the pagoda wards off their evil results. 
 
 An illuminated pagoda : such a sight is worthy of fain-- 
 land, whether a mass of Chinese lanterns turns the slender, 
 pointed tower into a tongue of fire against the dark back- 
 ground of a moonless sky, or whether each coign and 
 vantage ground forms a resting-place for a glimmer of light ; 
 but we question whether the reality comes up to the ideal, 
 as 140 lamps for the Nanking Porcelain Tower, when it was 
 
 501
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 in existence, seems but a small allowance for such a large 
 building. They are hung at the windows and from each 
 corner of the different storeys. 
 
 The aggregate sum of money spent on the erection of 
 pagodas in China must be something enormous. ' The 
 entire building at Nanking cost the Imperial Treasury no 
 less than 2,485,484 taels of silver $3,300,000'; and the 
 repairs of another cost 826,000. Sixty years were spent in 
 the construction of one. 
 
 Besides the pagodas already written about, known as 
 fd fdp, flowery, or ornamented, pagodas, there is another 
 variety, known as mun t'dp, or put fdp, literary, or pencil, 
 pagodas, which are very numerous in the South of China. 
 They are often seen on the banks of rivers, and are supposed, 
 like the others, to exert a good influence on the neighbour- 
 hood. 
 
 Some people have been misled into thinking pagodas 
 were intended as beacon towers ; but beacon towers are 
 quite different from them. The author saw three of the 
 latter just behind some foreign houses in Swatow, in a grove 
 of trees. They cannot have been used for some scores of 
 years, and, hidden as they were, would not serve any good 
 purpose now. 
 
 Pagodas are occasionally erected at the present day, 
 but not often ; the first was probably built in the third 
 century. 
 
 Books recommended. An article entitled 'Pagodas in China,' in the 
 'Transactions of the C.Br. of the R. A.S.,' Part v., 1855. Williams's 'Middle 
 Kingdom,' vol. i. pp. 102, 743, 745. Archdeacon Gray's 'China,' chapter 
 31. 
 
 PARSERS. A number of Parsees are found engaged 
 in trade on their own account and as employes in Hong- 
 kong, as well as at many of the Treaty Ports. They are 
 a bright, intelligent race, good business men, and well- 
 conducted. Their original country is Persia, from which 
 they were driven by religious persecution. They are 
 worshippers of fire. They have cemeteries in Hongkong 
 and Macao, where they bury their dead. 
 
 502
 
 Pawnshops 
 
 PAWNSHOPS. Towering above low-lying dwellings, 
 and pierced by numerous small windows, the massive, square 
 erections of the pawnbrokers' strongholds, are seen dotted 
 here and there throughout the Chinese city or town. They 
 are the objects which first attract the attention of the 
 stranger, who naturally is surprised when informed that 
 they are not fortifications but pawnshops. 
 
 Conspicuous they are in material substance, and they 
 hold an equally prominent position in the social economy 
 of the curious and complex product of Eastern life and 
 prudential economy, which constitute the average 
 Chinaman's life. The Westerner must dismiss from his 
 mind all preconceived ideas of pawnshops and pawnshop- 
 keepers. The position these latter hold is a highly respect- 
 able one, and the business is one in which a moneyed man 
 is glad to invest his hard-earned savings, or an official his 
 surplus cash, as a share in the joint-stock concern which 
 many of them are. Native banks would appear to restrict 
 their operations more amongst trade, or business people, 
 while the pawnshop comes in for a share of the business 
 which, in England, would otherwise be monopolised by 
 the banks. 
 
 If its shareholders are merchants and officials people 
 of respectability and position so its clientele not only 
 embraces, as in England, the spendthrift, those who live 
 from hand to mouth, the hopelessly impecunious, who are 
 sunk in the lowest depths of poverty, the gambler, the thief, 
 the robber, and the burglar, the opium-smoker (who takes 
 the place so ignominously filled by the drunkard in our 
 countries of the West, though even the drunkard is found 
 in China amongst those who frequent the pawnshop, for has 
 not the poet Tu Fu sung : 
 
 ' From the court every eve to the pawnshop I pass, 
 To come back from the river the drunkest of men. 1 ) ; 
 
 but they also still further boast, in almost equal numbers, 
 the most respectable classes of society as amongst their 
 numerous clients. Rumour now and again whispers that 
 even in London some of those in good positions in the 
 
 503
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 world, as far as family and connections are concerned, 
 contribute customers to the sign of the three gilded balls, 
 but these transactions are done sub rosA and most indignant 
 would these same customers be if they were taxed with 
 them. John Chinaman, unlike John Bull, has nothing to 
 be ashamed of in fact any idea of such a thing as shame 
 entering into his mind with regard to such a common and 
 honest business transaction would not find a lodgment in 
 his brain. The pawnshop is a safe repository for the 
 gentleman's, or lady's, furs in summer, where they will be 
 well taken care of and preserved from the destructive 
 moth ; and, again, in winter, the summer robes of thin and 
 diaphanous material may be carefully housed in the same 
 storehouse. 
 
 There are several classes of pawnshops, but, for all 
 practical purposes, they may be considered as separated 
 into two divisions. They have different regulations as to 
 rates of interest and the length of time unredeemed pledges 
 are kept before being sold, etc. A very common rate of 
 interest is thirty-six per cent, a year. A not unusual sight 
 is a lot of pawn-tickets for sale on a street stall. Those 
 who buy them have, of course, the right of redeeming the 
 articles on pledge for which they are issued. 
 
 Pawnshops form a fine object of attack for burglars or 
 robbers ; and, notwithstanding all the strength of their 
 construction, their massive doors, their narrow windows, and 
 the piles of stones on the roof to throw down on the heads 
 of their assailants, as well as all the precautions taken in 
 early closing, the attacks made on them are sometimes 
 successful. It is dangerous work to engage in, as, if caught, 
 the penalty is death. 
 
 Book recommended. Gray's 'China,' vol. ii., chapter 20. 
 
 PEA-NUT. The following account of this common 
 and well-known ground-nut, AracJiis hypogcea, is from 
 Rein's ' Industries of Japan ' : 
 
 ' A very considerable botanico-geographical interest attaches to 
 this remarkable leguminous herb. Numerous leaves appear on its 
 
 504
 
 Pheasants 
 
 low-lying branching stalk. These are elliptical or oval, inverted, and 
 at their axils grow short-stemmed, yellow blossoms. When these 
 have disappeared their stems lengthen out, the joints sink into the 
 loose sandy soil, where, at a depth of 5-8 cm. below the surface, 
 they develop into little pods, 15-30 mm. long and 10-15 mm thick. 
 As a rule they have a constriction in the middle, deep and gradual. 
 . . . Their grey-white earthy' coloured 'shells contain a seed on each 
 side of the constriction. Shorter ones, without constriction, hold 
 only one. . . . Externally' these seeds 'are a brownish red; inside 
 white. They yield 40-60 per cent, of a fatty oil, which serves almost 
 all the purposes of olive-oil. . . . Brazil was formerly considered to 
 be the original home of the ground-nut ; but now that it has become 
 known how widely distributed it is in Africa, this opinion has been 
 relinquished, and it is held more probable that it was introduced into 
 the New World by Portuguese slave-ships from Africa. In the Old 
 World it is found cultivated in many tropical and sub-tropical 
 countries, though never to the same extent as on the West Coast of 
 Africa, from Senegambia and the regions adjacent down to the Gold 
 Coast, where it is a prominent article of export. Marseilles is the 
 chief market for ground-nuts and the oil they yield. ... In Japan 
 and China, as well as in North America, ground-nuts are usually eaten 
 roasted, and their cultivation is very limited.' 
 
 This last sentence may be true of North China, but in 
 the South they are a common crop. Pea-nut oil \vas the 
 common illuminant before the introduction of kerosene 
 into China ; but it is now disappearing fast before it, or has 
 been completely given up, in many places in favour of the 
 brighter oil. 
 
 PHEASANTS. Marco Polo says : ' Pheasants are 
 found there twice as big as ours, indeed, nearly as big as a 
 peacock, and having tails of seven to ten palms in length.' 
 To this Col. Yule has a note on p. 271 of vol. i. of his 
 2nd edition as follows : ' The China pheasant answering 
 best to the indications in the text appears to be Rceves's 
 Pheasant. Mr. Gould has identified this bird with Marco's 
 in his magnificent Birds of Asia, and has been kind enough 
 to show me a specimen which, with the body, measured 
 6 feet 8 inches. The tail feathers alone, however, are said 
 to reach to 6 and / feet, so that Marco's ten palms was 
 scarcely an exaggeration. These tail-feathers are often 
 seen on the Chinese stage in the cap of the hero of the 
 drama, and also decorate the hats of certain civil function- 
 aries.' 
 
 505
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 The Chinese ring-necked species of pheasant has been 
 successfully introduced into England. 
 
 PHILOSOPHY. We do not propose to enter on a 
 long dissertation on Chinese Philosophy, whether it be 
 ethical as applied to everyday morals, with its five virtues ; 
 or cosmogonal, as applied to the evolution of the finite from 
 the infinite, the conditioned from the unconditioned, and the 
 production of light and darkness. Here one appears to be 
 on solid ground, but when one follows out the reasonings 
 and statements of the ancient philosophy, and comes on 
 stalks of milfoil, and the carapax of a tortoise, the eight 
 diagrams, the eight trigrams notwithstanding the 
 assurance that ' it is very probable that there is underlying ' 
 them, the trigrams, ' a definite system of natural philosophy ' 
 it all appears to the foreign reader, who has not imbibed 
 the true Chinese spirit, which sees ' good in everything ' 
 Chinese to the uncivilised barbarians, that the most of us 
 are outside the pale of the Middle Kingdom, it seems a 
 system of hocus pocus ; the feeling is but little modified 
 though one is assured that the Grand Plan is typified in 
 them, that the dual principles of Nature are working in 
 their midst, and that they ' typify the transformation which 
 the dual principle of Heaven and Earth undergoes in the 
 phenomenal changes of nature.' This is all caviare to the 
 Westerner, who has no taste for Chinese delicacies ; and 
 to the general reader it all seems incomprehensible and 
 unfathomable, for the ancient philosophical worthy who 
 devised these mystic combinations appears to the common 
 mind to have lost himself in the maze of his dreams 
 and speculations. How incoherent the ' Yik King' ('the 
 Classic of Changes ') is, which deals ad nauseam with these 
 diagrams and their commutations, may be gathered from 
 the fact that the late Professor Terrien de Lacouperie 
 asserted it to be a word-book of Accadian or Babylonian 
 words ; but the Chinese, by the aid of commentaries, have 
 read sense and meaning into what would otherwise baffle 
 the common intellect to fathom. 
 
 506
 
 Philosophy 
 
 One turns with more pleasure to the speculations of the 
 heretical Micius (Mih Tsz), who, shunned by the unappre- 
 ciative, orthodox, Chinese scholars, laid it down as a 
 principle ' to love all equally ' ; and the brilliant Chwang 
 Tsz's paradoxes, his fables, his mysticism, are all more 
 congenial to the Western mind more practical in their 
 bearings, notwithstanding all the defects and errors, than 
 the dry sticks of the milfoil and the harder shell of the 
 tortoise, who withdraws under his testudo and resists all the 
 prying efforts of the seekers after knowledge. 
 
 We might wander amidst the speculations of different 
 writers subsequent to the Confucian age, when many were 
 ' distinguished for the boldness of their theories and the 
 freedom of their utterance,' where, besides the names 
 already mentioned, may be cited those of Licius (Leih 
 Tsz), Mencius, Suncius (Sun Tsz), and others, but time will 
 not permit ; nor can we follow the mazes of the speculative 
 philosophy, which ' sprang suddenly into existence ' under 
 the Sung dynasty. In fact, the whole subject is a vast 
 one, diverging into many branches, and worthy of an 
 exhaustive treatise dealing with it alone. We refer the 
 reader to our article on Taoism in this book, for some 
 notice of Chancius (Chwang Tsz), with his vivacity and 
 delirious fertility o imagination, whose writings have been 
 described as ' a storm of dazzling effects.' 
 
 Books recommended. Articles entitled 'Fragmentary Studies in Ancient 
 Chinese Philosophy,' by Rev. E. J. Eitel, Ph.D., in China Review, vol. 
 xv. p. 338, and vol. xvii. p. 2b'. The prolegomena to vol. ii. of Legge's 
 'Chinese Classics,' and the 'Classic of Changes,' translated by the same 
 author, published in the ' Sacred Books of the East ' Series, vol. xvi. 
 ' The Doctrine of the Chi,' a very interesting paper by Sir Chaloner Alabaster, 
 in the China Review, vol. xviii. p. 299. ' The Doctrines of Confucius : A 
 Systematic Digest, according to the Analects, Great Learning, and Doctrine 
 of the Mean, with an Introduction on the Authorities upon Confucius and 
 Confucianism,' by Rev. E. Faber, Th.D. , translated from the German by P. 
 G. von Moellendorlf. 'The Mind of Mencius, or Political Economy Founded 
 upon Moral Philosophy : A Systematic Digest ct the Doctrines of the 
 Chinese Philosopher, Mencius. B.C. 325. The Original Text classified and 
 translated, with notes and explanations by Rev. E. Faber, Th.D., translated 
 from the German, with notes and emendations by Rev. A. P>. Hutchinson.' 
 ' The Divine Classic of Nan Hua, being the works of Chuang Tsx, Taoist 
 Philosopher,' by F. H. Balfour, F.R.G.S. ' Chuang Tzii, Mystic, Moralist, 
 and Social Reformer,' translated by H. A. Giles, contains an interesting note, 
 occupying twenty pages, on the philosophy of chaps. 1-7, by Rev. A. Moore,
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 Oxford, pointing out the parallelisms of thought and reasoning between the 
 Greek philosophy and the Chinese. ' Remarks on the Ethical Philosophy 
 of the Chinese,' by Dr. Martin, in his ' Han Lin Papers.' A paper by Rev. 
 Griffith John, in 'Journal N. C. Br. R.A.iS.,' Sept. I860, and one by 
 Kev. J. Edkins in same Journal for AJay 185 ( J. ' 1 he Philosophy, Ethics, 
 and Religion of Taoism, chielly as developed by Ctnvang Tsz,' by W. P. 
 Mears, Al.A., M.D., in China Itcvieu; vol. xix. p. 225. 
 
 PIDGIN-ENGLISH. When foreigners settled in 
 China, finding the language difficult to learn, and the 
 Chinese finding English nearly equally difficult for them to 
 acquire, a middle course was struck, and the outcome was 
 the mongrel talk, called pidgin-English. We say a middle 
 course was struck, for the words employed are generally 
 English modified to suit the defective pronunciation of the 
 Chinese. For example, the letter r is dropped and / sub- 
 stituted, while the idiom is Chinese, and, in the absence of 
 inflection and declension, the Chinese is again copied. 
 The result has been a most wonderful gibberish, especially 
 when talked in its purity. It is, of course, not at all like 
 Chinese, and so unlike English, that new-comers require to 
 learn it. The difference between it and proper English was 
 once unconsciously and wittily expressed by a Cantonese 
 shop-keeper, who, finding himself at a loss to understand 
 the correct English spoken by a new arrival, turned to his 
 friend, an American, and said : ' Moh bettah you flen 
 talkee Englishee talk, my nosabbee Melican talk.' A very 
 few of the words employed in pidgin-English are Chinese 
 so distorted as to be almost past recognition, while 
 Portuguese, Malay, and Indian have also added a few words 
 to the vocabulary. Some residents have occasionally 
 amused a leisure hour by putting a few of the gems of 
 English literature into this jargon, with the result that 
 diamonds of the first water have been changed into ashes. 
 The soliloquy in Hamlet commencing, in pidgin-English, 
 ' Can do, no can do, how fashion,' as well as ' Excelsior,' 
 and other poems, have shared this fate. We give a 
 specimen at the end of this article, but very few of any of 
 the pieces put into this lingo represent it as it is really 
 spoken, as bs, gs, ds, and rs, are all left in, letters which, when 
 
 508
 
 Pidgin-English 
 
 the Chinese speak it, are not pronounced, but ps, ks, ts, and 
 Is, are used instead. The pidgin-English, as usually 
 written, represents it as it is pronounced by the foreigner, 
 but not as it is spoken by the majority of Chinese, and the 
 latter we would maintain is the proper pidgin-English. 
 
 Fortunately for all concerned, this dialect of English, 
 which has had an existence of more than half a century, 
 seems doomed at last. The extended acquisition of some 
 knowledge of English on the part of the Chinese, is 
 superseding its use, we are thankful to say. One very 
 curious feature in the employment of pidgin-English, is to 
 find Chinese from different parts of the empire, who, on 
 account of the difference in the language spoken by them, 
 are unable to converse together, occasionally forced to use 
 it, in order to be able to hold any communication with each 
 other. 
 
 EXCELSIOR. 
 
 That nightey tim begin chop-chop, 
 One young man walkee no can stop. 
 Maskee snow ! maskee ice ! 
 He cally flag with chop so nice 
 
 Topside Galow ! 
 
 He too muchey solly, one piecee eye 
 Look-see sharp so all same my, 
 He talkey largey, talkey stlong, 
 Too muchee culio all-same gong 
 
 Topside Galow ! 
 
 Inside that house he look-see light, 
 And evely loom got fire all light, 
 He look-see plenty ice more high. 
 Inside he mouth he plenty cly 
 
 Topside Galow ! 
 
 Olo man talkee ' No can walk, 
 By'mby lain come. . . welly dark, 
 Hab got water, welly wide.' 
 ' Maskee ! My wantchey go topside,' 
 
 Topside Galow ! 
 
 ' Man-man,' one girley talkey he ; 
 ' What for you go topside look-see ! : 
 And one tim more he plenty cly, 
 But allo-tim walkee plenty high. 
 
 Topside Galow ! 
 
 509
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 ' Take care t'hat spoil'uni tlee, young man, 
 Take care t'hat ice. He want man-man.' 
 T'hat coolie chin-chin he 'Good-night,' 
 He talkee ' My can go all light.' 
 
 Topside Galow ! 
 
 Joss-pidgin-man he soon begin, 
 Morning-tim t'hat Joss chin-chin, 
 He no man see he plenty fear, 
 Cos some man talkee he can hear. 
 
 Topside Galow ! 
 
 T'hat young man die, one large dog see 
 Too muchee bobbely findee he, 
 He hand blong colo all-same ice. 
 Hab got he flag, with chop so nice. 
 
 Topside Galow ! 
 
 MORAL. 
 
 You too muchee laugh ! what for sing ! 
 I tink so you no savvy what ting ! 
 Supposey you no blong clever inside ! 
 More bettajy^w go walk topside ! 
 
 Topside Galow ! 
 
 Book recommended. Leland's 'Pidgin-English Sing Song' contains a 
 vocabulary, and many pieces put into pidgin-English. 
 
 PIRACY. It must be difficult for those living in our 
 Western lands to understand how piracy on water and 
 highway robbery on land render to a certain extent life and 
 property insecure in China as compared with countries like 
 England, where nowadays such hindrances to travel and 
 trade are rare. 
 
 In a land where living is to many a bare point above 
 absolute want, if harvests fail or floods come, numbers of 
 erstwhile honest villagers may be driven to beggary, or, 
 emboldened by despair, turn into sea robbers or land 
 thieves ; in a land likewise where rebellions are common 
 occurrences, bringing destitution and starvation in their 
 train, it needs but little to drive some of the desperate 
 characters, robbed of all resources, to such a pitch that the 
 life of a gentleman at large preying on the resources of 
 others seems a beneficial change to themselves at least if 
 not to others ; in a land where the soldiery are kept at 
 
 510
 
 Piracy 
 
 starvation wages or not paid at all for months at a time, it is 
 but little wonder that when disbanded such troops, accus- 
 tomed already to loot, should turn to brigandage as only a 
 shade worse morally than the life they have been driven to 
 by their corrupt officers and the effete government. The 
 following extracts will give some idea of the state of 
 things : 
 
 ' Time was . . . when the Two Kwang were the chosen haunt of 
 pirates who were a terror in all the southern seas from Amoy to Java, 
 including the* Philippines, Borneo, Malay Peninsula, etc. The estab- 
 lishment of the British sea power in these waters, however, soon proved 
 the destruction of piracy, British gunboats making it so warm for 
 these freebooters that in the end they practically disappeared, or became 
 merged in the population pursuing lawful avocations afloat. That the 
 old free-booting spirit still survives among many who are now 
 apparently peaceful traders and fishermen, we occasionally get 
 startling proofs in some unexpected daring act of piracy on the high 
 seas or along the coast.' 
 
 With regard to piracy, the British Consul for Canton 
 thus writes in his report for 1894 : 
 
 'While piracy on the coast has nearly disappeared, the inland 
 waters of the province are still infested with robbers. Even in the 
 immediate vicinity of Canton, acts of piracy are committed every 
 day. The passage-boats are armed as if they were going into action. 
 On the roofs of the cabins where the passengers are confined (or what 
 may be called the upper deck") may be seen half-a-dozen old fashioned 
 muzzle-loading cannon well depressed, so as to hit a boat close along- 
 side, and also racks full of modern rifles ready at hand for the use of 
 the crew. Old fishing-nets are hung in folds on each side ready to 
 be spread out as a screen against bullets, and passenger-boats are 
 now being fitted with a grating to separate the men who tread the 
 stern-wheel from the rest of the boat, for the first act of the robbers, 
 whether they push out from the river bank, or rush out from the 
 cabin where they have been posing as honest passengers, is to disable 
 the wheelmen and bring the boat to a stop. On shore there is not 
 much more security. But, with all the lawlessness, foreigners live in 
 perfect safety. In their excursions by land or water they are never 
 [or rather, we should say, scarcely ever] molested. Robbers know that 
 foreigners will make a stouter resistance than the timid Chinese, 
 and that the native authorities would not be allowed to wink at the 
 outrage as they do when the victims are Chinese.' 
 
 The steam-launches which ply between Canton and 
 different cities and villages in the country are armed, and 
 some have a grating of wire-netting round them to prevent 
 pirates getting on board.
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 PLAGUE. Of late years a mysterious disease, which, 
 from the reports received, appeared to be a species of 
 malignant fever, was prevalent in the Yunnan Province, 
 and excited the curiosity of a few of the foreign residents in 
 China, who eagerly scanned any accounts by travellers in 
 the hope of acquiring a fuller knowledge of this fatal 
 malady, which seemed to have made its home in the mephitic 
 valleys of that distant province. No fears were ever 
 entertained that this unwelcome guest of the Yunnanese 
 would start on its erratic rambles and visit with its malign 
 presence and virulent persistence the south-eastern coasts 
 of the empire and commit its ravages beneath the very eyes 
 and, in the British colony of Hongkong, in the actual 
 midst of those who had wondered what it was, thus 
 throwing its defiance indeed in the teeth of Western medical 
 science ; but such was the case, and the unknown visitant 
 proved to be either the black plague of mediaeval days, or 
 closely akin to it. That black plague which we read of in 
 our history books, in magazine articles, and in Defoe, and 
 whose dread presence caused a stagnation of civic life and 
 commerce, spreading a dark pall of misery and distress 
 over merry England, making our centres of life veritable 
 cities of the dead, and finally reducing the population of 
 the country to one-half of what it had been before it 
 expired, according to general opinion, amid the lurid glare 
 of London in flames. 
 
 ' Though not necessarily confined to such, in modern times plague, 
 like leprosy, had become practically a disease of warm climates. The 
 hygienic conditions which advancing civilisation has brought in its 
 train have forced back these two diseases from Europe, where, at one 
 time, they were even more prevalent than they are in their tropical and 
 subtropical haunts at the present day. They are typical examples of 
 that large group of acute and chronic germ diseases whose spread 
 depends on social and hygienic, rather than on climatic, conditions, 
 and more especially on filth and overcrowding ; conditions which 
 nowadays are found, to an extent and an intensity sufficient to ensure 
 the endemic prevalence or epidemic extension of these diseases, only 
 in warm countries.' 
 
 'The most potent circumstances which predispose to the epidemic 
 outbreak of plague are extreme filth and overcrowding. In such 
 circumstances, the virus, once introduced, tends to spread. These 
 conditions, however, are not all sufficient ; for even in the filthiest and 
 
 512
 
 Plague 
 
 most crowded Oriental towns and without any apparent alteration in 
 the habits or circumstances of the population, the disease, after having 
 become epidemic, dies out spontaneously. It may be difficult to 
 indicate the exact way or ways in which filth and overcrowding 
 operate, but certain it is, as experience has shown, that in sanitary 
 hygienic conditions plague does not spread, even if introduced, and 
 that in opposite conditions it may for a time spread like wildfire.' 
 
 ' Filth and overcrowding imply close proximity of the sick and the 
 healthy ; an atmosphere saturated with the emanations of the sick ; a 
 lowered tone of the general health ; abundant saturation of soil and 
 surrounding media with animal refuse, fitting them as a nidus for what 
 might be termed natural culture of the germ ; abundance of bodily 
 vermin of all kinds [See Article on Insects] ; abundance of other 
 vermin, such as rats and mice, which serve as multipliers of the virus ; 
 carelessness about personal cleanliness, about wounds of the hands and 
 feet, about clothing, and about food, dishes, and water. One can 
 understand how in such circumstances the germ has opportunities to 
 multiply and spread.' 
 
 ' Plague, though " catching," is not nearly so infectious as are 
 scarlet fever, measles, small-pox, or even typhus. Medical men, and 
 even nurses, in clean airy hospitals rarely acquire the disease, provided 
 they have no open wounds and do not remain too long in close 
 proximity to their patients. In cities, the cleanly districts are generally 
 spared. This was well exemplified in the late epidemics at Canton 
 and Hongkong, where the airy, cleanly European quarters and the 
 relatively clean, well-ventilated boat population were practically 
 exempt ; whilst the disease ran riot in the adjoining filthy, overcrowded 
 native houses only a few yards away.' 
 
 It is thought that the disease may be conveyed to man 
 in food and drink. 
 
 'As far as present knowledge extends, it seems certain that plague 
 is also communicated by the breath, inasmuch as the special bacilli 
 were found in the saliva of the Vienna victims.' ' The most hopeful 
 branch of the inquiry, as far as we can see at present, is that which 
 relates to the preparation and administration of preventive or curative 
 serums.' 
 
 ' The study of the bubonic plague in India has thrown light upon a 
 bit of Biblical history hitherto not understood. When the Philistines 
 restored the sacred ark to Israel, they sent with it, as an atonement 
 to JAHVE, "five golden tumours and five golden mice" (i Samuel vi. 
 4, R.V.). What the mice had to do with it has been the mystery. 
 The Montreal Medical Journal elucidates it in an article by Dr. J. G. 
 Adami. A peculiar thing about the plague in India is, that it attacks 
 rats and mice. This was noticed at Hongkong in 1894. These 
 vermin, when infected, desert their holes without fear of man, a 
 phenomenon noticed by an old chronicler in England in the seven- 
 teenth century. What is said in i Samuel v. 12, "the men that died 
 not were smitten with the tumours," exactly corresponds to the fact 
 that the swellings characteristic of the disease (called "bubonic," from 
 
 513 2 K
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 Latin bubo, a tumour) are more noticeable in cases that are not fatal. 
 The breaking out of the disease in one Philistine city after another, as 
 the ark was carried from place to place, marks the infectiousncss of 
 the plague, and so does the fact that those who carried the ark back 
 to Israel carried the plague with them. This is described in I Samuel 
 vi. 19 as a Divine judgment : " Because they had looked into the ark 
 of the Lord, He smote of the people seventy men and fifty thousand 
 men." The Authorised Version in this passage translates the Hebrew 
 for swelling by "emerods" (haemorrhoids, or piles), which renders the 
 account of a great mortality incredible ; the Revised Version " tumours " 
 is correct enough, but unintelligible. The mouse, which in the fable 
 gnawed the cord that fastened the lion, has once more done service in 
 freeing this story of mystery, and given an unmistakable realism to 
 what many have regarded as merely a legend from three thousand 
 years ago.' 
 
 ' The first bubonic plague of which we have authentic record is 
 placed by two physicians of N.S.W. in the year 1141 B.C., or more than 
 eight centuries earlier than the date usually assigned. It is concluded 
 that the epidemic described in the ist Book of Samuel was true 
 bubonic plague.' 
 
 Before proceeding to an account of its manifestations 
 in China in recent times, it may be interesting to give a 
 short summary of the known history of the plague. 
 
 ' Plague is perhaps the one disease of which we have an authentic 
 description at periods of time coming down from 430 RC. to mediaeval 
 times (1348) and so through the Great Plague of London (1665-66) to 
 this last epidemic in 1894 [in Hongkong and adjacent country]. The 
 character of the disease seems not to have altered in any way since 
 the time of Thucydides. The sudden invasion and the other 
 symptoms, the buboes and haemorrhages, are all as plainly marked in 
 the Hongkong epidemic as they were in Athens 2,500 years ago. 
 There is one similarity between the epidemic at Athens and the 
 plague of 1665 which we do not find mentioned in Dr. Lowson's report 
 of the Hongkong epidemic, so perhaps the same conditions did not 
 obtain t.e., the absence of other diseases.' The Emperor Julian's 
 physician mentions the plague. We learn from him that it was 
 ' endemic in Egypt and Syria from the beginning of the second 
 century before Christ.' It appeared in Europe in the sixth century. 
 This, it is said, was the first time in history when 'this formidable 
 disease assumed the character of a great epidemic. Breaking out in 
 Justinian's reign (A.D. 542) the disease quickly occupied the whole of 
 the known earth, and began a tragic course which has continued even 
 to our own time.' The black death which swept over the continent of 
 Europe in the fourteenth century had several of the symptoms of 
 bubonic plague, but it differed essentially from it (but see Dr. Manson's 
 opinion below), so one writer informs us, and he proceeds to tell us 
 that Egypt seems to have been the seat of origin of bubonic plague, and 
 Cathay some centuries later of the black death. The ravages of the 
 latter in London in 1665, u 'hen 70,000 died of it, are well known, as well 
 as the outbreak in 1720 in Marseilles, after which it appeared in neither 
 
 514
 
 Plague 
 
 England nor France, retiring to the easternmost part of the Turkish 
 Kmpire in the beginning of the nineteenth century, and disappearing 
 altogether from the continent of Europe in 1841. 'Prior to 1661, 
 there are almost continuous records from year to year of the presence 
 of the disease in Northern Africa, Asia, and Europe generally, and it 
 is worthy of note that as first one country and then another in Europe 
 adopted some systematic form of drainage and improved habits of 
 life, so soon did the plague disappear from these countries.' To 
 epitomise: 'For 1,200 years it was pre-eminent among pestilential 
 maladies. In the sixteenth century, when quarantine was established, 
 69 outbreaks were recorded in Europe ; in the seventeenth century, 
 56 ; in the eighteenth, 28 ; in the first half of the nineteenth, 15. In 
 1844 it apparently became extinct. But about ten years afterwards 
 it again showed itself in the Levant, and has since occurred in various 
 parts of Asia and North Africa and even in Europe.' 
 
 A most interesting account is also contained in ' Tropical 
 Diseases,' pp. 144-146, of the history of the plague, which 
 does not quite agree with the extract given above, and is 
 fuller, in fact too long to be inserted here. 
 
 After the foregoing, especially after the last sentences, 
 a few notes by Dr. Manson in 1878, prefatory to a transla- 
 tion of M. Rocher's account of the plague in Yunnan are 
 very interesting. Speaking of M. Rocher's statement, he 
 says : 
 
 'They prove unmistakably the existence of bubonic plague in 
 China, and that this dread disease has spread over a larger area of 
 late years than is generally known. They are of great value as 
 showing that the disease did not entirely disappear between the years 
 1844 and 1873 as some epidemiologists believe, and thus do away 
 with the supposition that in the latter year there was a re-creation of 
 the plague virus. 
 
 ' In 1844, the plague disappeared completely from Egypt and 
 Turkey in Asia, and we were told to congratulate ourselves on being 
 finally rid of the most terrible of all epidemic diseases. For years 
 there was no sign of it in its favourite haunts, and there seemed good 
 reason for the belief that it had become a thing of the past. But in 
 1873, after an absence of nearly thirty years, it once more broke out 
 in Mesopotamia, and ever since has been steadily extending its area, 
 till last year it reached the shores of the Caspian. To account for 
 this reappearance after so long a period of complete absence, some 
 epidemiologists have propounded their belief in the spontaneous 
 generation of the plague virus, as it is absurd to suppose that parasites 
 could retain their infective powers for nearly thirty years. But in the 
 light of M. Rocher's notes such a thing is unnecessary, as his dates 
 bridge over twenty years at least of the thirty during which the 
 disease was supposed to be dead, and show that an extensive 
 epidemic may rage in Mid-Asia, and Europe be in complete ignorance 
 
 515
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 of the fact. In such a country as Central Asia, where the distances 
 are great and travelling very slow, we can understand that such a 
 disease as plague would take a long time to pass from west to east 
 and back again from east to west, and that an interval of thirty years 
 might elapse before the disease returned again to the place whence it 
 started. Our knowledge of the countries to the north of the Hima- 
 layas is so meagre, and communication with them so difficult, that the 
 plague might pass through them without our hearing about it at all, 
 and one can readily suppose that it did actually pass thus from 
 Yunnan to Mesopotamia or Persia to originate the epidemic at present 
 raging in these countries. M. Rocher's description of the disease is 
 sufficiently clear to justify us in calling it plague.' 
 
 The first time we are aware of it in China was in 1844, 
 but it did not work so much havoc as in 1894. One of the 
 first authentic accounts, as far at all events as is known at 
 present, of it in this land is contained in the following 
 paragraph from the Overland Friend of China, of 23rd 
 May 1850: 
 
 ' The city of Canton and the neighbour-towns and villages are 
 afflicted by a malignant fever. It is commonly called typhus ; some 
 European physicians are of opinion that it is akin to the yellow fever 
 of the West Indies ; others think that it resembles t lie plague which de- 
 solated London two centuries ago. The disease is said to be fatal 
 invariably, its victims linger three or four days, though in some 
 instances they have died in twelve hours. More than one European 
 doctor cheerfully tender their services, but the Chinese are obstinate 
 in their adherence to old custom old ignorant quackery. The 
 distemper has not made its appearance at the Factories, and as it 
 may arise from a want of cleanliness among the people, we are in 
 hopes that it will not extend to Europeans.' 
 
 We are unable to say what the death rate was during 
 this visitation, though hundreds are said to have died, nor 
 can we tell whether there had been previous epidemics of 
 it in Canton. Chinese accounts, with their utter ignorance 
 of all medical knowledge, are so meagre and untrustworthy 
 when dealing with historic invasions of sickness that they 
 are extremely unsatisfactory, and the diseases they mention 
 are difficult of identification, especially would such be the 
 case were the plague the subject-matter of a terse, short para- 
 graph by a Chinese historian. We should almost suppose 
 that had it approached anything to the horrors of the 
 epidemic at Canton in 1894, more extended notice of it 
 would have been taken by the foreign papers published in 
 
 516
 
 Plague 
 
 the South of China. For even before the end of its duration 
 in Hongkong in the epidemic of 1894, tne deaths in the city 
 of Canton alone were estimated, from the beginning of the 
 outbreak until the iSth of June, at 35,000, while the 
 number of deaths in the villages around could not be 
 ascertained. 
 
 We learn from a missionary lady, resident for some 
 time in the Pok-lo District, in the Canton Province, that in 
 that district or in the Hakka country near there, the 
 Chinese say they have had the plague several times ; but 
 it had never been so fatal as in 1894, ninety per cent, dying 
 in that year, whereas only sixty or eighty per cent, of those 
 who took it died previously. We have endeavoured to 
 learn from inquiry amongst natives of different districts of 
 country whether there were local traditions of visitations of 
 the plague in their respective districts ; but all the evidence 
 we were able to gather, and it was but small in quantity, 
 was of a negative character. There would appear to be 
 ' very little literature on the subject.' One would fancy 
 there would be not a few notices of such a dreadful disease ; 
 some may yet be discovered ; but we have examined book 
 after book to try and find some little mention of it. They 
 almost all display a most wonderful unanimity in keeping 
 a discreet and profound silence on the subject. We 
 carefully looked through a standard Chinese work, on the 
 Canton Province, only to be disappointed. Authorities 
 appear in their voluminous tomes to flee all references 
 to epidemics almost even as their authors would fly from 
 the plague itself. 
 
 Before proceeding to an account of this 1894 epidemic, 
 which brought the plague under the immediate purview of 
 European medical science and knowledge, it would be more 
 historically correct to call attention to its ravages in the 
 province of Yunnan. We are indebted for accounts of it in 
 that province to the narratives of travellers, and notices 
 by one or two of the few residents in that distant portion 
 of China. From the notes on the route followed by Mr. 
 Grosvenor's Mission through Western Yunnan, from 
 
 517
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 Tali-fu to T'eng-yueh, reprinted from the Parliamentary 
 Report, China, No. 3 (1878), we extract the following: 
 
 'Another strange disease which haunts this and some other of 
 the valleys of Yiinnan bears, in some respects, a resemblance to the 
 plague of London described by Defoe. 
 
 ' Its approach is indicated by the eruption of one or more minute 
 red pustules, generally in the arm-pits, but occasionally in other 
 glandular regions. If several pustules appear, the disease is not 
 considered so hopeless as when there are few. The sufferer is 
 soon seized with extreme weakness, followed in a few hours by 
 agonising aches in every part of the body ; delirium shortly ensues, 
 and in nine cases out of ten the result is fatal. 
 
 'It often happens that the patient suddenly, to all appearance, 
 recovers, leaves his bed, and affirms that, beyond a slight sensation 
 of weakness, he feels thoroughly convalescent. This is invariably a 
 fatal sign ; in about two hours the aches return, and the sufferer dies. 
 
 ' True recovery is always very gradual. This is the account 
 given us by a French missionary, who has spent half a lifetime in 
 Yunnan. The native version includes all the above facts, but 
 involves them in a cloud of superstitious accessories ; for instance, all 
 parts of the sick-room are occupied by devils ; even the tables and 
 mattresses writhe about and utter voices, and offer intelligible replies 
 to any one who questions them. 
 
 ' Few, however, venture into the chamber. The missionary 
 assured me that the patient is, in most cases, deserted like a leper, 
 for fear of contagion. If an elder member of the family is attacked, 
 the best attention he receives is to be placed in a solitary room, with 
 a vessel of water by his side. The door is secured, and a pole laid 
 near it, with which twice a day the anxious relatives, cautiously 
 peering in, poke and prod the sick person to discover if he retains 
 any symptoms of life. 
 
 ' Pere Fenouil .... had himself witnessed many cases of the 
 disease, and lived in infected towns. He attributes his own safety to 
 the precautions he took of fumigating his premises and keeping 
 charcoal braziers constantly burning, to such an extent, indeed, that 
 his house on one occasion actually took fire. He states that not 
 only human beings, but domestic animals and even rats are attacked 
 by the pestilence. 
 
 ' Its approach may often be known from the extraordinary move- 
 ments of the rats, who leave their holes and crevices and issue on to 
 the floors without a trace of their accustomed timidity, springing 
 continually upwards from their hind legs, as if they were trying to 
 jump out of something. The rats fall dead, and then comes the turn 
 of the poultry ; after the poultry have succumbed, pigs, goats, ponies, 
 and oxen successively die off. 
 
 ' The good father has a theory of his own that the plague is really 
 a pestilential emanation slowly rising in an equable stratum from the 
 ground, and as it increases in depth all animals are, as it were, 
 
 5 I8
 
 Plague 
 
 drowned in its poisonous flood the smaller creatures being first 
 engulfed, and man, the tallest of Yunnan animals, suffering last. 
 
 'The Christian converts suffer less than their pagan countrymen 
 from the superior cleanliness which, as we were informed, their faith 
 inculcates. 
 
 ' We ourselves never saw any cases of the plague ; but we met 
 one native of South-western China, no less a personage than the 
 Governor of the Yiinnan province, Ts'en, a quiet, sober-spoken 
 veteran of a hundred battles, deeply marked between the eyes with a 
 scar inflicted by a rebel bullet. He had undergone two attacks ; the 
 second was less violent than the first. He remembered nothing of 
 the acute period of the illness, but in both cases his recovery was 
 gradual and protracted. 
 
 ' He attributed it to the influence of demons ; and we afterwards 
 heard a characteristic instance of his faith in his own diagnosis. 
 The headquarters of his division during the Mohammedan rebellion 
 were situated in a plague-stricken town, and when the infection began 
 to attack his troops, Ts'en had all the gates closed except that in the 
 southern wall, and then sent in his soldiers with orders to slash 
 and pierce the air in every corner that could possibly harbour a demon. 
 After this preliminary slaughter the men were formed in line against 
 the inside of the north walls, and gradually advanced upon the south 
 gate, hemming in the invisible fiends, and ultimately driving them 
 with a final rush through the gate, which was immediately closed and 
 a strong guard placed outside. But somehow or other the goblins 
 contrived to regain the interior of the city ; by what means has 
 not been ascertained ; but it is surmised that they climbed over the 
 wall.' 
 
 The following summary of M. Rocher's account of the 
 Plague was prepared by the author, and appeared in one of 
 the Hongkong local papers in 1894 : 
 
 Some interesting notes on the plague are appended to 
 M. Rocher's ' La Province Chinoise Yiinnan,' as well as 
 some observations on it in the body of the work itself. 
 
 Any information about this disease at the present time 
 being desirable, we have embodied what was to be gathered 
 from the above work in the following paragraphs, so that 
 others who may not have the book in their libraries may 
 have the opportunity of seeing what has been said about 
 it 
 
 M. Rocher informs us that the plague is known in that 
 part of the country by the name of yang-tzu. In Hong- 
 kong, however, we find the Chinese speak of it as wan-yik, 
 the epidemic. Not only does it claim numerous victims 
 each year in Yunnan, but it also commits its ravages 
 
 519
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 amongst the Laos, as well as on the frontier of the neigh- 
 bouring province of Kweichou. 
 
 From the information given to M. Rocher, he was led to 
 believe that this disease came from Burmah by means of 
 the caravans passing between that country and China. 
 The time of its first advent seems uncertain, some being of 
 the opinion that it first showed itself in the centre and east 
 of the province at the time of the great Mohammedan 
 rebellion ; while a few hold that it was known in the west 
 of the province at Ta-li-fu some years before that event 
 
 A very curious feature noticed in Yunnan is the sus- 
 ceptibility of the lower animals to what is believed 
 to be the malignant miasma which causes the disease. 
 The inhabitants of the sewers or the dwellers underground 
 are the first that are attacked by this fell plague. The 
 rats, driven from their holes, rush into the houses, 
 maddened by the mephitic vapours which they have 
 inhaled, and shortly give up the ghost ; but more often the 
 foul odours from their dead bodies under the flooring is a 
 proof of the deadly work which is going on. All animals, 
 large and small, are subject to the same infection : buffaloes, 
 cows, sheep and goats, and the poultry to a lesser extent. 
 Some, at all events, of the animals seem to suffer less than 
 man from it. 
 
 On his arrival in these parts, M. Rocher refused 
 credence to the stories of the natives, believing them to be 
 due to the effect of imagination or to superstitious fears ; 
 but on the pest bursting forth in the very district in which 
 he was, and having then ocular demonstration of the truth 
 of the reports he had heard, his unbelief was changed to 
 faith. 
 
 The precautions taken nearly everywhere were to light 
 fires in all the rooms in order to purify the houses ; and the 
 people in certain cities and districts abstained from the 
 meat par excellence of the Chinese pork. 
 
 M. Rocher describes this bubonic plague as commencing 
 with a high fever (we can scarcely do better than give what 
 immediately follows in his own words) ' accompanied by an 
 
 520
 
 Plague 
 
 intense thirst ; some hours after a deep red tumour appears 
 in the armpits, the groin, or the neck ; the fever increases 
 and the patient soon loses consciousness ; the tumour 
 usually increases in size until the second day, after which 
 it remains stationary. The patient then appears to recover 
 his senses, but he is still in great danger; for, if the tumour 
 which up to that time has been very hard becomes soft and 
 if the fever does not diminish he is considered as lost ; on 
 the contrary, if the-tumour is pierced on the outside, which 
 rarely happens, there is hope of saving him ; but at this 
 stage the patient is so weakened that although the tumour 
 may have broken he dies of exhaustion.' 
 
 Strange to say, notwithstanding the extreme repug- 
 nance the Chinese have to the surgeon's knife, M. Rocher 
 tells us that some of the Chinese doctors have tried the 
 effect of cutting or excising these tumours ; but whether it 
 be that the operation is put off too long or unskilfully per- 
 formed, very few of the patients have survived the amateur 
 efforts of their physicians. The strongest remedy that 
 they employ under these circumstances is musk, which is 
 prescribed in strong doses as a last resource. Dr. Porter 
 Smith informs us that musk is ' believed by Chinese 
 authors to be a rousing, stimulating, anti-spasmodic, de- 
 obstruent, expectorant, diaphoretic, ecbolic, anthelmintic, 
 and vulnerary remedy, . . . and enters into the composi- 
 tion of ointments for dressing ulcers and sores.' 
 
 M. Rocher saw a great many cases of the plague in 
 Yunnan, and most of them had a fatal result The pro- 
 portion of the inhabitants affected by it differs in different 
 places ; in some spots, where it may be described as simply 
 passing, from 4 to 6 per cent, were attacked by it ; while 
 in other localities the population was completely decimated 
 by this awful scourge, whole families even being swept 
 away by it. The inhabitants in such districts, driven from 
 hearth and home, even leave their crops, and flee from the 
 fell foe to the heights. Nor does flight ensure their safety 
 at all times, for we are told that even to these upper regions 
 the plague very often follows them, invading the mountains 
 
 521
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 after having ravaged the plains, and on these higher levels 
 likewise claiming numerous victims, the neighbouring 
 heights near the cities also suffering from it. 
 
 The insanitary habits of the Chinese with regard to the 
 disposal of those who succumb to the disease so much in 
 accord with similar methods prevalent in many parts of 
 the Celestial Empire, where the dead are often of more 
 importance than the living contributes greatly to aggra- 
 vate the situation, so M. Rocher informs us is his opinion ; 
 and we can readily believe it when we are told by him that 
 instead of burying the bodies of those who have died from 
 the pest, the natives are content to place the coffins in the 
 open air, either on the slopes of the hills or on the plains, 
 exposed to the fierce rays of the tropical sun, with what 
 results it does not need even the help of a lively imagination 
 to picture. 
 
 In the years 1871, 1872, and 1873, the plague began in 
 May and June, the time of the planting of the rice ; the 
 summer season, which is the rainy season, seemed to check 
 its activity ; but it redoubled its energies and claimed the 
 most of its victims during the period extending from 
 harvest till the end of the year. 
 
 A strange circumstance noted by M. Rocher is that the 
 epidemic at several places in the middle and north of the 
 province overleapt certain spots in its course, or passed 
 them by, and left them untouched until several months 
 after or even until the following year, when it returned 
 to the places thus apparently forgotten. Having attacked 
 nearly all the villages in the plains, the plague sought 
 new fields for its devastations by ascending to the moun- 
 tains and committing numerous ravages amongst the 
 aborigines. M. Rocher gathered, from what he had seen 
 and from the irregular manner in which the disease 
 appeared, that it must have been imported into these 
 higher localities by the men and women who go at certain 
 times of the year to work in the plains. More colour 
 appears to be given to this view from the fact that it is 
 after the rice has been planted or when the harvest is 
 
 122
 
 Plague 
 
 ended that this scourge leaves the low-lying country for 
 the heights. 
 
 An interesting sketch-map is given in the book to 
 illustrate the course of the plague in 1871 and 1872 and in 
 1872 and 1873, showing the places where the most victims 
 succumbed and the spots where the visitation simply 
 passed with slight mortality. This map was prepared from 
 official sources of information and from other knowledge of 
 the matter obtained by M. Rocher. It appears to have 
 followed a most curious zigzag route on both occasions in 
 its erratic course. M. Rocher also informs us in a note 
 on the map that certain cities and principal towns of the 
 west of the province have been successively visited by the 
 pest, and in some districts it has remained during several 
 years permanent amongst the troops which were carrying 
 on operations against the rebels. 
 
 The late Mr. Happer, Commissioner of Customs at 
 Mengtzu for some years, thus writes about it in 1889 : 
 
 ' In spite of such a favourable climate, Mengtzu, in common with 
 other parts of Yiinnan, has suffered annually, for a period of years, 
 from the plague . . . which has carried off a number of its inhabitants. 
 Indeed the presence of fallow land in the near neighbourhood of the 
 city is attributed to the decimation of the farming population by the 
 pest. ... A curious fact about the disease [in Yiinnan] is, that it 
 never descends to places under 12,000 of altitude above the sea, and 
 it rarely scales heights over 7,200 feet high. Strangely enough also, 
 it seldom attacks people sojourning in Yunnan from other provinces, 
 its victims being confined to the aborigines, and to native-born 
 Chinese.' 
 
 With regard to it in 1895, it is stated : 
 
 The season in Mengtszu in 1895 'up to July had been very dry, 
 but the first few days of that month were wet, and shortly afterwards 
 the plague began with its wonted virulence. The disease was pre- 
 valent and fatal during July and August, and remained till towards 
 the end of September. Various estimates of the number of victims, 
 are given, from 800 to 1,500. The neighbouring towns suffered 
 severely, the malady even raging in Lo-lo villages considerably over 
 6,000 feet above the sea level. At the commencement of the 
 epidemic the Chinese thought it would disappear with the arrival of 
 the autumn (8th August), but the disease prevailed till it had run its 
 course, which requires about three months' time, as shown by the 
 records kept since the establishment of the Mengtszu Customs in 
 1889.' 
 
 523
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 'The plague appeared in Mengtszu as usual [in 1897], but it was 
 not, apparently, as virulent as in former years, and ran a shorter course. 
 The first death was reported on 3 1st May, and no deaths were reported 
 after 6th August. The estimated mortality from plague in the city 
 was from 250 to 300.' 
 
 It still continues at Mengtzu. It is said to have been 
 worse in 1896 than it had ever been before. The deaths 
 were then estimated to number thirty per day out of a 
 population of 30,000. ' Every evening the Taotai has his 
 troops drawn up in the courtyard of the Yamen to fire 
 their rifles in all directions to frighten the plague demons.' 
 
 A more recent report ( 1 899) says that it appears to be 
 dying out in that neighbourhood, though this has been 
 denied. 
 
 The plague has been endemic for many years at Pakhoi, 
 a small treaty port situated in the Kwongtung Province 
 and on the Gulf of Tonquin ; but takes an epidemic form 
 there at intervals of five or ten years or even more fre- 
 quently. It first occurred there in 1867, recurring at 
 certain intervals ; severe outbreaks took place in 1877, 1882, 
 and 1 894. In the last year it began in ' March, continuing 
 with lessening severity till the end of June, but at Lien 
 Chow city, twelve miles distant, it lasted till August.' The 
 mortality was estimated at Pakhoi in 1882 to be 400 or 500 
 out of a population of 25,000, the average a day, when at 
 its height, being ten. The people were almost panic- 
 stricken at its commencement and fled the town. Rats 
 were attacked, but no other animals. There were three 
 groups of symptoms of the disease as it manifested itself 
 respectively in Pakhoi, Yunnan, and India. In 1894 it 
 was worse in point of mortality than ever before 300 or 
 400 having died at Pakhoi by the middle of May when it 
 was abating. From Chinese sources it is learned that 
 before 1875 only about 100 people had died in any year of 
 plague at Pakhoi ; in 1884, 50 or 60 ; in 1891, about 40 or 
 50. We have already mentioned the mortality in 1882 
 and 1894. 'Native doctors in Pakhoi prescribed what 
 they call "cooling remedies" such as rhubarb. It appears 
 they do not treat the bubo locally.' The natives at Pakhoi 
 
 524
 
 Plague 
 
 1 burn joss-stick and a plant, the sweet flag, which are 
 supposed to have prophylactic power as disinfectants.' In 
 1894 they bought a great deal of foreign disinfecting fluid. 
 Dr. Deane of Pakhoi says of it : 
 
 'The disease appears in one locality and seems as restricted as 
 though it were in a bottle. One house may be so bad that anyone 
 entering it will be seized, but the next house quite free from all 
 danger.' ' Many perfectly healthy men take the disease and die next 
 day.' ' It is endemic to a particular locality.' ' In Pakhoi it does not 
 appear as an epidemic generally, but only in the most evil-smelling 
 quarters.' 
 
 Pakhoi escaped the epidemic in 1895, being practically 
 free from it, though Kotak, a village near the port, had a 
 slight visitation. 
 
 It is curable in Pakhoi when brought to the missionary 
 hospital as soon as the symptoms appear, but ' nothing can 
 be done in the advanced stages.' 
 
 The plague is essentially a disease that delights in ' filth 
 and insanitary surroundings.' The simple drainage systems 
 in vogue in Chinese cities are periodically flushed by nature 
 at the season of the year when they would prove most 
 dangerous to the inhabitants, viz., during the hot and sultry 
 summer which is the rainy season in the South of China. 
 So effectively do the torrential rains sweep away the 
 accumulation of weeks and months that it would be 
 extremely difficult for man to compete with them. But 
 their work is stultified to a large extent by the crass 
 ignorance of all sanitary matters by the Chinese and by 
 their utter indifference to the offensive odours which give 
 warning of the dangers to life and health around them. 
 No, or but very little, supplementary aid is given to the 
 cleansing rains, so when a period of draught ensues, the 
 inhabitants naturally suffer from their neglect of the filth 
 which surrounds them and the effluvia therefrom, whose 
 subtle essence permeates the whole atmosphere which they 
 breathe. Given such conditions, the plague, if once intro- 
 duced, runs a wild riot in its congenial surroundings, 
 resisting and defying all the puny efforts put forth by the 
 natives for its extermination. It revels in its filthy haunts ; 
 
 525
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 it ensconces itself in the malodorous districts and fetid 
 precincts of a Chinese city, town, or village, where filth is 
 never wanting, where the soil is saturated with the escaped 
 drainage of centuries, where every street corner is a dust- 
 bin, where every vacant lot is a dirt-heap, where the 
 frontage of the houses on the rivers is a rubbish-shoot, and 
 the banks are a dumpage-ground for all refuse, where every 
 house is an omnium gatherum of dust, dirt, and cobwebs ; 
 where in some cases the kitchen is a urinal and the market 
 gardens are fertilised with night soil, and where in the 
 midst of houses the public latrines scent the whole 
 neighbourhood with their filthy odour, where in the early 
 hours of the forenoon the scavengers almost render the 
 family streets impassable to a foreigner by their necessary 
 offices for the houses in which the modern conveniences of 
 Western civilisation are unknown ; where the most 
 elementary sanitary laws are never dreamt of and utterly 
 ignored by the inhabitants, where even the well-to-do are 
 often unclean and filthy in their habits, in their clothing, in 
 their surroundings ; where the poorest wear their scanty 
 clothes in rags and alive with vermin till it almost drops in 
 pieces from them ; and where overcrowding prevails to the 
 utter disregard of ventilation and fresh air. What wonder 
 then that with such a welcome reception ready for it, the 
 plague, like the evil spirit in the parable, returns again, not 
 often, however, like the evil spirit, to find the place swept 
 and garnished, but with the same filthy conditions ever 
 present, inviting its return. What wonder also that year 
 after year the visit is repeated. 
 
 ' Plague is developed under three sets of conditions, (a) local con- 
 ditions affecting communities, (b} certain relations between persons 
 sick of the disease and healthy persons, (c) particular seasonal in- 
 fluences, (a) . . . The conditions "which determined and favoured " 
 the disease among communities were dwelling upon alluvial and 
 marshy soils, notably those found near the shores of the Mediterranean, 
 and on the banks of certain great rivers, such as the Nile, Euphrates, 
 Danube, and Yangtsz, a warm and humid atmosphere ; low, badly 
 ventilated and crowded houses ; great accumulation of putrefying 
 animal and vegetable matter in the vicinity of dwellings, unwhole- 
 some and insufficient food, excessive physical and moral misery and 
 neglect of the laws of health as well public as private. Although out- 
 
 526
 
 Plague 
 
 breaks of plague occur in marshy soils, it is not confined to them, as 
 evidenced by its persistence in Kumaun on the Himalayan mountains 
 and the . . . outbreak in Hongkong. Colvill and Cabiadio ascribe 
 poverty as the influential condition in promoting plague, (b) Persons 
 living in the same house arc peculiarly liable to suffer, while those 
 who are only brought into occasional contact (as the physician) are 
 rarely affected. ... (c) Seasonal changes. In Mesopotamia, it was 
 noticed that the disease became dormant with the setting in of the 
 hot weather, reawakening in the winter and gathering force with the 
 advancing spring. In Constantinople, on the contrary, the disease 
 was dormant in the colder months and active during the hotter. The 
 same was true of the great plague of London, the records showing 
 that September was the month of greatest prevalence, the disease 
 rising through July and August.' 
 
 The plague would appear to be one of Nature's scourges 
 for the punishment of those who disobey her laws and for 
 instruction in the elementary rules of sanitary science. 
 Unfortunately, Orientals find the lesson a difficult one to 
 learn, and the innocent dwellers amongst them also suffer 
 with the guilty. 
 
 We now come to the terrible visitation of the plague in 
 Hongkong in 1894. It was probably introduced into this 
 British Colony from the city of Canton, only distant 90 
 miles, between which places there is constant daily com- 
 munication by native boats and foreign steamers, there 
 being 11,090 passengers every week from Canton; many 
 patients were fleeing from the plague in that city where it 
 had began in the February of that year. The deaths in 
 Canton from it during the first four months of 1894 were to 
 be numbered amongst the tens of thousands. 
 
 The first official knowledge of the plague in Hongkong 
 was in May 1894, though it is suspected that it had been 
 present in the Colony for some weeks at least before that, 
 though unknown to the authorities, any cases of death from 
 it having probably been registered as due to fever or other 
 causes, no medical certificate of death being required from 
 the Chinese. The native quarters of the city presented an 
 exceptionally favourable field of operations for it, and it 
 spread with great rapidity through the narrow streets, in 
 the blind alleys, amid the crowded tenements, claiming its 
 victims from young and old alike whether at home or 
 
 527
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 abroad, for several cases occurred of men dropping down 
 dead in the streets. 
 
 No rain had fallen for a considerable time and there was 
 a scarcity of water in the Colony, an intermittent supply 
 being furnished to the inhabitants ; the drainage system, 
 which had been begun without any system in the early 
 days of Hongkong and had not kept pace with the require- 
 ments of the population, was in a transition state towards a 
 complete renovation. T'dip'ingshan, which formed the head- 
 quarters of the epidemic, was built at the foot of a steep 
 mountain side and facing the north, the breezes being kept 
 off, as in a great part of the city, to a considerable extent 
 by the Peak. The filth which had accumulated in the 
 dwellings is almost indescribable, and would scarcely be 
 credited by those who do not know how the Chinese live'; 
 the soil was saturated and reeking with half a century's 
 sullage water and leakages from sewers ; while the ground 
 floors, really no misnomer in many cases, as whatever 
 flooring tiles there might originally have been, were often 
 covered by inches of dirt and hardened mud, a compost 
 teeming with germs of disease ; underground basements 
 were occupied not only by workmen during the day as 
 workshops, but were used as sleeping dens at nights ; the 
 rooms, small and ill-ventilated enough already, were in the 
 majority of cases further diminished in size and the atmos- 
 phere rendered more foul by being subdivided by low board 
 partitions into cubicles, and, not content with this, a 
 horizontal division of the apartments was effected by cock- 
 lofts, or mezzanine floors, and these latter were in some 
 cases even partitioned off into little tiny rooms, and in some 
 rooms, a second cockloft would even be found ; the streets 
 and lanes were narrow and intricate ; the houses which had 
 originally been built low and of only one or two storeys, of 
 late years had in many cases been replaced by higher 
 dwellings, and every available piece of ground in the city 
 was being rapidly built over, so that what was once a 
 sparsely populated district was soon converted into a 
 congested mass of buildings with but little means of 
 
 528
 
 Plague 
 
 ventilation ; where even in some houses an open verandah 
 would offer some chance of fresh air, the Chinese would, 
 unless under constant supervision, quickly economise the 
 space by either enclosing the verandah or putting up bed- 
 rooms in it. 
 
 The enhanced price of land, the raising of rents, the 
 attempts to solve the problem of how to live upon next to 
 nothing all tended in the one direction, that of rendering 
 the native quarters a hotbed of disease, by favouring the 
 overcrowding of houses on the land, and the overcrowding 
 of the inhabitants in those houses. Every facility was 
 thus offered for the spread of the disease, and once fairly 
 started it continued to hold its ground all through the 
 summer, the number of cases rapidly increasing, the deaths 
 keeping almost equal pace with it, until the latter reached 
 the number of 70 or 80 per diem ; but by this time half the 
 Chinese population had fled the Colony in terror, ill and 
 well, all attempting to get away from the plague-infected 
 city ; the streets presented a very different aspect from the 
 period when a full tide of life flowed through them, business 
 was seriously affected, the foreign trade of the Colony 
 greatly hampered, the outlook was dismal in the extreme, 
 many steamers were afraid of calling at the port, the law 
 courts were nearly deserted, the schools were almost for- 
 saken ; in the foreign offices, pots of chloride of lime stood 
 at every desk, or disinfectants were freely used about the 
 premises. The plague proclamation was in force in 
 Hongkong for nearly four months, from the loth May 
 until the 3rd September 1894, and during that time there 
 were 2,547 deaths in the Colony from it. How many 
 really died of it will, however, never really be known, 
 as many fled the Colony, going up to Canton and the 
 neighbouring country while ill. 
 
 As soon as the Government and the foreign residents 
 realised what this dreadful disease that had come amongst 
 them was, energetic measures were taken to cope with it. 
 A committee was formed to advise and direct operations, 
 bodies of the troops, residents, police, and officials formed 
 
 529 - L
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 ' whitewash brigades,' which went to the infected houses, 
 tore down the cocklofts and partitions, cleared out the 
 rubbish, and burnt the dtbris ; a burial party was formed, in 
 which sailors under the leadership of an official did gallant 
 service. The greatest praise is due to all we have 
 mentioned and to many whom we cannot mention, for with 
 the greatest bravery they ran unknown risks for the benefit 
 of their fellowmen. Several of the soldiers and one 
 officer succumbed to the infection if there be any glory 
 in death itself at all, theirs was a more glorious death than 
 on a field of battle. Doctors came from different places to 
 assist, and much was added to our knowledge of the plague 
 during this visitation in Hongkong. A Japanese doctor, 
 Dr. Kitasato, a student of Koch's in Berlin, first discovered 
 the plague bacillus in Hongkong in 1894, and Yersin, a 
 French doctor afterwards, while another of the Japanese 
 who came to the Colony to investigate the disease died 
 from it. 
 
 The efforts of the Europeans were often misunderstood 
 by the ignorant Chinese, and the strong hand of the law 
 was required to enforce obedience ; in fact, many of the 
 natives had fled from the Colony in consequence of the 
 measures taken to cope with and overcome the plague. 
 
 Concerning infection from this much dreaded disease, 
 Dr. Lowson says that it is stated that ' skin to skin infection 
 is impossible unless the one to be infected has some wound 
 and the infecter's skin has been soiled by feces, blood, or 
 the contents of buboes,' but there are sufficient other 
 methods of infection known, or suspected, to render the 
 horrible dread the Chinese had of it well founded The 
 period of incubation may extend to nine days, or even less, 
 though in the case of rats it is two or three. 
 
 In the first commencement of the plague, the symptoms 
 may be varied, an anxious terrified expression is common, 
 and fever and buboes are also signs, but not of course 
 infallible, the temperature as a rule rises gradually, ' and in 
 most severe cases the tendency is for the temperature to 
 keep about the same level for some time ' ; but we cannot 
 
 530
 
 Plague 
 
 go into a full report of the symptoms. Those who are 
 interested in them will find them fully described in Dr. 
 Lowson's valuable paper. The death rate amongst those 
 attacked in Hongkong in 1894 was as follows : 
 
 Chinese 93'4 per cent. 
 
 Indians 77 
 
 Japanese 60 
 
 Eurasians 100 
 
 Europeans i8'2 
 
 The Chinese lacked efficient medical attendance in 
 many cases they would have nothing to do with foreign 
 doctors, while Europeans called in properly trained 
 physicians, and that, in most cases, right early. At the 
 same time there is no doubt that the European constitution 
 was better able to withstand this fearful disease. Judged 
 by the percentage of deaths in those attacked, the Eurasians 
 would appear to have the worse constitutions of all. 
 
 ' About ten acres of the most densely populated part of 
 the city was closed by the Government at the height of the 
 epidemic, and the inhabitants turned out of their dwellings 
 and housed elsewhere. The streets were walled up, and 
 constables were stationed to prevent egress to the " for- 
 bidden city."' In this quarter of the city, T'aip'ingshan, 
 nearly every house had plague in it, and most of the houses 
 were unfit for habitation. The Government resumed all 
 the land and houses in this portion of the city, giving com- 
 pensation to the owners ; the wretched dwellings were 
 eventually pulled down, and the streets are now laid out on 
 an improved plan. 
 
 During the next two years the plague played havoc in 
 the neighbourhood of Canton, Hongkong and Macao, now 
 visiting, during the hot months of the year, one part of the 
 country and now another. Hongkong escaped in 1895, 
 except for a few sporadic cases, amounting to some 44 in 
 number, but Macao was visited by a severe epidemic of it 
 in April and May 1895. The city of Canton was reported 
 to be practically free in 1895. 
 
 In Canton, when the plague was raging in 1894, a 
 
 531
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 reward was offered for the bodies of rats that had died from 
 it, and in consequence 21,000 were collected. The plague 
 during these last few years also visited Amoy, Swatow, and 
 other places in the south-eastern part of China, reaching as 
 far north even as Shanghai, where a few cases occurred. 
 
 A recurrence of the bubonic plague took place in 
 Hongkong in 1896. It commenced early in the year: 
 
 ' The disease was at its worst stage in April and May, and was not 
 finally stamped out till the end of September. The total number 
 of cases brought to notice was 1,204, of which 1,097 ended fatally. 
 Europeans attacked numbered fifteen, of whom seven, including two 
 soldiers and one Inspector of Nuisances, succumbed to the disease. 
 . . . One of the two sisters who were engaged in nursing at the 
 Plague Hospital was also attacked by the disease, but fortunately 
 recovered. The largest number of fresh cases in one week was too, 
 from the 23rd to 3oth May, and the greatest number of deaths was 
 87, for the week ending Qth May.' 
 
 But it has spread so over different places in China that 
 to give an accurate and full account of its visitations would 
 require more space than we have at our disposal. Several 
 hundreds are said to have died of it in Kaiilung City in 
 1898. Visitations occurred in Hongkong in subsequent 
 years (see below), several Europeans dying of it in 1901. 
 
 The plague also visited Formosa in 1896; and con- 
 siderable alarm was caused in 1896 and 1897 by a serious 
 outbreak of it in Bombay and elsewhere in India. A new 
 phase of it in Bombay was that pigeons were attacked by 
 a disease which presented points of resemblance to the 
 plague, and died in large numbers. In this connection the 
 following extract from the Bombay Gazette as published 
 in the London Daily Chronicle of the I4th January 1897, 
 proves of more than passing interest : 
 
 ' Mr. Hankin has set himself to investigate an important branch 
 of the subject the means by which the pest becomes diffused, and 
 is brought in contact with the population which becomes subject to 
 its ravages. The time has not come to enter into details, but it is 
 permissible to state that there is evidence proving beyond all doubt 
 that rats, living and dead, and ants play a large part in diffusing the 
 disease and establishing it in buildings which become in their turn 
 centres of infection. Rats which have the plague, deposit the germ 
 of the disease on the floors over which they pass. When they die 
 their bodies are eaten by ants, which absorb the germs and deposit 
 
 532
 
 Plague 
 
 them in cracks and crevices, especially when there is any lurking 
 moisture. Ants require water, and consequently they frequent the 
 neighbourhood of taps and sinks. The bacilli have been found in 
 ants a fortnight after they received them from preying on dead rats. 
 A house near Dhobie Talao, in which two deaths took place, was 
 searched for dead rats. Their bodies were dug out and the holes 
 closed up. The man employed on that work took the plague. Some 
 days afterwards Mr. Hankin succeeded in picking out from crevices 
 ants which were found to have the bacilli. Some of the surface of 
 the ground near the sink had bacilli, though it had been flushed with 
 phenyle the day before. The bacilli were doubtless deposited by the 
 ants after the phenyle had become dry. It is not to be supposed 
 that ants have any monopoly in the diffusion of bacilli. Insects which 
 have never been held in such general esteem for industry and self- 
 help have unquestionably their share in that deadly work. Hut 
 keeping in view the proved fact that rats get the plague and die of 
 it in large numbers, that their dead bodies under the floors and 
 among the rafters of old buildings are sources of infection, intensified 
 by the action of myriads of ants, Mr. Hankin has come to the 
 conclusion that the segregation of human beings who get the disease 
 can have but a very small effect in preventing the spread of the 
 disease. The danger lurks in the house, and he recommends that 
 the other inmates should be removed whether the patient elects to 
 stay there or not. In the Himalayas and in all countries the segrega- 
 tion of the healthy has been the one effective means of stopping the 
 spread of the plague.' 
 
 'The bacillus pestis, discovered by Dr. Kitasato,' is 'now 
 universally recognised as the essential cause of the plague. It 
 belongs to the group of parasite or disease-producing bacteria which 
 find a home in the bodies of certain animals. It is so minute that 
 Dr. Woodhead has estimated that it would take about 500,000,000 of 
 such organisms, laid side by side, to cover a postage stamp. They 
 multiply by fission, and each divided portion is a new plant ; re- 
 production thus proceeds in a rapid geometrical progression. The 
 greatest enemy of the bacillus' is 'sunlight.' 
 
 Monkeys and squirrels and snakes, especially the rat- 
 catching snakes, are also affected by plague. 
 
 With regard to the plague amongst the lower animals, 
 Dr. Manson says : 
 
 ' It seems to me that they have to be reckoned with in the future, 
 more than they have been in the past, in devising schemes of 
 quarantine, and in attempts at stamping out the disease in already 
 infected localities. It seems to me that the wholesale destruction of 
 domestic vermin should go hand in hand with the isolation of 
 plague-stricken patients.' 
 
 ' In an article on the plague in the Annales dc {'Institute Pasteur, 
 Dr. Simond says that both amongst rats and men the infection is 
 carried by fleas, which are the chief instrument in the propagation of 
 the disease.' 
 
 533
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 Dr. Yersin, a French physician who went to Hongkong 
 in 1894 to study the plague, has since made a series of ex- 
 periments with the plague bacillus which has resulted in 
 his discovering what he believes to be a cure for the plague. 
 By the injection of the serum he prepared, he cured one 
 case in Canton ; of twenty-three cases in Amoy, fifteen 
 were cured, two died, and of the remaining six cases he 
 unfortunately left before a cure was effected, though he had 
 every hope that it was in progress. It takes twenty-four 
 hours to effect a cure, and it must be taken at once as soon 
 as the symptoms develop. ' HafTkine practised during the 
 Bombay epidemic a system of prophylactic inoculation,' 
 the figures were encouraging in 1897 ; in 1899 the accounts 
 w r ere very encouraging : 
 
 ' Inoculation against plague bids fair to become universal in India ; 
 one town of a population of about 40,000 having only about 5,000 
 uninoculated, while many have been inoculated twice. The results 
 justify the practice, a report for one week in September [1898] showing 
 only 69 attacks among 32,000 inoculated persons, and 417 attacks 
 among 8,500 uninoculated.' 
 
 The bubonic plague is 'known in India by various 
 names. In the Bombay Presidency it is called " Pali 
 plague " because it was very rife in Pali in 1836.' As a 
 general rule the following may be said to be fairly demon- 
 strated by experience, namely, ' that the attacks of the 
 plague fail upon subjects living wholesome lives under 
 good sanitary conditions, and succeed . . . upon those living 
 in unhealthy surroundings or whose system has been 
 weakened by other disease.' As a rule, doctors seem to 
 escape, though not always. It is those who are constantly 
 with patients that are more liable, though the immunity 
 that nurses and others usually enjoy seems wonderful, a 
 few cases have occurred of even these taking it. 
 
 'The German Commission sent out to India in 1897 to study 
 bubonic plague, attribute the comparative exemption from plague of 
 Europeans and of the wealthier population generally, not only to 
 better general conditions of life, but more especially to the greater 
 protection afforded by their clothing. The evidence seems to show 
 that it is usually abrasions or perforations of the skin, even of the 
 most insignificant character, that afford the plague bacillus an entry 
 
 534
 
 Plague 
 
 into the body, whereas the poison is much less rarely absorbed 
 through the lungs or the digestive apparatus. The Commission also 
 came to the conclusion that plague had long been endemic in certain 
 districts of Northern India.' 
 
 In some epidemics of plague it is said that patches are 
 seen on the surface of the body after death, hence one name 
 it formerly got was that of the Black Death. 
 
 In the epidemic of 1898, in Hongkong there were 1315 
 cases, 75 of which were non-Chinese ; 26 of these latter 
 being Europeans, two of the nurses at the hospital being 
 victims of this frightful disease. Though a less severe 
 epidemic than that of 1894, the cases in some instances 
 were more severe. 65'3 per cent, of non-Chinese who took 
 it died ; whereas amongst the Chinese the mortality reached 
 the high figure of 89^6 per cent. Dr. Clarke, the Medical 
 Officer of Health in Hongkong, in his report makes the 
 following interesting statement : 
 
 ' I am strongly inclined to apply tentatively Sanarelli's theory 
 concerning the bacillus of Yellow Fever, to the infective material of 
 this disease also, namely, that the vitality of the bacillus, outside the 
 living bodies of men and animals, depends largely upon the co- 
 existence of vegetable moulds by which it is nourished. It is already 
 well known that a moist atmosphere, defective ventilation, a moderate 
 amount of heat, and the absence of sunlight are the most favourable 
 conditions for the development of the Bubonic Fever bacillus, while 
 they are the conditions which encourage the free growth of the 
 vegetable moulds, and it is not unreasonable, therefore, to surmise that 
 this property of symbiosis, which has been observed by Metchinkoff 
 in connection with the bacillus of cholera, may have not a little to 
 do with the persistence of the bacillus of Bubonic Fever in damp and 
 ill-ventilated dwellings.' 
 
 Dr. Atkinson, the Principal Civil Medical Officer of 
 Hongkong, thus writes : 
 
 ' The conclusion to be drawn from our experience of plague in 
 1896 and 1898 are that the occurrence of plague is favoured by (i) 
 long prevalence of drought or of abnormally low rainfall ; (2) atmos- 
 pheric temperature below 82 F., as the months of maximum mean 
 temperature were in each year followed by a material reduction in the 
 number of cases ; (3) the absence of sunshine ; (4) the dampness of 
 the atmosphere, during the months in which there were most cases 
 the mean humidity of the atmosphere was high.' 
 
 Professor Simpson thus writes of the plague : 
 
 ' Plague is in fact primarily a disease among rats, the infection of 
 which can be conveyed to human beings, but once established in 
 
 535
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 human beings, the infection is communicable to others by means of 
 the expectorations, by the discharges from the bowels and by the 
 urine, and by discharges from the buboes or glandular swellings 
 which form in this disease. The clothes, the food, and surroundings 
 of a plague patient are likely to be infective and also spread the 
 disease. Accordingly no measures are complete which do not include 
 the prevention of the disease in rats as well as men.' 
 
 ' M. E. Uuclaux, Director of the Pasteur Institute, speaking (in the 
 Revue de Paris) of the means of protection against plague afforded 
 by bacteriology, insists strongly on the necessity of destroying rats, 
 fleas, and bugs as an essential preliminary. The extermination of 
 rats and their parasites is, he says, a more effectual barrier than is 
 generally believed against the invasion of the disease.' 
 
 The plague recurred again in Hongkong in 1899, tne 
 mortality gradually rising to some forty or fifty deaths in 
 the course of a week in the beginning of May, one 
 European being attacked by it, while the following account 
 of it at about the same period of the year shows the 
 ravages it was committing in the neighbourhood of 
 Canton : 
 
 ' The plague is more than recrudescent in many of the towns and 
 villages of the delta. In Canton and Fatshan, it is reported as "bad" 
 but not so bad as in some of the inland cities. 
 
 ' The city of San Ning might correctly be named, at present, " The 
 City of Death." The plague is ravaging with special virulence, and 
 carrying off its victims in large numbers. Shops and dwelling houses 
 are closed, and their inhabitants have fled into the country, carrying 
 the infection with them. Business is, for the present, paralysed. 
 The streets, meanwhile, are reeking in filth and all drains choked 
 with rubbish. Behold the remedy employed ! In one street, I 
 observed no less than three matsheds erected, in which were seated, 
 in calm complaisancy many idols which are implored to exert their 
 power to stem and turn back the tide of death. Moreover, over almost 
 every door are hung branches of cactus, or other thorny shrubs, also 
 a piece of fine netting, and a bag of small cockle shells. It is believed 
 that the malignant devils cannot well avoid all these obstacles and 
 enter the house ! They may be frightened by the rattling of the shells, 
 as boys used to frighten birds from the cornfields by the rattle of a 
 tin pan. If the devils yet attempt to enter, they must pass through 
 the mass of thorns, but can scarcely avoid the small netting. 
 
 ' It is almost past belief that men's minds are so dark, minds, too, 
 that have spent years in America or Australia. Yet, there it is. It 
 is altogether tragic to see such things, and to look behind and con- 
 template the sorrow, bereavement, and blank despair that hover over 
 the houses and paralyse the hearts of those who crouch in terror 
 within. One may well ask oneself the question, can such things 
 exist? Furthermore, can it be possible that those enshrouded in such 
 
 536
 
 Plague 
 
 mental darkness can dare to assert, and venture to dream, that they 
 stand on an equality with the people of the West? In the interests 
 of humanity, there is every reason why all agencies, religious, 
 educational, and commercial, should continue their propaganda, and 
 endeavour to penetrate and dissipate this terrible gloom.' 
 
 The plague was also at Kwangchowwan, the new 
 French port in the Kwangtung province, in April or May 
 1899: it was prevalent among the natives; one European 
 soldier died of it, and another who was attacked with it, was 
 cured by the Yersin serum. 
 
 4 Speaking of the persistence of the contagion of the plague 
 microbe, which is causing so much anxiety in Austria and Germany, 
 the journal IM Suisse, Geneva, cites a characteristic case. "In 1660 
 the Dutch city of Haarlem was devastated by the plague. Whole 
 families perished, among them a family by the name of Cloux, whose 
 various members were buried in the Haarlem Church. Thirty or forty 
 years ago it was found that the masonry of the tomb was out of 
 repair, and the vault was entirely rebuilt. The masons in charge of 
 the work descended into the vault and remained there during more 
 than a day. Now although more than two centuries had passed since 
 the epidemic, all these workmen were attacked with the infectious 
 bubo [characteristic glandular swelling] of the plague, and had to 
 undergo long treatment at the hospital. Nevertheless, there were no 
 symptoms of the plague proper, and all recovered."' 
 
 The plague seems to have spread fairly over the world 
 of late years, being conveyed even to the cities of Europe 
 by commerce, though, thanks to the comparative cleanliness 
 of European cities, its attacks have always been repelled. 
 (It has reached even such an apparently out-of-the-way 
 place as Uganda.) 
 
 The following extract will show what dense crowding 
 in the East means : 
 
 ' The most densely populated metropolitan districts of the city of 
 London are St. James', Westminster, Whitechapel, and St. George's, 
 in the East, but none of these have a population of more than 200 
 persons to the acre. Yet here in Hongkong, in No. 5 District, which 
 is situated in the centre of the city, we have almost 1000 persons to 
 the acre, and the adjoining Districts, Nos. 6, 7, and 4 are in nearly as 
 bad a state.' 
 
 This was in 1899. 
 
 ' In a public lecture in the Sassoon Institute, Bombay, 
 Dr. G. Waters disposed of the theory that the bubonic 
 plague had been imported into Bombay from Hongkong by 
 
 537
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 rats in ships. He inclined to the belief that it was not 
 introduced from other ports, but had its origin in the large 
 granaries of the Mandvie quarter of the town. The first 
 outbreak was among the granary employes, and rat murrain 
 was first discovered there. Surgeon-Colonel C leghorn, 
 who has made a special investigation for the India 
 authorities, holds the same opinion. It is stated as a 
 curious fact by both doctors that wheat and rice eaters have 
 enjoyed almost complete immunity from the disease, which 
 has been most prevalent amongst the millet eaters (the 
 Hindoos) millet being a generic term for various kinds of 
 inferior grain. Limewashing is advocated as the absolutely 
 best preventive of the spread of the plague. 
 
 Books recommended. The local papers published in Hongkong contained, 
 during the prevalence of the plague, many interesting particulars about il. 
 Trever's ' Diseases of India.' Article on Plague in 'Encyclopaedia Britannica.' 
 Davidson's ' Tropical Medicine.' An article in the London and China 
 Express, as quoted in the Hongkong Telegraph of 9th July 1895. Dr. 
 Malison's 'Report on the Health of Amoy' for the half-year ending 31st 
 March 1878, in the ' Medical Reports of the Imperial Maritime Customs,' 
 15th issue. ' Notes of an Epidemic Disease observed in Pakhoi,' by J. H. 
 Lovvry, L.R.C.P., Ed., L.R.C.S., Ed., in ' Medical Reports of the Imperial 
 Maritime Customs,' 24th issue, for the half-year ending 30th September 
 1882. ' The Imperial Maritime Customs Decennial Reports,' pp. 654 and 67] . 
 M. Rocher's 'Yunnan.' Dr. James Lowson's Report on 'The Epidemic of 
 Bubonic Plague in Hongkong, 1894,' published in the Hongkong Govern- 
 ment Gazette. ' Report on the Outbreak of Bubonic Plague in Hongkong to 
 the International Congress of Hygiene and Demography held at Buda-Pest, 
 1894,' by Dr. P. B. C. Ayres, C.M.G., Colonial Surgeon", Hongkong, and Dr. 
 James Lowson, M.B., Acting Superintendent, Government Civil Hospital. 
 His Ex. Sir Win. Robinson's speech reported in the Hongkong Weekly Press, 
 9th Dec. 1896. 'Tropical Diseases: A Manual of the Diseases of Warm 
 Climates,' by Sir P. Manson, M.D., LL.D., from which we have made large 
 extracts. Also see ' Annual Reports by the Medical Officer of Health for 
 Hongkong' for years 1897 and 1898 and subsequent years. 'A Treatise on 
 Plague : the Conditions for its Causation, Prevalence, Incidence, Immunity, 
 Prevention, and Treatment,' by Major Geo. S. Thomson, M.B., I. M.S., 
 and Dr. John Thomson, M. R. C.S.I., etc., Special Plague Officer under the 
 Government of Bombay. London: Swan Sonneuschein & Co., 1901. 7s. 6d. 
 ' Plague : How to Recognise, Prevent, and Treat Plague,' by James Causlie, 
 M.A., M.B., F.R.C.S., D.P.H. London : Cassell & Co., Ltd., 1901. Is. 6d. 
 
 PLANTAIN. 'Botanists declare the banana and 
 plantain to be the same plant.' In the Straits the 
 distinction is said to be as follows: 'The plantain 
 . . . never becomes sufficiently ripe to eat without cook- 
 ing.' This fruit is too well known to require descrip- 
 
 538
 
 Poetry 
 
 tion. There are many varieties in China. (See Article 
 on Fruit.) 
 
 1'OETRY. The whole subject of Chinese poetry is one 
 that is worthy of a more thorough treatment than it has yet 
 received. One peculiar element is the tones which in the 
 Chinese language give an element unknown in foreign 
 languages, which has to be paid attention to by the Chinese 
 poet apart from the identity of sound required for rhyme. 
 
 The Chinese are passionately fond of poetry. The 
 East is the land of poetry. Here Nature is found in 
 her happiest moods : she lavishes all the tints of her 
 wonderful palette on her gorgeous sunrises and sunsets ; 
 she instals her electric lights the bright stars in the blue 
 depths of the unfathomable sky and so pure is the 
 atmosphere, that one can see beyond their clear shining 
 into the illimitable space ; her full-orbed moon floods the 
 whole landscape with a silvery light but seldom seen in the 
 West ; the sun glows with such an intense heat, that 
 aided by the tropical showers, the earth is clad with a hot- 
 house growth of plants and shrubs ; nor are her grander 
 moods unrevealed to man, for towering crag and rugged 
 mountain hem in the meandering river, and the soft lights 
 of sunset play amidst their gloomy rocks and sheltered 
 ravines, while the noonday clouds cast passing shadows 
 on the lovely scene ; anon, amidst the thunder of the storm 
 and the vivid flashes of the lightning, the God of Nature 
 reveals Himself, while all the latent forces of destruction 
 seem let loose in the howling, whistling wind, the 
 dashing wave, and the fierce battling of the elements of 
 the dreaded typhoon. 
 
 The Chinese have been the worshippers of Nature for 
 centuries and millenniums, both in the literal and figurative 
 sense of the term : long before we in the West awoke to 
 her wild charms and sylvan beauties ; ages before the 
 ponderous Dr. Johnson saw nothing to admire in the wild 
 Hebrides and the rugged mountains of Scotia, the Chinese 
 had sung the praises of similar scenes in their native land ; 
 
 539
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 ' Chinese poets manifest a passionate love of nature 
 thousands of years before Scott or Wordsworth.' A 
 suggestion, a reference, a line, or a word points to some 
 aspect of nature, such as 
 
 ' The white clouds fly across the scene,' 
 to find its response in the next line of 
 
 'The distant hills are clothed in green,' 
 
 while others will revel in some descriptive piece of solitary 
 scenes. 
 
 But, unfortunately, much Chinese poetry is incapable of 
 translation : it loses its essence in the transfer into another 
 and barbarian speech, and becomes tame prose and prosy at 
 the best. As the wild flowers which adorn the hill- sides in 
 this land, with their bright pinks and rich crimsons, soberer 
 mauves and clear pure whites, when gathered by the 
 enthusiastic botanist and treated by his careful hands with 
 the greatest tenderness, fade and wither, lose their fresh 
 bloom and bright tints, turn to a uniform brown and black, 
 and smell musty and dry ; so the flowers of Chinese poetry 
 lose their freshness and beauty the sparkle of wit and the 
 point of allusion are lost to unappreciative Western ears, the 
 rhyme and rhythm are gone, and they are interesting alone 
 to the sinologue's ear. Occasionally, however, by a happy 
 chance, the brightness and sparkle of a ballad or song are 
 retained, or even improved upon, as in Stent's or Giles's 
 translations. 
 
 The Chinese language lends itself readily to the poetic 
 art harsh consonantal sounds are wanting, and the com- 
 bination of consonants and vowels is often musical. Though 
 largely monosyllabic, the diphthongs give a somewhat 
 dissyllabic character to many of the words. The cadence 
 and modulation required are to be found in the tones of the 
 Chinese language, and every word takes the place occupied 
 by a metrical foot in our Western poetry. 
 
 ' In the hands of an accomplished writer, the Chinese language 
 is capable of a condensed picturesqueness and vigour such as can be 
 rendered into no foreign language less ideographic in its mode of 
 
 540
 
 Poetry 
 
 writing, unless by means of wordy paraphrases. Each character in 
 its (often numerous) component parts carries a wealth of imagery to 
 the sense, and whole series of metaphors are embodied in a single 
 epithet. A language of this kind lends itself especially to the 
 description of the scenery, and the most superficial analysis of Chinese 
 poetry reveals the fact that the productions which are most applauded 
 in this branch of literature consist simply of elaborate word-painting 
 whose beauty resides rather in the medium of expression than in the 
 author's thought. Hence it happens that when odes, renowned for 
 centuries among Chinese readers, are transposed into the naked 
 languages of Europe, it is found that their charm has vanished, as 
 the petals of a flower are dropped from the insignificant and sober 
 coloured fruit.' 
 
 As Giles puts it they are : 
 
 'Strains that to alien harps can ne'er belong, 
 Thy gems shine purer in their native bed.' 
 
 One of the classical works of the Chinese, the Shi King, 
 (B.C. 500) is a collection of ancient songs, etc. ' The bulk 
 of these curious vestiges of antiquity ... do not rise 
 beyond the most primitive simplicity, and their style and 
 language, without the minute commentary, would often be 
 unintelligible.' 
 
 Here is one translated by Dr. Martin : 
 
 A speck upon your ivory fan 
 
 You soon may wipe away ; 
 But stains upon the heart or tongue 
 
 Remain, alas ! for aye. 
 
 Another put into English verse by Mr. Jennings : 
 
 BRIDAL SONG. 
 
 Ho, graceful little peach tree 
 
 Brightly thy blossoms bloom ! 
 Go, maiden, to thy husband ; 
 
 Adorn his hall, his room. 
 
 Ho, graceful little peach tree 
 
 Thy fruit abundant fall ! 
 Go, maiden, to thy husband ; 
 
 Adorn his room, his hall. 
 
 Ho, graceful little peach tree, 
 
 With foliage far and wide ! 
 Go, maiden, to thy husband 
 
 His household well to guide. 
 
 The reader is referred for further specimens of these
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 300 Odes to the Shi King, or Book of Odes, itself. It has 
 been well said by Professor von der Gabelentz, ' that in this 
 whole collection of Odes . . . there is not a line to be 
 found which may not be read aloud without any hesitation 
 in the most prudish society.' 
 
 Epics and pastorals are not found in Chinese poetry ; 
 but almost every other description is to be seen, as well as 
 poetic effusions of a character unknown in the West, such 
 as proclamations by the magistrates in rhyme. 
 
 It is very extraordinary to find an Edward Allan Poe 
 in Chinese literature, B.C. 200. The Chinese prototype 
 was an eminent statesman, Kia Yi by name, who was also 
 ' no mean poet.' 
 
 A CHINESE 'RAVEN.' 
 
 THE FU-NIAO, OR BIRD OF FATE. 
 
 'Twas in the month of chill November, 
 As I can very well remember, 
 In dismal, gloomy, crumbling halls, 
 Betwixt moss-covered, reeking walls, 
 An exiled poet lay 
 
 On his bed of straw reclining, 
 Half despairing, half repining ; 
 When athwart the window sill, 
 Flew in a bird of omen ill, 
 And seemed inclined to stay. 
 
 To my book of occult learning, 
 Suddenly I thought of turning, 
 All the mystery to know, 
 Of that shameless owl or crow, 
 That would not go away. 
 
 ' Wherever such a bird shall enter, 
 'Tis sure some power above has sent her, 
 (So said the mystic book), to show 
 The human dweller forth must go,' 
 But where it did not say. 
 
 Then anxiously the bird addressing, 
 And my ignorance confessing, 
 ' Gentle bird, in mercy deign 
 The will of fate to me explain, 
 Where is my future way?' 
 
 54?
 
 Poetry 
 
 It raised its head as if 'twere seeking 
 To answer me by simply speaking, 
 Then folded up its sable wing, 
 Nor did it utter anything, 
 But breathed a ' Well-a.-day ! ' 
 
 More eloquent than any diction, 
 That simple sigh produced conviction, 
 Furnishing to me the key 
 Of the awful mystery 
 That on my spirit lay. 
 
 ' Fortune's wheel is ever turning, 
 To human eye there's no discerning 
 Weal or woe in any state ; 
 Wisdom is to bide your fate ;' 
 This is what it seemed to say, 
 By that simple ' Well-a-day.' 
 
 A poem of great repute among native scholars is ' The 
 Dissipation of Sorrows,' written by Yuh Yuen (B.C. 450), 
 whose untimely end is commemorated by the annual Dragon 
 Boat Festival (See Article under that heading). 
 
 Here is a husbandman's song as rendered by Prof. 
 Giles : 
 
 Work, work from the rising sun 
 
 Till sunset comes and the day is done : 
 
 I plough the sod 
 
 And harrow the clod, 
 And meat and drink both come to me, 
 So what care I for the powers that be. 
 
 Here is a little ode addressed by ' Su Wu to his wife 
 on setting out on an embassy to the Court of the Grand 
 Khan of Tartary,' 100 B.C. The English is from the 
 rendering by Dr. Martin : 
 
 Twin trees whose boughs together twine, 
 
 Two birds that guard one nest, 
 We'll soon be far asunder torn, 
 
 As sunrise from the West. 
 
 Hearts knit in childhood's innocence, 
 
 Long bound in Hymen's ties ; 
 One goes to distant battle-fields, 
 
 One sits at home and sighs. 
 
 Like carrier bird, though seas divide 
 
 I'll seek my lonely mate ; 
 But if afar I find a grave, 
 
 You'll mourn my hapless fate. 
 
 543
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 To us the future's all unknown, 
 
 In memory seek relief ; 
 Come, touch the cords you know so well, 
 
 And let them soothe our grief. 
 
 Poetry flourished most in the T'ang dynasty A.D 620- 
 907) in the ninth and tenth centuries, which have been 
 described as the Augustan age in China of poetry and 
 letters. ' The collected poems of the . . . T'ang dynasty 
 have been published by Imperial authority in nine hundred 
 volumes.' Among the most celebrated poets of this time 
 is Li Tai-po (A.D. 720), an anacreontic poet whose adven- 
 tures are famous, as well as his sonnets. His works were 
 published in thirty volumes. He attained high government 
 distinction, but was drowned, falling overboard from a boat 
 when under the influence of his favourite wines. He is 
 thus described by one writer : ' the best known of China's 
 countless host of lyric poets, famous for his exquisite 
 imagery, his wealth of words, his telling allusions to the 
 past, and for the musical cadence of his verse.' 
 
 Dr. Edkins describes Li Tai-po's characteristics as a 
 poet, as follows : 
 
 'This poet is fond of deep passion, fear and pathos. All his power 
 is devoted to the production of these sentiments in the reader's mind. 
 He loves quick transitions, and one touch is enough for one thought. 
 Another thought crowds after it, and then a third . . . Burns col- 
 lected old songs, and infused them with the fire of his genius. That 
 class of Western poets, of whom Burns is a shining example, would 
 be the fit companions of Li Tai-po, whose poems are often filled up 
 with lines gathered from the wide range of early-song literature. . . . 
 Li Tai-po had a consciousness of power, and this made him careless 
 in regard to rules. He uses short lines whenever he pleases, and it is 
 often hard to punctuate his lines. His nation admires him so much, 
 that when he is irregular in the choice of his words and the length of 
 his lines, they still praise him. His genius was intuitive. No one 
 took less time than he to write. No one made such leaps from one 
 subject to another as he did. This recklessness was a great aid to 
 him, because he did not need to take time to polish his style and 
 smooth down his roughnesses. He vaulted over difficulties and 
 expected his reader to follow him, without asking : Why this leap ? 
 or, Where is my master intending to go ? He left the reader to fill 
 the gap, and he himself always wrote brilliant sentences, and dealt in 
 the pathetic and the sublime. All faults are readily forgiven if a writer 
 can do this, for there is nothing that readers so much delight in as in 
 having the tender sentiments of the heart stirred from their depths. 
 Our poet wrote verses as he travelled, and his poems are a running 
 
 544
 
 Poetry 
 
 comment on his visits to various localities in his native country.' The 
 manner in which he was able ' to find in the rounds of nature the 
 interpreter of his thoughts, and to throw himself into nature ... is 
 proof of his high character as a poet. Here he seems to resemble 
 Wordsworth, who, with Coleridge, passionately loved every wild and 
 sublime scene in nature, but was not less moved by quiet landscapes. 
 His heart was open to every suggestion that could be made to spring 
 from wheat-field, grove, or sunset glory. . . . But he greatly exceeds 
 Wordsworth in popularity, having a whole nation at his feet, and 
 there is to the present time no diminution of his fame.' 
 
 Of him, it has been said that he was ' without doubt 
 the greatest of Chinese lyric poets.' One of the emperors 
 said of him that 'a god had become incarnate in his 
 person.' 
 
 We give a few specimens of Li Tai-po put into English, 
 first an impromptu which shows his early genius, being 
 produced at the age of ten : 
 
 TO A FIREFLY. 
 
 Rain cannot quench thy lantern's light, 
 Wind makes it shine more brightly bright ; 
 Oh why not fly to heaven afar, 
 And twinkle near the moon a star ! 
 
 A VISIT TO THE CLEAR COLD FOUNTAIN. 
 
 Alas, that day should lose itself in night ! 
 I love this fount so clear, so passing cool ; 
 The western glow pursues its waters' flow : 
 The wavelets symbolise my silent thoughts, 
 And murmur forth a wordless hymn of praise. 
 I watch the moon among the clouds so grand, 
 The waving pines, athwart the sky so tall 
 Anon do blend their rustling with my song. 
 
 A VISIT TO THE RAPIDS OF THE WHITE RIVER. 
 
 I cross the stream just as it starts to life, 
 From man and all his deeds afar I roam. 
 The isles are clad in nature's living hues, 
 And set in scenes of sweetest beauty rare. 
 The deep-blue sky is mirrored in the stream, 
 Whose broad expanse reflects the passing clouds. 
 I watch them as they sail away to sea, 
 My leisured mind next wanders where the stream 
 Is full offish that dart adown its course, 
 The setting sun doth end my day-long songs, 
 By silv'ry moon-lit rays I hie me home 
 To where my humble cot a-field doth lie. 
 
 545
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 THE POET. 
 
 You ask what my soul does away in the sky, 
 
 I inwardly smile, but I cannot reply ; 
 
 Like the peach-blossom carried away by the stream, 
 
 I soar to a world of which you cannot dream. 
 
 Here is a short lyric translated by Dr. Martin which 
 he describes as ' characterised by simplicity of expression 
 and naturalness of sentiment, rather than by strength and 
 elevation.' : 
 
 A SOLDIER'S WIFE TO HER HUSBAND. 
 
 'Twas many a year ago, 
 
 How I recall the day ! 
 When you, my own true love, 
 
 Came first with me to play. 
 
 A little child was I ; 
 
 My head a mass of curls ; 
 I gathered daisies sweet, 
 
 Along with other girls. 
 
 You rode a bamboo horse, 
 And deemed yourself a knight, 
 
 With paper helm and shield 
 And wooden sword bedight. 
 
 Thus we together grew, 
 
 And we together played 
 Yourself a giddy boy, 
 
 And I a thoughtless maid. 
 
 At fourteen I was wed ; 
 
 And, if one called my name, 
 As quick as lightning flash 
 
 The crimson blushes came. 
 
 'Twas not till we had passed 
 
 A year of married life 
 My heart was knit to yours, 
 
 In joy to be your wife. 
 
 Another year, alas ! 
 
 And you had joined your chief; 
 While I was left at home, 
 
 In solitary grief. 
 
 When victory crowns your arms, 
 
 And I your triumph learn, 
 What bliss for me to fly 
 
 To welcome your return. 
 
 Tu Fu (A.D. 712-770) was another poet of the T'ang, 
 
 546
 
 Poetry 
 
 and one of some distinction, who has been described as ' one 
 of China's greatest men in poetic genius.' The Chinese rank 
 him ' as second only to Li Tai-po.' ' He lived in the eighth 
 century, dying of hunger in A.D. 768 ... in a temple in 
 which he had been compelled to take refuge.' We give 
 some specimens of Tu Fu's poetry : 
 
 IN ABSENCE. 
 
 White gleam the gulls across the darkling tide, 
 On the green hills the red flowers seem to burn ; 
 
 Alas ! I see another spring has died 
 
 When will it come the day of my return ? 
 
 The Chinaman's ardent desire to return to his native 
 land, dead or alive, though due to a very great extent to 
 the cult of ancestral worship and all the customs that group 
 themselves round this central idea, setting and crystallising 
 into a rigid system through the course of long ages 
 though his wish to return is apparently almost entirely based 
 on this ; may it not be that underneath the frost of ice- 
 bound custom, frozen stiff in the bonds of conventional 
 expression, there yet flows the natural love of home which 
 the ordinary Celestial is unable to give utterance to, but 
 which wells up from the heart of the poet ? Other selections 
 might be made which express this longing in stronger 
 language than the above. 
 
 THE DESERTED WIFE. 
 
 Once fair beyond the fairest dame on earth, 
 
 Within the mountain dell I live perdue ; 
 
 And scion of a virtuous house I am, 
 
 Though shrubs and trees are now my sole support. 
 
 Our troubles came within the walls amain : 
 
 Not long ago my brothers met their end. 
 
 Their rank was high. Alas ! it mattered not ; 
 
 For e'en their stiff, cold clay was lost to us. 
 
 I care not for the present age, no charms 
 
 It hath for me. Life flickers like a wick : 
 
 A passing breath blows all our joys away. 
 
 A new fair wife, as fair as clearest jade, 
 
 Is now my husband's love in place of me. 
 
 The libertine hath turned away from me. 
 
 Th' acacia knows the hour to close its leaves, 
 
 547
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 The turtle-dove without its mate doth pine ; 
 He only sees the new wife's witching smile, 
 He heeds not how his former love doth weep. 
 Upon the mountain top the rill is clear ; 
 But at its foot the stream is muddy, thick. 
 My maids go out to sell my lustrous pearls ; 
 And with a wisp they mend the patched roof. 
 I pluck the wayside flowers, but wear them not ; 
 And then I gather cones from off the firs. 
 My broidered sleeve is thin for gusty winds, 
 As morn and eve I lean my pensive form 
 Against the tall bamboos with drooping sprays. 
 
 Another name to be mentioned is that of Han Yu 
 (A.D. 768-824) ' foremost among the statesmen, philosphers, 
 and poets of the T'ang dynasty, and one of the most 
 venerated names in Chinese literature.' From his pen are 
 the following : 
 
 THE WOUNDED FALCON. 
 
 Within a ditch beyond my wall 
 
 I saw a falcon headlong fall. 
 
 Bedaubed with mud and racked with pain, 
 
 It beat its wings to rise, in vain ; 
 
 While little boys threw tiles and stones, 
 
 Eager to break the wretch's bones. 
 
 O bird, methinks thy life of late 
 Hath amply justified this fate ! 
 Thy sole delight to kill and steal, 
 And then exultingly to wheel, 
 Now sailing in the clear blue sky, 
 Now on the wild gale sweeping by, 
 Scorning thy kind of less degree 
 As all unfit to mate with thee. 
 
 But mark how fortune's wheel goes round ; 
 A pellet lays thee on the ground, 
 Sore stricken at some vital part, 
 And where is then thy pride of heart ? 
 
 What's this to me? I could not bear 
 To see the fallen one lying there. 
 I begged its life, and from the brook 
 Water to wash its wounds I took. 
 Fed it with bits offish by day, 
 At night from foxes kept away. 
 My care I knew would naught avail 
 For gratitude, that empty tale. 
 And so this bird would crouch and hide 
 Till want its stimulus applied ; 
 And I, with no reward to hope, 
 Allowed its callousness full scope. 
 
 548
 
 Poetry 
 
 Last eve the bird showed signs of rage, 
 With health renewed, and beat its cage. 
 To-day it forced a passage through, 
 And took its leave, without adieu. 
 
 Good luck hath saved thee, not desert ; 
 Beware, O bird, of further hurt ; 
 Beware the archer's deadly tools ! 
 'Tis hard to escape the shafts of fools 
 Nor e'er forget the chastening ditch 
 That found thee poor, and left thee rich. 
 
 HUMANITY. 
 
 Oh spare the busy morning fly ! 
 
 Spare the mosquitoes of the night ! 
 And if their wicked trade they ply 
 
 Let a partition stop their flight. 
 
 Their span is brief from birth to death ; 
 
 Like you they bite their little day ; 
 And then with autumn's earliest breath, 
 
 Like you too they are swept away. 
 
 The poetic taste is present in what seems to many a 
 Westerner the unpoetic Chinese, and the English poet's 
 love for May, or for Springtime, as especially in the case 
 of Chaucer, Langland, and other poets of the Middle Ages, 
 was not wanting in their Chinese brethren. 
 
 TASTE. 
 
 The landscape which the poet loves is that of early May, 
 
 When budding greenness half concealed enwraps each willow spray. 
 
 That beautiful embroidery the days of summer yield, 
 
 Appeals to every bumpkin who may take his walk afield. 
 
 YANG CHU YUAN (8th & gth Cent. A.D.). 
 Another famous poet was Su Tung-po (A.D. 1036- 
 1101), of the Sung dynasty, which has been described as 
 the Elizabethan age of Chinese letters. His poems are 
 contained in one hundred and fifteen volumes. He was ' an 
 official of remarkable talents, a statesman, poet, essayist, 
 and man of letters,' who spent many of his latter years 
 under a cloud, being banished to the south of the empire, a 
 punishment he partly brought on himself, owing to his 
 satire. Of him it has been written that, ' under his hands, 
 the language of which China is so proud, may be said to 
 have reached perfection of finish, of art concealed. In 
 subtlety of reasoning, in the lucid expressions of abstractions, 
 
 549
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 such as in English too often elude the faculty of the tongue, 
 Su Tung-po is an unrivalled master.' We give also a few 
 specimens of Su Tung-po's poetry. The first we extract 
 from ' Gems of Chinese Literature.' 
 
 THE SONG OF THE CRANES. 
 
 Away ! away ! My birds, fly westwards now, 
 To wheel on high and gaze on all below ; 
 To swoop together, pinions closed, to earth ; 
 To soar aloft once more among the clouds ; 
 To wander all day long in sedgy vale ; 
 To gather duckweed in the stony marsh. 
 
 Come back ! Come back ! Beneath the lengthening shades, 
 Your serge-clad master stands, guitar in hand. 
 Tis he that feeds you from his slender store : 
 Come back ! Come back ! Nor linger in the west. 
 
 Su Tung-po's eulogies of departed worthies are fine 
 specimens of writing. He ' never failed to clothe his 
 thoughts in beautiful language,' 'with great facility he 
 collects all the meritorious deeds of his heroes, and places 
 them in a very strong light ; he then makes some allusion 
 to the ages long gone by, and traces their resemblances to 
 celebrated personages, concluding with his own panegyrics. 
 These eloquent pieces were not only printed but also 
 engraved on solid stone.' We give one of these eulogistic 
 inscriptions. 
 
 IN MEMORIAM : HAN WENG KUNG. 1 
 
 High mounted on the dragon's back he rode 
 Aloft to where the dazzling cloudlands lie ; 
 The glory of the sky he grasped amain ; 
 The splendour of the stars, his sparkling robe. 
 The zephyrs' breath him gently wafted on 
 From earth's domain up to the throne of God. 
 On earth his practised hand swept off the chaff, 
 The husks which hid the grains of truth from sight. 
 He roamed the wide world o'er from pole to pole, 
 From east to west his rays so bright were shed, 
 And nature's darkness clothed upon with light. 
 The third amidst the three of genius great,- 
 His rivals strove in vain to reach his height, 
 And panted, dazzled by his glory's glare. 
 Buddha was cursed by him ; his priests denounced. 
 His sovereign's wrath was poured upon his head. 
 
 1 The same as Han Yii. 2 The other two were Tu Fu and Li Tai-po. 
 
 550
 
 Poetry 
 
 He journeyed to the distant South afar ; 
 And passed upon his way the grave of Shun ; 
 And wept, wept o'er the daughters of ancient Yao. 
 The spirit of the deep before him went, 
 And stilled the noisy waves' tumultuous roar, 
 As 'twere a lamb the monster fierce he drove. 1 
 In heaven above the golden harps were still, 
 And God was sad, and called him to his place 
 Beside His throne. 1 now salute him there, 
 And now present to him my off rings poor ; 
 The red lichee, the yellow plantain fruit. 
 Alas! Why lingered he not then on earth ; 
 But passed so soon away with flowing locks 
 Into the future world the great unknown? 
 
 Here are two other pieces from Su Tung-po, translated 
 by ourselves. 
 
 THE STORK. 
 
 In my garden dwells a stork, 
 
 Docile, coming at a word. 
 ' Hark ! I call thee ; come my stork,' 
 
 But the proud and lofty bird 
 Stood stock still with look askance 
 
 Though he heard me, heeding not, 
 Head aslant with sidelong glance. 
 
 ' Is it true thou knowest a lot?' 
 Said I then, ' Like Ka Yi's owl, 
 
 Dost thou wish to talk with me ? 
 Art thou then no earth-born fowl ? 
 
 Heaven thou'st left this world to see ? 
 Canst thy soul with mine commune ? 
 
 Tell me, tell me, now I pray.' 
 Soon his thoughts with mine attune, 
 
 And I heard him slowly say : 
 ' Lone I stand above the throng 
 
 (Not for long below I stay). 
 Perched on legs so tall and long, 
 
 Listen as you will or nay, 
 Spare my frame and spare my need ; 
 
 Am I then a toy for thee ? 
 Yield I not though thus you plead.' 
 
 Solemn, silent, still stood he. 
 ' Wilt thou baulk me thus ? ' I cried, 
 
 ' Drive him up to where I sit.' 
 Stately stood he then, nor sighed 
 
 Gesture none, nor spake, as fit 
 Sovereign man be served by brute. 
 
 Flung I then some grains of corn, 
 Guerdon fit for birds, and fruit ; 
 
 But he moved not, as one born 
 
 1 Referring to the crocodile which he is said to have driven away. 
 551
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 Thrones to fill, not meekly stand 
 
 At my whim, and at my call 
 Pick up food from my right hand. 
 
 ' Oaf,' he cried, and off he went. 
 ' Bird, Oh ! Bird, Oh ! ' then I thought 
 
 'Why? Oh ! why, thus am I sent 
 Sent to office, it not sought? 
 
 Yet I stay, nor try to go, 
 As thou goest when thou would'st. 
 
 Always to myself a foe. 
 Would I could as, oh ! thou could'st 
 
 Leave my master's side and fly ; 
 Hie me from my office cares. 
 
 By the brooklet then I'd lie, 
 Catch the finny tribes with snares. 
 
 In my cottage in the wood, 
 Read my books and dream and think, 
 
 Love o'er all the past to brood 
 And the present with it link.' 
 
 KWOK LUN: A FORGOTTEN KNIGHT OF OLD. 
 
 A warrior bold, 
 
 In Ho Sai old ; 
 Alas ! but no one knows him now. 
 
 Athwart the stream 
 
 Where waters gleam, 
 He sees the boats through billows plough. 
 
 His piebald steed 
 
 Has run to weed ; 
 Nor bears his master to the fray. 
 
 His lance so long, 
 
 In arm so strong, 
 A beam, nor man, nor elf could stay. 
 
 And now the toll, 
 
 This noble soul, 
 Must count the livelong summer's day. 
 
 And fret himself, 
 
 With hoarded pelf; 
 And wear his wasted life away. 
 
 From Western lands 
 
 Our beaten bands 
 Return ; but he our land could save ; 
 
 He'd mount his steed, 
 
 And take the lead 
 Before ten thousand troopers brave. 
 
 And foemen die, 
 As arrows fly, 
 
 And sheath themselves in quiv'ring flesh. 
 Then from my car 
 I'll watch afar 
 My hero's valour rise afresh. 
 
 552
 
 Poetry 
 
 The sentimental is not wanting in the Chinese, though 
 kept down to a great extent by their customs and manners : 
 
 MY NEIGHBOUR. 
 
 When the Bear athwart was lying, 
 And the night was just on dying, 
 And the moon was all but gone, 
 How my thoughts did ramble on ! 
 
 Then a sound of music breaks 
 From a lute that some one wakes, 
 And I know that it is she, 
 The sweet maid next door to me. 
 
 And as the strains steal o'er me 
 Her moth-eyebrows rise before me 
 And I feel a gentle thrill 
 That her fingers must be chill. 
 
 But doors and locks between us 
 So effectually screen us 
 That I hasten from the street 
 And in dreamland pray to meet. 
 
 Poetry is held in high estimation by the Chinese. 
 Capping verses is a pastime of scholars ; and at the com- 
 petitive examinations the candidates have to try their hands 
 at the composition of verse. This mechanical art they have 
 first to learn at school, as, with us, boys waste their time at 
 public schools and colleges in composing Latin verse. The 
 consequence is, that all the educated men are verse-makers 
 we cannot call such poets. To this cause is partly due 
 the mechanical structure of much of Chinese poetry, but it 
 is also due to the peculiarities of its construction. Nor is 
 the art of poetry confined to men. China has had her 
 burning Sapphos who loved and sang, and her lyric 
 Corinnas. The lower classes are passionately fond of the 
 recitations of ballads by men who go from house to house 
 for the purpose. 
 
 We append a piece translated by the late G. C. Stent : 
 
 CHANG LIANG'S FLUTE. 
 
 'Twas night the tired soldiers were peacefully sleeping, 
 The low hum of voices was hushed in repose ; 
 
 The sentries in silence a strict watch were keeping, 
 'Gainst surprise, or a sudden attack of their foes. 
 
 553
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 When a mellow note on the night air came stealing, 
 
 So soothingly over the senses it fell 
 So touchingly sweet so soft and appealing, 
 
 Like the musical tones of an aerial bell. 
 
 Now rising, now falling now fuller and clearer 
 
 Now liquidly soft now a low wailing cry 
 Now the cadences seem floating nearer and nearer 
 
 Now dying away in a whispering sigh. 
 
 Then a burst of sweet music so plaintively thrilling, 
 Was caught up by the echoes who sang the refrains 
 
 In their many-toned voices the atmosphere filling 
 With a chorus of dulcet mysterious strains. 
 
 The sleepers arouse and with beating hearts listen, 
 
 In their dreams they had heard that weird music before ; 
 
 It touches each heart with tears their eyes glisten, 
 For it tells them of those they may never see more. 
 
 In fancy those notes to their childhood's days brought them, 
 To those far-away scenes they had not seen for years ; 
 
 To those who had loved them, had reared them and taught them, 
 And the eyes of those stern men became wet with tears. 
 
 Bright visions of home through their mem'ries come thronging, 
 
 Panorama-like passing in front of their view ; 
 They were home-sick, no power could withstand that strange longing, 
 
 The longer they listened, the more home-sick they grew. 
 
 Whence came those sweet sounds ? Who the unseen musician 
 That breathes out his soul which floats on the night-breeze 
 
 In melodious sighs in strains so elysian 
 As to soften the hearts of rude soldiers like these ? 
 
 Each looked at the other, but no word was spoken, 
 
 The music insensibly tempting them on : 
 They must return home : ere the daylight had broken, 
 
 The enemy looked, and behold, they were gone ! 
 
 There's a magic in music a witchery in it, 
 
 Indescribable either with tongue or with pen ; 
 The flute of Chang-Liang, in that one little minute, 
 
 Had stolen the courage of eight thousand men. 
 
 Books recommended. 'The Poetry of the Chinese,' by Sir J. F. Davis, 
 Bart, K.C. B., F.R.S., etc. This book gives an account of the structure of 
 Chinese poetry and a number of specimens. An article on ' Chinese Poetry,' 
 by the late Sir Walter Medhurst, in The China Review, vol. iv. p. 46. 
 'The Jade Chaplet,' by G. C. Stent ; 'Entombed Alive, and other Verses,' 
 from the same author's facile pen. For accounts of Su Tung-po, see China 
 Ji'eview, vol. i. p. 32, where two or three further specimens of his poetry are 
 given, and vol. xii. p. 31. 'The Works of Su Tung-po,' an article in The 
 Chinese Repository, vol. xi. p. 132. 'Li-tai-po as a Poet,' a short account 
 of Li-tai-po's -poetry in The China Review, vol. xvii. p. 35. ' Chinese 
 Legends and other Poems,' by W. A. P. Martin, D.D., LL.D. 'Chinese 
 Poetry in English Verse,' by Prof. H. A. Giles, M.A., LL.D., from which we 
 have culled a number of our specimens given above. 
 
 554
 
 Population 
 
 POPULATION. Much has been written on the popu- 
 lation of China, and various surmises and estimates have 
 been made of the number of the inhabitants. 
 
 If it is well-nigh impossible to find the exact number of 
 any one people in our Western lands, much more difficult 
 is it in the East. There are several things that militate 
 against an exact return being made of the population in a 
 country like China. To begin with, the object of taking a 
 census in this land has often been simply for the purposes 
 of revenue, and infants and young children as well as very 
 aged men were not included, though, at the present day, a 
 fuller method of taking the census is in vogue. Then again, 
 people who do not have the fullest confidence in their 
 rulers are not willing to give the fullest returns to these 
 rulers. And, again, anyone who knows anything about 
 Orientals can readily understand how difficult it is for 
 them, brought up with such a want of precision in their 
 habits of thought and expression, to realise the importance 
 of contributing their quota of statistics with the care and 
 exactitude they demand. Notwithstanding all these things, 
 the different censuses taken by the Chinese in the past are 
 worthy, on the whole, in many instances, of a considerable 
 amount of credence ; and, in fact, form the only returns 
 available for the entire empire. Compared with estimates 
 made by foreigners, they are tolerably trustworthy. 
 
 There have been considerable fluctuations in the number 
 of people in China at different periods : wars, rebellions, 
 famines, and floods have exerted a most depopulating effect 
 on large tracts of country, and have acted as a drag on the 
 continual tendency to increase. 
 
 Notwithstanding all these minimising effects, during the 
 centuries and millenniums the empire has been in existence, 
 the inhabitants have increased from some 21,000,000 to the 
 380,000,000 which some eighteen or nineteen years ago 
 formed what was considered on the best native data to be 
 the present population of this immense country. 
 
 Had it not been for the gigantic T'ai'-p'ing rebellion its 
 population might now have been reckoned at 450,000,000. 
 
 555
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 To this figure of 380,0x30,000 must be added the population 
 of Manchuria, and of the vast regions of Hi and Tibet, 
 which may be anything from 15,000,000 to 27,000,000 
 more : so that, perhaps, all things considered, the round 
 sum of 400,000,000 may be taken as that of the whole of 
 the dominions ruled over by the Emperor of China ; it is, 
 probably, not much less, and by latest figures seems to be 
 considerably more than that some 420,000,000. 
 
 As to the population to the square mile, it is said the 
 Eighteen Provinces have an average of 1,348,870 square 
 miles, though this statement is not supposed to be 
 accurate. With a population of say 380,000,000, and 
 the total of square miles given above, there would be 
 nearly 282 Chinese to a square mile of their territory. 
 But the density of the population differs greatly in 
 different parts of the country : ' that of the nine eastern 
 provinces in and near the Great Plain, comprising 
 502,192 square miles, or two-fifths of the whole' is 
 nearly three times that of 'the nine southern and 
 western provinces constituting the other three-fifths ' 
 of the Eighteen Provinces of China. ' The surface 
 and fertility of the country in these two portions 
 differ so greatly as to lead one to look for results 
 like these.' Taking the countries of France, Germany, 
 Great Britain, Italy, Holland, Spain, Japan, and Bengal 
 for comparison with China, we find that only two 
 of them Great Britain and Bengal exceed the density 
 of the average population of China ' taken as a whole, 
 while none of them come up to the average of the 
 eastern provinces,' but fall far short of it. From an 
 estimate of one district in Shantung, it was calculated that 
 in that spot the population to the square mile was 531, 
 'or considerably above the average of the Kingdom of 
 Belgium (the most densely populated country in Europe), 
 which had in A.D. 1873 an average of only 462 to the 
 square mile.' In another spot the actual number of 
 families in each village was taken, so far as the number 
 was known to the natives, the number of individuals to the 
 
 556
 
 Population 
 
 family being reckoned as five, though it is often far larger 
 than that. This other spot gave a result of 2,129 to tne 
 square mile. 
 
 ' So far as appearances go, there are thousands of square miles in 
 Southern and Central Chili, Western and South-Western Shantung 
 and Northern Honan, where the villages are as thick as in this one 
 tract, the contents of which we are thus able approximately to com- 
 pute. But for the plain of North China as a whole, it is probable that 
 it would be found more reasonable to estimate 300 persons to the 
 square mile for the more sparsely settled districts, and from 1,000 to 
 1,500 for the more thickly settled regions. In any case, a vivid 
 impression is thus gained of the enormous number of human beings 
 crowded into these fertile and historic plains, and also of the almost 
 insuperable difficulties in the way of an exact knowledge of the facts 
 of the true " census." ' 
 
 The province boasting the largest population is Kiang- 
 su ; the inhabitants are 37,800,000 in number ; from this 
 they dwindle down to between five or six millions in each 
 of the two provinces of Kweichau and Yunnan. 
 
 ' Living as the Chinese, Hindus, Japanese, and other Asiatics dp, 
 chiefly upon vegetables, the country can hardly be said to maintain 
 more than one-half or one-third as many people on a square mile as it 
 might do, if their energies were developed to the same extent with 
 those of the English or Belgians.' ' The social and political causes 
 which tend to multiply the inhabitants are numerous and powerful. 
 The failure of male posterity to continue the succession of the family, 
 and worship at the tombs of parents, is considered by all classes 
 as one of the most afflictive misfortunes of life ; the laws allow un- 
 limited facilities of adoption, and secure the rights of those taken 
 into the family in this way. The custom of betrothing children, and 
 the obligation society imposes, when arrived at maturity, to fulfil 
 the contracts entered into by their parents, acts favourably to the 
 establishment of families and the nurture of children, and restricts 
 polygamy. Parents desire children for a support in old age, as there 
 is no legal or benevolent provision for aged poverty, and public 
 opinion stigmatises the man who allows his aged or infirm parents 
 to suffer when he can help them. The law requires the owners of 
 domestic slaves to provide husbands for their females, and prohibits 
 the involuntary or forcible separation of husband and wife, or parents 
 and children, when the latter are of tender age. All these causes and 
 influences tend to increase population, and equalise the consumption 
 and use of property more, perhaps, than in any other land. The 
 custom of families remaining together tends to the same result.' 
 ' The reasons just given why the Chinese desire posterity are not all 
 those which have favoured national increase. The uninterrupted 
 peace which the country enjoyed between the years 1700 and 1850 
 operated to greatly develop its resources. Every encouragement 
 has been given to all classes to multiply and to fill the land. 
 
 557
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 Polygamy, slavery, and prostitution, three social evils which check 
 increase, have been circumscribed in their effects. Early betrothment 
 and poverty do much to prevent the first ; the female slaves can be 
 and are usually married ; while public prostitution is reduced by a 
 separation of the sexes and early marriages. No fear of overpassing 
 the supply of food restrains the people from rearing families, though 
 the Emperor Ch'ien Lung issued a proclamation, in 1793, calling upon 
 all ranks of his subjects to economise the gifts of heaven, lest, erelong, 
 the people exceed the means of subsistence.' 
 
 It may be interesting here to remark that ' recent 
 statistics (1901) give the population of the British Empire 
 as 400,000,000.' 
 
 To give some idea that the brain can easily grasp of 
 what a population like that of China means, it may be 
 stated that ' it would take over twelve years for the 
 population of China to walk by a given spot, one person 
 passing each second.' 
 
 Books recommended. Williams's 'Middle Kingdom,' vol. i. pp. 258-288, 
 where the whole subject is gone into most exhaustively. An article by Rev. 
 Arthur Smith, in The Chinese Recorder arid Missionary Journal for January 
 1893, entitled ' Estimating the Population of China.' Other articles on the 
 same subject have appeared in the same journal. See also Parker's ' China,' 
 chapter 9. 
 
 PORCELAIN AND POTTERY. The word porce- 
 lain, it is said, was introduced by the Portuguese (in the 
 sixteenth century), who first brought such ware in any 
 quantity to Europe from China. The name ' refers to the 
 exterior appearance resembling the shining white of the 
 Cyprcza or porcelain shell ( Portuguese porcellana) ' ' so called 
 from its carved upper surface being supposed to resemble 
 the rounded back of a porcella, or little hog.' 
 
 Marco Polo saw the manufacture of it in China in A.D. 
 1280, and informs us that it was sent all over the world, and 
 evidences of this early trade in it are found in India, Persia, 
 Egypt, Malayia, and Zanzibar. 
 
 'The Chinese from the most ancient times have cultivated 
 the art of welding clay, and they claim the invention of the 
 potter's wheel, like most of the great nations of antiquity.' 
 Like the origin of many Chinese things, the invention of 
 porcelain is shrouded in mists of antiquity, and no certain 
 
 558
 
 Porcelain and Pottery 
 
 date can be assigned to it. ' It is generally ascribed by 
 them to the ancient Emperor Shun, who is supposed to 
 have reigned during the third millennium B.C. ; but some 
 attribute it to his more famous predecessor, Huang Ti, who 
 is given a Director of Pottery,' among the officers of his 
 court. 
 
 In a book published in the Chou dynasty, 'there is a short section 
 on pottery, in which the processes of fashioning on the wheel and 
 moulding are distinguished. Among the productions we read of 
 coffins, sacrificial wine-jars, and altar dishes, cooking utensils and 
 measures, all made no doubt of simple pottery, and it is doubted 
 whether this was ever covered by a vitreous glaze the employment of 
 which is so ancient in Egypt. Different potteries are mentioned in 
 the Wei and following dynasties.' ' The manufacture of articles of 
 pottery for domestic use then was known to the Chinese as early as 
 B.C. 1700.' 
 
 This is one view, but, unfortunately, the term used for 
 porcelain in Chinese is one of those words which every 
 language possesses, namely, words which have changed 
 from their original significance this word, having first 
 been applied to all pottery, affords no sure clue for fixing 
 dates as to the original production of porcelain. St. Julien 
 places the invention as early as between B.C. 185 and A.D. 
 83. 'It has been objected to this, with justice, that the 
 Chinese statements on which he bases his theory, are, like 
 those of Marco Polo, very superficial and indefinite, and 
 most probably relate to quite other clay-wares.' Therefore, 
 the statement that porcelain was produced in the Han 
 dynasty (B.C. 206 to A.D. 220) is unfortunately incapable of 
 proof. Were it possible to discover any indubitable pro- 
 ductions of that epoch, all doubt might be set at rest, but 
 at present it is not known that any exist. Were archaeology 
 more of a science among the Chinese than it is, some hope 
 might be entertained that such would be the case. Some 
 have been sceptical enough to suppose that it was not 
 known ' long, if at all, before the Ming dynasty (A.D. 1368),' 
 while again, on the other hand, it is asserted that porcelain 
 was invented when, in the middle of the ninth century, 
 certain pieces were produced of a white colour, like ivory, 
 and giving a clear sound when struck. 
 
 559
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 It is supposed that the Chinese endeavoured to imitate 
 ivory in their whole porcelain, which is known in France as 
 blanc de Chine. 
 
 The cups, produced at Ta-i, of this ware, have had their 
 praises sung by Tu Fu, a poet of the T'ang dynasty (See 
 Article on Poetry.). The decorations were effected before 
 the baking, and were not elaborate, being confined to such 
 subjects as fish, flowers, etc. 
 
 ' This was the time when the cobalt decorations under glaze were 
 first employed, which from then till now have played such an 
 important part in the ornamentation of Chinese porcelain, especially 
 for domestic use among the Chinese themselves.' 
 
 'At whatever period or by whatever happy chain of circumstances 
 porcelain was invented, we have tangible evidence that the Chinese 
 potters produced wonderful works at a very early period of our era, 
 and have gone on producing them up to our own day. Speaking on 
 this subject, M. Phillippe Burty remarks : " The Chinese ceramists 
 succeeded to a marvellous degree in their manipulation of porcelain ; 
 in their hands it became a truly magical substitute, receiving every 
 form and gradation of colour that caprice could dictate. In their 
 porcelain productions we have proof that the decorative taste and 
 imitative skill of the Chinese artists are almost faultless. You see, 
 for instance, . . a carp and carplings with descended gills slipping 
 amongst a clump of reeds ; a garden rat devouring a peach ; a toad 
 crawling up the involuted root of a bamboo ; or a beautiful water- 
 lily in full bloom, forming a cup, of which the tea-pot is so constructed 
 that not only have its concentric, movable rings been carved out of a 
 solid mass, but they revolve upon each other, causing us to wonder 
 how adherence could have been prevented in the firing. The origin 
 of the great superiority of the Oriental potters is, that they start, in 
 nearly all instances, with a more or less free or capricious imitation of 
 some natural production ; and the article, peculiar in outline and 
 treatment, will, however, readily suggest to the mind some affinity 
 with the real object. All the productions of the natural world, and, 
 indeed, the beings and monsters with which they crowd the super- 
 natural world, are alike resorted to for fresh inspiration ; and their 
 habits of careful observation of nature supply them with countless 
 delicate subtleties." ' 
 
 ' It is unquestionably to this great appreciation for, and unre- 
 mitting study of the works of nature that we are indebted for the 
 marvellous variety of works produced by the artists of China and 
 Japan. No one can review a collection of Oriental porcelain without 
 being struck with the masterly handling of form and colour it displays. 
 In flower vases, perfume burners, and water vessels, every shape that 
 the mineral, animal, and vegetable kingdoms could suggest has been 
 adopted, and the colouring studiously imitated.' ' The early porcelain 
 of the Chinese appears to have been remarkable for its form, and the 
 beauty of its material. At one time, it is probable, white porcelain 
 
 560
 
 Porcelain and Pottery 
 
 only was made ; but it is evident that at a very early date the art of 
 covering the pieces with a rich coloured enamel had been invented, 
 and also the mode of producing the crackled appearance in the 
 enamel discovered. Many varieties of white porcelain have been 
 produced by the Chinese potters, and some are of great beauty, not 
 only on account of the perfection of their paste, but likewise from the 
 tasteful manner in which they are decorated. Some have flowers 
 or conventional designs, carefully modelled in relief, while others 
 have designs so engraved that they are visible only when held up to 
 the light.' 
 
 ' The old Chinese potters do not appear to have worked in grooves, 
 or styles, beyond what a limited demand on the part of their patrons 
 rendered necessary. No sooner had some experiment or accident 
 introduced a new colour, combination of colours, or some peculiar 
 surface decorations, than articles were produced suitable for the 
 display of the same ; and we are of opinion that in many cases such 
 essays were never repeated, until attempted in the recent periods of 
 imitation to meet the demand of European collectors. There are, no 
 doubt, such things as unique Chinese porcelain in the cabinets of 
 collectors in China and Europe, and it is highly probable that they 
 have been unique from the day of their fabrication. Many specimens, 
 now so much prized, may have been spoiled pieces in the eyes of 
 their makers, and, not turning out to be what was desired or expected 
 at the time, were never repeated. This argument applies to the 
 highly curious, and at times extravagant specimens of the splashed or 
 enamelled ware which are met with, and which carry with them 
 evidences, in their distorted shapes and slag-vitrification, of their 
 accidental decoration.' 
 
 The paste of porcelain-ware is prepared usually from 
 two ingredients ; these are finely mixed and pulverised ; 
 the one is known as kaolin, so called, it is said, from a hill 
 to the east of the Chinese Imperial Porcelain manufactory, 
 King-teh-chin, kao meaning high in Chinese, and tin 
 (properly ling), a ridge, or high peak, ' which hill, however, 
 does not yield the product of decomposition which we in 
 Europe call kaolin (" porcelain or pipe-clay "), but a phyllite, 
 whose chemical composition resembles that of the Swedish 
 Halleflinta (?) ' ; the other ingredient consists of some 
 mineral 'rich in silicic acid, the so-called flux usually 
 felspar or pegmatite, porcelain stone (. . . these porcelain 
 stones, which are wanting in our porcelain industry, con- 
 tribute greatly to that of China and Japan), or some other 
 white-burning form of quartz is used in the finer ceramics.' 
 The proportion of the two and the degree of heat in firing 
 depend upon whether porcelain or faience is to be pro- 
 
 561 2 N
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 duced. Some of the colours which were used by the 
 Chinese six hundred years ago to decorate their porcelain 
 ' we are not yet able to imitate." 
 
 The white Ting porcelain would appear to have been 
 in existence during the seventh century. The Ting-Yao 
 was made at Ting Chau in Chihli, whence its name. It 
 was also known as white Ting porcelain from its colour 
 being mostly of a brilliant white. It is probably one of 
 the oldest kinds. There were three varieties of it plain, 
 smooth, and that having ornaments in relief. The sign of 
 its being genuine is that of having marks like tears on it. 
 It is to be distinguished from the creamy white of another 
 species of porcelain, the kien-yiu made in Fuhkien. 
 Commencing with the beginning of the seventh century, 
 it seems probable that the manufacture of porcelain 
 ' began to flourish in various parts of the Empire.' Of 
 the different kinds produced during the T'ang dynasty, 
 no specimens, as far as is known, are extant, but 
 those of the Sung period are to be found in the 
 market ; these, from their age, command a good price. 
 Unfortunately, however, many of this period were of 
 such a delicate make as to be unfitted for survival 
 during the centuries that have intervened. Some, 
 especially those of an indestructible nature, have been 
 handed down ; the others are only known from the 
 descriptions given of them in books. Amongst the best 
 of them were the Ch'en and Ju kinds. The Ju was of a 
 pale ' bluish-green.' 
 
 At the same time as the Ta-i cups, mentioned above, 
 were produced at Yueh-chow for the Emperor's use, the 
 class of porcelain styled Pi-se was made, the colour 
 described as ' a hidden colour ' has given rise to some 
 discussion as to the precise meaning. So fine was certain 
 porcelain made here that it was described ' as transparent 
 as jade and so resonant as to be used in sets of twelve to 
 play tunes upon.' But few, if any, specimens of these 
 ancient examples of ceramic art are in existence. No 
 kind of painted decoration appears to have been used 
 
 562
 
 Porcelain and Pottery 
 
 before the Sung dynasty, as writers are silent about any- 
 thing of the kind. 
 
 The tenth century is marked by progress, both in the 
 perfected operations and in the art of the decorator, which 
 felt the influence of Buddhism bringing Indian art in its 
 train, and improving the taste of the natives. The Chinese 
 describe the porcelain produced at this epoch (A.D. 960) in 
 the following terms : ' Blue as the sky, bright as a mirror, 
 fragile as paper, and sonorous as a plaque of jade-stone ; 
 they were lustrous and of a charming delicacy ; the fineness 
 of the crackle and the purity of the colour are distinguish- 
 ing features of them : they eclipse by their beauty all 
 preceding procelains.' They were called by the highly 
 poetical name of yu kwo tien tsing, ' cerulean blue in the 
 cloud rifts as it appears after the showers ' ; they were 
 highly valued, and even broken fragments were treasured 
 up as jewels would be, and formed into ornaments. 
 We shall find that later on these were imitated with good 
 effect. 
 
 Amongst numerous manufactories opened then through- 
 out the empire, that of King - teh - chin in Kiangsi, 
 established in A.D. 1004, takes the pre-eminence. It is 
 still the Imperial manufactory and 'supplies all the fine 
 porcelain used in the country.' It was almost wholly 
 destroyed by the T'af-'p'ing rebellion. A million workmen 
 were employed there previous to that event, when they 
 were dispersed, either joining the insurgent ranks or dying 
 of want ; but according to latest accounts these manu- 
 factories are resuming their prosperity ; five hundred kilns, 
 it is said, are constantly burning. 
 
 ' And bird-like poise on balanced wing 
 Above the town of King-te-tching, 
 A burning town or seeming so, 
 Three thousand furnaces that glow 
 Incessantly, and fill the air 
 With smoke uprising, gyre on gyre, 
 And painted by the lurid glare, 
 Of jets and flashes of red fire.' 
 
 LONGFELLOW, Ktramos. 
 
 Rapid progress was made in the art, and at the end of 
 
 563
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 the tenth century coloured enamel was first applied on the 
 pieces baked in biscuit, and various colours, such as several 
 shades of violet and blue, as well as yellow were used. 
 Buddhist and Taoist figures, flowers, and the Chinese 
 written characters, which have for so many centuries lent 
 themselves readily to decorative art, all were employed, as 
 well as fillets in relief. 
 
 The Chim is another of the oldest kinds of porcelain. 
 The factories for its production were in existence in the 
 tenth century, at the beginning of the Sung dynasty. One 
 native work says : 
 
 ' The highest quality consists of pieces having a colour as red as 
 cinnabar, and as green as onion leaves and kingfisher's plumage, 
 . . . and the purple brown colour of the skin of an egg - plant 
 fruit, or of pieces red like rouge, green like onion leaves and king- 
 fisher's plumage, and purple like ink-black, these three colours being 
 pure and not in the slightest degree changed during the firing.' 
 
 Kuan-yao, mandarin porcelain, as its name implies, was 
 produced in certain Government factories. 
 
 Dr. Hirth describes the specimen seen by him as ' of a peculiar 
 brownish green, a sort of bronze colour,' called by the Chinese 
 ch'ci-ch'ing, tea green, but the varieties described as of the Sung 
 dynasty are 'white and thin like paper'; 'another was very much 
 the same as Ko- Yau [the ancient celadon crackle] with three grada- 
 tions in colour constituting their value, viz. : (i) a pale <r^V^-green ; 
 (2) a fallow white ; and (3) grey. The Ko-ku-yao-lun speaks of ch'ing- 
 green playing into pale scarlet, the shades being very different though ; 
 the best ones having the " crab's claw pattern," and " a red brim with 
 an iron coloured bottom." ' 
 
 Another division of porcelains was the Lung-ctiilan-yau 
 and Ko-yau, ' the real old celadons ' described as of ' a sea- 
 green mixed with bluish or greyish tints, neither a decided 
 green nor anything like blue.' The qualities it possesses are 
 ' thickness, heaviness, rich olive or sea-green enamel, white 
 paste, and a ... ferruginous ring on the bottom ' the 
 paste, which was originally white, turned red in the fire. 
 These were produced in the Sung and Yuan dynasties 
 (A.D. 960 to 1368) and seem to have been carried by the 
 current of mediaeval Chinese trade into ' Arab possessions 
 and other foreign countries.' 
 
 564
 
 Porcelain and Pottery 
 
 We quote from Gulland's work the following interesting 
 account of crackle, that curious characteristic of many 
 specimens of porcelains : 
 
 'This [crackle], like the following class [celadon], consists of a 
 glaze, white or coloured, generally covering a coarse paste resem- 
 bling stoneware, which is sometimes of quite a red colour. Although 
 now artificially produced, it is said originally, at an early period, to 
 have been discovered by accident. Crackle, it is said by the Chinese, 
 was known during the southern Sung dynasty (A.I). 1127-1278). 
 There seems to be various ways of producing this effect, which 
 appears in the main to have been caused by exposing the piece to a 
 sudden drop in temperature, thus causing the glaze on the surface to 
 contract faster than the paste or biscuit, and so break into sections, 
 which, when baked, become crackle. In these small cracks in the 
 glaze, Indian ink or a red colour were sometimes rubbed, thus 
 heightening the effect. The Chinese were so completely the masters 
 of the process, that they could turn out at will crackle of any size, now 
 known as large, medium, and small crackle, the latter being called by 
 the French truite, from its resemblance to the scales of a trout.' 
 
 The crackled porcelain known as tsiti-k'i in the 
 thirteenth century, was also a product of this first or primi- 
 tive period of the ceramic art in China. 'The beautiful 
 coloured ground tints, chalcedony, dull violet, yellow and 
 Turkish blue, so much valued by collectors, began to be 
 used in the thirteenth century.' 
 
 The second period, the Hsiian Te, comprises the reigns 
 of Hsiian Te, Cheng T'ung, and Ching T'ai, lasting from A.D. 
 1426 to A.D. 1465. Ceramic art was still in a formative 
 stage at the commencement of this period, notwithstand- 
 ing the advances made in the last period. Its character- 
 istic type was the decoration of blue flowers under the 
 glaze. This blue was the su-ni-po, and took after the 
 firing a pale blue. This porcelain is highly esteemed by 
 the Chinese. M. Paleologue describes the pieces thus 
 produced in the following terms : ' Elles out, en effet, un 
 charme doux de coloris et de composition, une purete 
 de ton, une delicatesse d'aspect qui n'ont jamais te 
 surpasses.' 
 
 Red was also put into the enamel for the first time 
 before the glaze was applied, being ' painted on the paste 
 so that the red designs shone through the glaze, dazzling 
 the eyes. It is described as obtained by powdering 
 
 565
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 rubies from the West, but this is impossible.' It was a 
 copper silicate ; and the red for painting over the glaze 
 was prepared from sulphate of iron and carbonate of lead. 
 ' This mixture produced a fine coral red,' and, to procure 
 a deep enough red, cornelian was employed. 
 
 Amongst other work produced at this time may be 
 mentioned some pottery known by the Portuguese as 
 boccaro : the fine kind of this ware was formed into teapots 
 and other objects, while the coarser sort was employed as 
 ornamentation on walls, it being used in the famous 
 Porcelain Tower of Nanking, which was built A.D. 
 1415-1430. 
 
 The reign of Hsiian Te ' is celebrated for its porcelain, which is held 
 [by some] to be the finest produced during the Ming dynasty : every 
 production was of the highest artistic value. Cups were made of a 
 bright red or of sky blue. The surface on some cups was granulated 
 like the skin of a fowl or the peel of the sweet orange. There were 
 vases crackled like glass, or with veins as red as the blood of the eel, 
 rivalling in beauty the porcelain of Jou-chou and the Kuan-yao. The 
 bowls decorated with crickets were of extraordinary beauty.' 
 
 'The most flourishing period of Chinese porcelain making, how- 
 ever, like that of most other branches of its art industry, was during 
 the Ming dynasty, especially in the second half of the fifteenth 
 century. During this period its manufacture occupied a new position, 
 owing to the employment of many coloured decorations upon glaze 
 after the article had been baked. This was a new development, and 
 was called "the five-coloured porcelain," because more than one 
 colour was employed, but the number was not necessarily confined to 
 five. We shall refer again to these under the K'ang-Hsi period. With 
 this advance the artist proceeded to more difficult subjects for decora- 
 tive purposes, such as the human figure, historical, legendary, and 
 religious scenes and landscapes. Porcelains in which green pre- 
 dominated were particularly prized.' ' Gold and gold purple were not 
 used till the year 1690.' 
 
 The third epoch, that of Ch'eng Hua, includes the reigns 
 of Hung Chih, Cheng Te, Chia-Ching, and Lung Ch'ing, 
 and lasted from A.D. 1465 to 1573. Blue porcelain was 
 still manufactured, less pure materials being employed in 
 place of the su-ni-po. 
 
 At the same time advances are noticeable in other 
 points, such as arrangements of colours and skill in 
 designs, etc. An improved quality of cobalt seems 
 to have been used (A.D. 1521) and a new dark blue was 
 
 566
 
 Porcelain and Pottery 
 
 produced ; the objects made in it commanded a high 
 price. 
 
 ' In the Ch'dng Hua period [that of the reign of that sovereign A.D. 
 1465-1487] lived several celebrated artists. One made jars which he 
 decorated on the upper part with the monlan [tree peony] in flower, 
 and below a hen and chickens full of life and movement. There were 
 also cups with handles, painted with grapes ; wine cups, ornamented 
 with figures and the lotus ; others as thin as paper, painted with blue 
 flowers ; others with locusts. The enamelled were especially esteemed. 
 The blue on the ware of this period is inferior to the Hsiian Te, but its 
 paintings and colours surpass any that preceded them.' 
 
 Gilding, which was first employed during the Yuan 
 dynasty, was brought to perfection during the reign of 
 Ch'eng Hua (A.D. 1465-1489.) 
 
 'In the Chia Ching period (A.D. 1522-1566), the dark 
 blue vases were alone in favour.' 
 
 Immense quantities of porcelain were ordered to be 
 manufactured for Imperial purposes, in A.D. 1571 : no less 
 a number than 105,770 pairs of different kinds of articles, 
 and in 1583 as many as 96,000 pieces, but remonstrances 
 were made by the censors, and in some instances, at all 
 events, the amounts were reduced. This wholesale order- 
 ing and consequent enormous production has flooded 
 the streets of Peking with porcelain of that date, ' where 
 a street-hawker may be seen with sweetmeats piled on 
 dishes over a yard in diameter, or ladling iced syrup out 
 of Ming bowls, and there is hardly a butcher's shop with- 
 out a large Ming jar.' 
 
 The fourth period is styled the Wan Li period, though 
 it covers the reigns of T'ai Ch'ang, T'ien Ch'i, and Ch'ung 
 Cheng of the Ming dynasty, as well as that of Shun Chih 
 of the present, or Ts'ing dynasty or Ch'ing, and lasted 
 from A.D. 1573 to 1662. 
 
 Green and the ' five coloured porcelains ' were the chief 
 products. Two drawbacks were experienced at this time : 
 one was the giving out of the clay employed for the fine 
 porcelain ; and the other was the cessation of the importa- 
 tion of the blue the Mohammedan blue as the Chinese 
 termed it just, as a century before, the su-ni-po blue had 
 failed. To meet the new condition of affairs and to hide 
 
 567
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 the greyish character of the only products procurable with 
 the materials at their disposal, a rich brilliancy of enamel 
 was employed, and the importance attached to the outer 
 surface hid the inferior products below. 
 
 During the reign of Lung Ch'ing, the last Emperor of the 
 last period, as well as during that of Wan Li, the first of 
 the period now under review, ' the Imperial manufactory 
 produced pieces which showed the greatest artistic skill.' 
 
 The latter Emperor ' had cups for the altar as white as jade, and 
 of extraordinary beauty. The glaze of the vases was creamy, " like a 
 layer of congealed fat." The surface was granulated, as if covered 
 with grains of millet, or like the flesh of a fowl ; some are said to 
 appear as if covered with buds of the azalea, and others shagreened 
 like the peel of an orange.' During this same reign there 'lived a 
 celebrated artist of the name of Au, who excelled in poetry, writing, 
 and painting. . . . He withdrew from the world and retired to a manu- 
 factory, where he produced, in secret, porcelain, remarkable alike for 
 its quality and the beauty of its colours. Among these the most 
 sought after were large cups, ornamented with red clouds, brilliant as 
 vermilion, and egg-shell cups, of dazzling whiteness, and so fine that 
 some of them did not weigh more than twelve grains.' 'The white 
 pieces of the Wan Li' reign 'were very celebrated.' 'The manu- 
 facture of porcelain continued at the King-teh-chin Imperial Potteries 
 under the present dynasty (the Ts'ing, or Manchu Tartar, A.D. 1662) 
 with equal success.' During Shun Chih's reign, however, as well as 
 the latter part of the Ming dynasty, ' there seems to have been a great 
 decline in the manufacture of fine porcelain ; therefore little artistic 
 work is found during this period.' 
 
 ' The Monochrome porcelain of the Ming and Ch'ien Lung periods, 
 the ruby, sang-de-batif, Imperial yellow, crushed strawberry, peach- 
 bloom, moonlight blue, camellia-green, apple-green, and other rare 
 enamel porcelains of old China always have been, and still remain, 
 inimitable.' 
 
 'The secret of the Chinese coloured enamel porcelain vases' 
 consisted in ' the art of using verifiable enamels, which required the 
 second firing over the glaze at a low temperature.' 
 
 The fifth epoch is that of the reign of the Emperor 
 K'ang Hsi (A.D. 1662-1723), in which the art of the manu- 
 facture of porcelain attained its greatest eminence, as M. 
 Pal^ologue says about it : 
 
 'C'est la belle dpoque de la porcelaine. Les proce'de's se sont 
 perfectionne's, les ressources des ceramistes et des peintres sont plus 
 riches ; d'autre part, les formes sont plus heureuses et mieux pon- 
 de*rees, la composition plus savante et plus variee ; les colorations ont 
 une harmonic douce ou une puissance d'eclat que les pieces anciennes, 
 avaient rarement realises.' 
 
 568
 
 Porcelain and Pottery 
 
 Mr. Gulland calls attention to the fact that : 
 
 Kang Hsi ' seems to have been a very able man, fond of art and 
 science, willing moreover to avail himself of the assistance of the 
 Jesuit missionaries, and it was probably their aid that led, as Sir A. 
 W. Franks says, "to many improvements in the porcelain manufacture 
 and to the introduction of several new colours." It is said that two 
 Jesuit lay-brothers were at this time employed at the royal factories 
 of King-te-chin.' 
 
 Ysbranti Ides, ambassador to China from Peter the 
 Great in A.D. 1692, speaking of the porcelain of the 
 country, says : 
 
 ' The finest, richest, and most valuable china is not exported, or 
 at least very rarely, particularly a yellow ware, which is destined for 
 the Imperial use, and is prohibited to all other persons. They have 
 a kind of crimson ware [probably the sang-de-bceuf\ which is very 
 fine and dear, because great quantities of it are spoiled in the baking. 
 They have another sort, of a shining white, purflcd with red, which 
 is produced by blowing the colour through a gauze, so that both the 
 inside and outside are equally beautified with crimson no bigger than 
 pins' points ; and this must be very expensive, since for one piece 
 that succeeds a hundred are spoiled. They have a kind of china 
 purfled in the same manner with gold. Also a kind which looks 
 like mosaic work, or as if it had been cracked in a thousand places 
 and set together again without cement. There is another kind of 
 violet-coloured china, with patterns composed of green specks, which 
 are made by blowing the colours through a frame pierced with holes ; 
 and this operation succeeds so rarely, that a very small basin is 
 worth two or three hundred pounds. They have a kind of white 
 china, excessively thin, with blue fishes painted on the material 
 between the coats of varnish, so that they are invisible except when 
 the cup is full of liquor.' 
 
 The most of the porcelain of this period may be 
 grouped under the four heads of white porcelain, green, 
 rose, and coloured glaze. 
 
 This white porcelain was made in Te-hoa in the Fuh- 
 kien province ; the Chinese call it peh-tsz, that is ' white 
 porcelain.' It ' is very lustrous and polished,' but it is very 
 thick. It was used with good effect in the construction of 
 statuettes of Buddhist idols. M. Pale"ologue thus describes 
 one that he saw : 
 
 ' Certaines statuettes faites de cette pate ont un charme singulier ; 
 une deesse Kouan-yin, que nous vimes & Pekin, avail, dans son im- 
 mobilite hieratique, une delicatesse de formes, une grace pensive, une 
 douceur de physionomie et une suavite d'expression que n'ont jamais 
 depasse'es les plus beaux bronzes sacres.' 
 
 569
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 The white is not confined to one shade, but runs 
 through all the varieties. 
 
 With regard to the green porcelain, two schools sprang 
 up : one, while following the models of antiquity, intro- 
 duced a grace and beauty and an improvement in style 
 wanting in the old works. Flowers, sprays of trees, 
 grasses, flights of birds, beetles, and dragon-flies, all lent 
 their aid to the decorations of these objects, and the love 
 of nature, so inherent in the Chinese, had full scope, while 
 in combination with the dominant green, appeared red and 
 touches of yellow, blue, and violet ; the other school, while 
 paying less attention to colouring, had able brushes and 
 skilful hands, which were employed in depicting ' historical 
 or religious scenes, full of life and movement,' but unfor- 
 tunately an Imperial edict in A.D. 1677 put an end to the 
 production of such scenes. 
 
 Several new colours were discovered about A.D. 1680. 
 The rose-colour had different shades of 'exquisite sweet- 
 ness.' The commonest subjects employed were flowers 
 and birds, amongst the former, the lotus and chrysanthe- 
 mum were favourites. This kind of porcelain, however, 
 was further perfected in the following period. Of the 
 remaining porcelains, of this epoch, the celadons and the 
 flambe's are to be particularly noticed. With regard to the 
 former they were not first produced during this epoch, but 
 some manufactured now were perfect gems in brilliancy. 
 ' Turquoise-blue, sea-green, and a suspicion of violet' is one 
 description of what celadons are, and all these tints are 
 often met blended in one. 
 
 Gulland describes celadon as '"single coloured glazes," known as 
 "whole" or "self" coloured pieces. To lovers of colour this is 
 probably the most interesting class. It was much appreciated by the 
 collectors of last century, and still brings long prices. Of all the 
 various descriptions, it is, perhaps, the one that lent itself best to 
 French skill in ormolu mounting. The distinctive feature of this 
 class is that the coloured glaze was applied to the " paste," and thus 
 exposed to the extreme heat of the first firing. This often caused the 
 glaze to change colour, hence the variegated hues to be met with, 
 known to the French as flambt, and to us as "splashed." In course 
 of time the Chinese, no doubt, could produce this effect pretty well at 
 will, and perhaps sometimes used glazes of more than one colour to 
 
 570
 
 Porcelain and Pottery 
 
 obtain their end. The word celadon is unfortunately used in two 
 senses as a general term, where the substance of which the vessel is 
 made is hid from view by the coloured glaze with which it is covered ; 
 in the other, as indicating that particular range of greens known by 
 this name. ... In no class do we find greater variety or brilliancy 
 of colouring than in this ; nearly every colour and shade thereof is to 
 be met with.' 
 
 The list of shades, thirty-four in number; given on page 
 139 of Mr. Gulland's book (First Edition), will show 
 what a variety of colours are to be met with in this 
 interesting division of porcelain. 
 
 We must really again quote M. Paleologue, who is so 
 in love with his subject that he would make an enthusiast 
 of almost any one. He says of these celadons : 
 
 ' Les celadons dits " bleu de ciel apres la pluie," en souvenir des 
 porcelaines, de Che-tsong dont ils etaient 1'imitation, nous offrent les 
 plus delicats specimens de ce genre. Mais les celadons ornes de 
 dessins graves ou imprimes en relief dans la pate du fond sont encore 
 plus seduisants peut-etre par les effets de modele et de coloration 
 que realise la couverte accumulee sur le decor : la fluidite des teintes. 
 la sorte d'ombre dont elles s'enveloppent par places n'ont jamais pu 
 etre reproduces dans les porcelaines de fabrication europeenne. 
 Notons enfin, dans le mcme groupe ceramique les celadons bleu 
 empois dont la couverte, preparee an cobalt, a un aspect lumineux, 
 semi-translucide.' 
 
 Che-tsong named above is Shih Tsung, or Chia Ching. 
 
 ' Celadon porcelain is manufactured by applying the green glaze to 
 the ware before it has been fired at all ; by this means, the peculiar 
 depth of surface is given to it, the burning process thoroughly 
 incorporating the glaze into the body.' 
 
 The spotted celadons which were the rage in France in 
 the eighteenth century were also the products of this 
 period. 
 
 There were some beautiful specimens of flambes at this 
 time : one is described as resembling precious stones 
 blended together ; but it is in the next period that these 
 works were the most finished. 
 
 During K'ang Hsi's reign crackled china was brought 
 to perfection. (See page 565 also) : 
 
 ' Perhaps the most characteristic ware produced by the Chinese 
 potters is the crackled. Many varieties of this ware exist, but they are 
 all produced by the same means, namely, the unequal contraction of 
 the glaze and the body. There is little doubt that the first crackled 
 piece was the result of an accident, or what might as properly be 
 
 571
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 called a blunder ; the glaze had not been of the usual quality, and in 
 cooling, contracted so much more than the body, that it split into a 
 thousand pieces.' 
 
 'The crackle glaze is highly esteemed by the Chinese, and in 
 their hands has been made in many varieties quite decorative. There 
 is a style of large crackle with the intervening space filled with a fine 
 crackle, the fine cracks never passing beyond the enclosing lines of 
 the coarse. There are other specimens with zones of fine crackle, 
 with intervening spaces without crackle, ornamented with markings 
 to suit the fancy of the artist. But one of the most decorative crackles 
 is produced by making the fissures of the first glaze as wide as 
 possible, and then rubbing colouring matter into the interstices ; the 
 piece being again fired to fix these colours, after which a smooth 
 transparent enamel is applied over all, often giving the piece the 
 appearance of mosaic work.' 
 
 Amongst other noteworthy productions of this epoch 
 are to be named the tsang, the enamel of which was 
 serpent green, gold yellow, pale yellow, violet or light 
 green ; and this variety took all the colours of bronze. 
 
 A very curious coloration is produced on vases by the 
 workman blowing the colouring, ' after the base colour ' 
 was applied, which was matter ' usually of a reddish 
 brown ' colour, ' through a piece of gauze fastened at the 
 end of a tube of bamboo.' ' This metallic colouring strikes 
 in a spray, and, after firing, the specimen has a fine 
 metallic lustre not very unlike what is known as gold 
 stone.' Some vases have been subjected to this mode 
 of treatment more than once, receiving a miniature shower 
 of different coloured rain. This kind of decoration is 
 known by the name of souffle, and the finest of it was 
 produced during the Kang Hsi period. 
 
 Quite a variety of these decorations were produced, 
 one of which at least is very beautiful. By some means 
 the colouring material was ' blown from the tube ' and 
 lighted ' upon the piece in small bubbles, some remaining 
 as such, while most of them ' broke and formed ' rings, 
 many of the rings, in turn,' broke ' at their lower side, 
 the colours running a little, often giving a beautiful agate 
 appearance, in fact, such pieces are called agate specimens. 
 Souffl6 porcelain was also made in the Ch'ien Lung period, 
 but not of so fine a quality ' as that just described. 
 
 572
 
 Porcelain and Pottery 
 
 'The best blacks were made in the reign of Kang Hsi, and with 
 their fine enamel some specimens are quite beautiful ; the black is 
 produced by uranium oxide. Plain reds were not much used, it seems, 
 during the time of Kang Hsi, but a lovely tint was employed in con- 
 nection with other colours in the decorations. . . What is known as 
 the five-coloured decoration, was introduced during the Ming dynasty, 
 but brought to its greatest degree of perfection during the time of 
 Kang Hsi. The five colours are red, yellow, green, blue, and black. 
 These are all produced from metallic oxides or minerals ; no other 
 colouring matter will stand the high degree of heat required to produce 
 underglaze decoration. In using these colours in combination it 
 required a great amount of experience and manipulative skill, and so 
 the range of colours must necessarily be limited, for all material used 
 must be of a character to fuse, on the one hand, before the fusing point 
 of the paste, and, on the other, not evaporate and spoil the shade 
 required, while enduring the heat necessary for the underglaze firing ; 
 and then again, some colours are much more refractory than others ; 
 no two fuse at the same temperature. Therefore the most refractory 
 colours must in all cases be applied first, then the piece fired to the 
 fusing point of this colour ; then, for the shading of this colour, more 
 must be added to points requiring the heavy shades, and fused again 
 until this colour and its tints are satisfactory ; then the next refractory 
 colour is applied in the same manner, fired to the fusing point, and so 
 on until the last and most easily fusible colour has been applied, 
 whereupon over all an enamel is fused which is less refractory than 
 any colour. The fine specimens of the five colours have probably 
 been fired from fifteen to twenty times. Then if the piece comes out 
 at the last finished, without break, crack, warp, or the colours having 
 run, and possessing all the brilliancy and shading desired, the piece 
 is valuable ; many are spoiled during this fiery ordeal. With very 
 limited exceptions, the finest artists that ever existed in China lived 
 during the K'ang Hsi period.' During this ' time Chinese porcelain 
 was brought to its highest degree of perfection and artistic beauty, 
 with perhaps the exception of the beautiful Ming greens. The 
 exquisite sang-de-bceuf when perfect is of great beauty. To describe 
 its brilliancy would be most difficult, yet, if attempted, one might say, 
 take a plain, undecorated porcelain vase and immerse it in the freshest 
 arterial blood, and, while dripping, fix the colour with a deep trans- 
 parent enamel. While one piece is nearly perfect, a thousand are 
 more or less spoiled in the firing. They come out of the kiln from 
 the beautiful colour above described to a much darker red, often 
 badly blotched ; from the latter they run through all the shades until 
 lost in an ash colour tinged with only the slightest blush of red. 
 There is a beautiful blue which seems engraved into a creamy paste 
 over which a liquid enamel is fixed, the enamel often being crackled, 
 and also an exquisite white described as having the appearance of 
 congealed fat. Perhaps with these exceptions, no Ming porcelain or 
 decorations equal, in quality of paste, beauty of form, purity of enamel, 
 brilliancy and happy combination of colours, and high artistic 
 decorative skill, the porcelain made during the reign of K'ang Hsi.' 
 
 'With the exception of the beautiful blue and the creamy tinted 
 white (often crackled), which belong to the Ming dynasty these 
 specimens are often rare all other fine old blue and white china 
 
 573
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 belongs to the K'ang Hsi period, often inaccurately marked Ming in 
 Chinese characters on the bottom. Many of the specimens are 
 very beautiful ; they have a clear white ground and brilliant blue 
 ornamentation, and have this virtue, that in whatever light, and from 
 whatever distance the colour of the piece is seen, it is always blue. 
 These blues are formed from cobalt oxide. All the fine yellow with 
 a deep transparent enamel which lights up with a delightful brilliancy, 
 was also made in the K'ang Hsi period ; these are often decorated with 
 a lively green, usually with a dragon,' a lion, 'or some mythical 
 creature.' 'Yellow is the present Imperial colour. The turquoise 
 variety was probably first made during this reign, and is among the 
 most highly prized. The colour is derived from a copper oxide, and 
 like the sang-de-bceuf of the Mings, it seems to have been somewhat 
 incorporated with the glaze, which is translucent, and, if it can be 
 properly expressed in words, would appear as though you were 
 looking into a depth of brilliant colour ; when pure it is very beautiful, 
 and has the property of retaining its character in artificial light. 
 Green was the Imperial colour of the Mings, and was brought to a 
 fair degree of perfection, having a jade-like brilliancy ; in fact real 
 jade was reduced to a fine powder and incorporated with ordinary 
 colouring material, chromic oxide, so that in firing, a good jade green 
 was the result. These fine greens were well preserved, but very much 
 improved upon in true jade brilliancy during the K'ang Hsi period. 
 The plain green of the Mings called truitc is highly prized.' 
 
 'Towards the end of the reign of K'ang Hsi a new style of decora- 
 tion appears in the "famille rose" distinguished by a totally different 
 tone of colouring, with its prevailing half tints and broken colours, 
 including pink and ruby enamel derived from gold.' 
 
 This kind of porcelain attained its highest excellence 
 during the following reign, that of Yung Cheng. 
 
 The sixth epoch is that of Yung Cheng and Ch'ien 
 Lung, A.D. 1723 to A.D. 1796. The commencement of the 
 period marked a new era in ceramic art, and the modern 
 school may be said to have then begun. The artists of 
 the modern school as regards the processes and technical 
 skill are the equals of their predecessors, ' in some points 
 they are even superior to them,' as for example in the 
 egg-shell china produced by them ; but at the same time 
 there are distinguishable the causes which resulted in the 
 decadence of the Chinese porcelain later on, for the 
 ornament is overdone, the tendency being to cover the 
 whole surface with arabesques, branches, and foliage. 
 
 During Yung Cheng's reign, a period of thirteen years, 
 ' the ceramic art declined, and very little fine work was 
 done.' Yet what was done is of interest. There is a fine 
 
 574
 
 Porcelain and Pottery 
 
 egg-shell specimen, very thin, often decorated. Some 
 pieces were of the colour of an egg, and as shining as 
 silver. Others were imitations of the ancient wares, 
 especially the five-coloured Ming, true to the colour of 
 the porcelain, which is of a greyish white, but rather coarse 
 in appearance, instead of a clear white, like the K'ang Hsi 
 work. The colours used and the style of decoration are 
 so exact that it would be difficult to detect the difference, 
 were it not, perhaps, for the introduction of certain fruits, 
 the peach and pomegranate, for instance, and the peculiar 
 modified shapes of at least the beakers. 
 
 ' The " hawthorn pattern " really the " prunus," which 
 produces its blossoms before its leaves is to be met with 
 bearing very early date-marks ; but it is now generally 
 held that none are genuine previous to Yung Cheng (1723- 
 1736), "and the finest and most prized examples were 
 probably made about this date." ' 
 
 In Ch'ien Lung's reign many varieties of china were 
 produced, but ' the principal types may be ranged into 
 four classes ' : the rose porcelain, egg-shell, flambe, and 
 that for exportation. We have already mentioned the first 
 under the reigns of K'ang Hsi and Yung Cheng ; the egg- 
 shell porcelain which reached its perfection about A.D. 1732 
 was a most delicate production ; the flambe porcelain 
 presents the appearance of a play of colours and, as we 
 have already said, of precious stones fused together ; 
 currents of air were rapidly directed on the vase while it 
 was in the fire ; the Chinese have taken their inspiration 
 as colourists of porcelain from nature, whenever rich tones 
 or a play of colours presented themselves ; the porcelain 
 for exportation consists of several varieties, such as 
 Mandarin porcelain, where these functionaries figure as 
 the decorations. This porcelain is sent to Europe, and is 
 very inferior in character. There is also porcelain with 
 Persian designs, for the Persian market ; and Chinese 
 porcelain, exported and decorated in Europe. 
 
 During the reign of Ch'ien Lung (A.D. 1736-1796) 'the ceramic 
 art was brought nearly to the perfection it was left in by K'ang Hsi ; 
 
 575
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 yet altogether it fell a little short. However, one artist, named T'ang, 
 decorating in the five colours, surpassed all others, before or since, in 
 his wonderful skill in drawing flowers and fruit. He represented 
 fruit in all stages ; sometimes the skin of the ripe grape or peach was 
 broken, the juice running on to the stand or table on which it was 
 lying ; even a broken bit of this porcelain is of value, while a perfect 
 specimen brings a large price.' The Ch'ien Lung as a whole is a little 
 below the K'ang Hsi 'in quality and decoration. There is, however, 
 a great variety of plain reds called dragon's blood ; many are fine 
 specimens, but not equal to the sang-de-bceuf of the Mings, though 
 perhaps better than any K'ang Hsi red. Also a good turquoise was 
 made, but inferior to the brilliant K'ang Hsi specimens, and a very large 
 variety of flambes. Probably this flambe was at first an accident 
 caused by one colour running into another; evidently the cue was 
 taken from the accident, and a high degree of ornamentation followed. 
 One of the most charming effects, perhaps, is produced by streaks of 
 whitish blue running down over a dragon's blood red, giving one 
 something of the sensation of delightful minor music. The other 
 coloured enamels are almost countless, an endless variety being 
 obtained by admixture of different tints, by dusting, sprinkling, and 
 splashing. These enamels appear to be laid upon the porcelain while 
 it is in a biscuit state, and fused at a great heat ; the firing does 
 really the artist's duty in works of this class, changing the tints, com- 
 bining and running them over into one another in the most fantastic 
 manner. It seems every attempt was made in mixing colours to 
 produce new tints ; even new colours were discovered among them, 
 violet and pink. It is probable that the endeavour to get a greater 
 variety of tints by mixing colours was one reason of the Ch'ien Lung 
 decoration falling short in brilliancy of the simple colour decoration 
 of K'ang Hsi.' 
 
 The seventh epoch is the present period commencing 
 with A.D. 1796. It has seen no progress, but is rather a 
 period of decadence, partly due to the excessive demand 
 for Chinese porcelain of any style or character in the West, 
 and also as well to the diminution of artistic judgment in 
 China. 
 
 The marks on Chinese porcelain chiefly consist of a 
 date, or rather the name of the reign of an Emperor, or 
 that of a dynasty, or both combined. The workman's 
 name does not appear, as ' in China every piece passes 
 through the hands of a number of workmen, each contri- 
 buting his fraction to the decoration. All these decorators 
 being other than the potter who turned the vase, and the 
 workman who glazed it, no single specimen could be 
 marked as the work of one man.' 
 
 With the Chinese collector, age is the first requisite, and 
 
 576
 
 Porcelain and Pottery 
 
 beauty is a secondary consideration. It is amusing to hear 
 the laughter from a Chinese crowd round a stall when the 
 Chinese stall-keeper offers an ugly ginger jar of a hideous 
 glaring yellow, with the recommendation of its age, and 
 the European despises it for its ugliness. 
 
 The following epitomised account of some of the 
 principal points of interest with regard to porcelain is 
 from the pen of Dr. Edkins : 
 
 The history of Chinese porcelain goes back to the year B.C. 189, 
 as to the farthest limit ; but it is best to say it dates from B.C. 185 to 
 A.D. 87, and the locality was Hwai Ning Hien in Honan, an arrondisse- 
 ment enclosed within the walls of the prefectural city Ch'en Chow. 
 This place is nearly one hundred English miles south-south-east of 
 Kai-fong-fu. Here the first porcelain was made, while in Europe it 
 was in A.D. 1706 that hard porcelain was first made in Germany. 
 The Portuguese had in A.D. 1518 brought Chinese porcelain to 
 Europe, for they had then begun trading to China. In 1695 soft 
 porcelain was first made in France, and in 1768 or 1770 the manu- 
 facture of hard porcelain was begun at Sevres, near Paris. Stanislas 
 Julien in his ' Translation of a Chinese History of Porcelain ' gives these 
 facts from Brongmart's 'Traites des Arts Ce"ramiques.' He also ob- 
 serves that the discovery of a mode of manufacturing porcelain by 
 the Chinese preceded that of Europe by about 1600 years. During 
 the Han dynasty the progress of the ceramic art in China was slow, 
 but it reappeared in the Wei period, A.D. 220 to 264, in the neighbour- 
 hood of Si-an-fu in Shensi and at Lo-yang in Honan. The residence 
 of the court in those cities promoted the advance of the art at that 
 time. A little later the blue porcelain of Wen-chow, south of Ning- 
 po, was held in high estimation. This was in the Tsin dynasty, which 
 reigned A.D. 265 to 419. The manufacture at King-te-chen in Kiangsi 
 began about A.D. 583, in the Ch'en dynasty, when Nanking was the 
 capital for South China, while Loyang was the Northern metropolis, 
 and was held by Tartar chiefs, who called their dynasty the Wei. 
 The old glass-ware of China called lieu-li, a Sanscrit word introduced 
 by the Buddhists, must indicate that Indian workmen came with the 
 Buddhist priests. 
 
 Books recommended.. 'Ancient Porcelain : A Study in Chinese Mediaeval 
 Industry and Trade,' by Prof. F. Hirth, Ph.D. An article on 'Chinese 
 Porcelain before the Present Dynasty,' by S. W. Bushell, M.D. ' L'Art 
 Chinois,' by M. Paleologue. 'An Essay on Chinese Porcelain,' by G. 0. 
 Rogers, D. D.S. 'Chinese Porcelain,' by W. G. Gulland. This book is 
 finely illustrated with 485 illustrations. We are indebted to all of these in 
 the above article For a popular magazine article, see Harper's Magazine 
 for April 1885 ; the paper is entitled, ' A Collection of Chinese Porcelain,' by 
 R. Riordan, with illustrations. ' One of the most expensive books ever pro- 
 duced in America, and perhaps in the whole world, is a volume on Oriental 
 Ceramic Art. The price of the work is 100, and the issue is limited to 500 
 copies. But 50,000 will barely cover the cost of publication. Mr. Louis 
 Prang, of Boston, alone had courage to tackle the job, which it has taken him 
 seven years to accomplish. The result is said to be a triumph of skill and 
 
 577 2__o
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 patience, many of the plates having passed forty-four times through the press.' 
 Dr. S. \V. Bushell, late 'physician to the British Embassy at Peking," 
 supplied ' the text, which is virtually a complete history of Chinese 
 porcelain, and to his judgment and zeal Mr. Walters, from whose 
 collection the specimens illustrated are taken, owes many of his finest 
 specimens.' 
 
 POSTS. There was no Post Office department in the 
 Chinese Government similar to our General Post Office 
 and. its branches. The Government sent its despatches by 
 means of couriers, who were under a department of the 
 Board of War, and for whom relays of horses wdre pro- 
 vided ; the greatest speed attained by these Government 
 couriers was 200 miles a day. This courier service was 
 simply for governmental purposes ; the common people 
 did not share in its advantages and convenience. Com- 
 mercial enterprise provided for the general community a 
 system of local posts ' entirely independent of the State.' 
 In most places, of any importance, letters were received by 
 certain shops or agencies (private postal agencies), and on 
 payment of a sum, its amount being contingent on the 
 distance the letter, or parcel of silver, had to be carried, it 
 would probably have a good chance of reaching its des- 
 tination. To better secure this result, it was sometimes 
 customary to write on the envelope that a certain further 
 sum would be paid to the postman on delivery, who had 
 thus an incentive to try and find the addressee. The 
 postage from Hongkong to Canton was twenty cash (2 
 cents), but from Hongkong to Fatshan, which is about 
 twelve miles further than Canton, it was double that 
 amount, viz., forty cash ; this was one of the advantages 
 a cheapening of the postal rates which would have 
 resulted from foreigners being allowed to run steamers on 
 all the inner waters of the Chinese Empire; for there are 
 regular lines of American river steamers running between 
 Hongkong and Canton. There are also steamers of the 
 same kind running on the Yangtsz between Shanghai 
 and the Riverine Ports. 
 
 Sir Robert Hart, the Inspector-General of the Imperial 
 Maritime Customs, established a postal system between 
 
 573
 
 P6-tsz, and other Games of Chance 
 
 Peking and Shanghai, etc., which was of great benefit, not 
 only to the Custom service, but to the foreign mercantile 
 community. When the northern ports were ice-bound, a 
 courier carried the letters ; and a series of postage stamps 
 were in use, of different denominations, such as one, two, 
 and five candarins, having a dragon in the centre. We 
 wrote some few years since that ' it is to be hoped that this 
 will be the nucleus from which shall expand a general 
 postage system for the whole of China.' 
 
 This has fortunately now been taken in hand, and 
 an Imperial Postal Service has been instituted by Sir 
 Robert Hart with Europeans at the head of it, which 
 will doubtless in time be extended to the whole of this 
 vast empire, even to its remotest corners. ' The Chinese 
 Imperial Post Office was opened on 2nd February 1897.' 
 It is, however, not paying its way, but is carried on at a 
 loss. The rates of postage with the Chinese Imperial 
 Post Office are remarkably low, viz. at Swatow ' i cent per 
 oz. on letters to and from places in China,' and local 
 letters cent per | oz., and to Hongkong 4 cents per oz. 
 It is stated to be the cheapest existing in any part of the 
 world. Four cents are taken for postal purposes, as the 
 equivalent of an English penny, therefore I cent is a 
 farthing, and \ cent is a half farthing. Different issues 
 of postage stamps, etc., have appeared during the last 
 few years, some of which are now rare and consequently 
 expensive, and the ardent philatelist has all the varieties 
 of surcharges, etc., to delight himself with. 
 
 Book recommended. A short article in the Cornhill Magazine, republished 
 in The China Mail of the 20th August 1891. 
 
 PO-TSZ, AND OTHER GAMES OF CHANCE. 
 P6-tsz is only one of the many games of chance with which 
 the Chinese are familiar : it is more a Hakka game than 
 Cantonese, though Cantonese play it. For this game cards 
 and dominoes are used like checks for umbrellas at public 
 places of entertainment in England, one being handed to 
 the gambler and one being kept by the holder of the 
 
 579
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 gambling stall. These are placed with the gamblers' 
 counters and serve to identify them as theirs ; for 
 counters are also used, viz., a large cash, a white, and a 
 black, porcelain counter or bead, draftsmen (like Chinese 
 chessmen) with the amounts they stand for cut in them. 
 The amounts represented by these may, for example, be 
 as follows the cash = ten cents, white bead = Si, black- 
 do. =$5, and the rest = $io and so on, and stakes are made. 
 The materials for playing po-tsz consist of two hollow 
 cubes of brass, the one smaller than the other, and fitting 
 one into the other, and a cube of black wood, which fits 
 into the smaller brass cube, but does not quite reach up 
 to the open top of it, so that often a piece of metal is 
 placed below it to raise it, though this is not always 
 done. On each surface of the cube of wood are two 
 characters, cut into the wood and coloured white and 
 red respectively, the characters are generally t'ung and po, 
 which are two of the characters on a Chinese cash, as 
 these coins were first used to play po-tsz. The first 
 character (t'ung) is white, and the second (po) red ; white 
 wins, and red loses. There is a board or table with one, 
 two, three, and four written on each side, or they are often 
 not written on the board, as one is always near the holder 
 of the stall, two at his right hand, three opposite him, and 
 four at his left hand. The cube of wood is put in the 
 smaller hollow cube of brass which is open at one side for 
 this reason, and then the smaller brass cube has the larger 
 cube put over it as a cover, one side of this larger cube 
 being also left open for that purpose. The owner of the 
 gambling stall puts all these things together unseen by the 
 players, and then spins them round. Any of the players 
 is also at liberty to do the same after he has done so. 
 The cube must stop plumb square with the sides of the 
 board or table, and must be spun until it has done so. 
 Then the cube is lifted off, and whatever number on the 
 board the white character is next wins, red loses. The 
 cube of wood is occasionally turned round inside the 
 smaller brass cube for luck, and after the holder of the 
 
 580
 
 P6-tsz, and other Games of Chance 
 
 stall has done so, the others may look at it and change it 
 themselves as well. False cubes with loadstone in the 
 wood, and iron in the larger cube are made, and a con- 
 federate, when lifting the cover off after the spin, is able to 
 attract the wood in the small cube round to a more favour- 
 able side, the crowd being hoodwinked, or prevented from 
 seeing what is going on, by the confederates. The stakes 
 on the white side of the metal, of course, win. 
 
 FAN-T'AN is more widely known by the European 
 resident in China. Stakes are laid on the number of cash 
 that will be left, whether one, two, or three, after raking 
 out, four at a time, a number of cash from under and 
 round an upturned bowl. 
 
 The WAI SING LOTTERY. Another well-known form 
 of gambling is the Waf Sing Lottery, which is based on 
 the Government Civil Service Examinations. Some time 
 before the examination, the monopolist, who runs the 
 lottery, finds out the surnames of the candidates of a 
 certain district, and the players select twenty names on 
 which to stake, having previously endeavoured to find 
 out for their own guidance the capabilities of the can- 
 didates. Having made their selection, they send in the 
 names and receive a receipt or ticket. These tickets are 
 differently priced, but a book with half-dollar tickets 
 amounts to 8500, as each book contains a thousand tickets. 
 Of this money, $50 goes to the monopolist for expenses, 
 leaving three prizes of $300, $100, and $50 respectively, 
 subject to be reduced by a ten per cent, commission and 
 a further deduction of a considerable amount for the 
 expenses of printing the books and distributing the 
 prizes. The winners are, of course, those who have 
 the highest number of names of successful candidates 
 on their tickets. A perusal of our article on Examina- 
 tions will show that, from the limited number allowed to 
 pass at an examination, the element of chance must enter 
 very largely into this lottery, and this, notwithstanding the 
 efforts to obtain some idea of the attainments and capabili- 
 ties of the candidates. 
 
 581
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 PAK K6P Piu is the name of another well-known 
 lottery. Eighty characters (words) at the beginning of 
 ' The Thousand Character Classic ' are printed on a fly- 
 leaf the characters in this book are largely used by the 
 Chinese as numbers, or as we might use the letters of the 
 alphabet in English to distinguish objects. No two 
 characters in the book are alike and twenty of them are 
 winning numbers. A ticket to cover ten characters may 
 cost four cash, and, if less than five characters are winning 
 numbers, the gambler loses his four cash, while, if he has 
 five winning characters, he makes a profit of a cash or so ; 
 each additional winning character adds immensely to his 
 gains till they culminate in ten taels, should all his 
 characters be winning numbers. 
 
 The Tsz-FA LOTTERY has, in place of numbers, the 
 names of thirty-six ancient Chinese celebrities; the prices for 
 a name running from one cash upwards. The prizes of the 
 winning names amount to thirty times the prices paid for 
 them. Rhyming themes are issued which disclose in an 
 enigmatical manner, to those who may be able to make 
 a lucky guess, the winning name. Women, however, 
 trust often to dreams to guide them in their selection ; 
 but the men rely on their knowledge of history and the 
 incidents in the life of the celebrities, to make a good 
 selection. 
 
 Another very common gambling amusement, and one 
 often seen on the streets, is staking on the number of 
 seeds in an orange. If a number of Chinese are seen 
 surrounding a fruit hawker's stock of oranges in Hongkong, 
 it will generally be found that this form of gambling is 
 the attraction. Each player has a good look at the 
 orange, a loose-skinned one, and makes a guess at the 
 number of seeds in it, staking his money accordingly. 
 After all have staked, the fruit-dealer skins the orange 
 and opens each division, so as to count the pips carefully. 
 The one that guesses right wins treble the amount of his 
 stakes, whilst the two nearest in their guesses to him each 
 win double theirs. 
 
 582
 
 P6-tsz, and other Games of Chance 
 
 But time would fail to enumerate and describe all the 
 different modes of gambling resorted to on street stalls ; 
 some known in the West, and some entirely Chinese or 
 Oriental. The Chinaman is deeply imbued with the spirit 
 of gambling, He is brought up to it from his earliest youth, 
 by first venturing a cash or two when buying a ' sweety,' 
 a cake, or fruit ; the women spend much of their ignorant 
 leisure in games spiced by the naughtiness of bets and 
 stakes ; while the coolies amuse their unemployed 
 moments by winning or losing their hard-earned cash on 
 a game of chance ; the gambling sheds in the purlieus of 
 the cities are always swarming with votaries, and at New 
 Year time a saturnalia of gambling is indulged in by all, 
 even by those who religiously abstain from it at other 
 times. 
 
 Of games of dice, the Chinese have several, played with 
 different numbers of dice of different sizes. The spots 
 on them range from one to six ; and are arranged in the 
 same way as on European dice and those of ancient 
 Greece and Rome, but the four and the one are red on 
 the Chinese and the other numbers black. The dice are 
 thrown generally into a bowl, which is sometimes set 
 into a casing of chunam, inside a tin box, to deaden the 
 sound. 
 
 K6N Mix YOXG, 'driving or pursuing sheep,' is 
 played with six dice and by any number of players. 
 Single and double stakes are deposited on the table, and 
 up to any amount, the different throws of the dice 
 deciding whether the players shall win or lose singles 
 or doubles. 
 
 HAU LUK is played with three dice, the principle 
 of this game and the last being much the same other- 
 wise. 
 
 CHAK T'lN KAU is played with two dice. 'In this 
 game the twenty-one throws that can be made with two 
 dice receive different names, and are divided into two 
 series or suits, called man (mun) " civil " and mo, 
 " military." ' 
 
 533
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 CHONG YUN CH'AI;. Little bundles of bamboo tallies 
 with Chinese characters on them are found for sale in 
 certain shops, and these are employed in playing this 
 game. The word ch'au means a tally and Chong-yiin is 
 the Optimus at the Han-lin Examination. (See Article on 
 Examinations.) ' Two or more persons may play, using 
 six dice and sixty-three bamboo tallies,' each drawing 
 the tally, or tallies, he is entitled to from his throw 
 of the dice, ' the one who counts highest becomes the 
 winner.' 
 
 The SHING K\VUN T'6, the celebrated game of ' The 
 Table of the Promotion of Officials ' is another famous 
 game which ' is played by two or more persons upon a 
 large paper diagram, on which are printed the titles of 
 the different officials and dignitaries of the Chinese 
 Government. The moves are made by throwing dice, 
 and the players, whose positions upon the diagram are 
 indicated by notched or coloured splints, are advanced 
 or set back, according to their throws.' 
 
 CHINESE DOMINOES. There are thirty-two dominoes 
 in a set, there are duplicates of each domino, and no 
 blanks. Several games are played with dominoes and 
 dice ; they seem rather complicated. Shap-tsai, P'ai'-Kaii, 
 and T'fn Kau, are names of such games. 
 
 CHINESE CARDS. The cards used for playing the 
 game of Ch'd-kam have the same names as dominoes, and 
 have the same number of spots on them. They are long 
 narrow bits of pasteboard about the size of a small finger. 
 The pack contains thirty-two cards. In the game of 
 Ngau-p'ai the pack contains thirty-six cards, and the 
 cards are ' about two inches in length and half an inch 
 wide.' It is said to be a very ancient game, and was first 
 played by cowherds, hence its name ' cow-cards ' ; such, 
 at least, is the Chinese account of the origin of the 
 name. 
 
 Books recommended. 'A Book on Chinese Games of Chance,' by Nc 
 Kwai-shang. ' Chinese Games with Dice,' by Stewart Culin, a paper intended 
 to be the first of a series on dominoes, playing-cards, and chess. 
 
 584
 
 Primitive Man 
 
 POTATO. Our common Irish potato was intro- 
 duced into China by the Dutch, whence its name of the 
 'Holland potato' in Chinese. It is also called the 'little 
 potato.' It is largely cultivated in the neighbourhood of 
 Macao for the consumption of foreigners, and, as a con- 
 sequence of planting them, they are eaten also by the 
 natives themselves. Before their cultivation there, the 
 staple of food in that locality was half and half of rice and 
 sweet potatoes. 
 
 Sweet potatoes, as their name in Chinese shows, are also 
 a foreign introduction. The sweet potato is quite different 
 from our potato. It is longer in shape, sweeter, and rather 
 pleasant in flavour. It is said to be mealy when new. It 
 is not grown from seed, but a cutting of the creeper is stuck 
 into the ground two or three inches deep, covered up with 
 earth for a foot of its length, the rest being allowed to trail 
 over the ridge which these shoots soon cover with their 
 leaves. When ripe, one or two are dug up and the rest of 
 the tubers again covered up till ripe and wanted later on. 
 A sandy soil appears to suit them well. 
 
 PRIMITIVE MAN. It is impossible in our present 
 state of knowledge to write an article on this subject. The 
 whole matter is at present uninvestigated as regards China 
 One or two little discoveries have been made which show 
 undoubtedly that relics of man in his earlier stages of want 
 of civilisation are to be found in China. There may be 
 some faint attempts in the earlier records of the Chinese to 
 describe man in his original condition, but it is impossible 
 to separate out any grains of wheat amidst all the chaff of 
 myth and fable of these early stories. The Chinese are 
 very fond of collecting antiquities ancient bricks even 
 claim their attention, and when once they are put on the 
 right course by Western scientists, they will no doubt be 
 able to add to our knowledge of early man, and even some 
 skull to rival the Neanderthal may yet be found in China 
 or rudimentary attempts at drawing be discovered. Mr. 
 Baber obtained a polished stone axehead of serpentine and 
 
 585
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 a good specimen of one of polished flint in his journey of 
 exploration in Western Szchuan. Yunnan is another 
 province where celts may be found. A writer in ' Notes 
 and Queries on China and Japan,' also mentions having 
 had a bronze celt brought to him. 
 
 The Chinese still retain many of the customs associated 
 with the remotest antiquity, amongst which may be cited 
 the ' adoration of stones as objects of worship which has 
 been a prominent feature of barbarian religion,' and the 
 universal prevalence of ancestor worship in the ' all under 
 heaven,' as the empire is called. 
 
 PRINTING. The Chinese Classics, which form the 
 foundation of a great portion of Chinese literature, also 
 gave the first hint to the Chinese for printing. They were 
 engraved on stone, A.D. 177, and impressions (or possibly 
 rubbings) taken from them. Printing from wooden blocks, 
 the system now in general use throughout the Empire, was 
 known as early as A.D. 581-618, being practised during the 
 course of the next three hundred years in the T'ang 
 dynasty ; and was adopted by Imperial order in re- 
 producing the Classics in A.D. 952, thus anticipating 
 Gutenberg and Caxton's discovery and work in Europe 
 by five centuries. The wood used for the ' blocks,' as they 
 are technically called, is generally that of the pear or plum. 
 It is cut into small slabs about the size of a foolscap sheet 
 of paper and about the thickness of an inch or less. These 
 are soaked for some time in water. The book to be 
 printed is written out most carefully by a good writer in the 
 square form of the character employed in printing, and then 
 pasted face downwards on the block ; the block-cutter with 
 his wetted finger rubs off the paper, leaving the impression; 
 he then, with different graving instruments, and a piece of 
 wood to act as a mallet, cuts away, to the depth of a 
 quarter of an inch or so, all the surface of the wood which 
 is not covered by the writing, thus leaving the writing in 
 relief; the block is often cut on the under surface as well, 
 and can thus be used to print on both sides. Each surface 
 
 586
 
 Printing 
 
 of the block generally contains two pages of the Chinese 
 book to be printed. This done the block is delivered to 
 the printer who, adjusting it on a table in front of him with 
 nails and pads of paper, prepares to print. Sitting down 
 in front of the block, at his right hand is a board with a 
 curiously shaped circular brush on it, the handle being also 
 round, and thick enough to be grasped comfortably by the 
 hand. The whole brush looks something like a bouquet of 
 flowers turned upside down. An earthen crock with liquid 
 ink is next to the ink-board, and a small brush, something 
 like a diminutive circular carpet broom, with a long handle, 
 lies in it. Beyond the block is a pile of paper cut into the 
 right shape, that is, a little larger than the block. Within 
 convenient reach is a pad made of coir, perfectly smooth 
 on the surface ; the brushes are likewise made of the same 
 fibre. These then are the printer's primitive materials. 
 Ready to begin work he takes up a quantity of ink on 
 to the ink-board with the small brush ; after which he 
 works this ink into the large circular brush, and then rubs 
 it all over the surface of the block ; putting down the brush, 
 he adroitly takes hold of the two nearest corners of the 
 topmost sheet of paper, lifting it by the thumb and fore- 
 finger of each hand, giving it a jerk at the same time in 
 order to keep it from falling limp ; judging by his eye how 
 much margin to leave, he lays it neatly on the surface of 
 the block, and lifting the pad or pressing brush, he passes 
 it deftly and lightly over the paper, exerting sufficient 
 pressure for an impression to be taken. Printers get to be 
 very quick at this work ; it is easily learned. A good 
 block-cutter gets a dollar per thousand characters cut. 
 After about sixteen thousand impressions are taken off, 
 the blocks get somewhat worn, but they can be retouched, 
 when another ten thousand can be printed from them. It 
 is a cheaper mode of printing a few small books than 
 by metallic type, as the initial expense is slight compared 
 with that of providing founts of type and expensive 
 presses ; the blocks for a large book take up a great 
 deal of room and are very cumbersome and easily 
 
 587
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 destroyed by insects. There is a softness and mellow- 
 ness about the character which is wanting in the clear- 
 cut metallic type. 
 
 PROVERBS. It has been said that 'a Chinese 
 proverb is something almost, if not utterly, indefinable. Of 
 course it bears, in several features, a strong likeness to 
 other branches of the family in various countries ; but, of 
 " that sententious brevity," which is said to " constitute the 
 principal beauty of a proverb" of that brevity, without 
 obscurity, which is said to be the very soul of a proverb, 
 it is often totally lacking. Other features it has which are 
 peculiarly its own, and which impart to it a terseness, 
 beauty, and symmetry, inimitable, at least in the English 
 language.' 
 
 Proverbs are very numerous in China. We give the 
 few following samples : 
 
 ' To make a man of yourself you must toil; if you don't, you won't.' 
 ' Strike a flint, and you'll get fire ; strike it not, and you'll not get 
 
 even smoke.' 
 ' No pains no gains' is represented by 'never was a good work 
 
 done without much trouble.' 
 
 ' If an ox won't drink, you can't make him bend down his head.' 
 'Everything is difficult at first.' 
 ' Done leisurely, done well.' 
 
 ' It is easier to know how to do a thing than to do it.' 
 ' Cheap things are not good ; good things are not cheap.' 
 ' Better take eight hundred than give credit for a thousand cash.' 
 'All unskilful fools 
 ' Quarrel with their tools.' 
 ' Two of a trade hate one another.' 
 ' Our daily bread depends on Heaven.' 
 ' There is dew for every blade of grass.' 
 ' A stick's a stick whether short or tall, 
 ' A man's a man whether great or small.' 
 ' As the twig is bent the mulberry grows.' 
 ' There are pictures in poems, and poems in pictures. 
 ' Learning is far more precious than gold.' 
 1 You cannot open a book without learning something.' 
 ' You may study to old age and yet have things to learn.' 
 ' No pleasure equals the pleasure of study.' 
 ' Some study shows the need of more.' 
 ' Extensive reading is a priceless treasure.' 
 ' Strike while the iron's hot.' 
 
 ' To persuade gentlemen not to gamble is to win for them.' 
 ' The two words pure and leisure no money can buy.' 
 
 588
 
 Race 
 
 ' Man's life is truly a performance.' 
 
 ' Wine is a discoverer of secrets.' 
 
 4 Speak carefully and be slow to speak.' 
 
 ' He who talks much must err ; he excels who says nothing.' 
 
 ' True gold fears no fire.' 
 
 1 He has the mouth of a Buddha, the heart of a snake.' 
 
 ' The human heart is bad to fathom.' 
 
 ' Do good, regardless of consequences.' 
 
 Books recommended. ' A Collection of Chinese Proverbs,' by Rev. W. 
 Scarborough. 'Chinese Proverbs,' by Rev. A. Smith. 'Enigmatic 
 Parallelisms of the Canton Dialect,' in China Review, vols. xvi. and xvii., 
 by Rev. T. W. Pearce and the Hon. J. H. Stewart- Lockhart. 'Chinese 
 Proverbs in the Amoy Vernacular,' in The China Review, vol. xv. p. 298. 
 Chinese Proverbs,' an article in The China Review, vol. xx. pp. 156-166, 
 contains Hakka and Swatow proverbs translated by Rev. M. Schaub and 
 Miss C. M. Ricketts. 
 
 PUNKAH. The word punkah is derived from India. 
 
 It is 'the Hindoostani name of a large palm-leaf fan, the stalk of 
 which is rested on the ground, while the leaf itself is waved behind the 
 party to be fanned. The word is now applied throughout the East to 
 the swinging frames with cloth vallances fitted in European houses.' 
 
 The Chinese have not adopted the punkah, though a 
 solitary instance of its use is occasionally seen. A native 
 barber, some years since, had one fitted up in his shop in 
 Hongkong. 
 
 RACE. The Chinese as a nation are not of pure 
 blood What nation is? Doubtless, when the present 
 inhabitants of China poured into the land they absorbed 
 some at least of the original inhabitants, the Miao and the 
 Man, while later, in historic times, ' large immigrations or 
 bands of captives consisting of Tibetans, Huns, and the 
 Mongolia Hienbi,' have each furnished their quota towards 
 the amalgam, to say nothing of Manchu Tartars and others. 
 These and climatic conditions have probably had some- 
 thing to do in differentiating the Southern Chinaman from 
 the Northern, the former being well described by Ross as 
 ' short, small, " cute," ' and the latter as ' tall, stout, stolid, 
 and slow.' 
 
 This amalgamation of aborigines and Chinese goes on 
 slightly still on the borders of the habitats of the former, 
 as a few Chinese are to be found who have married wives 
 
 589
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 from the different tribes. (See Article on Chinese, 
 Physical Characteristics of.) 
 
 RAILWAYS. China would seem to be an ideal land 
 for a gigantic system of railways, for it is a ' land of magni- 
 ficent distances ' ; but it is also a land of ' stupendous 
 prejudices ' ; it is therefore not surprising that the railway 
 is in its infancy in China. ' Europe has a mile of railway 
 for every 2,400 inhabitants ; China has, perhaps, about a 
 mile or more for every million of her inhabitants.' It was 
 stated in 1900 that there were 30,000 miles of railway in 
 Asia, two-thirds of which belonged to British India. The 
 Trans-Caspian and Trans-Siberian Railway accounted then 
 in its unfinished state for 3,200 miles, Japan had 3,200 
 miles, French Indo-China 120 miles, but in Cochin-China, 
 Annam, and Tonkin they were soon to have 2,400 miles. 
 Java had 1000 miles, Turkey-in-Asia 1,500 miles finished 
 and 600 projected or under construction, and Russia was to 
 join Astrakhan to the general Russian Railway system, 
 while China at that time had only 300 miles completed and 
 owned by the Government, which it was stated were ' very 
 remunerative, and European syndicates' had 'obtained 
 concessions for 3,600 miles of railway in China, the con- 
 struction of which is already well advanced. These will 
 traverse regions rich in minerals and agricultural products.' 
 The splendid waterways afford great facilities for transit, 
 and ' China is better supplied with waterways, both natural 
 and artificial, than any other country in the world, except, 
 perhaps, Holland ' ; but away from them carriage by land 
 is often expensive. It sometimes costs two shillings per 
 ton per mile to take coal by land in China, while in Great 
 Britain the cost is a halfpenny to one penny a mile a ton, 
 and in the United States a farthing for the same amount 
 for the same distance. The coalfields in China have been 
 laid down on a grand scale. To instance only one, that of 
 Shansi, which has a continuous field 13,500 miles in area, 
 of anthracite, equal to the best Pennsylvania!!, with from 
 15 to 40 feet seams. There is also a rich bituminous 
 
 590
 
 Railways 
 
 deposit in the same province : so that in the mere carriage 
 of coal there should be a fine future for railways in China ; 
 added to which there would be the passenger traffic, the 
 goods trains, and those laden with market produce, etc. 
 
 About forty years ago Sir R. Stephenson came out in 
 the hope of being able to inaugurate a general railway 
 system. All the foreign communities in China were 
 naturally in favour of such a scheme ; one or two in- 
 dividuals pointed out that the Chinese were not ready for 
 it, and would not be for a long time to come, and, such 
 being really the case, of course nothing could be done. 
 
 In 1876, a short line of railway, about 12 miles long, 
 was constructed under the auspices of an English firm, and 
 ran between Shanghai and Woosung at the mouth of the 
 Shanghai River. There was considerable traffic, but the 
 Chinese Government objected to its being in the hands of 
 foreigners ; they therefore bought it and closed it in 1877 ; 
 further they took it up, and transferred rails and rolling 
 stock to the Island of Formo.-a, where they lay rusting for 
 some years. A railway was constructed in Formosa by 
 the Chinese; and this material and rolling s:ock found 
 use in this then outlying inland of the Chinese empire, 
 where the harm it might do would be too far off to affect 
 the stability of the mighty domin'ons of the Son of 
 Heaven ; the Chinese also thus having the control of it in 
 their own hands. (A history of the Woosur.g Railway 
 appears in the Hongkong Daily Press, of the 27th 
 September 1892). This line between Shanghai and 
 Woosung was afterwards reconstructed by the Chinese 
 Government, and opened in 1898. It is to be incorporated 
 as part of the Shanghai-Soochow system. 
 
 The next line, after this first Woosung Railway, was 
 from the coal mines at Kai-ping to the sea coast, whence 
 it was carried on to the forts at Taku. It was first opened 
 for carrying coals to the canal bank, but has now de- 
 veloped into a very large concern, and it may almost be 
 said the whole welfare of the adjacent country depends on 
 it. The investment has turned out to be very profitable.
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 This railway was of invaluable use to the Chinese for the 
 movement of troops during the Japanese war, but its con- 
 struction had to be stopped during the conflict between 
 the two nations. Trains 1000 feet long have not been an 
 uncommon sight on it. 
 
 The following was written some time ago : 
 
 For some time past the construction has been going on (and it 
 will show a few of the difficulties that stand in the way of the develop- 
 ment of railways in China) of ' an Imperial railway, which is intended 
 eventually to connect Tientsin with Kirin in Manchuria. Ninety-four 
 miles (from Tientsin to Kuyeh) have been in working order since 
 1891, and during 1892 carried 488,300 passengers.' The line has 
 ' been extended at the rate of fifty miles per annum.' 
 
 At the principal terminus, Tientsin, about a 100 Chinese clerks 
 are employed, of whom about one-half are alleged to be totally un- 
 necessary, ' being friends and hangers on.' At other stations the same 
 condition of affairs obtains. ' The first-class fares are a little over one 
 halfpenny a mile, and the second a decimal over a farthing. The 
 third-class fares are even cheaper still. The fares for the entire year 
 (1892) from all classes, over the ninety-four miles above mentioned, 
 were only ; 10,000, taking the tael at its par value of 6s. 8d. The 
 receipts, according to Consul Brenan's interesting report, from all 
 sources, were only about 226,000 taels, or ^75,500, and even these 
 figures are, at the current rate of exchange, too high.' 
 
 ' It is astonishing to see the use the Chinese are making ... of the 
 railway from Kaiping to Tientsin. The farmers bring their market 
 produce along with them to Tientsin and other places on the line 
 where they find a ready sale for their wares, and, instead of a curse, 
 as the people too often consider it in places where they still stick to 
 their antediluvian carts, wheelbarrows, and other clumsy modes of 
 conveyance, the railway is beginning to be recognised as a blessing 
 to rich and poor alike.' 
 
 'Native capitalists have but little confidence in the "Imperial line" 
 as an investment. Moreover, no accounts are issued to show how 
 money is expended. A Government grant of about .600,000 a year 
 maintains the construction of the line, which is being completed for 
 strategical reasons only, although the original idea was to treat it 
 solely as a commercial undertaking. What with corruption, bad 
 management, and a virtual boycott on the part of capitalists, the 
 prospects of success do not seem very promising.' ' It is the intention 
 of the Railway Administration to build a subsidiary line to Moukden, 
 while the main line north will be continued on to Kirin .... From 
 Lanchow, another line westwards is contemplated to north of 
 Tungchow (near Peking) and thence to Paotung-fu, the capital of 
 Chili province.' 
 
 'The Kaiping Coal Go's, line, at first intended only to carry coal 
 to the canal bank, has been extended to Tientsin, and is open to 
 passenger traffic.' An extension of the Tientsin line to Shanhaikwan, 
 
 592
 
 Railways 
 
 ' where the great wall reaches the sea,' has been completed, and ' a line 
 from Linsi to Newchwang and then to Kirin has been sanctioned [see 
 below]. A line from Tientsin to Peking was opened in 1897, which 
 now, by the addition of an electric tram, takes one up to the very- 
 gates of Peking, in fact to the Yung Ting Gate.' 
 
 With the Chinese Government, considerations of de- 
 fence would have proved more effective in causing the 
 construction of railways than anything else. Even the 
 short line in existence in the North proved useful in a 
 small rebellion that took place lately. 
 
 ' The great object of the Chinese Government in making railways 
 is to secure facilities for moving troops and munitions of war, not to 
 promote trade or encourage industries.' ' So long as this is the case, 
 the railways most needed are not likely to be constructed in a hurry.' 
 
 Every new railway project in China appears to have 
 had a hard tussle at its inception. There was a pro- 
 gressive party in favour of the iron road ; there was 
 another party opposed to progress, conservative officials 
 who deprecated the introduction of all foreign inventions. 
 Both parties were united apparently in the idea of pre- 
 venting all foreign intervention. The Chinese, fearful of 
 foreign influence in their country, would not brook any 
 interference in the way of any development of railway 
 schemes for China, until compelled to permit them. ' China 
 for the Chinese ' was their motto ; and for fear that an 
 alien authority might be set up in their midst, they turned 
 a deaf ear to all entreaties for permission to construct lines. 
 So far did they carry these precautions, that they resolved 
 to smelt their own ore and make their own rails, buying as 
 little as possible in the foreign market. If this resolution 
 had been adhered to, it would probably have been many 
 years before railway lines of any great magnitude were in 
 running order. Extensive iron-works were set up in the 
 neighbourhood of Hankow, with this end in view, and a 
 small line for the transportation of iron ore was laid at 
 Hankow : it was called the Ta-ye Railway, and ran to 
 Huang-si-kan a distance of 60 li (20 miles). Looming 
 up in the far distant future there was the Grand Trunk line 
 from Peking vid Wuchang to Canton. Whether this 
 
 593 i P
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 railway would really be commenced last century or this, 
 or indefinitely postponed, was doubtful. The Viceroy, who 
 had the undertaking in hand, having spent enormous 
 sums of money on the initial stages of the work as outlined 
 above, was getting into serious financial difficulties, and 
 it was very questionable whether he would be able to 
 proceed much further, for there was no capital for building 
 railways in China : the Government had not the money 
 available ; would not borrow it from foreigners ; nor allow 
 private enterprise. Another proposal some years ago was 
 for a line to be constructed from Canton to Shamshuipo, 
 near the Cosmopolitan Docks in British territory, on the 
 mainland opposite Hongkong. Surveys were made, and 
 permission granted for its construction, but the project 
 fell into abeyance. It was to have passed through the 
 important town of Sheklung, as well as other places, 
 running a total length of 380 //', or about 127 miles. But, 
 like the other railways, no foreigners were to hold shares 
 in it. Twice have surveys been made now for such a line, 
 but it is not yet un fait accompli ; when the Grand Hankow- 
 Canton Trunk line is finished this will follow as a matter 
 of course. (The latest news is that this is now to be built.) 
 Later, a railway was projected between Swatow and the 
 prefectorial city of Ch'aochow-fu. Hopes were entertained 
 that this line, of some 30 miles, more or less, would be the 
 precursor of other short lines in the South of China, but 
 they have been doomed to disappointment. 
 
 The last paragraph shows one stage (the second, the 
 first being the strongest opposition to them, as shown 
 above) in the history of railway enterprise in China. Since 
 then great changes have taken place, and for some time 
 little has been heard in connection with China but spheres 
 of influence and railways, mining and other concessions : 
 Russia, France, Germany, America, Belgium, Italy, Portugal, 
 and England, all knocking at China's doors. 
 
 The Russian system of railways and those of China 
 are joined together. France appears desirous of penetrating 
 China with her railways from her Indo-Chinese empire 
 
 594
 
 Railways 
 
 next Yunnan, while many English are desirous that British 
 lines shall develop the West of China in connection with 
 our Asiatic empire. 
 
 The whole history of the different railway concessions 
 is thus described in the report of the China Association 
 for 1 898- 1 899 : 
 
 ' Having selected their respective spheres [of influence] the Powers 
 proceeded as it were by tacit consent to mark them off by Railway 
 and Mining Concessions. Russia had set the example in an Agreement 
 (dated September 1896) for the construction of an "Eastern Chinese 
 Railway " system of Manchuria. 
 
 ' France had followed by requesting the Tsung-li-Yamen, in June 
 1897, to promise that the Chinese Government would address itself to 
 the Fives- Lille Company for prolongations of the Langson-Lungchow 
 line toward Nanning and Pese, and would invite the aid of French 
 Engineers for the opening of mines in Kwangtung, Kwangsi, and 
 Yunnan. 
 
 ' Pursuing this assertion of interest in the provinces bordering on 
 Tongking, she exacted, in May 1898, the concession of a railway 
 from Pakhoi to a point on the West River, with the ulterior right of 
 making any future lines radiating from Pakhoi. The occasion was 
 taken by the Association to emphasise the protest which had been 
 made in April against this assertion of French influence in a province 
 which constitutes, commercially, as well as geographically, the hinter- 
 land of Hongkong. 
 
 'An American Syndicate has obtained a concession for the 
 Southern extension of the Great Trunk line from the banks of the 
 Yangtsze opposite Hankow to Canton ; and Sir Claude MacDonald 
 has obtained, finally, the concession of a right to make a railway from 
 Canton to the coast (Kowloong) opposite Hongkong. 
 
 ' Various other concessions of less political, but of considerable 
 financial importance, have been made. The Russo-Chinese bank has 
 undertaken to make a branch from Chengting (a city on the Lu-Han 
 line, in Pechili) to Taiyuen, the capital of Shansi. 
 
 'A Syndicate combining British and Italian interests has obtained 
 extensive mining rights in Shansi, coupled with the right of railway 
 outlet to the Han river at Siang-yang. 
 
 'A British subject, Mr. Pritchard Morgan, has entered into an 
 agreement having for its object the development of mines and con- 
 comitant railways in Szechuen. France is understood to have 
 protested that this arrangement is inconsistent with the undertaking 
 not to seek exclusive privileges in South-West China, concluded 
 between the two Governments . . . but the protest appears 
 strained. . . . 
 
 ' Broadly speaking, therefore, China has been partitioned into 
 spheres of industrial interest that may become spheres of political 
 influence in certain eventualities which the present regime appears 
 not unlikely to precipitate.' 
 
 'An Anglo-Italian syndicate has obtained a right 10 construct 
 the line from Joyau in Hupeh to Taochau in Shansi, and Messrs. 
 
 595
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 Jardine, Matheson & Co., have secured rights over the line from 
 Sinyan in Honan to Nangking irid Luchau in Anhui.' 
 
 ' Rivalry with England for the trade of Yunnan is being pursued 
 actively in other respects, the Chamber having guaranteed a loan of 
 70,000,000 frs., to be employed in making a railway up the valley of 
 the Red River, to Yunnan-fu. 
 
 'Great Britain, on the other hand, has obtained permission to 
 extend the Kunlon Ferry line into Yunnan. 
 
 ' Germany gave it to be understood from the first, that she intended 
 to keep in German hands the construction and management of 
 railways in Shantung. 
 
 1 In an agreement (dated 2nd September 1898) between English and 
 German capitalists for the construction of a line between Tientsin and 
 Chinkiang, the sphere of German interests is defined as the region 
 watered by affluents of the Hwang-ho, and the English sphere as that 
 watered by affluents of the Yangtsze. From Tientsin to the southern 
 border of Shantung, therefore, the line will be controlled by German, 
 and the continuation across Kiangpeh by British, subjects. It followed, 
 equally, that the British and Chinese Corporation obtained without 
 further competition a concession for the construction of lines between 
 Shanghai, Soochow, and Nanking. 
 
 ' Negotiations were concluded by the British and Chinese Corpora- 
 tion, about the same time, with the aid of H.M. Government, for the 
 proportioning of the Tientsin-Shanhaikwan line up the west coast of 
 the Liao-tung Gulf to Sin-min-ting on the upper waters of the Liao, 
 and to Newchwang. 
 
 1 More important than all, in the eyes of the Chinese, is the great 
 trunk line which is to connect Peking with Hankow. Granted origin- 
 ally to a Belgian syndicate in 1897, after some ineffectual negotiations 
 with American and British financiers, this concession had lapsed and 
 been revived more than once before a substantial contract was 
 signed, in June, with a titular Belgian Syndicate supported by Russo- 
 French diplomacy. 
 
 ' Both these contracts have been the subject, since, of keen con- 
 troversy, on the ground, broadly, that they constitute an intrusion, in 
 either case, into alien spheres. A protest by the Russian Minister 
 against the Newchwang agreement was met by surrendering all 
 rights of mortgage over the section of the line outside the Great Wall. 
 A protest by the British Minister against the signature of the Lu-Han 
 contract was disregarded by the Tsungli-Yamen, and the Chinese 
 Government was punished for its disregard and bad faith by the 
 exaction of certain other railway concessions. As the contract gives a 
 Franco-Russo-Belgian combination full right of mortgage and fore- 
 closure over a line penetrating the heart of the Yangtsze Valley, it 
 needs to be revised, obviously, on a similar principle, if it is carried 
 out.' 
 
 The following items contain further particulars as to 
 some of the concessions mentioned above : 
 
 'The negotiations concerning the construction of the Tsin-Chin 
 (Tientsin-Chinkiang) Railway, have been successfully concluded 
 between England, Germany, and China. It has been arranged that 
 
 596
 
 Railways 
 
 the sections between Tientsin and Tsinan, and Tsinan and Ichau, 
 shall be placed under the control of Germany, and the section between 
 Ichau and Chinkiang under British control.' The railway is to be 
 completed within five years. 
 
 The loan is ^"7,400,000 gold, which is to be repaid in 
 fifty years to the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corpora- 
 tion and the German Bank. ' The security is the guarantee 
 of the Chinese Government plus the railway itself.' Three 
 Europeans and two Chinese are to have the management 
 of it ; from Tientsin to the Southern boundaries of 
 Shantung, it is to be under German control and the rest 
 is to be under British control. 
 
 There is a line between Tiehsanpu, in Hupeh, to a spot 
 on the Yangtsze, 70 miles below Hankow, for conveying 
 the iron ore from Hupeh to the ironworks at Hanyang. 
 
 The line from Peking to Tientsin is about 75 miles 
 long. 
 
 There are further railway developments projected in 
 Shantung, thanks to the advent of the Germans in the 
 province. 
 
 'A German railway is to be constructed from Tapadurh, near 
 Kiaochow, to Weihsien, and then to join the Tientsin-Chinkiang main 
 line. A line is also to be built from Tapadurh to Tsintao. Both 
 lines will take two years in construction. They have been secured 
 by a German syndicate. . . . The Weihsien branch will tap the 
 rich coal district which is expected to be the mineral mainstay of 
 the German sphere of interest in Shantung. Another line is to be 
 constructed from Kiaochau (Tapadurh) to I chow, and thence to the 
 Tientsin-Chinkiang main line. Work on the Weihsien line com- 
 menced on Friday, 2nd June.' [1899]. 
 
 The railway from Peking to Hankow, 'about 813 miles long, 
 will pass throuerh the three important provinces of Chili, Honan, 
 and Hupeh ' [' from Peking to Hankow, about 650 miles, and from 
 Hankow to Canton, about 500 miles, or about 1,150 miles in all.' 
 Another writer says : ' The total length of line will be about 800 
 English miles, and the capital of the syndicate four and a half 
 millions sterling, represented by 225,000 snares of ^20 each], and it 
 "will serve the rich basins of the Yangtsze-kiang and of the Hwang- 
 ho." ' 
 
 It was expected that in 1902 the railway from Hankow 
 to Peking would reach 346 miles from the former place : 
 it is progressing at the rate of kilometre per working 
 day. 
 
 597
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 'With reference to the proposed Hankow-Canton railway, the 
 Chief Director, Chang Taotai, formerly Consul-General at Singapore,' 
 we read, 'has informed his friends that the line will begin at Canton, 
 pass Fatshan to the city of Samshui, on the West River. From this 
 place the trunk line will go across and enter Hunan, joining at Hankow 
 the Lu-Han Railway. From Samshui again there will be constructed 
 branch lines ; namely, one to Kueilin, the capital of Kwangsi province, 
 which will be called the Western Branch line ; while from Canton 
 there will be an Eastern Branch line connecting that city with 
 Huichow, thence to Swatow and northward into Fukien province. 
 The Viceroy T'an has already detailed one Battalion of 500 men of the 
 Chien Regiment to act as a guard to the workers on the new railway 
 which it is intended to begin early in May next.' [1899]. 
 
 'The party of engineers and experts of the Canton-Hankow 
 Railway Syndicate have completed their survey up to Kupong in 
 Punyu district, and are buying land from the owners holding title- 
 deeds.' This line is now progressing from both ends. 
 
 A survey of a projected line from Soochow to Ningpo 
 vid Hangchow has been made, and the Hongkong and 
 Shanghai Bank are to finance it. 
 
 The following was written a few years ago : 
 
 ' When the line of the Siberian Railway approaches the eastern 
 shore of the Russian Empire, it is suddenly stopped by a long and 
 broad wedge of land running from south to north. This is part of the 
 Chinese territory of Manchuria, probably the richest portion of the 
 Chinese Empire. In the centre of it is the important fortified town of 
 Kirin, the capital of the province of that name. The province of 
 Kirin is prolonged to the south-west by the province of Shinking, the 
 capital of which is Moukden, and which ends in the long peninsula 
 having the great naval base of Port Arthur for its most south-westerly 
 point. The Siberian railway has to make a long detour to the north 
 round this wedge, and the present treaty [1896] is intended first of all 
 to enable it to avoid this by taking the chord instead of the arc. Thus 
 the first advantage of Russia is to prolong its line from some point in 
 Siberia ; probably Nertchinsk, i>id Kirin, straight to Vladivostock. 
 Besides this, however, Russia is now authorised to build a railway 
 to join the main line at Kirin and run south-westwards, first to Port 
 Arthur, and second to Shanhaikwan, which is the terminus of the 
 present short railway to Tientsin. The Convention gives to Russia 
 the right to carry her Trans-Siberian Railway to Kirin, the Chinese 
 town of Central Manchuria, from {two directions first, some point in 
 Siberia ; and second, Vladivostock. Next, Russia obtains the right 
 to build a railway from Kirin to Port Arthur should China fail to do 
 so.' 
 
 'These three lines of railway are to be built with Russian money, 
 and are to be defended by posts of Russian Cossacks ; they will also 
 be built to the Russian gauge. Russia is to work mines in Manchuria, 
 and Russian officers are to drill the Chinese troops in Manchuria.' 
 
 With regard to the railway operations in the neighbour- 
 
 598
 
 Railways 
 
 hood of Kirin, Moukden, and Port Arthur, an opinion has 
 been expressed lately that the line cannot be finished in 
 less than five years, on account of the scarcity of timber, and 
 of workmen and labour. American pine is used, and has 
 to be brought by sea, the supply of it being very limited. 
 Wood is also brought from the Korean frontier, and the 
 winter is likewise so severe that the Chinese labourers 
 cannot stand it, and have to stop work for five months in 
 the year. 
 
 The following extract, though the Trans-Siberian Rail- 
 way is now finished, is still interesting in this connection : 
 
 ' The programme of Russian railway extension in Asia has lately 
 undergone considerable revision. The original scheme of the Trans- 
 Siberian Railway has been greatly modified, and it is probable that a 
 portion of the proposed route through Eastern Siberia will be 
 abandoned. When the line was originally authorised, the work of 
 construction was commenced at both ends simultaneously, and the 
 work at the Pacific terminus was inaugurated by the present Tsar, 
 who cut the first sod of earth at Vladivostock on 2Qth March 1891. 
 The work at this end of the line has been completed as far as 
 Khabarovka a distance of 481 miles, and here the terminus is likely 
 to remain for some years to come. The alternative route authorised 
 by the Manchurian Railway Agreement of 1896 will start from 
 Vladivostock and will pass by way of Nicolsk and Ninguta to Tsitsihar, 
 and thence across the Siberian frontier to Nerchinsk, where it will 
 join the railway now under construction. The energy with which the 
 work of railway development is being pushed forward in Russian 
 Manchuria is impressed on the visitor to Vladivostock, from the 
 moment he lands : the country for miles round swarms with parties 
 of labourers engaged in the construction of earth-works, the erection 
 of bridges and the general work necessary to the construction of a 
 railway. The labourers are convicts who have been sent to Siberia 
 for various offences. They work under a Cossack guard, and are paid 
 for their labour at the rate of one-tenth of the value of the work they 
 do. There are probably from 15,0x20 to 20,000 of these convict 
 labourers at work in Manchuria at the present time.' 
 
 ' Russia has demanded the right to carry a totally new branch 
 of the Trans-Siberian line, or rather a feeder, from somewhere near 
 the junction of the Shilka with the Amur, south to Kalgan, . . . 
 No doubt, the line to Kalgan, whether constructed from Aigun or 
 Maimatchin (Kiatkha) will take off a tremendously troublesome section 
 of the Trans-Siberian line, and moreover it will most certainly be 
 constructed, and it will as certainly be extended to connect with 
 the Russian system in Shansi, which is expected she will begin to 
 construct next year [1900].' 
 
 Railway concessions North of the Great Wall are to be 
 left to Russian enterprise, and those in the basin of the 
 
 599
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 Yangtsz to the British, but this agreement made 
 between the two nations is not to infringe in any 
 way on the rights acquired with regard to the 
 Shanhaikwan-Newchwang line, though the line is to 
 remain a Chinese line. The Peking-Tientsin-Shanhaik- 
 wan Railway has been handed over to the Chinese. 
 
 ' Ten or twelve millions sterling ' would be needed for a Burmo- 
 China Railway from Kunlon Ferry, the proposed terminus of the 
 Mandalay-Salween Railway to the Yangtsze Valley.' It would 'reach 
 the Yangtsze at Luchow, about a hundred miles higher up the river 
 than Chinkiang. . . The length . . . would be about 1,000 miles.' 
 It 'is not only not impracticable, but its construction would present 
 no very extraordinary difficulties.' 
 
 The following published in 1897 is of interest : 
 
 'A light railway' is to be built 'between Peking and the Imperial 
 mausolea.' ' Every time a member of the Imperial family or the harem 
 dies it costs some Tls. 300,000 to Tls. 400,000 to transport the remains 
 to the mausolea, whilst in the case of a deceased Emperor or Empress- 
 Dowager, no less than two million taels are usually expended for 
 transport expenses, etc. Hence the idea of a railway is to save such 
 exorbitant expenses.' 
 
 At the end of 1900 the following railways were 
 completed : Shantung Railway, nearly 100 miles (in Dec. 
 1901, 160 kilometres. In three years it will reach Chinan-fu, 
 the main section towards which was finished in June 1902) ; 
 Imperial Railways of North China, 540 miles (now 
 901 kilometres or more) ; Shanghai-Woosung Railway, 
 1 1 miles ; Lu-Han Railway, from Peking to Chengtingfu 
 about 1 60 miles, and northward from Hankow, about 
 105 miles. It is now (1903) making steady progress. 
 
 It must not be supposed that because all these 
 railways were planned, that railway communication is 
 in full swing in China. One or two maps of China 
 have been published lately, showing in black lines and 
 otherwise the concessions, etc., and on the strength of 
 these, two railway engine-drivers came up a few years 
 since from Australia to Hongkong in the confident 
 assurance of being able to obtain employment on one 
 of these numerous lines of railway thus marked out. 
 
 An Annual Report of the China Association gave the 
 
 600
 
 Railways 
 
 following useful table of railways actually built, in course 
 of construction, or projected in China : 
 
 (A) Railways completed and working. 
 
 1. The Imperial Chinese Northern Railway, 
 
 from Peking to Tientsin and Shanhaikwan 
 (with extension to Sinninting and 
 Newchwang nearly completed). 
 
 2. Peking to Paoting-fii (built by the Chinese 
 
 Government, but incorporated as part of the 
 Lu-Han line). 
 
 3. Shanghai to Woosung (built by the Chinese 
 
 Government, but to be incorporated as part 
 of the Shanghai-Soochow system). 
 
 (B) Railways in progress or projected, for which 
 
 concessions have been granted to 
 
 1. Japan for railways 
 
 () from Seoul to Chemilpo, and 
 (b} from Seoul to Fusan in Corea. 
 
 2. Russia, for the so-called Chinese Eastern 
 
 Railways in Manchuria. 
 
 3. The Russo-Chinese Bank, for a line from 
 
 Chengting (a station on the Lu-Han line in 
 Pechili) to Tanjuen, the capital of Shansi. 
 
 4. A Franco-Belgian Syndicate, for a line 
 
 (known as the Lu-Han) from Peking to 
 Hankow. 
 
 5. An American Syndicate, (which has agreed, 
 
 since, to share its interests with the British 
 and Chinese Corporation), for a line from 
 Hankow to Canton. 
 
 6. Germany, for a Railway Triangle from 
 
 Kiaochow to Tsinan, Kiaochan to Yihien 
 in Shangtung. 
 
 7. An Anglo-German Syndicate, for a line from 
 
 Tientsin to the Yangtsze opposite Chinkiang. 
 
 8. The British and Chinese Corporation, for 
 
 lines : 
 
 (a) from Shanghai to Soochow and Nanking. 
 60 1
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 (fr) from Shanghai to Hangchow, with 
 possible extension to Ningpo. 
 
 (c) from Pukon (opposite Nanking) to 
 
 Hsinyang, a station on the Lu-Han 
 Railway, in Honan. 
 
 (d) from Canton to Kowloong. 
 9. The Peking Syndicate for lines 
 
 (a) from Taokow on the Wei River to 
 Weihwei and Tsechow. 
 
 (/>) from Tsechow vid Honan-fii to Siang- 
 
 yang on the Han River. 
 10. France for lines from 
 
 (#) Pakhoi to a point not yet determined 
 on the bank of the West River 
 (presumably Nanning). 
 
 (]} Lungchow (on the frontier of Tong- 
 king) to Nanning or Pe"se. 
 
 (c] from the frontier of Tong-king (presum- 
 
 ably Laokai) to Yunnan-fu. 
 
 (d) Kwang Chow Bay, across the neck of 
 
 the peninsula, to Om-pu. 
 
 The list is improving, says the Report, but many of the 
 projects still remain dormant. 
 
 The following summary of Railway enterprise in 
 China, mostly, if not entirely, under European auspices, 
 will give an idea of what has been done : 
 
 In the North of China a considerable extent of railway (mostly in 
 British hands) has been constructed, and is open for traffic. From 
 Peking to Tientsin, a distance of 80 miles, the line is open, and thence 
 to Tang-ku on the coast, a distance of 27 miles. From Tang-ku it 
 runs through the coal district to Shan-hai-kwan, 147 miles, and thence 
 along the coast, 113 miles, to Chen-Chou at the head of the Gulf of 
 Liao-Tung. ... As the railway approaches Chen-Chou, two lines 
 branch off, one of 7 miles, from Kao Chiao to Tien Chiao Chang, on 
 the coast ; the other runs 30 miles inland, from Nu Erh Ho to the 
 Nan Pao coal mines. The total length of line open from Peking to 
 Chen-Chou, including the two branches, in December 1899, was 404 
 miles. The line is being continued round the head of the Liao Tung 
 Gulf to Yung Kow, where the system will be connected by a Russian 
 branch line with the railway which is being constructed from Port 
 Arthur and Talienwan to the Siberian railway. Another prolongation 
 of the British line is being laid from Chen-Chou to Hsin Min Tun, 106 
 
 602
 
 Railways 
 
 miles to the north-east and about 40 miles west of Mukden. The 
 Russian railway through Manchuria is being constructed, and will 
 probably be completed in 1902. The main line will have a length of 
 950 miles, and the South Manchuria branch to Tort Arthur 650 miles. 
 Towards the south-west, Peking is connected with Pao-ting-fu, the 
 capital of the province of Chihli, by a line 88 miles in length, from 
 which, at Liu Li Ho, a branch runs to the Chou Kow Tien coal-fields, 
 10 miles distant. The Pao-ting-fu line, constructed with British 
 capital, was, in January 1900, transferred to a Belgian syndicate, and 
 will be extended southwards to Hankau on the Yangtsze river. The 
 section from Pao-ting-fu to Cheng-Ting-Fu is now under construction. 
 From the Yangtsze another projected line (American) will run to 
 Canton. Railways (British) are to be constructed also for the develop- 
 ment of the mining and petroleum industries of the province of 
 Shansi, and others to connect the Honan mines with the Yangtsze 
 river opposite Nanking viA Kaifong. The Shanghai-Wusung Railway 
 of 12 miles has been open for traffic since August 1898. From 
 Shanghai a projected line will run to Hang-Chou, Ningpo, Wenchau, 
 and probably to Canton. Other lines (British) are to connect Ching- 
 tu, in the province of Szechuan, with Wuchau, and with Canton. 
 French lines are proposed to bring Tonking into communication with 
 the treaty ports of Mengtsz, Wuchau, and Pakhoi, and also with the 
 province of Yunnan.' ('The Statesman's Year Book. : ) 
 
 ' The railway between Canton and Hankow will cover 750 English 
 miles and pass through many important cities. There does not seem 
 any disposition to hurry forward this work. It is commonly reported 
 in Canton that a company calling itself the Chinese-American Railway 
 Company has been formed to carry out this project. When once the 
 work is fairly started, it is reckoned that 850,000,000 a year will be 
 required to meet all the expenses, labour, material, etc. Interest on 
 this sum will be paid at the rate of eight taels per cent, per annum.' 
 
 The track is a double one from Peking to Tientsin, 
 with a gauge of 4 feet 8| inches. A French line is 
 proposed between Pakhoi and some point to be fixed 
 upon, on the West River, another is from Kwongchow- 
 wan to Whampoa. ' A concession is in existence to 
 allow France to carry a railway line from Laokay (in 
 Tonkin) to Yunnansen . . . being the extension of the 
 railway from Haiphong and Hanoi.' This line is to be 
 239 miles in length from Haiphong to Laokai. The 
 building and working capital of the Haiphong- Yunnansen 
 line is ,4,000,000. 
 
 Books recommended. A leader in the Hongkong Daily Press of 9th 
 September 1891, gives an interesting account of the development of the 
 Tientsin Railway from a seven-miles tram-line to the present dimensions. 
 An interesting article has appeared in Tl\e Engineer, giving an account of the 
 history and construction of the railway in Formosa. It was republished in 
 
 603
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 the London and Cliina Express and copied in the Hongkong Telegraph of the 
 10th of August 1892. A perusal of this article will show the great difficulties 
 encountered from Chinese ignorance, prejudice, and bribery in such works. 
 ' Railway Enterprise in China,' an article in Chambers's Journal for May 
 1899, by B. Taylor. 
 
 RATS. The rat is as common a creature in China as 
 elsewhere. In fact, scientific men trace the brown, or 
 Norway, rat back to Western China as its ancient 
 home. From this, its original habitat, it journeyed west- 
 ward to Europe, and reached England by the aid of ships, 
 arriving in the latter country in A.D. 1730, having crossed 
 the Volga in 1727. They marched in large troops, appear- 
 ing in ' Paris about the middle of the eighteenth century.' 
 
 ' The rat, especially the Asiatic rat, is more susceptible to plague 
 than any other animal, the guinea-pig coming next, and, as rats have 
 a habit of joining ships at one port and leaving them at another, they 
 become a menace, as they may form the medium of conveying the 
 plague infection round the world.' 
 
 To prevent this, tin shields are put on ships' cables to 
 keep them from landing. (Also see Article on Plague.) 
 
 It is a mistake to suppose that Chinese live on rats, etc. 
 They are eaten occasionally by the very poor : in the 
 country, some four or five out of a hundred have doubtless 
 tasted them. These people, if they come across a large, 
 fat one may cook it. Dried rats are to be seen hung up for 
 sale in dried meat shops. The wealthy do not eat them, as 
 a rule, though there is a notion that rat's flesh will produce 
 the growth of hair: so some, though feeling squeamish about 
 such meat, will force themselves to eat a little in order that 
 their hair may grow in again. 
 
 The Chinese appear to be very cruel occasionally when 
 a rat is caught : sometimes the offending creature is nailed 
 alive to a board ; at other times it is dipped in kerosene and 
 set fire to while its tormentors gloat over its agony. 
 Doubtless there is a feeling that the thief and destroyer of 
 their property is suffering a just reward for its depredations. 
 
 RELIGION. Amongst this ancient nation are to be 
 found many persistent survivals of old-world religions 
 
 604
 
 Rice 
 
 and myths handed down from generation to generation 
 through the long ages past. Faint traces of such beliefs 
 and modes of worship are to be found by the diligent 
 enquirer in our Western lands ; but in China they form in 
 many cases not only the basis on which have been super- 
 imposed the more modern systems of religion ; but they 
 permeate the whole present amalgam of credulity, supersti- 
 tion, forms and ritual, which go to make up the average 
 Chinaman's religion. The worship of Heaven and Earth, 
 of mountains and rivers is still in existence, and traces 
 of Sabianism are to be found ; the adoration and planting 
 of sacred trees near temples can be seen to this day ; and 
 a most common form of worship is the worship of stones, 
 besides an ever present and most profound belief in evil 
 spirits which cause disease, etc. 
 
 As Gibbon said of Rome, so it might almost be said of 
 China to-day : ' To the common people all religions are 
 equally true ; to the philosopher all are equally false ; to 
 the magistrate all are equally useful.' To the superficial 
 observer the Chinese appear a very religious people, and 
 yet, on closer observation, it will be found that there is a 
 great deal of formalism about their worship. They are 
 very superstitious, and the whole land is full of idols. 
 The women are most devout worshippers ; many of the 
 educated men profess scepticism, while giving an outward 
 adhesion to the forms of worship. There are some earnest 
 souls to be found among them who join different sects of 
 Buddhism in order to find some satisfaction for the 
 longings of their hearts ; when the truths of Christianity 
 are presented to such, they are sometimes received as a 
 revelation from Heaven. 
 
 Books recommended. 'The Religious System of China,' by J. J. M. de 
 Groot, Ph.D. See articles on Buddhism, Taoism, and Missions, and the 
 books recommended at the end of those articles. 
 
 RICE. The Chinese language has developed a number 
 of names for rice in its different stages of growth, thus 
 confirming what Archdeacon Trench pointed out the 
 
 605
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 tendency of a language to develop in any special 
 direction. Rice being the main support of the inhabitants 
 of the South of China, every stage of its growth is of the 
 greatest interest to them ; but to us, who never see it in 
 our own land but in the hulled grain, it is simply rice 
 whether in that state, or when the tender blade is just 
 shooting out of the ground, or when nearly ripe ; and we 
 have to borrow from a foreign language the word paddy 
 to represent it with the husk on a word, by-the-bye, 
 little used or known in England itself, as the necessity for 
 its use there is but slight. For all of these different 
 conditions of rice, the Chinese have names, and again, not 
 only does one word do duty for cooked rice, but the soup- 
 like drink made from boiling a small quantity of rice in a 
 large quantity of water, has a distinctive name of its own, 
 chuk (pronounced chook), for which Europeans in the 
 East, being at a loss for a word to express it, have again 
 had recourse to the borrowing of a Malay word to express 
 it, congee, 
 
 Rice is the staple article of diet in the South of China ; 
 so much so, that ' to eat rice ' is synonymous with taking a 
 meal ; and the equivalent of ' How do you do?' is ' Have 
 you eaten your rice yet ? ' ' He cannot eat his rice ' is 
 tantamount to saying that a sick man is unable to take his 
 food. Breakfast is chiu-fdn, ' morning rice,' and ye-fdn, or 
 man-fan, ' late rice,' and ' evening rice ' stands for dinner. 
 With regard to its use as food in the extreme South, we 
 refer our readers to our Article on Food in this book. 
 
 The rice grows in small patches, scarcely entitled to be 
 called fields. As the rice grows best in water, these are 
 under a few inches of water the most of the time. There 
 are no fences or walls between them, but the mud is piled 
 up all round each little division of ground, and, drying in 
 the sun, forms a narrow footpath only wide enough for one 
 person to walk on. When the rice-plant, which has been 
 thickly sown in one place, is 6 inches high, it is trans- 
 planted into the miniature fields by men and women 
 wading through the mud, and five or six of these sprouts 
 
 606
 
 Riots 
 
 are stuck into one hole. In a very short time the fields 
 present a beautiful sight, being converted from the muddy 
 flats into masses of living, delicate green. Two, or some- 
 times even three, crops of rice, or other plants, succeed one 
 another a crop of fish is. put into the field when they, the 
 fish, are a few inches long, to fatten for the market while 
 the rice is growing. 
 
 The Chinese prefer their own rice to that grown in 
 foreign countries. There are several varieties of this useful 
 grain, coarse and fine, white and red, glutinous arid non- 
 glutinous. 
 
 At New Year's time popped rice is largely used, and is 
 carried about the streets in large baskets, looking like 
 snow in its whiteness. It is prepared in the same way 
 as the popped Indian corn, or maize, of the New England 
 States, and is very much like it in appearance and taste. 
 
 About Swatow and Amoy more congee is eaten than at 
 Canton and neighbourhood, while, up North, millet takes 
 the place of rice. 
 
 Book recommended. For an interesting account of rice the world round, 
 see Rhein's ' Industries of Japan,' p. 37. 
 
 RIOTS. The Chinese have acquired an uneviable 
 notoriety of late years for riots directed against foreign 
 residents at different treaty ports and cities. In their 
 intensity and wild outburst they resemble the cyclonic 
 disturbances, the typhoons, which carry death and destruc- 
 tion in their train. As before the typhoons premonitory 
 symptoms are generally observable in a disturbed state of 
 the atmosphere, so before these riots there is a heated state 
 of opinion, which those who are in touch with the native 
 mind may discover. 
 
 To those not intimately acquainted with the Chinese it 
 may be supposed that as the proverbial Irishman is never 
 happy unless he is in the midst of a row, so the Chinese 
 are only in their native element when rushing in hordes 
 against the defenceless European or American. To say 
 that the Chinese are peaceful, law-abiding subjects seems 
 
 607
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 preposterous when writing about Chinese riots, but such a 
 statement, nevertheless, is the truth ; for they are one of 
 the most peaceful nations in the world. The Chinese, 
 from a European standpoint, is made up of a mass of 
 incongruities, the most opposite traits of character are to 
 be found in juxtaposition ; and this same quiet Chinaman 
 is a perfect demon, a yelling, infuriated brute, a monster of 
 destruction, in a riot ; rapine, robbery, arson, and murder, 
 all rapidly succeed each other at such a time, the howling 
 mob ravening like wild beasts as they run wanton with life 
 and property. ' There is no fear of Got in a riot,' so 
 according to Shakespeare said Sir Hugh Evans. 
 
 What are the causes that transform the law-abiding 
 Chinaman into a demon of destruction ? We propose to 
 mention what we consider to be some of them. It must 
 first be taken into consideration that the Chinese as a mass 
 are woefully ignorant of the commonest scientific facts 
 which are taught to our children at school. When they 
 find that we are able to rush along at the rate of 60 
 miles an hour in railways ; when they see steamers go 
 without wind and against the tide ; when they hear some 
 vague rumour of Westerners being able to see millions of 
 miles into the sky, or on the other hand minutely examine 
 some insect and make it as large as a buffalo ; when they 
 see tumours cut off and legs and arms amputated by the 
 skilful surgeon ; it is comparatively easy for them to 
 believe that these magic-working foreigners can look 
 several inches into the ground and discover precious 
 metals, especially since their own geomancers pretend to 
 the same power (the author himself, when on a trip in 
 the interior, was asked if he did not possess this power) ; 
 and further, with such people, it does not require much 
 stretch of the imagination to believe the story that 
 foreigners, who are all blue-eyed, require the black eyes of 
 Chinese children to compound their wonder-working 
 medicines, or the eyes of dead Chinese to transform lead 
 into silver. It will thus be seen that, owing to this dense 
 ignorance, they are credulous to an extreme extent. They 
 
 608
 
 Riots 
 
 will believe almost any and everything. It must also be 
 remembered that we are foreigners to them enemies we 
 have been at various times ; and, unfortunately, in our 
 relations with them, we have sometimes been overbearing ; 
 the nation looks upon us as the introducers of opium ; the 
 officials and literati fear our science and civilisation will 
 overturn theirs, and most of the mandarins are afraid that 
 these will put an end to their corrupt system of government 
 and their profits ; some dread that we will eventually wrest 
 their country from them. Besides, of late years, a 
 knowledge of the shutting of foreign countries, such as 
 America and Australia, against Chinese immigration is 
 becoming known ; to which must be added the fact that 
 the mass of foreigners do not understand the Chinese, at 
 times fearing designs from them when they are to be 
 trusted, and implicitly trusting them when they are acting 
 with duplicity ; and we, unfortunately, do not always act 
 with sufficient care in our intercourse with them, for our 
 motives are often misunderstood and our actions mis- 
 construed. We are strange, grotesque, bizarre objects in 
 their eyes, our every action outre, and sinister motives are 
 readily ascribed to such curious beings as we appear to 
 them devils as they call us. Given all this material, it 
 needs but the dissemination of lying books against some 
 foreigners, issued with the imprimatur of high officials ; it 
 requires but an incipient rebellion in the throes of its 
 attempted birth ; it wants but a few lewd fellows of the 
 baser sort to start a riot ; the apathetic, indifferent, and 
 half-sympathising mandarins take care, as a rule, to keep 
 out of the way until the mischief is done, while their 
 soldiery, as often as not, lend a hand in the plundering of 
 compounds, the dismantling of houses. And yet it is 
 wonderful how an armed little force, consisting only of the 
 mercantile residents, a dozen or a score of men, if resolutely 
 facing the packed mass of the infuriated mob breathing out 
 death and destruction, can, with scarcely firing a shot, 
 disperse the armies of the aliens like smoke. 
 
 The question naturally arises : What is the remedy 
 
 609 2 Q
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 for all this ? We believe nothing but a determined front 
 presented by all the foreign powers, an insistence on the 
 opening up of more of the country, the continual presence 
 of at least one gunboat at every treaty port, and, should 
 a riot take place, the carrying out of the threat once made 
 at Hankow, that Imperial property would be fired on. If 
 the officials found their yamens bombarded as sure as a 
 riot took place, and one or two of their most prominent 
 members seized and carried off to the gunboat, we believe 
 that riots would cease. This would be a more effective 
 punishment than the destruction of defenceless villages or 
 towns, as the inhabitants in many cases are but tools in the 
 hands of designing knaves. The Chinese officials always 
 cry non possumus until they know they must do what is 
 required of them. The true secret of dealing with the 
 Chinese, and that which has always been successful in the 
 past, is firmness ; kindness towards them at all times, but 
 no shilly-shallying ; consideration and sympathy, with a 
 fixed resolution, and a determination that the demands, 
 granted they are right, shall be acceded to, and that at 
 once. 
 
 'The huge majority of Chinese, the peasants and traders, are 
 eminently law-abiding folk, and would no more dream of sacking 
 foreign chapels and murdering missionaries in cold blood than they 
 would dream of learning Euclid or of coming to help a foreigner who 
 was being murdered.' 
 
 ' Nine anti-foreign riots out of ten are directly fomented and 
 instigated from the yamens, possibly not by the mandarin himself, but 
 at anyrate by his entourage, or by the local literati ; every yamen has a 
 host of hangers on lictors, runners, squeezers, and their relations to 
 the tenth degree. These people are invariably hand in glove with 
 the loafers, gamblers, and opium-smokers who constitute the criminal 
 classes of every Chinese town and who are ready for anything from 
 the T'di P'ing Rebellion to baiting a missionary, for they feel sure that 
 their own skins will not suffer. The outrages on foreigners are rarely 
 the result of a sudden outburst of passion ; they are raked up by 
 persons who are perfectly well known in the locality. When riots 
 occur, the most innocent mandarin is invariably guilty of having 
 lacked the courage to put his foot down and crush the movement before 
 it had gathered force. ... It should be made perfectly clear to the 
 official classes of China that they will have to pay through the nose ' 
 for allowing their underlings 'to indulge in the pastime of committing 
 outrages on foreign subjects. The tariff for murdering a missionary 
 
 6lO
 
 Riots 
 
 should be made absolutely prohibitive. If every Viceroy felt con- 
 vinced that he would have to pay a quarter of a million taels within 
 three months for every missionary murdered within his jurisdiction, 
 there can be little doubt that missionaries would be as safe in China 
 as in Piccadilly. Under ordinary circumstances the people of China 
 are totally indifferent to Christian or any other religious propaganda ; 
 they neither understand nor wish to understand nirvana, pure Tao, or 
 justification by faith ; they wish to pursue their ordinary avocations in 
 peace, and would be quite willing to allow the missionary to do the 
 same.' 
 
 We give a list of a few of the more notable riots : 
 
 7th December, 1842. European factories at Canton destroyed by 
 a mob. 
 
 2 ist June, 1870. Riot at Tientsin and massacre of R. C. nuns. 
 
 4th May, 1874. Riot in French Concession, Shanghai. 
 
 loth September, 1883. Riot by Chinese mob in Canton. Great 
 destruction of foreign houses and property on Shameen. 
 
 3rd October, 1884. Serious coolie riot in Hongkong. 
 
 4th October, 1884. Attack on foreigners at Wenchow. 
 
 ist July, 1886. Serious riot at Chungking. 
 
 5th February, 1889. Anti-foreign riot at Chinkiang. Foreign 
 houses burned and looted. 
 
 1 3th May, 1891. Anti-foreign riot at Wuhu. Catholic mission 
 premises, I.M. Custom House, and British Consulate burned and 
 looted. 
 
 1 8th May, 1891. Anti-foreign riot in the Hochow district. Anti- 
 foreign riot at Ngankin. 
 
 25th May, 1891. Anti-foreign riot at Ngankin. Some foreign 
 houses burned and looted. 
 
 ist June, 1891. Anti-foreign riot at Tanyang, 20 miles from Chin- 
 kiang. Catholic property destroyed. 
 
 5th June, 1891. Anti-foreign riot at Wusueh, near Hankow. 
 Foreign property destroyed, Rev. Mr. Argent, Wesleyan Missionary, 
 and Mr. Green, of the Imperial Maritime Custom's service, killed. 
 
 yth June, 1891. Attempted anti-foreign riot at Kiukiang. 
 
 8th June 1891. Destruction of French Missionaries' property at 
 Woo-sih, near Foochow, by an anti-foreign mob. 
 
 9th June, 1891. Attack on mission premises at Soochow. Rioters 
 dispersed. 
 
 1 4th June, 1891. Mission property burned down at Shahsi. 
 
 2oth June, 1891. Riot at Ha-mien City on the Yangtsz. Catholic 
 property destroyed. 
 
 25th and 26th June, 1891. Riots attempted at Tsing-kiang-pu and 
 Hunan-fu on the Grand Canal, but suppressed. 
 
 3oth June, 1891. A mob loots and burns down Catholic chapel 
 and schools at Yan-kao, near Tung-chow on the Yangtsz. 
 
 July, 1891. Riot at Yiin-yang-shien, about half-way between 
 Ichang and Chungking. 
 
 2nd September, 1891. Riot at Ichang. Nearly all foreign 
 property destroyed. 
 
 ist July, 1893. Two Swedish Missionaries murdered at Sungpu, 
 in Central China, by mob. 
 
 6n
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 June, 1894. Two medical missionary ladies attacked by a mob 
 in Honam, Canton, because one of them rendered assistance to a 
 plague patient, and on the 2oth June, at Sheklung, Tung Kwun, the 
 American Presbyterian Chapel demolished by a mob, and one man 
 killed. 
 
 29th May, 1895. Anti-foreign riots in Szchuen. 
 
 ist August, 1895. At Kucheng (near Foochow) massacre, Rev. 
 Mr. Stewart and ten helpless ladies and children murdered by a mob. 
 
 1 2th May, 1896. Serious riot at Kiangyin. Mission property 
 entirely destroyed. 
 
 ist November, 1897. Murder of two German Catholic priests at 
 Yenchow by a band of twenty men, which led up to the seizure of Kiau- 
 chow by the Germans. 
 
 i6th March, 1898. American Mission, in suburbs of Chungking, 
 sacked by mob, and Chinese medical assistants maltreated and one 
 murdered. 
 
 9th April, 1898. Riot in Shasi. Buildings on foreign bund 
 destroyed. 
 
 8th July, 1898. Protestant and Catholic Missions attacked by 
 rioters at Shum-ching-fu, in Szchuen. A French priest captured by 
 brigands. 
 
 I5th October, 1898. Rioting at Ho Chou, 50 miles from Chung- 
 king. American and French Mission places attacked and burned. 
 
 25th October, 1898. Rioting at Shameen, Canton. 
 
 8th January, 1899. Serious rioting at Sung-do, near Ningpo, over 
 an attempt to work mines. 810,000 worth of mining property 
 destroyed. 
 
 I5th August 1902. Murder of two missionaries, Messrs. Bruce and 
 Lowis, by mob, at Chengchow, Hunan. 
 
 It is impossible to give an account of all the small 
 unimportant riots or mobs. At times riots have been 
 imminent and in a few cases have actually taken place, 
 unattended with loss of life and with but little injury to 
 property. 
 
 The terrible Boxer rising fostered by the Chinese 
 Government, Chinese officials aiding and abetting them 
 and Chinese soldiers fighting with them in a war of 
 extermination against all Westerners, resulting in the 
 dreadful siege of the legations in Peking, the fighting in 
 Tientsin, the operations in North China and the taking of 
 the Taku Forts, etc., scarcely come under the category of 
 Riots ; but though not exactly coming under this caption, it 
 may not be amiss to call attention to the number of murdered 
 missionaries, many of them slaughtered in cold blood, 
 some by order of officials with a slight semblance of legal 
 
 procedure. 
 
 612
 
 Roads 
 
 These massacres took place in 1899 and 1900. One 
 Mission alone the China Inland lost 48 members and 
 21 children. The total Protestant loss, however, was 
 135 adults and 53 children. Of these, nearly 100 were 
 British, more than 50 Swedish, and over 30 Americans. 
 ' If the Roman Catholic losses ' are added and the 
 martyred native Christians, it will be one of the greatest 
 persecutions in history. Even the Diocletian persecution 
 was less, according to Gibbon. 
 
 Books recommended. 'The Anti-Foreign Riots in China in 1891.' 'The 
 Sources of the Anti-Foreign Disturbances in China,' by Rev. Gilbert Reid, 
 M.A. A full account of the Swedish Missionary riot and what was done 
 about it, is contained in the Hongkong Daily Press of 21st Feb., 1894. An 
 article entitled 'The Future of China,' in The Fortnightly Review, August 
 1896. 
 
 ROADS. In the south of China the rivers are the 
 natural roads, and in some places, especially in the delta of 
 the Canton river, the country is reticulated with rivers, 
 streams, cross canals, etc., which bring every few miles of 
 country within easy reach of water communication. Back 
 from the network of rivers, paths connect the market- 
 towns and villages. In some places these paths are paved 
 with granite slabs. It is considered a meritorious act to 
 repair or construct roads. 
 
 The country near Swatow is well provided with water 
 communication ; some of the rivers have numerous boats 
 of many descriptions. The public roads in this neighbour- 
 hood are good, as a rule, though but paths. They are 
 often formed of a kind of cement in large slabs about a 
 yard or so wide, occasionally square stones are let into this 
 cement, while at other times, squares of a slightly different 
 structure from the rest of the road, and looking like 
 conglomerate, are so let in, while again at other times the 
 stone is used. The roads in this locality are not straight, 
 but ramble through the rice-fields with a very meandering 
 course. 
 
 In the neighbourhood of Amoy there does not seem to 
 be such a traffic on the rivers ; and the same is said to hold 
 
 613
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 good with regard to the great Yangtsz Kiang in the centre 
 of China. 
 
 In the north of China, where carts are used, the roads 
 are worn below the surface of the surrounding land, and in 
 the heavy rains form water-courses for the deluges that 
 pour from the skies to escape by ; when in this state they 
 have occasionally to be swum by travellers, and instances 
 of wayfarers being drowned in the road are not unknown. 
 
 In some places, roads made five hundred or even 
 thousands of years ago are in existence. 
 
 It would greatly develop trade and facilitate intercom- 
 munication were a Chinese MacAdam to arise or were 
 the Chinese Government, instead of buying foreign war 
 material, to devote its energy to the construction of these 
 arteries of trade. With the curious topsyturvy way in 
 which the Chinese do everything, it is not at all unlikely 
 that the iron road will run its spider-like lines through the 
 length and breadth of the empire before a system of properly 
 constructed roads becomes un fait accompli in this land. 
 
 SHOOTING. The Chinese are not sufficiently civilised 
 to take delight in killing birds and other game for pleasure ! 
 There is a small amount of shooting goes on for food 
 purposes. To those who glory in such pursuits there is no 
 better book than Lieutenant Craddock's ' Sporting Notes 
 in the Far East.' He seems to have had a varied 
 experience, and gives it for the benefit of others, detailing 
 the game to be found at the different ports, the seasons for 
 them, and rules of procedure. Snipe, pheasants, woodcock, 
 quail, and many other birds, as well as deer, etc., are to be 
 found at different places. It would be a good day for the 
 inhabitants of certain districts of China if sportsmen would 
 follow the example of a few of their number and go tiger 
 shooting. This is to be found in the neighbourhood of 
 Amoy and Foochow, in some parts of the Canton pro- 
 vince, and doubtless in many other places in China. The 
 tigers are a regular pest, carrying off young children at 
 times even from the doors of their houses, as well as dogs 
 
 614
 
 Shuttlecock 
 
 and other small animals. In two years, foreign sportsmen 
 from Amoy ' have killed no fewer than twenty-five ' of 
 them. 
 
 SHUTTLECOCK. The usual reverse occurs in China 
 with regard to some of the games that happens with many 
 other things in this land of contrarieties. Instead of 
 shuttlecock being more especially a game for girls, it 
 is most especially a game for boys, lads, and men. No 
 girls ever play it. It may almost be said to be the 
 national game of China, and kite-flying the national 
 pastime. The latter is indulged in in autumn ; the former 
 in winter, though it is played at other times as well. What 
 seems curious about the two is, that, though children find 
 an amusement in them, they are largely enjoyed and in- 
 dulged in by those who can scarcely be described as 
 children, except with the qualifying phrase 'of an older 
 growth ' appended. 
 
 There is no battledore used by the Chinese, but the 
 shuttlecock is kept up in the air by the foot, the broad 
 white sole of the Chinese shoe acting admirably for the 
 purpose. Two, three, four, or more players get together ; 
 and, if two, stand opposite each other, if three or more, 
 they form an irregular ring and kick the shuttlecock up 
 into the air in such a manner that it may fall near another 
 player, so that there is no violent exercise except what is 
 necessary for the kicking. If a foot stroke is impossible, 
 when the shuttlecock is falling near one, then it is allowable 
 to keep it up by hitting it with the hand and thus send it 
 to another player, or to bang it into the air in such a way 
 that it may return in a position to be easily hit by the foot. 
 There are several foot-strokes the most common being 
 with the inner side of the sole of the right shoe. A hit is 
 sometimes made with the outer side of the sole of the right 
 shoe. Another hit that must require some dexterity (if 
 we may be allowed to use such a word in connection with 
 the foot) is given with the right foot with the inner side 
 of the sole of the right shoe from under the calf of the 
 
 615
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 left leg. The most usual form of this stroke is as follows : 
 the left leg is doubled round so that the foot is in front 
 of the body and about ten or twelve inches from the 
 ground : this is done while the shuttlecock is descend- 
 ing : and, when it is almost near enough to hit, a spring 
 is taken off the ground with the right foot last, and the 
 shuttlecock is immediately hit by the inner side of the sole 
 of the right shoe from under the left calf. Another variety of 
 this stroke is to stretch the left leg out in a sloping direction 
 downwards from the body with the foot a few inches above 
 the ground, and then a similar stroke is made as described 
 above. Another stroke is made with the sole of the right 
 foot from behind the body, the foot in delivering it being 
 kicked backwards and upwards. With many of the strokes 
 delivered from the feet, the shuttlecock is sent up some ten, 
 twenty, or thirty feet into the air, though occasionally a 
 forward kick is given which directs it towards another 
 player, with, perhaps, a slightly rising direction. The play 
 often begins by one player tossing the shuttlecock with his 
 hand up in the air towards another player opposite him. 
 The object of the play is, of course, to keep the shuttlecock 
 up as long as possible. The shuttlecock itself is rather 
 different in construction from that in use in the West, no 
 cork being used ; but a number of layers of skin are em- 
 ployed, the two outer being snake's skin and the inner 
 ones are said to be shark's skin, there being from eight or 
 ten to twenty layers. The feathers used are duck's feathers 
 and three in number. 
 
 SILK. Notwithstanding the disparagement of early 
 Chinese inventions by some, no one has yet been found bold 
 enough to try and wrest the palm from them for the three 
 discoveries of porcelain, lacquer-ware, and the manufacture 
 of silk. ' The cultivation of silk, as of tea, had its origin 
 in China,' and ' China still stands first amongst the silk- 
 producing countries of the earth, and the amount exported 
 annually from it to Europe, North America, and Bombay, 
 is between 52,000 and 85,000 bales.' 
 
 616
 
 Silk 
 
 Silk culture is of very ancient origin ; from references 
 in the ' Shu King' to it, it is evident that it was well known 
 when that work was written. Silkworms are said to have 
 been first reared (B.C. 2600) by the Empress of Huang Ti, 
 who was deified and worshipped, under the name of Yuen-fi, 
 as the Goddess of Silk. Offerings are made to her annually, 
 in April, by the Empress, at a temple in the palace grounds 
 at Peking. The great Yu is credited by the Chinese ' as 
 the most prominent promoter' of the cultivation of silk, 
 and he is likewise said to ' have planted the hill country of 
 Shansi with mulberries.' The Chinese Government has 
 followed the good example of this semi-mythical monarch, 
 by giving encouragement to the people and endeavouring 
 to incite them to engage in this industrial occupation. In 
 fact it has bestowed unremitting attention on this important 
 branch of industry. Again, however, it is stated, that 'the 
 raising of silkworms (at first upon the mulberry boughs 
 as now in some parts of Honan and Szchuan) is traced to 
 an Emperor who lived B.C. 2697.' 
 
 As the mulberry leaf is the chief food of the silkworm, 
 much labour and the greatest care is expended on the cul- 
 tivation of the mulberry tree. In the neighbourhood of 
 Chinkiang there are two kinds of mulberries a wild and a 
 domestic the domestic is grafted on the wild. The young 
 mulberry trees are transplanted in December, and are 
 placed at regular distances of five or six feet from one 
 another ; they are then cut down to one foot six inches in 
 height, and two shoots are allowed to grow ; with the 
 systematic pruning carried on each year, after five or six 
 years there are only sixteen branches left ; the continual 
 cutting off of all but two fresh twigs on each branch pro- 
 duces a knobbed appearance of the tree ; and finally, from 
 these knobbed-like fists, about fifty to eighty branches 
 are preserved. The trees live more than fifty years ; but 
 are not allowed to grow higher than five or six feet. 
 The wild mulberry, which grows to a height of fifty 
 or sixty feet, is also used, and there is a smaller kind 
 as well. 
 
 617
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 The silkworm undergoes several changes ; but different 
 species would appear to differ in this respect, for it seems 
 that the ' southern silkworm ' has four periods for moulting, 
 as a rule, while the ' northern silkworm ' generally casts its 
 skin three times. 
 
 The greatest care is taken to keep the silkworms from 
 noise, which they dislike ; so far indeed do the silkworm 
 carers carry their precautions that they become super- 
 stitious, the silkworms at certain places being informed by 
 their keepers of the arrival of travellers, and, if this is 
 omitted, any luckless wight, chancing on a village un- 
 announced, will receive but scant courtesy, and be driven 
 away with curses, if nothing worse. 
 
 There are ten rules laid down for breeding silk- 
 worms : 
 
 ' The eggs when on paper must be kept cool ; after having been 
 hatched they require to be kept warm ; during their period of moulting 
 they must be kept hungry ; in the intervals between their sleeps they 
 must be well supplied with food ; they should not be placed too close 
 together nor too far apart ; during their sleeps they should be kept 
 dark and warm ; after they have cast their skins, cool, and allowed 
 plenty of light ; for a little time after moulting they should be sparsely 
 fed ; and when they are full grown ought never to be without food ; 
 their eggs should be laid close together, but not heaped upon each 
 other.' Wet, withered, or dusty leaves are not given to them. Rather 
 less than two ozs. in weight of young worms will eat i ton and 420 
 Ibs. weight of leaves. 
 
 ' While the worms are growing, care is taken to keep them ' from 
 ' bright light ; they are often changed from one hurdle to another that 
 they may have roomy and clean places ; the utmost attention is paid 
 to their condition and feeding, and noting the right time for preparing 
 them for spinning cocoons. Three days are required for this, and in 
 six it is time to stifle the larvae and reel the silk from the cocoons ; 
 this being usually done by other workmen. Those who rear the 
 worms enclose the cocoons in a jar buried in the ground and lined with 
 mats and leaves, interlaying them with salt, which kills the pupae but 
 keeps the silk supple, strong, and lustrous ; preserved in this manner, 
 they can be transported to any distance, or the reeling of the silk can 
 be delayed until convenient. Another mode of destroying the cocoons 
 is to spread them on trays and expose them by twos to the steam of 
 boiling water, putting the upper in the place of the lower one 
 according to the degree of heat they are in, taking care that the 
 chrysalides are killed and the silk not injured. After exposure to 
 steam the silk can be reeled off immediately, but if placed in the jars 
 they must be put into warm water to dissolve the glue before the 
 floss can be unwound.' 
 
 6l8
 
 Silk 
 
 Silk from wild worms of different species is also used in 
 some of the provinces. 
 
 In Shingking in Manchuria, silk is produced from a 
 species of silkworm, Bombyx Pernyi, or Bombyx Fantoni, 
 of Italy, which feeds on the leaves of a species of oak, 
 Quercus Mongolia, or Quercus robur. A small quantity is 
 also produced from the Boinbyx Cyntliia. The yield of this 
 silk might be quadrupled. The chrysalides are an article of 
 diet with the Chinese. The spinning wheel is similar to 
 that in the West. It requires from 4,000 to 5,000 cocoons 
 for a piece of silk, and it takes a man two days to weave 
 it. There are no large manufactories for its production, 
 but ' each one spins, weaves, and dyes his own material ' in 
 Manchuria, and this is also largely the case throughout 
 China, though not entirely. A black silk is produced 
 from the Bombyx Pernyi due to the worm eating the whole 
 of the leaf, stalk, and everything. 
 
 In the district about Chefoo there are two kinds of silk 
 produced : 'wild silk,' spun from the cocoons of the Bombyx 
 Pernyi, the wild silkworm mentioned above ; and ' yellow 
 silk,' spun from the cocoons of the Bombyx Mori, or silk- 
 worm proper. 
 
 The women in some places keep the eggs on their 
 persons to hatch them by the warmth of their bodies, 
 while in other places they are put under the blankets in 
 the bed. 
 
 ' A newly hatched silkworm is as fine as a hair. Im- 
 mediately under its head there are four legs, a little beyond 
 on the body there are six more, and again six more near 
 the end at the tail ; their whole length is about one-tenth 
 of an inch, and their colour is black.' The greatest care is 
 taken in supplying them with leaves, the men actually 
 washing their hands before touching the leaves. They are 
 fed five or six times a day for three days, but after that 
 constantly. After one or two days, the worms become 
 brown and, after five days more, a yellowish white. The 
 fifth days seem memorable ones with the silkworm, for on 
 the fifth day they stop feeding and ' undergo their first 
 
 619
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 moult/ and at intervals of about five days after each waking 
 they again cast their skins, ceasing eating for periods vary- 
 ing from a day and night to the ' long repose," the fourth 
 one of, if the weather is cold, two or three days, their colour 
 changing at these different periods from yellow or a 
 yellowish - white from before the stupors to a slight 
 yellowish tint or a white colour after. After these moults 
 they will, if in good condition, eat twenty times their weight 
 in leaves. After another five days they attain maturity 
 and are about two inches in length. What look like 
 sheaves of straw are used for the silkworms to construct 
 their cocoons on, each sheaf or bundle being tied round the 
 middle and spread out at the top and bottom ; sixty or 
 seventy worms are put on each bundle, care being taken 
 not to crowd them too much together. They then proceed 
 to spin their cocoons amongst the stalks of straw by first 
 attaching themselves with some looser threads, after which 
 they spin the compact ' oblong case,' as the dictionary 
 terms it, but beautifully rounded, working of course from 
 the outside in. They finish spinning in five days, and, if 
 the silk is not spun off, they pierce their yellow shrouds in 
 ten days. 
 
 ' From two catties of good cocoons, nine catties of silk 
 are reeled off. ... A quick hand with a double reeling 
 machine reels about i| catties of silk per day, thus 100 
 catties of cocoons are about six days' work.' A certain 
 number of cocoons are kept for breeding purposes. The 
 female moths die in five days after laying their eggs, which 
 they do within a day or so of coming out. 
 
 In the Canton province the two principal qualities of 
 silk are Tai-tsam and Lun-yut : the eggs of the former are 
 hatched once or twice a year ; the latter seven times. 
 
 The author saw, in Swatow, some curious, large, wild 
 caterpillars, brightly coloured, which spin a species of silk- 
 used in making lanterns. 
 
 Wild silkworms in the north of China are fed on 
 different kinds of oak, and they supply two crops of cocoons 
 annually. The natives hatch them, and, after feeding them 
 
 620
 
 Silk 
 
 themselves, place them on the branches, when the leaves of 
 the trees are fully out, and transfer them to other trees as 
 they eat the leaves of one. They spin their cocoons on the 
 trees, from whence they are gathered. After the female 
 moths have come out, and are ready to lay their eggs, the 
 natives tie them by one leg with fine threads to the branches 
 of the tree, when they lay their eggs on the leaves. These 
 wild silkworms are ' smaller than the domestic ones and of 
 a greyish black colour.' The silk filaments of the domestic 
 silkworm cocoons are wound into thread by the aid of a 
 primitive reeling machine. 
 
 For reeling the silk filament off the cocoons, they are 
 placed in hot water to loosen the ends of the silk, the 
 rough parts are cleared away, and the clean filament taken 
 with the hand and then passed over, or through, the different 
 parts of the reeling machine. As soon as the cocoon gets 
 thin and the chrysalis is visible, a new filament is taken in 
 its place. The best threads are made with six or seven 
 cocoons, ranging from this number to twenty or more for 
 the coarsest. ' A quick hand can reel in one day . . . 
 about 20 taels weight fine or 30 taels coarse silk.' The 
 wild worm cocoons are treated in a different manner. 
 
 The space to which our article must be confined, will 
 not allow us to go into a detailed statement of the numbers 
 of looms and their output, nor are statistics available for 
 a full statement ; but, as an example of what is done, we 
 may say that in 1880 there were in Chinkiang 1,000 
 looms employing 4,000 labourers. In one day, three men 
 can turn out about 12 feet to 16 feet of silk; for plain 
 goods, two men only are required at each loom ; and 
 only one man for weaving gauze, there being 200 looms 
 for this with 300 men at work, of which 14,000 to 15,000 
 pieces are annually produced for local consumption within 
 the province of Kiangsu. Besides this, there are 50 or 
 60 looms ' engaged in weaving silk ribbons, each attended 
 to by one man ; a second is required only in weaving the 
 broader kinds. . . . On an average, one man can 
 weave about 40 feet per day. There are about 100 men 
 
 621
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 engaged in this branch of the business ; and there are about 
 30 or 40 looms for weaving red plain satin.' 
 
 For making sewing silk 'two filaments are twisted 
 together into threads.' For crape manufacture there are 
 about 200 looms and 800 men employed. 
 
 ' The greatest silk-producing province in China is 
 Chekiang, and Kiangsu comes second/ while ' Hu-chow 
 holds the first place among the departments of the whole 
 Empire of China for the production of silk.' It may, 
 therefore, be interesting to note the production of this one 
 department. The production then for 1878 was 2,925,232 
 catties (1,755,139 kilos.), and for 1879, 3,304,196 catties 
 (1,982,517 kilos.). There are 4,000 looms, each loom 
 producing about 100 pieces a year. 
 
 Hang-chiu produces the best kinds of silk piece goods. 
 
 There is a complaint of the defective reeling and 
 adulteration of silk from North China, which, unless 
 checked, is bound to do injury to the silk trade of 
 China. 
 
 There are silk filature establishments in China where 
 foreign machinery is employed in reeling and weaving the 
 silk. There were three in Macao, some years ago, one 
 with fifty-four steam-looms. Shanghai has twenty-seven 
 silk filatures, Hangchow has one, and Soochow three. 
 
 'Filatures produce silk realising Tls. 200 a picul more than will 
 that spun from the same cocoons by the old primitive method.' 
 
 'The steps initiated by the Inspector-General [of Imperial Mari- 
 time Customs] to implant in China the Pasteur system of detecting 
 and eradicating disease in silkworms have succeeded in the Kwangtung 
 province.' Some time ago it was stated that, in Kiangsu and 
 Chehkiang they ' are considering the establishment of silkworm 
 nurseries for the selection of eggs on the Pasteur system,' these steps 
 being necessary to cope with the silkworm disease. 
 
 'Sericulture is now [1895] the leading industry in China, since tea 
 has gradually receded to a subordinate position.' 
 
 The export of China silk is increasing, but not at a 
 rapid rate. The following extract from a consular report 
 may prove of interest : 
 
 'China silk is intrinsically the best silk in the world, but from 
 
 622
 
 Slavery 
 
 ignorance or lack of energy on the part of the producers, it continues 
 from year to year to be prepared in the old faulty method, while 
 Japan silk, by nature much inferior, is beating it in the market, simply 
 by the care and attention bestowed on its preparation, and by the 
 fostering provision of the Japanese government, who provide the 
 means of educating their people in the most approved methods in 
 vogue in Europe.' 
 
 Enormous quantities of silk are not only sent abroad, 
 but even larger quantities are used by the Chinese 
 themselves. Silk is a common article of attire and is not 
 confined to the gentler sex, who delight to array themselves 
 in bright and soft fabrics in the West ; in the gorgeous 
 East, men are clothed in as brilliant robes as women. It 
 is utterly impossible to say how much silk is used in China, 
 but the Chinese consider that their consumption is more 
 than double the amount exported to foreign countries. In 
 1890 the amount exported was 158,427 piculs; in the 
 previous year, 1889, it was 182,939 piculs, doubling these 
 sums would give 316,854 piculs and 365,878 piculs 
 respectively ; and no one who has seen the quantity of 
 silk used by Chinese would doubt that these amounts 
 must be well within the mark of their actual consumption 
 of that useful commodity. 
 
 Books recommended. 'Silk,' being a thick brochure, No. 3 of 'Special 
 Series ' of the publications of the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs. It 
 consists of a series of reports from the different Commissioners of Customs 
 on the silk culture and manufacture in the districts in the neighbourhood of 
 the ports at which they were stationed. We are indebted to this interesting 
 and valuable publication for much of the information contained in this 
 article. Also see 'Silk: Statistics, 1879-88,' a thin pamphlet of the same 
 ' Special Series,' No. 12. 
 
 SLAVERY. China, in common with most Asiatic 
 countries where the liberty of the subject is unknown, has 
 the institution of slavery ; but slavery, as a general rule, 
 is milder in the despotic East than where, in direct 
 contravention of all the free instincts of the West, it has 
 been found nestling under the flag of liberty. One would 
 expect the contrary to be the rule, but it is not. Where 
 the right of the individual was generally respected, as in 
 America, if equal justice was not meted out to every man 
 as man, but on the contrary the fundamental principles at 
 
 623
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 the foundation of society were not only ignored but 
 persistently transgressed with respect to one section of the 
 community, it needed but little more, all barriers of law 
 and morality as regards one branch of the human family 
 being swept away, to transform the otherwise mild master 
 into a cruel one, and a few generations, or even less, to 
 develop tyranny which knew no law but that of interest 
 and the almighty dollar. 
 
 In the East, the individual knows no rights, as an 
 individual, as we understand such rights in the West. He 
 is but a member of the family ; the family is the unit of 
 society : the members of the family are but fractions 
 of the whole ; the slave owes his existence as a slave 
 to this patriarchal rule ; and ejected from one family, 
 generally by circumstances over which he has no control, 
 he is engulfed in another. 
 
 Slavery then appears almost to be the normal condition 
 of part of the inhabitants in a country where the rights 
 of the individual, qua individual, are unknown, and where 
 the conservation, preservation, and perpetuation of the 
 family are the aims of human society, and every means has 
 to be employed with these ends in view. To this is due 
 some of the buying and selling of human beings as 
 chattels ; for should no son be born to a man he often 
 purchases one from poor parents and adopts him as 
 his own. Girls are also bought to become daughters ; 
 but these can scarcely be looked upon as slaves, as 
 they become the children of the family into which 
 they are adopted, and are in no more bondage than the 
 children born in the family itself. 
 
 A species of debt-slavery exists to some extent in 
 China, where a man will give his son to his creditor either 
 to adopt or to be his slave, or his daughter for either a 
 slave or a domestic slave (See below) in full settlement of 
 the debt ; and in some provinces (but not in Kwang- 
 tung) a wife is even given to be a concubine for the same 
 purpose. 
 
 A species of domestic slavery exists to a very large 
 
 624
 
 Slavery 
 
 extent: there is scarcely a family of good means in Hong- 
 kong, Canton, or Macao but what possesses one or often 
 several slave-girls. It must, in all fairness to the Chinese, 
 be said that this domestic slave-girl system is a very mild 
 form of slavery, as we understand that word. The girls 
 are as a rule purchased from their parents, who probably 
 sell them on account of poverty ; they are sold when 
 they are young, at any age, some as young as three 
 years, and from that up to fifteen ; but seven, eight, or ten, 
 is a common age. It is better to buy them young, as they 
 might otherwise run home. The prices range from ten or 
 twenty to a hundred dollars, the larger amounts being 
 given for good-looking ones, as they will bring in a larger 
 number of presents (at their marriage) to the family, and 
 thus possibly recoup the owner with a two- or three-fold 
 amount of money on their purchase price, besides the 
 owner having the use of them as domestic servants for ten 
 or more years without wages, food and clothing being the 
 only outlay on them. As to lodging, it is not worth while 
 taking account of that, for Chinese servants, like dogs or 
 cats, can sleep almost anywhere and everywhere. 
 
 These transactions often take place through go-betweens. 
 It is somewhat safer, in such cases, to have a broker of 
 human flesh, as a charge of kidnapping might be more 
 difficult to bring ; for when there is a go-between the 
 rule is that a deed of sale is drawn up, which is 
 held by the purchaser. It sometimes happens, but 
 not often, that the parents stipulate that they shall 
 be at liberty to come and see the girl ; but this stipulation, 
 if made, is not reduced to writing, as it would obviously 
 clash with the interests of the purchaser to have the 
 mother coming about interviewing the girl and hearing 
 her complaints. 
 
 Should such a verbal agreement as the above have 
 been come to, the girl's parents are consulted about her 
 marriage, otherwise, for the ten or fifteen years, the 
 girl is virtually and actually the property of her master or 
 mistress, and is an asset not realised, under the ordinary 
 
 625 2 R
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 circumstances of life, until her marriage, though realisable, 
 and should reverses in business reduce the family, it 
 would be in the power of its head to sell her just as her 
 parents originally sold her. At the same time this is not 
 often done. A clause is often inserted in the agreement, 
 that the girl is not to be sold into prostitution ; but, 
 should this clause have been omitted, the parents are 
 powerless to prevent it in practice. 
 
 Arrived at marriageable age, the girl is married, and 
 thus ends her domestic servitude. 
 
 If chance has thrown her into the hands of a fairly 
 kind mistress her lot may not be such a dreadful one, but 
 instances occur of brutal mistresses half murdering their 
 poor little slave-girls, even in the British Colony of Hong- 
 kong. Theoretically, of course, there are no slaves in 
 Hongkong, as it is British territory, but practically there 
 are thousands of them. All the young maid-servants that 
 follow their mistresses' sedan chairs, and that go about 
 with little children, belong to this class. No young 
 unmarried free women go out into service, though old 
 women do. 
 
 These little slave-girls are the most numerous class of 
 slaves in China. While mentioning the female sex, it may 
 be remarked, in passing, that nearly all prostitutes are 
 slaves, the property of their mistresses, the keepers of the 
 houses of ill-fame in which they reside, having often been 
 kidnapped, or deceived by promises of work being found 
 for them as seamstresses, and thus inveigled into the 
 clutches of the old harridans who run these establishments. 
 So completely do they come under the power of these 
 pests of society, and so cowed and frightened are they 
 by the threats and intimidations of their mistresses, that 
 even in Hongkong, where notices were put up in all the 
 registered houses of that character that all were free yet, 
 notwithstanding this, and the fact that they are theoretic- 
 ally free to go and see the Registrar-General and Protector 
 of Chinese, whose duty it is, once knowing their wrongs, 
 to have them righted, they but seldom, in proportion to 
 
 626
 
 Slavery 
 
 their numbers, avail themselves of their rights, and when 
 brought up before him, almost invariably say they enter on 
 such a life freely. (Before being allowed to enter as 
 inmates of these houses, all appear before this official, or 
 his assistant, in order to have a chance, if they will 
 avail* themselves of it, of stating their unwillingness to be 
 coerced into a life of shame.) And though every Chinese 
 woman that goes abroad, as a common emigrant, is 
 questioned and examined as to her willingness to go, yet 
 but few, who are being taken against their will, avail 
 themselves of the chance of recovering their freedom. It 
 seems as if it would take centuries to educate the Chinese 
 people into an idea of what personal freedom is, and what 
 the liberty of the subject means, as regards the female sex. 
 The cases of little boys sold to be servants is even 
 worse than that of the servant-girls, as they do not have 
 marriage to look forward to, to set them free and end 
 their life of servitude. They are slaves for ever, unless 
 they purchase their freedom. 
 
 'The Manchu code does not recognise the right of the slave to 
 free himself by his labour, nor punish the master who refuses 
 affranchisement. There is, in short, no regulation on the subject (in 
 practice the slave frequently purchases his body with his peculiutn, 
 which is usually, though not legally, held to be the slave's own 
 property). . Many Chinese allow their slaves to embark in trade, 
 and ransom themselves with the profits.' 
 
 In ancient times, in China, there were State slaves, 
 but banishment now takes the place of the Government 
 slavery to a large extent. Priestesses, however, who 
 found a new nunnery without the sanction of Govern- 
 ment, become the slaves of Government. 
 
 ' The wives, children, and relatives in the first degree of rebels 
 are given as slaves to Government officers. . . . Slaves are composed 
 of(i) prisoners of war ; (2) those who sell themselves or are sold ; (3) 
 the children of slaves.' The first are now rare. We have spoken of 
 some already who come under the second heading. ' Though the 
 penal code forbids the sale of free persons, even by a husband, a father, 
 or a grandfather, the number of persons whom misery forces to sell 
 themselves or be sold is considerable. The punishment varies from 
 84 to 90 blows, and banishment for i\ years, according to the relation 
 existing between seller and sold. The punishment is one degree less 
 
 627
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 when the person sold consents, but young children are exempt from 
 all punishment, though they may have consented, on account of the 
 obedience due to their older relations, and must be returned to their 
 families. . . . Though to keep a free man or lost child as a slave, 
 or to give or take in hire a wife or daughter, are severely punishable, 
 the adoption of stolen or lost children and the sale of free children and 
 inferior wives are daily transactions in China. Inundation^ and 
 famines are the chief cause. Every slave born in a house belongs to 
 his master or his heir ; to detain a runaway slave is punishable. 
 Players and brothel-keepers recruit their numbers from this class, as 
 they are forbidden by the code to purchase free men or women for 
 their professions. . . . The inferior wife ranks above a slave ; she is 
 married with fewer formalities than the first wife under whose orders 
 she is put. The husband can only dismiss her for certain specified 
 reasons ; but in practice inferior wives are frequently sold.' 
 
 No property is divisible during the period of mourning, 
 but after that is over, if the different sons of the deceased 
 wish to separate, they are at liberty to do so, and the eldest 
 son then divides the property amongst them equally, 
 whether they be sons of the first wife or of inferior wives or 
 of slaves. ' We may add that such slaves by the birth of 
 children become in China ipso facto inferior wives.' 
 
 Slaves are not allowed to be married to free girls. 
 In a general way it may be said that slaves convicted 
 of crime are punished more severely than if they were free, 
 while crimes committed against slaves meet with a lighter 
 punishment than if committed against free men. ' Masters 
 may beat their slaves or hired servants at pleasure.' 
 
 It is interesting to note that during the fifteenth and 
 sixteenth centuries large numbers of black slaves of both 
 sexes from the East Indian Archipelago ' were purchased 
 by the great houses of Canton, to serve as gate-keepers.' 
 They were called 'devil slaves' and it is not improbable 
 that the term ' foreign devil,' so freely used by the Chinese 
 for foreigners, may have had this origin. In the T'ang 
 dynasty even, it is said that they were kept in large 
 numbers by the Chinese. Three pages in a Chinese work, 
 ' The Kwangtung San Yu,' are taken up with an account 
 of them, and other Chinese books notice them as well. 
 
 There is a curious slang phrase in use for slaves ; it is 
 ' two candarins and two lis,' used for example in this way : 
 ' they were two candarins and two lis,' equivalent to saying 
 
 628
 
 Snakes 
 
 ' They were slaves.' This strange term is said to have 
 arisen towards the close of the Ming dynasty, during the 
 troublous times, when a Chinese took advantage of his 
 opportunity, and, representing himself as a General of 
 the Manchus, levied an impost on each inhabitant of the 
 villages of three candarins, but, finding that the slaves in 
 these -warlike times were mostly poor and neglected, he 
 reduced the amount to be paid by them to two candarins 
 and two lis, hence the name. 
 
 Books recommended. ' Memoir on the condition of Slaves and Hired 
 Servants in China,' by M. E. Biot, in Chinese Hejwsitory, July 1849. Mr. 
 Parker gives the pith of this article by M. Biot in ' Excursus, No. 6 Slaves,' 
 in his 'Comparative Chinese Family Law.' 
 
 SNAKES. The ophidians of China are worthy of a 
 treatise to themselves. They abound, though we question 
 whether the mortality from snake-bites is as fearfully great 
 as in India. Not that there are no poisonous ones to be 
 found, for there are many of them as well as of harmless 
 ones. 
 
 There are several varieties of cobras. The common 
 cobra (Naja tripudians] is found in Hongkong ; its bite is 
 fatal ; and it grows to 6 feet 4 inches or more in length. It 
 was thought at one time that the cobra was not a native 
 of China, but had been simply introduced in some cargo 
 brought by a ship from some foreign port ; but this is 
 doubtless a mistake, as they are, we believe, to be found 
 in the country as well as in Hongkong. The author 
 saw one some years since on the Mount Kellett Road. 
 Even the rare black variety has been killed in Hong- 
 kong. 
 
 Another snake whose bite is usually fatal is what is 
 known as the Bungarus fasciatus. It grows in length to 
 8 feet 6 inches, and appears to be common in Hongkong 
 and neighbourhood. It has been described as ' handsomely 
 marked with alternate rings of bright yellow and black/ 
 though to the casual observer alternate rings of white and 
 black would seem to be a more accurate description. The 
 ring of white is about half an inch wide on the top of its 
 
 629
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 back, while the black is about an inch and a half wide. It 
 is said to frequent swampy ground. 
 
 Another species of the Bungarus is also found in Hong- 
 kong, the B. semifasciatus, whose bite is also fatal. It is 
 a smaller snake than the last, only growing to about 4 feet 
 in length ; it also has alternate rings of the same colours as 
 the larger snake. 
 
 The Hamadryad, or king cobra, or snake-eating cobra, 
 the Naja bungarus vel opJiiophagus elaps, is rarer than any 
 of the above snakes in Hongkong, we are thankful to say ; 
 for its bite is as deadly as that of the cobra ; and it 
 frequently attacks man when disturbed ; a case is even re- 
 corded of its following a man in South America, if we re- 
 member rightly, for the considerable distance of a mile or 
 two. It is the largest known poisonous snake in the world. 
 A young specimen is in the City Hall Museum, Hong- 
 kong, and a fairly large one was killed in the New Territory 
 of this Colony, a few years since, and another just recently. 
 
 One of the prettiest snakes, and very common, is the 
 beautiful, bright-green bamboo-snake, or green pit viper, 
 Trimeresurus gramineus. The shape of its head shows it 
 to be poisonous ; but it is stated that its bite is not usually 
 fatal to a healthy adult, though producing serious 
 symptoms. It is common in Burma as well. The largest 
 known specimen recorded is 3 feet 8 inches, though it is 
 seldom seen in Hongkong more than a foot or 18 inches in 
 length. The only specimen the author has ever seen in 
 the grass, though he has seen many on the paths, was 
 dead, and then one was close on it before distinguishing 
 it ; but when alive its emerald green colour on the back 
 (it is white on the belly) must make it extremely difficult 
 to see. The Gardins is a snake not often seen ; but it is 
 found in Hongkong and elsewhere in the Kwongtung 
 Province. It is said by the Chinese to be the most deadly 
 of all snakes, no cure being possible for its bite. It is 
 even found on the house-tops, or roofs, rather. Its name 
 in Chinese is feet seen she, or iron-wire snake ; it is 
 generally black in colour ; but is also seen of a sort of 
 
 630
 
 Snakes 
 
 rusty brown shade, is about 7 or 8 inches in length, and of 
 the size of a thick piece of iron wire. 
 
 The Python, Python reticulatus, or diamond-marked 
 Python^ is also found in Hongkong in the jungle, or woods, 
 growing in the Happy Valley, or near Stanley. Two 
 specimens are to be seen in the Museum, 12 and 14 feet 
 in length, as well as one, bottled and preserved in spirits. 
 As the City of Hongkong grows in size, the snakes are driven 
 back from the roads and adjacent hill-sides. Snakes, which 
 used to be occasionally seen in the Bonham and Kennedy 
 Roads, scarcely ever appear now ; more especially is this 
 the case on the Mount Kellett Road, in the Peak District 
 where a few years ago it was a most common sight to find 
 a snake or to ' meet one,' as a Continental lady once 
 described such an encounter, in the author's hearing; 
 whereas now it is very rarely indeed that one sets eyes 
 on one on that road, or to find them, as one occasionally 
 used to, in the basement of one's house at the Peak. 
 
 Specimens of the following snakes found in Hongkong 
 are to be seen in the City Hall Museum : 
 
 Naja tripudians, Tropidonotus stolatus. 
 
 Ptyasmucosiis. T. subminatus. 
 
 Bungarus fasdatus. Homalopsis buccata. 
 
 B. semifasciatus. Dipsas multimaculata. 
 
 Python reticulatus. Cyclophis major. 
 
 Pelamis bicolor. F areas Icevis. 
 
 Compoossomia radiatum. Hydrus major. 
 
 Trimeresus erytlirurus. Gardins. 
 
 T. gramineus. Typhlops braminus. 
 OpJiiophagus elaps. 
 
 Captain Wall, I. M.S., mentions other snakes, 'the 
 Callophis macclellandi, a small and very beautiful little 
 snake bite not likely to be fatal . . . the Ancistrodon 
 blomhoffi vel Halys blomhoffi, a pit viper, found in Japan, 
 Formosa, and China.' The following cutting also mentions 
 yet another kind : 
 
 ' A poisonous snake was killed by a Goorkha in a field behind the 
 
 631
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 camp at Shanghai, last week. It was a specimen of the Dakota 
 elegans (Russell's viper), and its bite is one of the most rapidly fatal to 
 man and the lower animals. A suggestion is made that this viper 
 came from India in the fodder brought for the use of the horses, but 
 the species is said not to be rare in Mid-China.' 
 
 Snakes form an article of diet in some parts of the 
 country. (See Article on Food.) 
 
 SNIPE. Snipe are common in some parts of China. 
 The following is an account of them from the pen of a 
 naturalist who resided for many years in the East : 
 
 ' Six species of true snipe are to be met with in this part of China 
 [Hongkong], but the sportsman rarely comes across more than the 
 following three varieties : Winter, Swinhoe, Pintailed. 
 
 ' ist. The Common or Winter Snipe. Is generally to be found on 
 marsh or wet land, from November to March. Length, bill to tail, io 
 inches. Weight, 4 to 4^ ounces. Feathers, 14 in tail, all ordinary 
 full-sized. 
 
 '2nd. Swinhoe's Snipe. Is one of the two migratory (spring and 
 autumn) species ; is to be found on grass land, in bean fields, etc. 
 Spring, 1 5th April to I2th May. Autumn, August and September. 
 Length, bill to tail, 1 1 to 12 inches. Weight, 6 to 8j ounces. Feathers, 
 20 tail feathers, of which 8 central are ordinary or winter, 12 (6 on 
 each side) are stiff and narrow. 
 
 ' 3rd. Pintailed Snipe. Is the second of the two migratory species ; 
 is to be found frequenting the same haunts as the Swinhoe's, and in their 
 company, and migrates practically at the same seasons, that is to say, 
 that in a day's bag both species will probably be found. Length, bill 
 to tail, \o\ to II inches. Weight, 5 ounces and up. Feathers, 26 tail 
 feathers, 10 central are ordinary or winter, 16 (8 on each side) are 
 very short, narrow and stiff ; with scarcely any web. These webless 
 feathers are /zVzj, from which the bird is named. 
 
 'Winter birds have more white on the breast than, and are not so 
 much barred under the wings as, the more popular immigrants. Rut 
 the great point of distinction, always reliable, lies in the tail feathers. 
 Roughly speaking, a Pintail is an ounce heavier than the Winter, 
 and an ounce less than the Swinhoe? 
 
 The great and common snipe is termed Gallinago 
 megala (Swinhoe) and G. scolopacina (Bp.) and Totanus 
 calidres. 
 
 SOCIETIES. The Chinese are fully aware of the 
 force of the adage that ' union is strength,' and have not 
 a few different forms of associations, societies, and guilds. 
 One of the most common, at all events in the South, is 
 
 63-
 
 Societies 
 
 the Money Loan Association. Foreigners have consider- 
 able difficulty in understanding this form of Association, 
 as the arrangements connected with it seem complicated ; 
 but, when once understood, are simple enough. There 
 are several kinds of Money Loan Associations, but the 
 most common is the Yf-wuf (pronounced Ye-wooee). 
 These Associations form a ready and convenient means 
 for Chinese to obtain, what is to them, a large sum of 
 money when the exigencies of business or their social 
 customs, such as those connected with marriage, make it 
 necessary for them to procure a larger sum of ready cash 
 for use than can easily be obtained in any other way. 
 
 Supposing then, by way of example, that A requires a 
 sum of money, say $100, he or she then (for women 
 engage more largely in these Associations even than men) 
 invites a number of friends or acquaintances to join with 
 him or her in forming a Money Loan Association, they 
 becoming members or shareholders while A is the Head of 
 the Association. Should the sum fixed upon as the 
 amount of the periodical contribution or share be $5, then 
 A, having invited twenty others to join as members, will 
 get the sum of money he requires, for twenty times $5 is 
 $100. A enrols the names of all in a book, with amounts 
 and dates of payments, totals, and particulars of the 
 Association. Sometimes a page of this book is devoted to 
 each meeting of the Association and the accounts con- 
 nected therewith. Each member has likewise a small 
 book, a pass-book, supplied by A, who fills it up. Each 
 member is expected to bring his little book with him to 
 each meeting so that the necessary particulars may be 
 entered in it, in the event of his obtaining the money. 
 The date is written in the centre of the yellow cover of the 
 book, or at least the year and month, and the words 
 ' started on a lucky day ' below the last, while at the left- 
 hand end of the cover is put the name of the person to 
 whom the book belongs. The Head has a similar book. 
 These books have printed forms at the beginning, contain- 
 ing a preamble, giving, in rather a vague manner, the 
 
 633
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 origin of these Associations, followed, for the guidance of 
 those entering into them, by the rules, with blanks for the 
 insertion of the amount of the contribution or share, and 
 any other matters incident to each particular Association. 
 At all events, whatever else may be omitted, a list of 
 members appears in the book, a name being allotted to 
 each column and placed at the top of the column. A 
 number of blank pages follow for the entries of dates and 
 contributions, or subscriptions, as they might be termed, 
 or payments. In well-kept books, by careful persons for 
 instance, the drawing is sometimes put just below the 
 name of the person who draws, at times, in the following 
 manner : ' Second drawing, interest money 80 cents. 
 Received small shares (that is payments from persons who 
 have not yet drawn), twelve shares (besides the drawer's 
 own share), and one large share ' (that is a payment from 
 some one who has already drawn). 
 
 One of the most common times for the periods of 
 payments is by the month, though fortnightly Associa- 
 tions are not uncommon : quarterly ones are known, and 
 even annual ones are formed by wealthy men for large 
 sums of money. 
 
 Let it be supposed that the one which A forms is a 
 monthly one. A certain day of the month is fixed upon 
 for the future meetings, and no alteration is allowed 
 subsequently, ' no matter how unfavourable the weather 
 may be,' as the Chinese rule puts it. Intercalary months 
 are not counted, though sometimes an exception is made 
 to the rule. In that case the rule should be expunged 
 from the book. The members are apprised by notice 
 being sent to them by the Head, requesting them to 
 prepare their share and take it to the meeting for collec- 
 tion. The money is examined in the presence of the 
 members. No set-off of private debts is allowed or any- 
 thing in the nature of a pledge, but the money must be 
 actually paid. ' Should any of the members be kept 
 back by any important business, he must send one of his 
 friends to represent him and pay his share of the money.' 
 
 634
 
 Societies 
 
 Each of the members then pays to A the sum of $5, the 
 nominal amount of their monthly contribution, and for 
 the first month the actual amount. On the first occasion 
 A keeps the money, viz. $100, as that is the reason he 
 has formed the Association, and it is the prerogative of the 
 Head of the Association to have the use of the first 
 monthly amount of money subscribed, or paid in. Also 
 by virtue of his being the Head, he gets this money with- 
 out needing to pay any interest on it in short, he gets the 
 full amount of $5 from each of the twenty members. 
 What follows will explain more fully what is meant here. 
 This privilege is accorded to him as a set-off for the work 
 to be done, and trouble to be taken, by him, on behalf of 
 the Association. The money is his for any use to which 
 he likes to apply it. In fact, it is a loan made to him by 
 all of the twenty members, each contributing his share 
 ($5) to it ; but having thus secured the loan, he com- 
 mences the very next month to repay it, in monthly 
 instalments of $5. He does not, however, hand this $5 
 separately to a separate creditor each month until he has 
 paid the whole twenty ; but he does what is tantamount 
 to the same thing, he pays in $5 each month into the funds 
 of the Association the funds are, of course, the aggregate 
 of the monthly payments in by the Head and members 
 of the Association, which A as Head is responsible for, 
 and holds in trust for the members. It is equivalent to a 
 personal payment of his debt to each member, because 
 each member obtains the loan of all the monthly con- 
 tributions of that month in which he, the member, draws 
 the money, consequently this 5 goes each month to 
 liquidate in rotation every member for the $5 originally 
 paid in to A, and which A drew out for his own use ; for 
 each member, as has already been said, draws out in 
 rotation the monthly sum made up of all the payments in. 
 In other words, when B draws out the amount of money 
 in the second month, in that sum, made up of the pay- 
 ments in by the other members, is also the sum of 85 paid 
 in by the Head, which item of $5 is in repayment of the 
 
 635
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 
 
 $5 he, B, paid in the first month to A, the Head, which, 
 as we have already seen, A drew out for his own use along 
 with all the other items of $5 paid in by the other 
 members. A and B are therefore quits his, B's, loan, has 
 been refunded to him ; and the same thing happens with 
 C the next month, that is the third month, and the same 
 with D the month after, and so on with all the members, 
 till all are repaid ; and, in fact, at the end of twenty 
 months A has repaid the whole of the $100. 
 
 But what makes the matter appear complicated is that 
 B, C, and D, and all the rest, get loans, and on their part 
 repay in reality each one, except the Head, lends to 
 everyone else, and each one, including the Head, borrows 
 from everyone else, and as soon as each one borrows, each 
 one, except the last, then commences to repay everyone 
 else. This seems confusion worse confounded, and the 
 maze appears too intricate to the European observer, as he 
 sees in his mind's eye each member transformed, after the 
 first month, one by one, from a lender into a receiver, a 
 borrower, and a payer-back. It is, however, simple 
 enough ; and the clue to the maze is to be found in fixing 
 on one member at a time, as we have done with the Head, 
 and following this one member through all the intricacies 
 until, with the close of the Association, his accounts are all 
 settled, at the same time resolutely closing our eyes to the 
 action of the Head and other members, except inasmuch 
 as they affect the actions and money of the one member 
 we are following. 
 
 Let us then take B. How does he get his loan ? He 
 is not the Head : he cannot draw the money as the Head 
 would at the very start without paying any interest for it, 
 but, by virtue of being a member, he is entitled to the 
 loan. All the members are, however, equally entitled. 
 What shall decide the respective times at which they are 
 permitted to draw ? The rule is, after the Head has had 
 his, that the drawings of loans every month shall be by 
 tender, and the highest bidder shall get it. This seems a 
 very fair rule, as the man or woman most in want of money 
 
 636
 
 Societies 
 
 is likely to offer the most for it. These tenders are then 
 put in at every meeting by the members desirous of 
 drawing the money, except at the first and last meetings. 
 At the first, as has already been seen, the Head has it by 
 right, at the last it devolves, as a matter of course, to the 
 residuary member, as all the rest have drawn. The tenders 
 for the loan are written on any kind of paper. If sent by 
 another's hand they are enclosed in an envelope, and the 
 name should be written on the paper as well as the price 
 tendered. If the member is present in person he may 
 write it at the time of handing it in, but in that case he 
 need only write the amount on it without his name, and no 
 envelope is required. The Head of the Association opens 
 the tenders, which are placed on the table before him, in 
 the presence of the members, who see them. The highest 
 tender is taken, and should two be equal in amount the 
 first opened is considered as the successful one. It is not 
 compulsory on all the members to tender each time, but 
 the tendency is for most to do so, as, if there is a demand 
 for the money, one who is in actual want of it, seeing so 
 many present, will, though he may not know what the 
 others have offered, make a big bid in order to overtop 
 theirs, and thus, though the others may not have cared for 
 the money, yet, by their presence and tendering, they have 
 raised the interest which they will each obtain for that 
 loan. In short, a monthly loan is given by the Association 
 in rotation to each of its members, and this rotation is 
 conditioned by the highest bid offered on each occasion, 
 as explained above. In the second month we will suppose 
 then that B writes on a piece of paper ' Offers interest, 50 
 cents,' and hands this in ; we will further suppose that this 
 is the highest amount offered, consequently B obtains the 
 loan. Sometimes three days of grace are allowed for 
 payment in of the money after the tenders have been 
 opened, but it often happens that the contributions have 
 to be paid in immediately after the tendering is over. In 
 this case then B pays nothing in, as he is obtaining a 
 loan : the Head pays his $5, as he does every month 
 
 637
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 after; but all the other members pay, not $5, the nominal 
 amount of their contributions, but $4.50, that is to say, they 
 each deduct the fifty cents offered as interest. (Looking 
 at it in one way, they thus get their interest in advance, as 
 it were, and, should the Association come to grief, their 
 loss, if they do not recover their money, is not quite so 
 great, though, as will be seen from what is said further on, 
 it would be better to say they each only lend $4.50, the 
 borrower having to pay $5 for each of these sums of $4.50, 
 thus repaying principal and interest.) These amounts are 
 handed to the Head, who, after collecting them, pays 
 them over to B along with his, the Head's own $5, making 
 a total of $4.50 x 19 + $5 =$90.50. This then is the loan 
 that B draws. On each occasion after this B pays the 
 full amount of the contribution, $5. It will thus be seen 
 that by doing so he pays the interest on his loan ; for 
 every subsequent drawing by a member contains, of course, 
 amongst the different items of which it is made up, one of 
 85 from B ; and as the subsequent drawer, however, only 
 paid into the Association 84.50 on the occasion that B 
 drew, he, the subsequent drawer, consequently has got paid 
 back to him $5 for the $4.50, i.e., the 50 cents for interest 
 that B offered, and which was accepted, as his, B's, tender 
 was the highest on that occasion. It will be remembered 
 though that B originally paid $5 to A on the first drawing 
 when A took the drawing by right of being the Head. As 
 we have already said, A pays 85 every time after the first, 
 consequently B has got his $5 back from A, the exact sum 
 he, as one of the members, had loaned to him through the 
 Association, for, as we have already said, A, being the 
 Head, pays no interest, so it will be seen A's and B's 
 accounts are settled as regards each other. B, again, by 
 paying in 85 every month, subsequent to the one in which 
 he got the loan, virtually pays the other members back the 
 amounts due to them with interest as above, viz., nineteen 
 monthly instalments of 85 ; counting in that he has already 
 paid $5 to A, as we have just pointed out, his whole 
 payments therefore are 85 * 19 + 85 =8100, that is for the 
 
 638
 
 Societies 
 
 $90.50, and its use, he has paid $100, i.e., $9.50 of interest, 
 which is a very cheap rate of interest for China. 
 
 With regard to C. Let us suppose that C offers 25 
 cents interest, and his tender, being the highest in the 
 third month, is necessarily accepted. He will receive A's 
 $5, and he receives from B $5, as B commences this month 
 (see above) to pay 85 ; for after each loan obtained each 
 member pays the full amount of the subscription. From 
 the others, eighteen in number, C receives $4.75x18 = 
 $85.50 ; add to this the $10 above and it makes $95.50, the 
 whole amount which the Head of the Association hands to 
 him. His payments are as follows : 
 
 ist month to A .... $5.00 
 
 2nd month to B . . . . 4.50 
 3rd month nothing . 
 
 4th to 2 ist month, 18 months @ 85 = 90.00 
 
 Total .... $99.50 
 
 He thus pays 899.50 for the use of 895.50, i.e., $4 of 
 interest. 
 
 Let us now take T's case, the twentieth man : to use 
 an Irishism he repays his loan before obtaining it, or, in 
 other words, he pays in a varying sum each month, after 
 the first month, dependent, as has already been shown in 
 the cases of B and C, upon the amount of interest offered. 
 Of course, the higher the interest has been the better for T, 
 as well as for all the other members in a varying degree. 
 Suppose the interest deducted averaged 25 cents, a month, 
 T's payments would then be 85 to A the first month, and 
 nineteen payments of $4.75 = 890.25, add to this the 85 to A 
 = 895.25. He pays that amount and gets 8100 for it. In 
 short, the other members have been using his money and 
 he gets paid interest, 84-75, f r i ts use - He does not need 
 to tender for the 8100, but gets it, as no one else is entitled 
 to it but him, all having previously drawn. The Associa- 
 tion ends with him, for it only runs as long as there are 
 members, as soon as these have each had their turn at a 
 
 639
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 loan the Association is finished. The Society has thus a 
 twofold character : that of a borrowing club ; and that of a 
 lending club : for there is a regular succession of borrowers, 
 beginning with A, and a body of lenders, decreasing in 
 number with each meeting. It will thus be seen that this 
 Mutual Loan Benefit Association is most ingeniously 
 arranged, and that it affords exceptional facilities for 
 obtaining a loan on easy terms, with the chances to the 
 members of good interest and easy payments, in small 
 sums distributed over a long period. It needs only to be 
 added that, should a member delay his payment, the Head 
 of the Association may pay it for him, if he likes, or it may 
 stand over if the members are friendly with the defaulting 
 member ; should any member die before drawing his loan, 
 his wife or children, or, in default of them, nearest of kin, 
 may continue to go on with the Association in the place of 
 the deceased, on condition that the Head of the Associa- 
 tion approves of them doing so ; but if the Head is un- 
 willing, then the heirs must wait till the winding up of the 
 whole affair, when, on the accounts being made up, it will 
 be seen how many payments the dead man had made, and 
 a sum equivalent to an equal number of $5 payments will 
 be made to them : should he already have obtained his 
 drawing before his death, his heirs are required to make the 
 usual monthly payments of $5 to repay the Association ; if 
 they are not able to do so, it is accepted as a misfortune, 
 the Head is not considered liable, as a Head of the 
 Association, and the members only suffer. Should it be 
 written on the top margin of the book that ' should any 
 member abscond, the principal is to be refunded but not 
 the interest, any accidents, etc., are to be taken as the will 
 of God,' then the Head of the Association has to conform 
 to this rule, but otherwise a principle of practical equity, 
 much practised by the Chinese, when circumstances over 
 which they have no control occur, is brought into play, and 
 the Head of the Association makes good one-half of what 
 the absconding member ought to have paid ; or, rather, he 
 makes good half of the principal, the other half being a loss 
 
 640
 
 Societies 
 
 to the members, and this holds good in both the Yf-wu/ 
 now written about, and the Te^-p'6-wuf (pronounced Tay 
 p'o wooee) to be mentioned later on. Whether the above 
 words are written or not, the Head is not responsible for 
 the subscriptions of a dead member. 
 
 With regard to the subscriptions to the Association, it 
 may be remarked that, in practice, it seems often to be 
 considered sufficient if the money is paid into the hands of 
 the Head of the Association at any place somewhere near 
 the time that it should be paid, i.e., it is not necessary that 
 the money should be paid absolutely punctually. 
 
 The members have no redress when the Head of the 
 Association absconds while the Association is in progress. 
 Those who have had their drawing are content, of course, 
 to let the matter rest, as they have had all their benefit and 
 cannot be called upon by the other members who have not 
 had the loan to continue their payments, as the contract 
 is not between member and member, but is a contract 
 between each separate member of the Association and the 
 Head. On the latter absconding, the Association is broken 
 up. This can be seen by the fact that in the poorer 
 Associations where the contributions are confined to a 
 few dollars, and where the members do not meet for 
 dinners the members may not even see each other or 
 know anything at all about each other. (This view of the 
 matter has been held in the Hongkong Courts in an appeal 
 case. See report of Judgment by the Full Court in The 
 Hongkong Daily Press, of the ipth March 1892.) The 
 Head in some of such Associations sometimes goes round 
 to each of the members at their own houses, etc., with an 
 earthenware money-box, and the members drop their 
 tenders into it. After the collection of tenders is thus 
 made, the crock is broken and the tenders taken out. 
 
 In the more important Associations, when the amount 
 of the subscription is $100 or so, the Head of the Associa- 
 tion, having asked his friends to join, and got their consent, 
 follows it up in the course of a few days with invitation 
 cards to a dinner or wine-party at some eating-house, and 
 
 641 2 S
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 they are asked to bring their subscriptions with them. All 
 who respond to the invitations become members ; from five 
 to ten days after, their names are all entered by the Head 
 into the books, with rules, amount of subscription, etc., and 
 one is given to each member. The expenses of the first 
 dinner are paid by the Head ; and the same individual, on 
 behalf of the members, provides a dinner again, issuing in- 
 vitation cards the previous day, as before, but on each 
 occasion subsequent to the first it is the member who 
 obtains the loan who pays the expenses of the dinner ; the 
 money (a certain sum at the very first being fixed for its 
 cost) for it being deducted out of his loan ; the dinner, 
 however, is ordered by the previous drawer. One who does 
 not attend the dinner, or dinners, is not exempted thereby 
 from his share of the expenses, and one who wishes to 
 enjoy the feast must come to it, as no portion will be sent 
 to the absentee. When the dinners are given in connection 
 with these Associations, the business is attended to first, 
 and after that the members have their feasting : business 
 first and pleasure afterwards. This feasting, however, does 
 not take place in the smaller Associations where the shares 
 are only a few dollars each. A member in an Association 
 is not confined to one share, but may have two or more if 
 he chooses. 
 
 There is another kind of these associations called the 
 T6{-p'6-wuf, ' Spread on the Ground Association,' so called 
 because it is said the original starter was too poor to have 
 any place to receive his friends, and had to spread a mat on 
 the ground to collect the amounts subscribed. The Te"i- 
 p'6 are slightly different from the Yi'-wui, though in many 
 of the details they are the same, the differences being so 
 slight that the same book is used. The chief point of 
 difference is that the Head of the Association, as Head, is 
 out of it altogether, that is to say, he or she does not obtain 
 a loan. At the same time, in the Te'f-p'o-wuf, the Head 
 may be a member of the Association or not as he (or she, 
 as it is very often a woman who is Head in these societies) 
 chooses. If the latter, he then has no share in the matter 
 
 642
 
 Societies 
 
 at all. He is in fact a paid servant of the members, that is 
 to say, he does all the work that the ordinary Head does 
 and gets half the value of one share paid to him by the 
 successful drawer. Under these circumstances the Head 
 does not get the first drawing as in the Yf-wiii, but the 
 first drawing is balloted for as well as the others. All 
 his other duties are just the same as those assigned to 
 the Head of the Yi'-wuf, and he is responsible for the 
 money. The position occupied by the Head is more 
 analogous to that of a paid servant, though no salary is his 
 reward ; but he gets a commission, as it were, to recoup 
 him for his trouble, the amount of the commission being 
 fixed at one-half of the subscription, i.e., if the periodical 
 subscription paid were 85, the Head would get 82.50; and 
 this is paid to him by the person who obtains the drawing 
 on each occasion. In the Te'i-p'o-wui no dinners or wine 
 parties are given. The Head goes round personally and 
 informs the members of the meetings, which are held in 
 his house. Some bring written tenders, but the majority, 
 being women and unable to write, bring sticks of bamboo 
 of different lengths with them, to represent the amounts 
 they are willing to offer as interest. These sticks of 
 bamboo are unburnt ends of incense-sticks, and the women 
 break them into the right lengths, perhaps in a corner of 
 the room where no one can see them, the owner telling the 
 Head what each bamboo stick stands for : the longer ones, 
 say one dollar, the shorter ones may be fifty cents, and the 
 still shorter ones, perhaps, ten cents. After all are laid 
 down, and before opening, sometimes the tenderer may 
 say, ' I add verbally so many cents to my tender.' 
 
 Claims in connection with these Associations have been 
 ruled out of Court in Hongkong, should the numbers of 
 those forming them exceed twenty, as, by the laws of the 
 Colony, every company, if twenty in number, must be 
 registered as a public company ; if less in number, they 
 have been tried upon their merits. In the case of an 
 Association, not completed, Sir James Russell ruled that 
 the Head of the Association could be sued for the money 
 
 643
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 had. As in the T^i'-p'o the Trustee (or Head) gets a 
 commission on each drawing, but in the Yf-wuf he gets 
 the first drawing, it was held by one of the Hongkong 
 Judges (the Hon. F. Snowden) that in the latter case the 
 Trustee is responsible for the future payments, but not in 
 the Te(-p6-wuf, as in that the Head only puts himself, or 
 herself, to the trouble of collecting, and does not make 
 himself, or herself, responsible for the members paying it, 
 merely drawing a commission for the trouble of collecting. 
 It seems strange to find what one thought was an 
 entirely Chinese institution in use amongst factory girls 
 in England, as the following extract will show. Has 
 someone from China introduced it into the West, or can 
 it be one of those old-world customs handed down through 
 the ages ? This is an account of one : 
 
 'While we stand watching, I am struck by a knot of girls who are 
 in hot dispute or discussion over some point. "Oh, it's only 'Liz,'" 
 says my guide, "holding a club. Her mother's in a bit of trouble 
 about the rent, and so she's getting the money this way. . . ." The 
 girls all do it, and photograph clubs, clothing clubs, money clubs, 
 abound on every side. This special one held by " Liz" happens to be 
 a guinea club. ..." Liz " and twenty other girls have joined together 
 for twenty-one weeks, each girl subscribing one shilling per week. 
 Their names are written on papers, and then drawn in rotation. The 
 girl who draws out No. i is entitled to her guinea at once, and in this 
 case, as " Liz," for holding the club, is entitled to be No. i, she has 
 her money wherewith to pay off the rent. No. 2 gets her guinea in 
 two weeks, No. 3 in three weeks, and so on till No. 21 gets hers, after 
 the twenty-one weeks. All pay their shilling per week, whether they 
 receive their guinea first or later, so that the only advantage of the 
 club is that a girl may draw an early number, and have a sum of 
 money at once.' 
 
 It will be noticed that this is a simpler form of the 
 Money Loan Association than that found in China, as no 
 interest is paid and the rather complicated system of the 
 Chinese form does not come into play. 
 
 ' China is a land of associations which are as numerous and the 
 objects of which are as varied as the needs of man. Their formation 
 is simple and easy. Certain villagers, \\hatever their object maybe, 
 meet in a temple, ancestral hall, or private house, to deliberate over 
 some scheme. If it is approved, a fund is raised, to which the members 
 contribute equally, their contributions being devoted to the purchase 
 of a piece of land, landed property in China being considered the 
 safest investment. The rent derived from this land may be used for 
 
 644
 
 Societies, Secret 
 
 the burial of a member of the association when he dies, or may be 
 let out on interest, or may be used to assist members to emigrate to 
 California and Australia, or for any other enterprise or good object 
 that may be desired.' 
 
 SOCIETIES, SECRET. A book dealing with 
 ' Things Chinese ' would scarcely be complete without some 
 reference to secret societies, as these combinations are 
 so common, not only in their own native land, but they 
 often obtain a more powerful position and even exert at 
 times a greater influence when transplanted to foreign soil. 
 
 There seems to be a world-wide similarity between 
 secret societies, in many respects. In their fundamental 
 principles there is a wonderful likeness, as well as in many 
 points of practice, ceremonial, and ritual. When we come, 
 however, to examine into them, it seems, as a general rule, 
 to be a family likeness, perhaps the result of heredity, 
 and not a servile imitation of one another during recent 
 times. 
 
 Especially is this true of some of the Chinese secret 
 societies. Of them it may be said that they are founded 
 upon a spirit of fraternity, devotion, filial piety, and 
 religion. At least this is the case with the most famous, 
 the Sam H6p Wui, or Triad Society, though it has shown 
 itself in the terrible rebellion that was carried on for many 
 years under its banners in opposite aspects to these. In 
 its 'Words of Exhortation' we find it written, 'If people 
 insult you, injure you, revile you, abuse you, how ought 
 you to take it? You ought to bear it, suffer it, endure it, 
 and forgive it.' How then, it may be asked, is revolt and 
 rebellion against the Government compatible with such 
 principles ? They are quite in harmony according to the 
 Chinese idea ; for it is the duty of the good to upset the 
 government of the bad. In such a case it is not rebellion, 
 but the raising of the standard of righteousness against 
 tyranny and oppression. We must give the leaders of the 
 great T'di-p'ing rebellion credit for motives of this 
 character at their inception of the rebellion, though some 
 of them may have had their heads turned eventually by 
 
 645
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 lust of power, while the rag-tag and bobtail which followed 
 in their train had no higher motives than plunder and loot. 
 The origin of the Hung league, one of the names of 
 the Triad Brotherhood, is shrouded in the mists of 
 uncertainty. They claim, like the Freemasons, a high 
 antiquity, but it is impossible, as far as researches have 
 been carried at present, to say with any certainty whence 
 they sprang. There would appear to be some slight 
 indications or possibilities of the existence of this society 
 in some form or another in previous times, but it was only 
 during the rule of China by the Tartars that it appeared 
 as a regular political body. The two provinces of Canton 
 and Fuhkien, which most energetically resisted the 
 Tartar sway, were the cradles of the Triad Society. In 
 course of time the Triads awoke the displeasure of the 
 Government. Unfortunately, the followers of the Society 
 ' degenerated into a band of rebels and robbers, that 
 seemed to have lost every notion of the proper spirit of 
 its association.' But a change came over them, for one of 
 their members, Hung Sau-ts'iin, had obtained some know- 
 ledge of Christianity, which he engrafted on the old stock ; 
 and it is a matter of recent history, how, the standard of 
 rebellion raised, the forces of the insurgents were increased 
 by ever swelling bands of recruits, while many were forced 
 to join their ranks in the hopes of escaping immediate 
 death ; all hopes of desertion were denied them in some 
 cases by the words T'af P'ing being branded on their 
 cheeks, a positive proof, if found by the Imperialists, that 
 they were rebels. Their leader took the title of ' King of 
 the Heavenly Realm of Universal Peace,' and he had 
 associated with him several co-kings. Under their leader- 
 ship many of the finest provinces were overrun ; death and 
 destruction dealt out to the inhabitants ; the idol temples 
 demolished, and the idols mutilated ; the fair land turned 
 into a desert ; Nanking, the ancient capital of China, 
 captured, and the new dynasty started its reign within 
 the old walls of the ' Southern Capital,' for such is the 
 meaning of the name. In fact it looked much as if the 
 
 646
 
 Societies, Secret 
 
 Manchu Tartars were doomed, and doubtless they might 
 have been, had not foreign aid come chiefly in the person 
 of General Gordon, and the ' Ever Victorious Army/ 
 which so effectually assisted the Imperial forces that they 
 gained the day, and, after many a hard-fought battle, the 
 rebellion was quelled and the then effete Manchu dynasty 
 bolstered up on the throne. At the same time there was 
 so much of corruption and evil in the ranks of the rebels 
 that it is questionable, had they succeeded, whether their 
 rule would have been any better, or even as good, as that 
 of those they endeavoured to overthrow ; for, with the 
 great mass of their followers, murder, rapine, and plunder 
 were the aims, while the leader developed into a visionary 
 of a curious type ; he was possessed by a most extra- 
 ordinary craze, giving out that he was the younger brother 
 of Jesus Christ, and a number of other blasphemies. These 
 were published in books and pamphlets issued from the 
 press. The author possesses a collection of these books, 
 and most wonderful productions they are. The diplomas, 
 or certificates, are curious documents ; they are written on 
 white linen. There is much paraphernalia connected with 
 the Lodges, such as numerous flags, banners, state umbrellas, 
 warrants, working tools, etc. 
 
 Each Lodge in the Society how many there are we 
 are unable to say is governed by a President, two Vice- 
 Presidents, one Master, two Introducers, one Fiscal, who is 
 styled ' The Red Stick ' from the red staff with which he 
 punishes offenders ; thirteen Councillors, amongst whom 
 are a Treasurer, a Receiver, and an Acting Treasurer ; 
 there are also Agents and minor officials who wear flowers 
 in their hair. Some of the brethren, who are styled Horse- 
 leaders, are appointed to act as recruiters of new members. 
 Besides these, four brethren summon the others to the 
 meetings. The officials are appointed by the vote of the 
 whole Lodge. After one year, a brother can be promoted 
 to be an Introducer ; after two, to be a Vanguard ; after 
 three, to be a Master, if a vacancy occurs. The Meetings 
 are generally held on the 25th day of the Chinese month. 
 
 647
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 (Ten days' notice has to be given, by summons, of each 
 Meeting of Lodge.) The author has in his possession one 
 of these calls to Lodge used in Hongkong. It consists of a 
 slip of bamboo on which is written the name of the Lodge, 
 and the other particulars requisite. Contributions, varying 
 in amount, are made at the usual Chinese festivals, etc. 
 Recruits for the society are got by persuasion, but, failing 
 that, notices are put into the houses of those they wish to 
 have join them, instructing them to go to a certain spot at 
 a given time, and threats are held out that, if the authorities 
 are informed, destruction will overtake them and their 
 relations and property. Arrived at the rendezvous they 
 are conducted to the Lodge ; at other times they are 
 assaulted and decoyed on till, overpowered by numbers, 
 they are put into a sack and carried there. The candidates 
 for initiation present themselves barefooted with dis- 
 hevelled hair and with the lappets of their coats hanging 
 open. Five incense-sticks are taken in their hands and 
 four quatrains repeated by them, after which they swear to 
 their certificates of birth, while the Introducer, acting as 
 Herald, gives their names, so that all the brethren may 
 hear them. Having arrived at the gate an incense-stick is 
 taken in both hands and the candidates salute the two 
 Generals. On entering the first gate of the camp their 
 names, surnames, ages, and times of birth are all carefully 
 entered in a book by the Vanguard. An arch of steel is 
 then formed one-half of the swords being of copper, 
 however and the candidates are led under it ; sometimes a 
 red cloth does duty for the arch of steel. The candidates, 
 holding three red stones in their hands, have to pay, after 
 passing, twenty-one cash as first entry money, and find 
 themselves before the Hung Gate, which is guarded by two 
 Generals ; here they kneel thrice. Their names are 
 demanded from the Vanguard, who gives them ; the 
 Generals then go in to obtain the Master's permission for 
 them to enter, -after which they are allowed to pass 'and 
 are brought to the Hall of Fidelity and Loyalty,' where 
 two more Generals are on guard, who also ask their names 
 
 648
 
 Societies, Secret 
 
 and the candidates kneel four times. There, at last, they 
 are instructed, in the objects of the Society ; and ' are 
 exhorted to be faithful and loyal to the league to which 
 they are about to be affiliated.' The grievances 'against 
 the Tartar dominion are enumerated, and promises' made 
 to ' those who shall accomplish their duties faithfully ; 
 whilst fearful threats are pronounced against those who 
 should dare to refuse to enter the league.' ' The last 
 enclosure before the Lodge' is the Heaven and Earth 
 Circle, which is again guarded by two Generals. ' After 
 having passed through, and gone across the surrounding 
 moat or ditch, they reach the East Gate of the City of 
 Willows, guarded by Han-p l angJ The candidates here kneel 
 twice. They are led to the Council Room, called ' The 
 Lodge of Universal Peace,' where the whole of the council 
 is assembled. ' Two Generals keep guard at the door of 
 this room.' The Vanguard speaks to them and requests 
 permission for T'ien-yu-hung (the candidates are supposed 
 to personate him) to enter, which the Master grants. The 
 Vanguard then enters the Council Room, after which a 
 number of questions are asked, which are answered, a 
 quatrain or some verses being repeated after each state- 
 ment as a proof. Next to each candidate stands a member 
 who answers for him. There are 333 questions, and they 
 refer to the objects of the Society, its different working 
 tools, banners, parts of the Lodge, historical and legendary 
 history, etc. 
 
 After the examination is through, the Master is satis- 
 fied, and those who wish to proceed with their Initiation 
 have further ceremonies to go through, while those who 
 refuse to join the brotherhood are taken to the West Gate 
 and have their heads cut off. The next thing, for those 
 who are proceeding with the ceremony, is the cutting off of 
 the queue, the queue being a sign of subjection to the 
 Manchu rule ; but this cannot always be carried out, as 
 it would be a sign of rebellion to be seen without one, 
 though it is sometimes done and a false queue braided 
 on again. The candidates are shaved and their hair 
 
 649
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 done up as under the Ming dynasty, and they would 
 appear to be clothed in sackcloth and mourning. The 
 next ceremony is that of washing the faces of the candi- 
 dates, emblematical of cleansing traitorous hearts, after 
 which the outer garments are taken off, as they are cut 
 after the Manchu style. This ceremony of ' undressing ' 
 having been gone through, they are clothed in long 
 white robes and a red handkerchief wrapped round the 
 head, and later on a pair of straw mourning shoes, in 
 place of the ordinary shoes, is put on ; during the course of 
 all these ceremonies numerous quatrains are recited bear- 
 ing on them. These preliminaries being ended, the candi- 
 dates are led before the altar, on which is a censer of 
 white porcelain. The whole of the brethren present take 
 nine blades of grass in their hands to pledge fidelity, in 
 commemoration, it is said, of the plan employed by the 
 original founders ; two quatrains are repeated, the oath, 
 written on large sheets of yellow paper, is next laid on the 
 censer, and incense-sticks taken in the hands of all present, 
 verses again being recited ; the incense is offered and a 
 blade of grass is put by each member into the ashes of the 
 censer, and a verse repeated ; a second and third are placed 
 in, in the same way. After this, three sticks of fine incense 
 are stuck into the censer, one by one, a verse being re- 
 peated with each ; ' two candles of dry wood are now lighted,' 
 and another quatrain recited, followed by the lighting of a 
 red candle in the same manner. All this being through 
 a silver wine-jug and three jade stone wine-cups are brought 
 in, and the brethren worship Heaven and Earth 'by pledging 
 three cups of wine,' with the usual accompaniment of 
 verses. After the wine has been offered, the Seven Starred 
 Lamp is lit, followed by the lighting of the ' Lamp of the 
 Gemmeous Ruler' and the Hung Light, all accompanied 
 by verses. All the lamps being thus lit and the incense 
 giving forth its fragrant odours, a solemn prayer, read 
 slowly and reverentially, is offered to the gods Buddhist, 
 and Taoist, as well as to the deified Spirits of Nature and of 
 Heroes. After rising from this prayer, eight salutations on 
 
 650
 
 Societies, Secret 
 
 bended knee are made, to Heaven, Earth, the Sun, the 
 Moon, 'the Five Founders, Wan-yun-lung, the Brethren, 
 and the renowned amongst their companions,' a verse 
 again being recited. One of the members then takes the 
 oath, which has been lying on the censer all this time, and 
 reads it to the candidates 'who remain kneeling during the 
 reading.' It is in thirty-six articles, and enjoins the 
 practice of equity and justice amongst the members ; the 
 shielding of the brethren in times of trouble ; the chastity of 
 a brother's wife or concubine, and of his child, are to be 
 strictly respected ; and, besides, the members are told ' you 
 must consider the father of a brother as your own father, 
 his mother as your mother, his sister as your sister, and his 
 wife as your sister-in-law.' 
 
 After reading the oath, the brethren rise from their 
 knees and proceed to the ceremony of confirming it by 
 shedding blood, first making and drinking tea to cleanse 
 the mouth, with the usual recitations. A large bowl is 
 next filled with wine, and another quatrain repeated. The 
 brethren prick themselves in the middle finger and thus 
 mingle some of their own blood with the wine, all drinking 
 of it, several quatrains bearing on the subject being recited 
 at the time. Sometimes a cock's blood is used instead. 
 'The Drinking of the Bloody 'Wine' being over, a white 
 cock's head is chopped off, to the usual accompaniment, 
 followed by an execration, solemnly pronounced, begin- 
 ning : ' The white cock is the token, and we have shed its 
 blood and taken an oath. The unfaithful and disloyal 
 shall perish like this cock.' 
 
 ' The new members are now led without the West Gate 
 where a furnace is burning ' ; there the oath is burned, thus 
 being sent into the spirit world and coming to the know- 
 ledge of the gods, who will punish any perjurers. 
 
 The President then presents the new members with 
 their certificates, on the back of which their names are 
 written in a secret manner. ' The book, containing the 
 oath, laws, regulations, secret signs, etc., is also given to 
 them,' and sometimes a pair of daggers. Besides keeping 
 
 651
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 their certificates on their persons, they also keep three of 
 the T'clf-p'ing coins, as signs of recognition ; for all of 
 these things they pay fees. 
 
 They are next led round the building, to have the flags 
 and working tools shown to them, to the accompaniment 
 of quatrains. 
 
 The banners are then consecrated, three cups of wine 
 being poured on the ground at the same time, as a liba- 
 tion to the gods, a prayer is offered, and another quatrain 
 recited. After this prayer, the spear-heads are dipped in 
 the blood of a white horse and a black ox, which are 
 slaughtered as offerings to the solar and telluric principles 
 respectively ; they are then cooked and a supper eaten, 
 during, and after, which theatricals take place. As dawn 
 approaches the members reclothe themselves in their 
 present, everyday attire, and return home. 
 
 There is a code of laws and statutes, the articles of law 
 being seventy-two in number, and the regulations twenty- 
 one ; besides these there are ten prohibitory Bye-laws 
 relating to Meetings of Lodge. All these laws and 
 regulations inculcate brotherly kindness, assisting of 
 brethren in time of need, shielding them from the 
 authorities, and abstaining from giving evidence against 
 them in the Courts of Law ; the trial of all cases in 
 which brethren alone are concerned is to be held before 
 the Lodge, and not to be brought before the magistrates ; 
 letters are to be carried from foreign countries for the 
 brethren, and any brother found purloining money 
 entrusted to him by a brother is severely punished. 
 The infraction of each of the regulations is followed by 
 imprecations or threatened punishments, among which 
 may be noted those of having the head cut off", an ear 
 chopped off, etc. We cannot, however, give even a short 
 resumt of all the offences provided for ; but amongst 
 these laws, as can well be imagined, the divulgence of 
 the secrets in any way is a most serious offence. 
 
 The brethren have besides a perfect system of secret 
 signs adapted for all times and seasons and conditions. 
 
 652
 
 Societies, Secret 
 
 We will just instance a few of them : ' If people ask you 
 on the road, " Whence come you ? " Answer, " I come from 
 the East." If they ask you, "Whither are you going?" 
 Answer, " I want to go to the place where I can join the 
 myriads of brethren." ' In entering the house of a brother, 
 one is directed to stop for a moment and enter with the 
 left foot first. In sitting down, the points of the grass shoes 
 are turned towards each other, while the heels are separate: 
 this is a sign that one is a brother. The queue so done up 
 as to have the end hanging down behind the left ear denotes 
 business. Another sign in use is the tucking up the right 
 leg of the trousers while the left leg is allowed to hang 
 down. The brethren have different signs, passwords, and 
 quatrains for use if attacked by robbers and pirates who 
 may chance to be Triad men ; and though they are not 
 allowed to divulge the secrets to outsiders, yet they are 
 permitted to teach their sisters and wives certain verses 
 for their protection under similar circumstances. All 
 contingencies appear to be provided for, amongst others, 
 directions are given how to put up a secret sign over one's 
 door in case of a revolt. The author knows that this is 
 not a part of a mere system, but is of practical use, because 
 a house he once lived in, in a Chinese city, was thus pro- 
 tected, when it was feared that the T'ai'-p'ing rebels would 
 attack the place. Numerous signs and counter-signs, forms 
 of recognition, and wishes expressed secretly, are all re- 
 vealed by the manipulation of tea-pots, tea-cups, wine-cups, 
 tobacco and opium pipes, chop-sticks, white fans, and betel 
 nuts, by placing them in different positions, holding them 
 in different ways, and presenting them to one another. 
 
 The Triad Society has brought itself prominently into 
 notice in the English and Dutch colonial possessions, where 
 its members have exerted a great influence, and almost 
 absolute power at times, over their fellow-countrymen. 
 Their membership in some places is enormous : in the 
 Straits Settlements it would appear, if we are to judge by 
 the figures, that at one time, at all events, their number 
 was equal to that of the Chinese population ; for in 1887 
 
 653
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 the census returns the Chinese population as less than the 
 Triad members, which were 156,440. 
 
 The Ghee Hin, a Hokkien, or Fuhkien, Society, had a 
 membership in the year 1889, m Singapore, of 18,973 
 members with 478 office-bearers ; the total membership of 
 the ten Societies registered in 1889 was 68,316, an increase 
 of 5,000 on the previous year, making a total since 1877 of 
 68,316, while there was an approximate increase of 9,000 
 in Penang, the total number of 113,300 being the approxi- 
 mate membership. One Society, named the Ghi Hing, 
 having an approximate membership of 75,000. 
 
 A new Societies Ordinance came into force in 1890, in 
 the Straits Settlements. Its chief object was to abolish 
 the Triad Society, as well as other Dangerous Societies, 
 'some of which have existed in Singapore since 1821, and 
 in Penang for a much longer period ' ; one or two of the 
 Penang Societies are very wealthy, but the Singapore ones 
 only own the Kong-si, or Club-houses. The Singapore 
 and Penang Societies delivered up their chops and books, 
 and the diplomas of the six Triad branches were formally 
 renounced and burnt in the presence of two English 
 officials. Chinese Advisory Boards have been instituted 
 to assist the officials. 
 
 There would seem to be no Grand Master of the whole 
 Triad body ; but a central government is in existence, 
 composed of the five Grand Masters of the five Grand 
 Lodges of Fuhkien, Kwangtung, Yunnan, Hunan, and 
 Chekiang. This governing body then has some sort of 
 control over millions of Chinese, not only in China itself, 
 but throughout the world. 
 
 One writer says of this organisation : 'These principles, the 
 repudiation of all jurisdiction, and the assumption of their power by 
 an irresponsible tribunal, constitute an imperiiim in imperio, the 
 foulest, the bloodiest, the most oppressive of which there is record on 
 such a scale.' Another says : ' The Hung League has carried civil 
 war and murder wherever it has gone.' Yet another says : ' They 
 engage to defend each other against the police, to hide each other's 
 crimes, to assist detected members in making their escape from 
 justice.' And yet again another says : That it is a 'combination to 
 carry out private quarrels, and to uphold the interests of the members 
 
 654
 
 Societies, Secret 
 
 in spite of law, and lastly, to raise money by subscription or by levying 
 fees on brothels or gaming-houses.' 
 
 Born in bloodshed when the famous Wu San-kuei lived 
 (who, as has happened before now in the West, lost the 
 empire to a foreign prince, invited to aid in driving out 
 some unwelcome aspirant to the throne), the Triad Society 
 was almost extinguished in blood in our own day. But 
 though not only scotched but receiving terrible punishment, 
 the Association has not lost its vitality. Unable to snatch 
 the sceptre even from the weak and nerveless hands that 
 hold it, though its aspirations are as high as ever and its 
 watchwords ring with the cry of battle as grandly as of 
 yore, it perforce has to content itself, instead of being the 
 wholesale conqueror and marauder, the inspiriting force 
 that has carried on the hosts of rebels, grand robbers, to 
 victory against the erstwhile hordes of imperial and pro- 
 vincial troops instead of this it has had to descend to the 
 role of being the nexus which has bound together the 
 ' little robbers ' who prey on the home and cottage for the 
 paltry sums which the night thief may find when he has 
 overcome a few startled women, old men, and children : it 
 only breaks out into spasmodic eruptions of political, or 
 rather military, energy, when a fitting opportunity presents 
 itself. 
 
 Here then is sufficient reason for their suppression ; and, 
 owing to the misuse of their power, and the rioting and 
 murders committed by them in the Straits Settlements, 
 they have been forbidden there as secret unregistered 
 Associations. The most recent legislative enactment 
 against them in Hongkong is Ordinance No. 8 of 1887, by 
 which the Triad Society is declared to be unlawful, and 
 the managers and office-bearers are liable to a fine of a 
 thousand dollars and to imprisonment for one year ; the 
 former Ordinances which related to them were Nos. I and 
 12 of 1845, which meted out more drastic punishment than 
 the last one mentioned above. Some of the prominent 
 members of the Society have been deported by the 
 Hongkong Government, when necessity arose for it, for 
 
 655
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 unfortunately in this colony, they have degenerated into 
 nests of thieves and bands of robbers. 
 
 In the United States they have done great injury to the 
 well-being of those who did not belong to their societies. 
 
 This account of the Triad Society will show what 
 Chinese secret societies are capable of both in China and 
 abroad. There are hundreds of these secret societies in 
 China itself, but they are not all political in their aim ; 
 some are merely sects of Buddhists ; one in the North, 
 ' The T'sai Li,' or Temperance Society, forbids the use 
 of tobacco, wine and spirits, amongst its other tenets and 
 prohibitions, and has a large membership, there being nearly 
 50,000 in the province of Chihli and in Peking. Its doings 
 were exposed some years ago ' by certain members of the 
 society, by which ' it was hoped that ' a serious outbreak in 
 the capital might possibly be averted.' The Government 
 tried to keep matters secret. It is said that 80,000 members 
 of it were to be found under Li Hung-chang's rule a few 
 years ago. 
 
 An association which has attracted some attention 
 lately is the K6-16-wui, which has its headquarters in the 
 province of Hunan, the army being quite honeycombed by 
 this political Association which, like the Triad, has for its 
 object the overthrow of the present dynasty. It is said to 
 have its emissaries in every province, who travel under the 
 assumed character of doctors, disseminating news and 
 gathering in members as they go. It was believed by some 
 to be answerable for the riots, a few years ago, directed 
 against foreigners in Central China. (See Article on Riots). 
 Its organisation is in all probability on somewhat similar 
 lines to that of the Triad Society, for there are five Heads, 
 Certificates printed on linen (a fac-simile of one is given in 
 The China Review, vol. xv. p. 129), etc., and an elaborate 
 initiation ceremony is said to be employed. It is described 
 as resembling Freemasonry, and not essentially seditious ; 
 but opportunties for a thorough study of it have not yet 
 been afforded to those interested in such subjects. It took 
 its rise at the time of the T'ai-p'ing rebellion, General 
 
 656
 
 Societies, Secret 
 
 Tseng Kvvo-fan himself, so it is reported, having established 
 it at the siege of Nanking ; but this body, instead of seek- 
 ing to re-establish the Ming dynasty, would appear to 
 look further back, even as far as to the T'ang dynasty, and, 
 probably, if their chance ever comes, some one will be put 
 forward as of reputed Imperial descent from rulers of that 
 dynasty, though the house of T'ang is supposed to be 
 extinct long since. 
 
 ' The Kolao-hwei Society is known to have been in existence for 
 the past twenty years, and there are great numbers of men connected 
 with it, distributed over the provinces of Kiangsu, Anhui, Hunan, 
 Hupeh, Kiangsi, and Kwangtung.' 
 
 A secret society which committed the massacres on the 
 missionaries at Kucheng in 1895, styled itself vegetarian. 
 One of the members appears to have cured eight opium 
 smokers. The Vegetarians were divided into nine com- 
 panies. As to their worship, they say : 
 
 ' When worshipping we present the following eight kinds of things : 
 melon seeds, candy, red dates, black dates, pea-nuts,' oranges, dried 
 melons, and dried lengkeng, or dragons' eyes. (The lengkeng is the 
 symbol of the vegetarians).' The ceremony of saluting the flag is as 
 follows : ' We bring our palms together, and kneel down five times 
 before it, to worship Heaven, Earth, the Emperor, our parents, and 
 teachers, after which we kneel three times, to salute our brothers, other 
 relatives and friends.' 
 
 The dreadful Boxers which created such disturbances 
 in the North, and were encouraged by the Chinese Officials, 
 were also a secret society, based to some extent on the same 
 principles and ceremonials as the Triads. They believed 
 largely in hypnotism, and one of their tenets was that they 
 could render themselves invulnerable in fight. They im- 
 posed on numbers of people, who joined them in crowds. 
 
 'The Boxers include not only boys of from 12 to 15, but girls of the 
 same age, and they form different branches. The branch to which 
 the girls belong is known as the Hing Tong Chin, or Red Lantern 
 Shrines ; they carry about with them red lanterns, and they profess 
 that they have only to throw the lanterns up into the air and they will 
 alight on any house, whether near or far, which they wish to set on 
 fire. The boys' branch is called the I Wo Tun. On a man joining the 
 Boxers he commences to bow to the south-east, and says a prayer 
 daily. When he has done this about a hundred times he becomes 
 possessed of the power to hypnotise himself at the right moment, any 
 
 657 2 T
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 time he likes. He makes a bow to the south-east, says a prayer, and 
 next begins to shiver, and he can then take up a sword and play with 
 it. It is usual for them to hypnotise themselves before commencing to 
 fight. . . . Most of them are between 12 and 16 or 1 8 years of age, and 
 are farmers and farmers' children. . . . When anyone joins the Boxers 
 he puts pieces of red cloth round his head, stomach, and legs, and 
 dons two shoulder-straps, on which are characters which mean, 
 " Protect China and kill the foreigners." ' 
 
 Books recommended : ' The Thian Ti Hwui,' by G. Schlegel, contains the 
 fullest account of the Triad Society that has yet been published, and is recom- 
 mended to the student who wishes to enter into a knowledge of its mysteries. 
 It is illustrated with diagrams of diplomas and flags, etc. For the general 
 reader, a short article in Harper's Magazine for September 1891, entitled, 
 ' Chinese Secret Societies,' by F. Boyle, will be found interesting. A paper 
 in the transactions of the Missionary Conference, held at Shanghai in 1890, 
 contains a list of a good many of these societies, in the province of Shan- 
 tung, with some little account of them. In that province alone it is stated 
 that there are over a hundred secret societies. An account of the workings 
 of these Secret Societies in the United States amongst the Chinese, appears in 
 a recent number of the California Illustrated Magazine. 
 
 STAMPS. Owing to the want of a general postal 
 system in China under the auspices of the Government 
 (such as is now being introduced), there has been a great 
 variety of stamps in use in the country. In fact the want 
 of this general governmental system of posts in the past has 
 given rise to rather an anomalous condition of things 
 with regard to the use of postage stamps. In Shanghai, 
 letters may be posted at the French Consulate for convey- 
 ence to Hongkong or foreign countries, by the Messageries 
 Maritimes (the French Mail) steamers, French postage 
 stamps being used, at first unsurcharged, but afterwards 
 with the word ' Chine ' on them. In the same way letters 
 are posted at Shanghai at the German Consulate, for 
 conveyance by German mail steamers to similar destinations, 
 German stamps, latterly surcharged ' China,' being affixed 
 on the envelopes. If we are not mistaken, American stamps 
 are used in a similar way in Shanghai, as well as possibly 
 Japanese stamps, and this obtains to a more or less degree 
 at a few of the other Treaty Ports. The Russian, French, 
 and German Governments, as well as the British, and the 
 Customs, all had Post Offices at Tientsin. 
 
 The first issue of stamps in China was, in Hongkong, 
 by the British Colonial Government of the Colony. These 
 
 658
 
 Stamps 
 
 stamps are not, however, confined in their use to the small, 
 but important island of Hongkong ; but the British Govern- 
 ment, for the convenience of its own and other foreign 
 residents in China, was compelled, no other facilities 
 existing, to establish Branch Post Offices of its own (under 
 the control of the Hongkong General Post Office) at each 
 of the treaty ports in fact wherever there was a British 
 Consulate and the Hongkong postage stamps have been 
 employed for many years in paying the postages between 
 the different treaty ports, and between them and foreign 
 countries. These British Branch Post Offices had under 
 their control only the mails conveyed in foreign-built ships 
 running between the places mentioned above. For all letters 
 into the interior, the foreign resident, if he wished to send 
 any, a very rare occurrence usually, had to depend upon the 
 private, local, native posts, until the establishment a few 
 years since of the Imperial Chinese Postal Service. 
 Though these stamps were British colonial stamps, they 
 have been more used in China, as above, than any other 
 postage stamps. There have been numbers of different 
 issues and surcharges, the first being in 1862. 
 
 The Hongkong Jubilee stamp was only issued for three 
 days, on the anniversary of the jubilee of the colony, 22nd 
 to 24th January 1891 ; it was a two-cents rose-coloured 
 stamp, surcharged with the words (in four lines, over the face 
 of the stamp) ' 1841 Hongkong Jubilee 1891.' There 
 have been several mistakes made by the Chinese printer in 
 printing this surcharge, such as a small J, etc. ; so that 
 there are about four or five of these varieties, and they are 
 highly priced. Two other rare stamps are a twelve-cents 
 surcharged on a ten-dollars revenue stamp, and a two-cents 
 revenue stamp. They appear to have been used but a 
 short time for purposes of postage. Embossed envelope 
 stamps of different denominations, as well as embossed 
 registered envelope stamps, have been added lately ; and 
 there have been a number of different issues of post-cards. 
 
 In connection with the Imperial Maritime Customs 
 Post Office mentioned in our article on Posts, a series of 
 
 659
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 stamps was issued in 1878. The stamps were rather large, 
 the centre contained a dragon ; ' China ' was the device at 
 the top, flanked in the top corners by the two Chinese 
 characters T'ai Ts'ing, meaning 'Great Pure,' that being 
 the name taken by the present dynasty. The word 
 ' Candarin,' or ' Candarins,' appeared at the bottom of the 
 stamp, and in the two lower corners were the Arabic figures 
 giving the number of candarins the stamp stood for. A 
 candarin is a tenth of a mace, a mace being worth about 
 fourteen cents, say nearly threepence halfpenny ; ten mace 
 make one tael. On the right-hand side (on the left of the 
 dragon) and running down the stamp are the three Chinese 
 characters, Yau Ching Kuk, standing for Official Post 
 Office, while the opposite column of Chinese (Chinese 
 printing or writing is in vertical columns, not in horizontal 
 lines like ours) were composed of the three Chinese 
 characters representing the value of the stamp, viz., Yat 
 (or Yi or Sam, as the case was) Fun Ngan, one candarin 
 (or three or five, as the case was) for the denominations 
 were one, three, and five candarins. The colours were 
 green, lilac, and yellow respectively. 
 
 The 1878 issue also contained the same denominations 
 of stamps, but they were somewhat smaller, being about 
 the size of the British stamps, the colours being green, rose, 
 and yellow respectively. In other respects the stamps are 
 very similar, the general features of the two issues being 
 the same. There seemed to be some slight difference in 
 the shades of colour of some of the stamps, but whether it 
 was due to fading, or a different ink being used, we cannot 
 say. 
 
 Out of this Customs Post has developed a Chinese 
 Imperial Postal Service. Several issues of stamps, and sur- 
 charges and post-cards as well, have been provided for this 
 department during the few years it has been in existence. 
 They are distinguished by the Chinese dragon, and have 
 their denominations on them in English and Chinese. 
 
 Some years ago (in 1889) postage stamps were prepared 
 for use in Formosa. They were rather large, had a dragon 
 
 660
 
 Stamps 
 
 and a horse on them and the word ' Formosa.' There were 
 two issues, twenty cash rose, and twenty cash green (say 
 about the value of one penny, English money). They do 
 not seem to have been much used for postage purposes ; 
 but were made to do service at one time as railway tickets 
 being surcharged on the short line of rail in Formosa. 
 They are now of great value, and collectors consider them 
 great rarities. We have heard thirty dollars mentioned as 
 a price asked for two. 
 
 There is a Municipal Council in Shanghai which had a 
 local Post Office. In 1865, a series of five stamps was 
 issued with a dragon in the centre, and ' Shanghai ' at the 
 top, in English and Chinese. On the right-hand side the 
 words in Chinese, Shii Sun Kwun, Post Office, and on the 
 other side the denomination, in some cases in cash, in 
 others in candarins. There have been a number of issues 
 since, and of surcharges, the devices in their general 
 features being very similar. 
 
 With regard to this Local Post Office, the following 
 statement may be of interest : 
 
 'The Shanghai Local Post Office was taken over by the Imperial 
 Post in November 1897, and thoroughly reorganised, but Local 
 Postage rates have been maintained.' 
 
 Many years after the Shanghai Local Post issued its 
 first stamps, a number of the small foreign municipalities at 
 some of the other treaty ports followed the example of 
 Shanghai, and started Local Post Offices and issued sets of 
 stamps. Hankow seems to have led the way amongst the 
 riverine ports, Kiukiang following at a little distance, after 
 which Chinkiang and Wuhu followed suit, and finally, 
 Ichang and Chungking and Nanking. The coast ports 
 have also not been behindhand with regard to these local 
 issues, Chefoo, Foochow, and Amoy all having sets of 
 stamps. Post-cards were also prepared and used in some 
 of these places, and in one or two ports taxed stamps 
 appeared. Different issues also succeeded one another 
 from more than one of these local post offices. These 
 ventures in many cases proved pecuniarily successful, and 
 
 66 1
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 the money thus earned was applied to the necessary works 
 in connection with the different municipalities ; unfortu- 
 nately the chief authority in England for philatelists 
 frowned on such means for turning an honest penny 
 (as many of the issues simply were), and they were 
 soon considered as outside the pale of legitimate stamp 
 collecting in that country. Many of the stamps were 
 quite unique, pretty, and interesting some being finely 
 executed, though others were rather rude attempts. 
 
 The latest is the issue of two stamps at Weihaiwei, 
 where, there being no post office, 'a private firm started 
 a courier post at irregular intervals.' They are very 
 rare, and command a high price, as only 4,0x30 were 
 printed. 
 
 In the Portuguese settlement of Macao, there have been 
 several issues of stamps by the Portuguese Colonial 
 Government, commencing in 1878. The old issues com- 
 mand a good price. A number of surcharges have been 
 used at different times ; and there is a set of very neat post- 
 cards, in fact, more than one issue of post-cards. The 
 denominations are in rets. The Timour stamps were at 
 first Macao stamps surcharged. A Vasco da Gama 
 Tricentenary set of stamps were issued a few years since 
 in Macao. 
 
 We have already noted the French stamps in use 
 in the French post office at Shanghai ; but the latest 
 move on their part has been to establish post offices in 
 Canton on Shamien, and in the native city as well and 
 issue a complete set of stamps, surcharged ' Canton.' The 
 Germans have also had stamps for their post offices in 
 China, and have now a regular issue for Kiautschau. 
 
 SUICIDE. We have already remarked that China 
 has the unenviable notoriety of having more suicides than 
 any other country, though those who know anything about 
 the Chinese will not be surprised when we state that it is 
 impossible to adduce absolute proof of such a statement. 
 That there are many suicides cannot for a moment be 
 
 662
 
 Suicide 
 
 doubted by those who have paid any attention to this grue- 
 some subject. 
 
 The causes which lead to such a rash, foolish, and 
 wicked act in the West are not absent in China ; and 
 besides those common to all states of civilisation and to 
 all countries must be added some which are unknown to 
 our modern conditions of life. Many suicides in China 
 have their fotis et origo in the peculiar marriage relation- 
 ships of the Chinese ; for a very fruitful source of marital 
 trouble in China is the much married state of many of its 
 people the polygamy sanctioned by the all-powerful ' olo 
 custom ' has to answer for not a few suicides of women. 
 Slighted by her husband for some new favourite, jealous of 
 the influence of another concubine, the Chinese wife flees 
 from ills which appear to have no redress. Again, an 
 inferior wife, oppressed and ill-treated by a superior wife, 
 has also, at times, recourse to such a misguided act. In 
 some districts of country the young girls so dread the 
 matrimonial state that they band together against being 
 compelled to enter it, and take the extreme measure of 
 remonstrating against it by going hand in hand into some 
 pond and drowning themselves. (See Article on Marriage.) 
 Again, in some districts near Foochow a species of suttee 
 takes place, and is considered to be a highly meritorious 
 act, having even a quasi sanction of Government. A 
 widow in other parts of China, who refuses to live after the 
 death of her husband, also receives a meed of praise, not 
 only from officials, but from friends as well. 
 
 So common were suicides from the Bridge at Foochow 
 that a society was formed some years since to maintain 
 four boats to be continually on the watch for the prevention 
 of it two to be in attendance above the bridge, and two 
 below. To one unacquainted with Chinese life it may 
 seem strange that Buddhists, as so many of the Chinese 
 are, should go in direct contravention of one of the express 
 commandments of Buddhism not to take life ; and yet it 
 is possibly due, in some measure, to the system of Buddhism 
 that prevails in China that some of the suicides take place, 
 
 663
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 for the doctrines of metempsychosis is one of the prominent 
 tenets of Buddhism in China. Belief in a religion that in 
 its popular aspects gives a leading position to the idea of 
 the transmigration of souls, and holds out the hope that the 
 ill deeds of this life and its good actions are punished or 
 rewarded by future avatars, cannot act effectively as a 
 deterrent against self-murder ; such a religion cannot 
 thunder out as strong anathemas against, or denounce 
 with as equal force, the crime of suicide, as a religion that 
 is based on a different and more rational system of future 
 rewards and punishments. With such a creed, some 
 Chinese suicides may therefore hope to return to this 
 mundane sphere of existence again. 
 
 Added to all this is the slight esteem in which human 
 life is held, as for instance, with regard to infanticide, the 
 neglect of beggars, and in the matter of the death penalty 
 so freely exacted, as in our own countries fifty or a hundred 
 years ago, for offences so trivial when weighed against the 
 sacredness of human life. With such a low estimate of the 
 worth of human existence, it would appear to take but little 
 more to neglect the fostering of one's own existence when 
 a sea of troubles overwhelms one but a step further to 
 shuffle off this mortal coil one's self to act with an assump- 
 tion of power unwarranted by the facts, and to usurp the 
 right of life and death over one's own mortal being. But, 
 as tending often to the comparatively light heart with 
 which many a Chinaman, of his own accord, leaves this 
 sublunary stage of existence, must be noted the curious 
 feelings about revenge that they hold. One of the most 
 dreadful things that can happen to a Chinese is to have 
 a death take place on his premises or at his door. No 
 enemy thirsting for an adequate quid pro quo, to balance up 
 the account of injury done him in the past, can hope, or 
 desire, to have his enemy brought to book in a more 
 effectual manner than by such an untoward event happen- 
 ing to his adversary. Here, then, is the chance long looked 
 for and almost despaired of; here is an opportunity too 
 good to let slip of doing a mortal injury to the hated one ; 
 
 664
 
 Suicide 
 
 for a trumped-up charge of murder or ill-treatment can 
 easily be laid at the yamen, and all the minions of the law 
 the hosts of harpies of the unjust mandarin with all the 
 ungovernable rapacity that they are infamous for will be 
 let loose on the unfortunate householder. Even without a 
 formal charge being laid against him, the ordinary course 
 of procedure must be followed by the great annoyance of a 
 visit from the equivalent of our Coroner, and the grand 
 chances for all his underlings of having squeezes, pressure 
 being brought to bear on him in an infinitude of ways 
 never dreamed of in our favoured lands of the West. If 
 the dead body of a poor, helpless, unknown, and unbe- 
 friended beggar will start the whole machinery of oppres- 
 sion and injustice, and bring untold miseries upon an 
 unfortunate householder at whose door the corpse has been 
 found, to the delight of his malicious enemy if all this is 
 the resultant of such a simple and not uncommon accident 
 it is but a step further for the quick-witted enemy, or man 
 who has been injured and who has no other means, either 
 on account of poverty or insignificance, of avenging himself 
 on his foe, it is then but a step further for such an one 
 to hit upon the expedient of forcing circumstances in his 
 own favour, and, as even dead beggars are not procurable 
 at a moment's notice, or, if procurable, the difficulties of 
 transportation offer insuperable obstacles in the way of 
 their employment it is but a step further for such a man 
 to offer himself as a substitute for the dead beggar, a sacri- 
 fice on the altar of wounded feelings or outraged justice. 
 In China, this is one of the most telling modes of wiping 
 out one's injuries, for besides the troubles that would result 
 from any dead body being found in such a position, they 
 are intensified by the knowledge that the dead body is that 
 of one injured and so outraged that his feelings could brook 
 no revenge short of that awful act that his silent body 
 testifies to, the dead and solemn witness of the victim of 
 injustice or oppression. There seems nothing incongruous 
 to the Chinese mind in such an action. The only draw- 
 back is that the act once committed cannot be repeated ; 
 
 665
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 and a case is actually known of a man on the point of thus 
 committing suicide bewailing the inexorable circumstance 
 and the hard fact which would prevent him immolating 
 himself in the houses of two enemies instead of in that of 
 one alone. Ghosts to annoy the man ; the necessity of 
 purchasing a coffin at least, and trying to hush up the 
 matter with the relatives by money freely given, the dangers 
 of squeezes from official underlings and of the interference 
 of the officials themselves, as stated above ; and lastly, the 
 trouble which may be brought on his enemy in a future 
 state of existence these all render such a mode of revenge 
 one of the most effective that can be taken. The chance, or 
 almost. certainty, of trouble with the officials has also given 
 rise to the custom or necessity, of generally providing a 
 coffin for any poor beggar who may have chanced to crawl 
 to one's door when in extremis and expired there. At the 
 very least one may only hope to escape by being a sub- 
 scriber to a list, should the people of the neighbourhood 
 be willing to form a fund for the burial of this particular 
 case. 
 
 The European, therefore, who may live amongst the 
 Chinese, may thus find himself called upon to pay for a 
 coffin. 
 
 High officials who are condemned to death have some- 
 times, as an act of Imperial clemency, a silken cord sent to 
 them by the Emperor to strangle themselves with, instead 
 of having the indignity offered them of suffering at the 
 hands of the common executioner. 
 
 The most common modes of suicide are by opium- 
 taking and drowning. With the Chinese superstition as to 
 the consequences of going into the next world with a 
 mutilated body (for they believe the same mutilation will 
 be permanent, in a future state of existence, and it is for 
 this reason that decapitation is the general mode of capital 
 punishment, as, once beheaded, the ghost would be a head- 
 less one), they do not inflict on themselves bodily injury or 
 wounds such as would result from the use of a razor or fire- 
 arms for the purpose of suicide. 
 
 666
 
 Suicide 
 
 The 'swallowing of gold" is the term sometimes 
 employed for suicide amongst wealthy Chinese. It has 
 been the universal belief that gold leaf, or gold, was actually 
 swallowed and suffocated the victim, and such, possibly, or 
 even probably, does happen in some cases, but doubt has been 
 thrown on the whole subject of late. It would be satisfactory 
 before deciding against the belief of both foreigners and 
 Chinese, and the circumstantial statements of the latter, to 
 have convincing proofs from many sources that ' swallowing 
 gold ' is only another of those euphemistic phrases the 
 Chinese are so fond of. 
 
 The following attempt, made by one resident in 
 Chaotong in the West of China, is interesting as an 
 attempt to arrive at the number of suicides in the whole 
 of China, and we therefore give it in extenso. It was 
 published in 1898 : - 
 
 THE LAND OF SUICIDES : 500,000 CASES A YEAR. 
 
 ' The fourth Chinese moon of the present year contained thirty 
 days, and ended on June 18. In those thirty days, persons came to 
 our home seeking help in nineteen cases of opium suicide, and one of 
 opium poisoning. China may truly be called the land of suicides. I 
 have gathered statistics from five cities in four different provinces. 
 These were given me by missionaries working in these cities, who 
 came in contact with the cases recorded. 
 
 ' The first city is in the Province of Yunnan, and has a population 
 of 100,000. The cases of opium suicide in which the missionary's help 
 was solicited amounted to an average for twelve months of one a day. 
 I have known four cases in one day. 
 
 'The second city in the same province has a population of about 
 50,000, and in one year the missionaries were called to seventy-two 
 cases. 
 
 ' The third city is in the Province of Kueichou, and has about 
 80,000 people. In one year three hundred cases occurred in which 
 the missionaries' help was sought. Once, eight cases of suicide 
 happened in one day. 
 
 ' The fourth city is in the great Province of Szchuan, and has a 
 population of 300,000. When the statistics were taken there were 
 two missions working in the city. In one year the missionaries of 
 one of these missions were asked to save life in four hundred cases 
 of opium suicide. I have no record of what the other mission did. 
 
 ' The fifth city is in the Province of Anhwei, the home of the 
 notorious Li Hung-chang. The city has a population of 50,000, and 
 in one year eighty cases were brought to the missionary's notice. 
 
 'Thus, in a population of 580,000 more than 1,200 cases of opium 
 suicide occurred in twelve months in which the help of missionaries 
 
 667
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 was sought. It is rather uncertain work to argue from these figures 
 to the whole of China. Most of these statistics refer to the West 
 of China, which is pre-eminently the opium-growing district of China. 
 The drug is cheap and easily obtained. On the other hand, such 
 vast quantities are exported from these provinces that in many other 
 parts more than 80 per cent, of the adult males are users of the drug. 
 In nearly the whole of China opium can be readily and cheaply 
 obtained. 
 
 ' I have only recorded the cases in which the help of the mis- 
 sionary was requested. There are many cases where native remedies 
 are successfully used, and the aid of the hated foreigner is not called in. 
 We have noticed on many occasions that the missionary is not sent 
 for till all other help has failed. Taking these figures and facts into 
 account, I do not think any one who understands the case will say I 
 exaggerate when I reach the conclusion that in China every year 
 half a million people attempt suicide by opium. If the average of the 
 figures above held true for the whole of China, then the number would 
 be one million of attempted suicides every year. Surely China may be 
 termed the Land of Suicides ! The majority of these cases are 
 women, who, having no appeal in law against the tyranny and cruelty 
 of husbands, mothers-in-law, or brothers-in-law make their appeal 
 through suicide to the god of Hades. In many a case a woman can 
 only escape from a cruel fate by death. A young girl of about 
 seventeen summers lived three doors from the first house occupied by 
 the missionaries in this city. Her parents sold her to a man nearly 
 three times her age. The night before he came to take her away she 
 swallowed opium, and before morning had escaped his lustful clutches. 
 
 ' Quite a number are double suicides. Two persons quarrel. One 
 carries the case into Hades bysuicide,hoping both to get the first chance 
 there and to involve the surviving one in trouble, knowing he will be 
 accused of so persecuting the first one that there was no help for it 
 but suicide. The second resolves to stop this by following the first, 
 and removing the whole theatre of war to the Land of Shades. In 
 one such case in this city one of the patients was too far gone to be 
 saved, whereas the other could easily be restored. The friends, seeing 
 how matters stood, said : "If one dies, let both die," and refused 
 absolutely to render any help. I have before now saved the husband 
 in one room and the wife in another. 
 
 'We are successful in about 80 per cent, of the cases. Sometimes 
 the suicides struggle like demons before they will be saved. A friend 
 of mine was called to a strong man who resisted all efforts to make 
 him take an emetic. At last, with the aid of some of the friends, he 
 was pinioned on a table and held there by the weight of a big door 
 placed on him. This was indeed dragging a man by force from the 
 jaws of death. After the paroxysm is over the patient is usually 
 amenable to all reasoning. 
 
 ' On one occasion I was alone with a strong young fellow who 
 resisted all my efforts to do what his mother begged me to do. He 
 dashed my medicine away in a furious rage and refused to be saved. 
 Not feeling equal to tying him up and saving him by force, I 
 appealed to his superstitions by opening my eyes wide and roaring 
 at him as a " foreign devil " is supposed to be able to roar. The result 
 was a quiet, easy cure. Later on the victim thanked me heartily. 
 
 668
 
 Sun, Moon, and Stars 
 
 Sometimes we are not called in till the patient is dead, and even 
 then we are expected to succeed. One strong man, the only son of 
 his mother, lost all his money in a gambling bout. He came home 
 and swallowed opium. When too late his mother asked our help. 
 On seeing the case we told the poor woman her son was dead 
 and beyond our assistance. Thereupon her tears fell like the rain, 
 and she dashed her head furiously against the wall again and again, 
 crying in agony, " My son ! My only son ! " 
 
 ' What a sarcastic misnomer to term this land of suicides the 
 Celestial Land ! 
 
 This would make, with the round figures, a population 
 of 400,000,000, one in every 400 of the people. When 
 any opportunity for an attempt at statistics presents itself, 
 the results are most appalling, but it will be many years 
 before a certainty on the subject can be attained. 
 
 Book recommended. For an account of Chinese suttee, prevalent in the 
 country near Foochow, see Sir Walter Medhurst's ' The Foreigner in Far 
 Cathay,' p. 105. 
 
 SUN, MOON, AND STARS. The sun, moon, and 
 stars, with that fondness for numerical categories which 
 possesses the Chinese, are classed together as ' The Three 
 Lights.' The first is supposed to be four thousand miles 
 distant from the earth, and the heavens, by one writer, to 
 be seventy-three thousand miles off. After this it would 
 be superfluous to adduce any more instances of the know- 
 ledge, or rather want of knowledge, of the Chinese of the 
 heavenly bodies. A raven in a circle represents the sun. 
 
 The Chinese are more gallant than we are with regard 
 to the moon. They do not see any man in the moon, but 
 their legend, instead of being that of a man gathering 
 sticks on the Sabbath, and being sent to the moon as a 
 punishment, is of a female beauty, Chang-ngo by name, 
 who drank the elixir of immortality and went to the moon, 
 where she was transformed into a toad, which Chinese eyes 
 still trace in the shadows visible on that luminary's surface. 
 One of the most popular festivals is that of the moon, which 
 is worshipped in autumn, and moon-cakes are made and 
 exposed for sale everywhere. These are circular indi- 
 gestible cakes, elaborately decorated in the more expensive 
 varieties, and enclosed in circular pasteboard boxes with a 
 
 669'
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 piece of netting over the top. The children go wild about 
 them, and each little youngster is provided with one to 
 admire to his heart's content and gloat over. 
 
 The stars are arranged in constellations which would 
 quite puzzle the Western astronomer, though we question 
 if their combinations into nominal clusters are any 
 more arbitrary than our system of grouping them. 
 
 The five planets, according to the Chinese system, 
 are Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn. A most 
 wonderful system is evolved from the elementary corre- 
 spondences of these planets with water (Mercury), fire 
 (Mars), wood (Jupiter), metal (Venus), and earth (Saturn) : 
 the combinations and permutations of which are the cause 
 of the different effects produced in the visible universe. 
 The above are supposed to be intimately connected with 
 the five colours, black, carnation, azure, white, and yellow ; 
 with the five human viscera ; and with the five tastes, etc. 
 To descend from the wild visionary ideas of this scheme of 
 philosophy, falsely so called, we next find ourselves in the 
 mazes of superstition as regards the stars ; for not a few of 
 them are objects of worship, some of the most popular 
 being the Seven Sisters, for the Chinese, in common with 
 the ancient Greeks, represent the Pleiades as such. At 
 their festival a paper tray filled with seven imitation 
 mirrors, and other objects in sets of seven, are burned as 
 offerings to these star spirits. 
 
 Eclipses are a source of terror to the mass of the 
 Chinese, who believe that a celestial dog has the sun or 
 moon in its jaws and is about to swallow it. Gongs are 
 beaten to frighten away the monster : even the Govern- 
 ment lends its sanction to this absurd superstition, and the 
 high officials offer worship and add their official gongs to 
 the general din of the ignorant populace. See ' Fetichism : 
 A Contribution to Anthropology and the History of 
 Religion,' by F. Schultze, Dr. Ph., Chap., 6, Sect. 3 ; and 
 Sir John Lubbock's ' The Origin of Civilisation and the 
 Primitive Condition of Man,' Fourth Edition, pp. 229-233, 
 for similar beliefs and practices amongst other nations. 
 
 670
 
 Taoism and its Founder 
 TAOISM AND ITS FOUNDER.- 
 
 ' Taoism embraces the primeval religion of China and all the 
 intellectual tendencies which did not find satisfaction in Confucianism. 
 To these belong the various experiments in natural philosophy, and 
 in connection with them the belief in the possibility of overcoming 
 death by means of the elixir of immortality. By this, man enters 
 the everlasting life, leads a higher existence above the range of 
 material laws, in beautiful grottoes, on the sacred mountains, or on 
 the islands of the blessed, and so on. It is worthy of note that such 
 a belief, which bears some faint resemblance to the Christian belief 
 of the Resurrection, should have found acceptance from the earliest 
 to most recent times among the sober Chinese. There is a record of 
 the names of thousands of people who are supposed to have reached 
 this condition of immortality, and the life history of many of these 
 is preserved. It has even been asserted that more than 100,000 had 
 reached this goal.' 
 
 Thus writes Dr. Faber about this religion which in- 
 fluences the lives of almost all of the Chinese people to 
 a greater or lesser extent. 
 
 At about the same time that Confucius, the great Sage 
 of China, was endeavouring to get his principles adopted, 
 there lived another of China's great men whose views were 
 diametrically opposed to those of Confucius, and whose 
 opinions, or whose reputed opinions, formed the foundations 
 of a system as powerful over masses of the Chinese as Con- 
 fucianism itself. Of Lao-tsz our ignorance is profound : his 
 birth is mystified with legend ; of his life, little is known ; 
 and his death is hidden in obscurity. Amongst all the un- 
 certainty and doubt is found a short treatise, his one \vork, 
 ' The Tao Teh King ' ; its translation has taxed the best 
 endeavours of several eminent sinologists. Amidst its short, 
 terse, ringing sentences, flash jewels of the first water, set in 
 much that is obscure to the foreign reader, who longs to know 
 what this ancient worthy, China's Grand Old Man, really 
 meant. In this Lao-tsz, the founder of Taoism, we have 
 one of those men whose writings, life, and reputed actions, 
 have exerted an untold influence on the course of human 
 life in this world, but of whom the world, during his life- 
 time, took so little account that all that is authentically 
 known about him may be summed up in a few lines : ' Even 
 his parentage is surrounded with uncertainty, of his life we 
 
 671
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 know nothing except one or two facts, and we are ignorant 
 of the manner of his death and of the place of his burial. 
 And yet he was one of the deepest thinkers China has 
 produced.' This much appears to be certain, that he held 
 some Government appointment, Keeper of the Archives, or 
 Treasury Keeper, or Keeper of the Imperial Museum, as it 
 has been variously rendered into English. This was in the 
 state of Chou, and, foreseeing its inevitable downfall, he 
 ' resigned his office and went into retirement, cultivating 
 Tao and virtue.' The disorders increased in the state of 
 Chou, and, though living ' a life of retirement and oblivion,' 
 his place of retreat was not secure from violence. So he 
 started on that mysterious journey of which we have no 
 record, to some bourne from whence the old traveller never 
 returned ; lost to mortal ken, he left behind him (with the 
 Keeper of the Pass, with whom he stopped some time before 
 disappearing into obscurity) the small book mentioned 
 above, the only literary remains we have of one who has 
 exerted such an influence on the Chinese nation. 
 
 Besides these facts, we are told that Confucius met him ; 
 and a son of the philosopher is mentioned who became a 
 General in the state of Wei, but in a few generations, as far 
 as we are aware, the line seems to have gone out in obscure 
 darkness. 
 
 Legend has gathered round the few facts until quite a 
 halo has surrounded the old philosopher : myth and fable 
 have crystallised round the short and simple story of his 
 life till his whole being and actions are glorified ; they 
 gleam and glitter with the splendour of the marvellous, and 
 are magnified into the wonderful and miraculous ; added 
 glories are borrowed from the meretricious charms of a 
 debased and idolatrous Buddhism until the whole system 
 is transformed, aided by the vagaries of its own professors, 
 into a monstrous mass of charlatanism and thaumaturgic 
 mysteries which would shock Lao-tsz himself were another 
 avatar granted him ; for different incarnations are ascribed 
 to him in the past, and attributes pertaining to the Deity 
 are freely given to him to raise him in popular estimation 
 
 672
 
 Taoism and its Founder 
 
 attributes which in the Protestant West, being reserved 
 for One alone, greaten Him, but which, in the polytheistic 
 East, are belittled by being the common property of 
 hundreds and thousands of heroes and saints innumer- 
 able. But to return to our present philosopher : being thus 
 metamorphosed into one amongst hosts of the demigods of 
 China's pantheon, his birth is made to take place amidst 
 the marvellous the sight of a falling star caused his con- 
 ception, but he appears to have experienced reluctance in 
 entering into the world, for he was 81 years of age when 
 he was born, being an old grey-beard, hence the names, or 
 titles, by which he is known, Lao-tsz, ' The Old Boy,' or 
 ' The Ancient Philosopher,' and ' The Venerable Prince.' 
 
 The Chinese always give their sages most extraordinary 
 characteristics. As a sample of them we will give those 
 which Lao-tsz was said to possess : 
 
 ' His complexion was white and yellow ; his ears were of an 
 extraordinary size, and were each pierced with three passages. He 
 had handsome eyebrows, large eyes, ragged teeth, a double-ridged 
 nose, and a square mouth ; on each foot he had ten toes, and each 
 hand was ornamented with ten lines.' 
 
 The small book which Lao-tsz left behind him contains 
 only 5,000 words. It has been well said of it : 
 
 ' Probably no widely-spread religion was ever founded on so small 
 a base. Like an inverted pyramid the ever-increasing growth of Taoist 
 literature and superstitious doctrines, which make the sum of modern 
 Taoism, rests on this small volume as its ultimate support. We say 
 " ultimate " advisedly, for other works have long surpassed it in 
 popularity. Its philosophical speculations are far beyond the reach of 
 the ordinary reader, and even scholars are obliged to confess that they 
 have but a general idea of the meaning of the old recluse. "It is not 
 easy," says one of the best-known commentators, " to explain clearly 
 the more profound passages of Lao-tsz ; all that science is able to do 
 is to give the general sense." To European scholars the difficulty is 
 even greater. As Remusat remarks in his Memoire de Lao-tseu '. "The 
 text is so full of obscurity, we have so few means of acquiring a perfect 
 understanding of it, so little knowledge of the circumstances to which 
 the author makes allusion ; we are, in a word, so distant in all respects 
 from the ideas under the influence of which he writes, that it would be 
 temerity to pretend to reproduce exactly the sense which he had in 
 view, when that sense is beyond our grasp." It is, however, always easy 
 to affix a plausible interpretation to that which is not susceptible of 
 any definite explanation, and consequently a host of commentators 
 
 673 2 U
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 and translators have arisen, who find in the Tao Teh King confirmation 
 of their preconceived theories of his meaning and of their preconceived 
 wishes on his behalf.' 
 
 The Jesuit missionaries found in these mystical utter- 
 ances of the first Taoist philosopher a knowledge of the 
 Triune God, revealed five centuries before Christ, and the 
 mystic name of Jehovah. These fanciful speculations, 
 based probably on a misapprehension of a book most 
 difficult of comprehension, are not now received with 
 seriousness. 
 
 ' In the Tao Teh King, Lao-tsz has elaborated his idea of the 
 relations existing between the Universe and that which he calls Taou.' 
 ' The primary meaning of this name of a thing, which he declares to 
 be "without name," is "The Way," hence it has acquired the symbolic 
 meanings of "the right course of conduct," "reason," and it also 
 signifies "the word" (Logos). By all these meanings it has been 
 severally rendered by the translators of Lao-tsz's celebrated work. In 
 support of each rendering it is possible to adduce quotations from the 
 text, but none is the equivalent of Lao-tsz's Tao, The word Tao is 
 hot the invention of Lao-tsz. It was constantly in the mouth of 
 Confucius, and with him it meant the "Way." The Buddhists also 
 used it in the sense of " Intelligence," and called their co-religionists 
 Tao-jin, or " Men of Intelligence." If we were compelled to adopt a 
 single word to represent the Tao of Lao-tsz, we should prefer the sense 
 in which it is used by Confucius, " The Way," that is /?0o3oj. " If I 
 were endowed with prudence, I should walk in the great Tao. . . . 
 The great Tao is exceeding plain, but the people like the footpaths," 
 said Lao-tsz (chapter 53). But it is more than the way. It is the way 
 and the way-goer. It is an eternal road ; along it all beings and 
 things walk, but no being made it, for it is Being itself; it is every- 
 thing and nothing, and the cause and effect of all. All originate from 
 Tao, conform to Tao, and to Tao they at last return. 
 
 ' Tao is impalpable. You look at it and you cannot see it. You 
 listen and you cannot hear it. You try to touch it and you cannot 
 reach it. You use it and cannot exhaust it. It is not to be expressed 
 in words. It is still and void ; it stands alone, and changes not ; it 
 circulates everywhere, and is not endangered. It is ever inactive, and 
 yet leaves nothing undone. From it phenomena appear, through it 
 they change, in it they disappear. Formless, it is the cause of form. 
 Nameless, it is the origin of heaven and earth ; with a name it is the 
 mother of all things. It is the ethical nature of the good man and the 
 principles of his action. If we had then to express the meaning of 
 Tao, we should describe it as (i) the Absolute, the totality of Being 
 and Things ; (2) the phenomenal world and its order ; and (3) the 
 ethical nature of the good man and the principle of his action.' 
 
 To the English reader this book is one of the most 
 delightful of Chinese books of that class. 'The deepest 
 
 674
 
 Taoism and its Founder 
 
 thought is to be found in the Taoist classical works.' It 
 seems to approach nearer to the grand truths so magnifi- 
 cently expressed in parts of our own incomparable Bible. 
 Its diction is simple ; its sentences terse ; but its style 
 enigmatic ; the Westerner feels, though unable to put him- 
 self in complete rapport with the grand old philosopher, 
 more in sympathy with him than with the more highly 
 lauded Confucius. In the words of one writer : ' In such 
 utterances as these Lao-tsz showed himself to be as 
 superior to Confucius as the Christian dispensation is to 
 the Mosaic law.' 
 
 As the first purity of Christianity was sullied by the 
 superstitions and idolatry of the mediaeval times, so a 
 system of charms, idolatry, exorcism, elixirs of immortality, 
 masses of superstition, et hoc genus omne, have gathered 
 round the original Taoism. This growth of centuries forms 
 what is now known as Taoism, and, in common with 
 Buddhism and an adhesion to Confucianism, stands for 
 religion to the average Chinaman. It is believed in, in 
 moments of danger and death, but laughed at in their 
 sceptical hours by the better educated, who then profess 
 themselves Confucianists alone ; it, however, receives only 
 formal acknowledgment from many, though its thaumaturgic 
 priests, in harmony with those of the Buddhists, are relied 
 on by all to rescue the souls of their relatives from the 
 punishments of Hades by the performance of masses. 
 
 Earlier Taoism boasts of two philosophers, Lieh-tsz and 
 Chwang-tsz, who have been latinised as Licius and Chancius. 
 We have not the space to go into a dissertation on all their 
 opinions. 
 
 Suffice it to say of Licius that ' the belief in the identity of 
 existence and non-existence, and the constant alternations from the 
 one to the other observable in all nature, assumed in his eyes a 
 warrant for the old doctrine, " Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we 
 die."' 
 
 'The vanity of human effort' was Chancius's 'main theme, and the 
 Confucianists were the principal objects of his denunciations.' ' The 
 fussy politician who boasts of having governed the empire is given to 
 understand that the empire would have been very much better 
 governed if it had been left alone, and the man who seeks to establish 
 
 675
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 a reputation is told that reputation is but " the guest of reality.' 1 
 He was at one with the code of Menu, and pronounced the waking 
 state one of deceptive appearances, . . . but though there was this 
 unreality in existence, life was yet a thing to be cared for. . . . This 
 care for life was quite compatible . . . with an indifference for death.' 
 Of his own funeral, he said : ' I will have heaven and earth for 
 my sarcophagus, the sun and moon shall be the insignia when 
 I lie in state, and all creation shall be the mourners at my 
 funeral.' 
 
 The mass of Chinese have cast aside the philosophical 
 and metaphysical speculations of the old philosopher and 
 his immediate followers, and on the small foundations of 
 the Tao Teh King a superstructure of hay, stubble, rubbish, 
 and rottenness has been raised. They appear to have 
 started off at a tangent from his ideas, and evolved some 
 elaborate systems, wandering off into empty space. The 
 craving of man for immortality degenerated into a fruitless 
 search for plants, which, when eaten, would confer it ; for 
 charms which would bestow it ; for elixirs, the quaffing of 
 which would send it coursing through one's veins. So 
 strong were these beliefs that Taoist books were spared in 
 the general destruction by the hated Ts'in Shih Huang-ti 
 (B.C. 200) ; and the same monarch, who was a Taoist him- 
 self, dispatched a naval expedition to discover the ' golden 
 isles of the blest, where dwelt genii, whose business and 
 delight it was to dispense to all visitors to their shores a 
 draught of immortality, compounded of the fragrant herbs 
 which grew in profusion around them.' 
 
 Magicians arose under the iegis of Taoism who ' professed to have 
 mastered the powers of nature. They threw themselves into fire 
 without being burned, and into water without being drowned. They 
 held the secret of the philosophers stone, and raised tempests at their 
 will.' 
 
 So soon was the original Taoism of Lao-tsz forgotten, that all the 
 vagaries of these mystic jugglers were believed in, 'and the attention 
 of all his professed followers was directed to obtaining the elixir of 
 immortality and the philosopher's stone. . . . The mania for these 
 magical arts among the Chinese during the Ts'in and Western Han 
 dynasties seems to have been as general and as acute as the South 
 Sea Scheme madness among our forefathers. From the emperors 
 downwards, the people devoted their lives to seeking immunity from 
 death and poverty. Business of every kind was neglected, fields were 
 left untilled, the markets were deserted, and the only people who 
 gained any share of the promised benefits were the professors of 
 
 6/6
 
 Taoism and its Founder 
 
 Taoism who trafficked with the follies of their countrymen, and who 
 fattened on the wealth of the credulous.' 
 
 One of the votaries is said to have been the Emperor Woo. ' " I 
 know," said Le Shaou-keun to the Emperor, "how to harden snow 
 and to change it into white silver ; I know how cinnabar transforms its 
 nature and passes into yellow gold. I can rein the flying dragon and 
 visit the extremities of the earth ; I can bestride the hoary crane and 
 soar above the nine degrees of heaven," and in return for these 
 imaginary powers he became the chosen adviser of the Emperor, and 
 received the most exalted honours.' After this reign, however, the 
 Taoism of this character lost favour and ' the ethics of Confucius and 
 the mysticism of Lao-tsz' grew in estimation. 
 
 Later on, Imperial sacrifices were ordained to the 
 philosopher ; and Buddhism exerted its influence on 
 Taoism. With regard to the latter it is almost amusing to 
 notice the plagiarism of the writers of Taoist books in 
 adopting into, and adapting to, their religion the legends 
 and tales of the idols of Buddhism ; for in modern Chinese 
 thought and practice the saints and the deified dogmas of 
 Buddhism really form a pantheon of that religion. 
 
 Taoism not only basked in Imperial favour at times, 
 but also suffered the withering scorn of those rulers who 
 pinned their faith exclusively to the tenets of the politico- 
 ethical Confucianism. ' Asceticism and public worship 
 soon became engrafted on the doctrine of Lao-tsz ' ; the 
 Buddhists and Taoists, however, were sworn enemies, the 
 one party taunting the other with being jugglers, while the 
 other retorted that the Buddhists were strangers in the 
 land. With the accession of the T'ang dynasty the 
 delusions of the elixir of immortality and the philosopher's 
 stone began to exercise their influence over the minds of 
 men. Lao-tsz was canonised, and one of the Emperors 
 actually went so far as to introduce his writings into the 
 syllabus for literary competitive examinations. The 
 Taoists flourished and suffered alternately under different 
 sovereigns and dynasties, until the time of the Sung 
 dynasty. In A.D. 859, one of the Emperors found his death 
 instead of eternal life in the elixir of immortality. Two of 
 the sovereigns had already succumbed to it in A.D. 824 and 
 846. Shortly after that, in another 150 years, Taoism lost 
 its hold in the Imperial Court. A Chinese poem sums up 
 
 677
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 this phase of Taoism and ' gives a concise view of the craze 
 which seized on Chinese alchemists two thousand years 
 ago, of which the search for the elixir of life and the 
 philosopher's stone in Europe was a mere echo.' Dr. 
 Martin thus puts it into English : 
 
 ' A prince the draught immortal went to seek ; 
 And finding it he soared above the spheres. 
 In mountain caverns he had dwelt a week ; 
 Of earthly time it was a thousand years.' 
 
 The priests of Lao-tsz married, and were like the common 
 people in all points but in the matter of paying taxes from 
 which they were exempt, though by their law or custom, in 
 imitation of Buddhism, they were supposed to be celibates ; 
 but 'under the first Emperor of the Sung dynasty 
 (A.D. 960-976), however, a return to a stricter system was 
 enforced, and they were forbidden to marry.' At the 
 present day the Taoist priests, who have become such since 
 their marriage, retain their wives, nor are those who have 
 not hitherto been married prevented from marrying, thus 
 presenting a striking contrast to the Buddhist priests. 
 
 One of the books which exerts the greatest influence 
 over the mass of the Chinese people is the ' Book of Rewards 
 and Punishments,' which is based upon Taoism ; it leaves 
 untouched the abstruse philosophy of Lao-tsz, but elaborates 
 a system of morality for everyday life upon the foundation 
 of his sayings. Amidst much chaff and modern superstition 
 there are many grains of truth and good advice, enforced 
 by the promises of rewards for good, virtuous actions, and 
 the threatening of evil-doers with present and future 
 punishment. 
 
 Another book must be mentioned in this connection as exerting an 
 influence on the Chinese mind : it is ' The Book of Secret Blessings,' 
 which has been described as having 'no reference whatever to the 
 doctrines of Taoism, but only a number of moral injunctions of great 
 ethical purity.' 'These two works may fairly be taken to represent 
 the moral side of modern Taoism. Few professing Taoists trouble 
 themselves at the present day about the musings of Lao-tsz or the 
 dreamy imaginings of his early followers. They pursue only their own 
 good, mainly temporal, but also moral. To secure the former they 
 have recourse to the magical works of the sect, and to the expounders 
 
 678
 
 Taoism and its Founder 
 
 of these, the Taoist priests. They buy charms and practise exorcisms, 
 at the bidding and for the profit of these needy charlatans, and they 
 study with never-failing interest the advice and receipts contained in 
 the numberless books and pamphlets published for their benefit. Into 
 some of these, Buddhist ideas are largely imported, and the doctrine 
 of the existence of hell, which finds no kind of canonical sanction, is 
 commonly preached. Liturgies, also framed on Buddhist models, 
 abound, and in some cases not only the form, but even the phraseology, 
 of Hindoo works is incorporated into these prayer-books.' 
 
 At the head of the Taoist pantheon stands a trinity, in 
 imitation of the Buddhist trinity that of the ' Three Pure 
 Ones ' and though Taoism originally was not an idolatrous 
 system, the baneful influence of latter-day Buddhism on the 
 Chinese mind has induced the votaries of the Chinese system 
 (for, as has already been seen, Taoism is of native origin) 
 to pander to the material instincts of the idolatrous mind, 
 and a whole host of superior and inferior deities gods, 
 genii, heroes, good men, and virtuous women, the spirits of 
 stars and the visible manifestations of nature and of the 
 elements, such as thunder and lightning, as well as dragons 
 have all been classed together as objects of worship, 
 while the God of Literature, and Gods and Goddesses of 
 Disease, all receive their share of attention. Below the 
 trinity of Three Pure Ones, and above the others, presides 
 the Gemmeous Supreme Ruler, and one of the strongest 
 objections to the use of the words Shangti (Supreme 
 Ruler) as the equivalent in Chinese for the Christian God is 
 that this title is by common usage that/wr excellence of that 
 idol, and the common people instinctively think of the 
 Taoist Shangti when the words are used, though it is 
 employed in the ancient Chinese classics in a different 
 sense. After these hierarchal deities come hosts of other 
 gods : 
 
 'Star gods, the 28 constellations, the 60 cycle-stars, the 129 lucky 
 or unlucky stars ; then the gods of the five elements, of natural 
 phenomena, of sickness and of medicine ; the animal gods, such as 
 the fox, tiger, dragon, etc. ; the gods of literature, specially the in- 
 numerable local divinities, at the head of which stand the city gods.' 
 
 The Pope of Taoism, who lives in the ' Dragon and 
 Tiger Mountains ' in the province of Kiangsi, is styled 
 
 679
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 ' Heavenly Teacher,' a title bestowed on his first predecessor 
 by one of the Chinese Emperors in A.D. 423. Since then 
 this dignity has been hereditary in the family. 
 
 'The Chinese believe that this pope is head over the gods and 
 spirits which are worshipped throughout the realm, that he instals or 
 suspends, exalts or degrades them according to imperial not divine ! 
 command. He grants an audience to the gods on the first of every 
 month, and all attend, those of the heavens, the nether world, the 
 ocean, etc. He has possession of the magic sword with which he 
 controls the demons and shuts them up in earthen pitchers. He 
 rules as the representative on earth of the Jasper-god [the Gemmeous 
 Ruler mentioned above] and grants the Taoist monasteries their 
 licence.' 'Although popes have existed, for nearly 1,500 years, there 
 is no record in Chinese history of any one of them opposing an imperial 
 libertine or of causing any wild rebel to relinquish his cause and 
 settle down peacefully.' 
 
 Another writer thus sums up Taoism : describing its 
 position in the Chinese eclecticism which stands for religion 
 amongst this curious people : 
 
 ' In early Chinese records we find many references to the worship 
 of Supernatural Beings ; the Emperor worships Heaven, the people 
 worship the gods of each particular spot of land ; Mountains and 
 Streams are worshipped, and the Spirits of Departed Men. In fact 
 they seem always to have been free they now are to picture in their 
 minds and worship just what Supernatural Beings they chose. There 
 was then in the Chinese mind, as there is now, a vague image of a 
 Supernatural World consisting of countless Beings who were behind 
 and controlled phenomena. The chief of these Beings was called 
 Shangti, the Supreme God, who seems to have been pictured as 
 ruling the Supernatural World, much as the Feudal Lord or Emperor 
 ruled the Kingdoms of which China then consisted. To this state 
 of things came Confucius who summed up the practical philosophy 
 and ethics of the day and occupied with his teaching the sphere of 
 human relations man's duty to his neighbour but left the rest much 
 as he found it. Then followed Buddhism from India, and occupied 
 the sphere of man's relations to a future life, with fixed tenets and 
 teaching, in fact a Religion and the first China had heard of. That 
 she had no religion of her own is proved by the fact that she has no 
 word with that meaning, kiao, the word in use, meaning no more 
 than "doctrine." Taoism was the attempt of the native scholars to 
 make out of the heterogeneous materials of Nature Worship a religion 
 after the model of, and to seme as a rival to, Buddhism. . . . 
 But to the above a correction must be applied, tending, however, to 
 make the subject matter of Taoism more mixed still. There is (i) 
 Lao Tzu's teaching about Tao, the way ; and there is (2) the Black 
 Art, the search for the elixir of life and the philosopher's stone these 
 two have both been important elements in Taoism and cannot be 
 disregarded : the second requires no explanation. Chinese alchemy 
 
 680
 
 Tea 
 
 seems to have followed much the same course as in the West. In 
 regard to Tao, we will venture a word of explanation, for it is far the 
 most important term in Chinese philosophy and seems to embrace 
 a valuable idea. What does it mean ? The way or right course. But 
 whither? Suppose the universe of mind and matter to be subject to 
 immutable forces and laws from the effects of which man has abso- 
 lutely no hope of escape ; and suppose a man contemplated doing 
 something, whether with hands or with his brain, there is one best 
 way to effect his object and that best way is Tao. It is true that the 
 word is often very vaguely used, but in its abstract sense it usually 
 means either (i) the immutable laws of the universe themselves when 
 it corresponds to nattira, of the Stoics (See Walter's learned disquisi- 
 tion on this word " Essays in the Chinese Language," page 229), or (2) 
 the right way to act with regard to those laws as explained above. 
 
 ' Clearly this idea of Tao is for the learned, and alchemy being 
 long ago dead, there remains only Nature-worship and that is what 
 Taoism is for the mass of the people,' combined with the worship of 
 a host of idols. 
 
 Books recommended. Professor Douglas's 'Confucianism and Taoism,' 
 contains an interesting monograph on this religion, from which we have 
 largely quoted in the above article. Specimens of the tales of Taoism will l>e 
 found in ' Scraps from Chinese Mythology,' by Rev. Dyer Ball, M.A., M.D. 
 Annotated by J. Dyer Ball, printed in vols. ix., xi., xii., xiii., of 
 The China Heineir. See also 'China in the Light of History,' a series of 
 papers translated from the German and published in The Chinese Pecorder 
 and Afissionai-y Journal, vol. xxvii. pp. 387-390, Article 'Taoism.' Also 
 see Books recommended at the end of the Article on Philosophy. ' The L6 Fan 
 Mountains : An Excursion,' by F. S. A. Bourne, pp. 27, 28 and 29. 
 
 TEA. The names for tea in the West are amongst 
 the few words derived from Chinese, and were introduced 
 with the leaf into Europe. These names, though they 
 seem dissimilar in some languages, are all originally from 
 the same words, the differences being due to the particular 
 Chinese speech (or so-called dialect) from which they have 
 been borrowed. In the Fuhkienese type of languages, tea 
 is known by the word te (pronounced teJt], and it is from 
 this source that the French word //A/, the Italian te, the 
 Spanish te, German thee, Dutch thee, Danish the, Gaelic // 
 (pronounced tay), and Malay teh, are all derived, as well as 
 our English word tea. In the greater part of the Chinese 
 empire the word for ' the cup that cheers but not inebriates ' 
 is ch'd (pronounced ch'ah), and it is from this pronunciation 
 of it that the names used in Russia (tshai}, in Portugal 
 (cha), and in Italy (cia) are derived. Strange to say, the 
 Italians, however, have two names for tea, cia and tc, the 
 
 68 1
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 latter, of course, is from the Chinese word te, noticed above, 
 while the former is derived from the word ch'd. It is curious 
 to note in this connection that an early mention, if not 
 the first notice, of the word in English is under the form cha 
 (in an English Glossary of A.D. 1671): we are also told 
 that it was once spelt tcha both evidently derived from the 
 Cantonese form of the word ; but thirteen years later we have 
 the word derived from the Fokienese te, but borrowed 
 through the French and spelt as in the latter language the"; 
 the next change in the word is early in the following century, 
 when it drops the French spelling and adopts the present 
 form of tea, though the Fokienese pronunciation, which the 
 French still retain, is not dropped for the modern pronuncia- 
 tion of the now wholly Anglicised word tea till comparatively 
 lately. It will thus be seen that we, like the Italians, might 
 have had two forms of the word, had we not discarded the 
 first, which seemed to have made but little lodgment with 
 us, for the second. 
 
 The tea-bush belongs to the botanical family of the 
 Ternstroemiace&i to which the camellia likewise belongs. 
 It is an evergreen, and ' has come lately to be looked upon 
 by many as only a particular species of the genus 
 camellia, since there are no generic differences (e.g., in 
 Bentham and Hooper's " Genera Plantarum ").' It does 
 not grow in the northern provinces of China, but ranges 
 between the twenty-third and thirty-fifth degrees of 
 latitude. Though tea will grow on poor soil, it has been 
 proved, by experiments in India, that the best soil for it is 
 a friable, light-coloured, porous one with a fair proportion of 
 sand and a superabundance of decaying vegetable matter 
 on the surface. To produce good tea, high cultivation is 
 necessary : a small plantation with such cultivation will 
 pay better than one twice the size with low cultivation. 
 Tea, especially the China variety, will grow in varying 
 climates and soils, but it will not flourish in all of them. 
 ' The rainfall should not be less than 80 to 100 inches per 
 annum.' It can grow where the thermometer falls below 
 freezing-point, but it ' cannot be too hot for tea if the heat 
 
 682
 
 Tea 
 
 is accompanied with moisture.' The yield is double in a 
 hot and moist climate from what it is in a comparatively 
 dry and temperate one, for it yields most abundantly with 
 hot sunshine and showers and with the rain equally 
 diffused. Fogs, in the early part of the year, in the 
 morning, and a considerable amount of rain in February, 
 March, and April, benefit the plant. Hot winds combined 
 with a dry temperature do not suit it. These observations 
 on the right climate for tea are the results of experiments 
 in India ; and any one knowing that of Southern China 
 will see that these are just the climatic conditions of that 
 part of the world. 
 
 Some Botanists seem to be in doubt as to ' whether 
 China, the land where it has been so long cultivated, is its 
 original home, and, if so, which part of China.' ' No 
 accounts have come to us of the tea-shrub being cultivated 
 for its infusion till A.D. 350.' The tea-plant in China is the 
 common tea-bush. In Assam, where it was discovered 
 fifty years ago, it has been looked upon as an indigenous 
 plant 
 
 'The home of the China tea-plant is now [1900] believed to have 
 been Upper Assam, although its existence in this region was not 
 generally known until 1834. Professor A. Kratsnow of Kharkoff, 
 Russia, decides further that the tea-plant must be indigenous to the 
 whole monsoon region of Eastern Asia, as he has found it growing 
 wild in dense uncultivated forests as far north as the island of 
 Southern Japan. He believes that it existed in China and Japan long 
 before the cultivated form was introduced from the south-west. The 
 period of cultivation having been too short to produce the modifica- 
 tion existing, he concludes that the peculiar properties of the Chinese 
 plant have resulted from changes of climate in Eastern Asia since the 
 Tertiary Epoch, instead of from cultivation in a colder climate or from 
 exhausted soil. He traces the two varieties Assam and Chinese to 
 remote times, finding the first still growing wild in India and the other 
 occurring still wild in Southern Japan.' 
 
 The China plant grows to be six or seven feet in height 
 in India, while the Assam plant becomes a little tree (but 
 it is said if the China tea-plant is allowed to grow it 
 also attains considerable size) and grows to the height of 
 fifteen or eighteen feet. In China, the tea-plants seldom 
 exceed three feet, ' most of them are half that height, 
 
 683
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 straggling, and full of twigs, often covered with lichens,' 
 but the ground round them is well hoed and clean. 
 Unlike the large tea-gardens in India, the Chinese planta- 
 tions are simply little patches, often on the slopes, or at 
 the foot of hills, where both drainage and moisture are 
 easily provided. The tea-growers either pick the leaves 
 themselves or sell them to middle-men. The leaf of the 
 China tea-plant is four inches long at the most, and of a 
 dull dark-green colour, while the lowest branches grow 
 out close to the ground. ' The tea flower is small, single, 
 and white, has no smell, and soon falls. . . . The seeds are 
 three small nuts, like filberts in colour, in a triangular 
 shell which splits open when ripe, with valves between the 
 seeds.' All the varieties of the Chinese tea-plant have 
 probably arisen from culture. When ripe, in October, the 
 nuts are put in a mixture of damp sand and earth ; they 
 are thus preserved fresh till spring, when, in March, they 
 are sown in a nursery ; a year after, the shoots are trans- 
 planted, being put in rows about four feet apart. The 
 leaf is first plucked when the shrub is three years old, and 
 the picking is continued till the eighth year, on an 
 average. 
 
 The first picking of the tea leaf is that over which the 
 most pains is taken, and consists of the young leaves, a 
 great many of which are not fully grown. There is a 
 whitish down on these leaves, and from this circumstance 
 comes the name/m^, the words in Chinese from which it 
 has been derived meaning ' white down.' In this connec- 
 tion it may be interesting to give the derivation of some of 
 the other names of tea. Hyson, so we are told, is a 
 corruption of two Chinese words, yii-ts^in, 'before the rain,' 
 the young hyson being half-opened leaves plucked in April 
 before the spring rains ; but with regard to this explanation 
 it may be said that the Chinese have a variety of teas 
 known a.syu-ts l {n, so named for the reason given above. 
 We also read that hyson is derived from the name Hi'-chun. 
 H{-chun, so the story goes, was a maiden living about two 
 hundred years ago, who introduced a better method of 
 
 684
 
 Tea 
 
 sorting her father's tea, which so increased his business 
 that the tea was named after her. Of this pretty story it 
 may be remarked, se non & vero, e ben trovato. The 
 meaning of the Chinese characters used, viz. : hl-ctitin 
 ' felicitous spring,' though perhaps more prosaic than the 
 above explanations of the derivation of the name, is still 
 sufficiently poetical to satisfy one without searching 
 further. Sou-chong means small> or rare variety. Congou 
 means work or worked^ from being well worked, while 
 Bohea is the name of the hills in the Fuhkien province 
 where that variety of tea is grown. The same province 
 also gives the well-known tea name, oo-long, i.e., black 
 dragon. Here we have another story to account for the 
 origin of this name : A black snake (and snakes are 
 sometimes looked upon as dragons in China) was coiled 
 round a plant of this tea, and hence the name. 
 
 But to return to the tea-pickings : care has to be exercised 
 in plucking so as not to injure the plant and prevent 
 a supply of future ' flushes,' as they are technically 
 called. After the spring rains the second plucking is 
 made ; this takes place in different latitudes at different 
 times, say from I5th May to June : it is then that the tea- 
 plant is in full leaf. Women and children strip the twigs, 
 and fifteen pounds picked in a day by one person is 
 considered good work, but the pay is only six or eight 
 cents. One tea-tree will yield from eight or ten to sixteen 
 or twenty-two ounces of leaf. This second picking only 
 lasts ten or twelve days. The curing is done as 
 follows : 
 
 The leaves are first 'thinly spread on shallow trays to dry off all 
 moisture by two or three hours' exposure ' to the air by day, or they are 
 left out over-night. ' They are thrown into the air and tossed about and 
 patted till they become soft ; a heap is made of these wilted leaves 
 and left to lie for an hour or more, when they become moist and dark 
 in colour. They are then thrown on the hot pans for five minutes and 
 rolled on the rattan table, previous to exposure out-of-doors for three 
 or four hours on sieves, during which time they are turned over and 
 opened out. After this they get a second roasting and rolling to give 
 them their final curl. When the charcoal fire is ready, a basket, 
 shaped something like an hour-glass,' but about three feet high, 'is 
 placed endwise over it, having a sieve in the middle, on which the 
 
 685
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 leaves are thinly spread. When dried five minutes in this way they 
 undergo another rolling, and are then thrown into a heap, until all the 
 lot has passed over the fire. When this firing is finished, the leaves 
 are opened out, and are again thinly spread on the sieve in the basket 
 for a few minutes, which finishes the drying and rolling for most of the 
 heap, and makes the leaves a uniform black. They are now replaced 
 in the basket in greater mass, and pushed against its sides by the 
 hands in order to allow the heat to come up through the sieve and the 
 vapour to escape ; a basket over all retains the heat, but the contents 
 are turned over until perfectly dry and the leaves become uniformly 
 dark.' 
 
 The green tea is subjected to somewhat similar opera- 
 tions, with the exception of the fermentation process. 
 ' While the leaves of each species of the shrub can be cured 
 into either green or black tea, the workmen in one district 
 are able by practice to produce one kind in a superior 
 style and quality ; those in another region will do better 
 with another kind.' ' The colour of the green tea, as well 
 as its quality, depends very much on rapid and expert 
 drying.' The sea air is a sworn enemy to all delicately fired 
 leaves, and tea, to be perfection, requires to be lightly fired. 
 The caravan teas, so called from being transported over- 
 land through cold, dry countries, were able to dispense 
 with ' the final thorough heating in the drying establish- 
 ments of the ports,' accorded to that shipped, and the aroma 
 was consequently not dissipated, but such a long land 
 journey is expensive. We look forward with interest to 
 its transportation on a trans-Asiatic railway, as it is 
 possible, when carried in that way the tea will stand the 
 transit to the West better than it does now. 
 
 Brick tea used to be sent overland to Siberia ; but an 
 experiment which was attended with success was tried in 
 1897, the tea being shipped from Hankow to London, and 
 thence transhipped by steamers to the mouth of the Yenisei 
 River, and, after a further water journey, finally reaching 
 the Siberian Railway. 
 
 But comparatively few foreigners, even in China itself, 
 drink anything but the excessively fired teas ; for having 
 been used to them from infancy in England and other 
 countries, they do not appreciate the lightly fired kinds, 
 and often are not even aware of their existence, while the 
 
 686
 
 Tea 
 
 Chinese, believing foreigners like the exported varieties, 
 supply them with it. Good tea should be of a light brown ; 
 the water, to pour on the leaves, should be quite boiling, 
 and only just boiling ; and the tea should not be allowed 
 to draw for half an hour or more, as the tannin is thus 
 drawn out of the leaves. Far better a fresh infusion, if re- 
 quired, some time after the first drawing, thus following 
 the Chinese fashion of making a fresh brew for each visitor 
 that calls. 
 
 Another excellent plan of the Chinese, with regard to 
 tea, is that of sometimes using large cups containing almost 
 as much as a large breakfast coffee-cup. Leaves, sufficient 
 for a cup of tea, are thrown into the bottom of this, and 
 the boiling water poured on. The cup has a lid which 
 covers it up for the first few minutes that it is drawing, and 
 the tea is handed piping hot and freshly made to each 
 one ; the lid also serves to saucer a few sips of it at a time 
 and cool it when drinking, while at the bottom of the cup, 
 covered by the delicate almost amber-coloured fluid, lie the 
 leaves, uncurled by the heat of the water. 
 
 In Swatow and neighbourhood, tiny, toy tea-cups and 
 tea-pots are used, the cups containing scarcely more than 
 two or three sips of tea. It looks very ridiculous to see 
 grown-up people produce a small tray with this lilliputian 
 ware on it. The ordinary tea-cups used by the Cantonese 
 are small enough, but they are much larger than these 
 Swatow ones. 
 
 Though green tea, i.e., natural green tea, may be, and 
 is, produced, the danger of fermentation on the voyage, 
 and its unmarketable state, if fired sufficiently to stand the 
 sea air, has probably given rise to the practice of colouring 
 tea to cause it to retain its green colour; there is no 
 necessity for doing so with tea for home consumption in 
 China, the Chinese are not so foolish as to drink an in- 
 fusion of Prussian blue, for this is the substance that is 
 used, mixed with gypsum, to colour, or face, the green 
 tea. 
 
 The well-known character of the Chinese for temper- 
 
 687
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 ance has been ascribed to their universal use of tea, and it 
 would be well for many in Western lands if, instead of 
 soaking themselves with beer, they would copy the 
 example of the abstemious Chinese in this respect 
 
 Different kinds of flowers are used to scent tea, such 
 as roses, tuberoses, oranges, jasmines, gardenias, azaleas, 
 as well as the olea fragrans ; only the petals are used 
 for the purpose. Some choice brands of tea are grown 
 on small plots of ground, and command almost a fabulous 
 price : such as in some of the gardens near monasteries, 
 owned by the priests and attended to by their inferior 
 followers. 
 
 Tea for many years furnished the greatest article of 
 commerce in China. 
 
 ' China has been the fountain-head whence the tea culture has 
 spread to other countries.' It is only within recent years that tea 
 cultivation has been undertaken in other lands, where it ' is assuming 
 large proportions. . . . The Spanish authorities have tried to raise 
 it in the Philippines ; the Dutch in Sumatra, Java, and Borneo ; the 
 English in the Straits Settlements ; and the French in Cochin China. 
 Nearly all these experiments have been failures, the only successes 
 reported being from mountainous countries, where there was moisture, 
 good soil, and not an excess of warmth. The Dutch have turned 
 this discovery to account, and now confine their efforts to the high 
 mountainous districts with which their .olonial possessions abound ; 
 good tea has been produced in a number of places under these condi- 
 tions, but the quality has been very inferior to the fine growths of 
 Formosa and Foochow.' 
 
 The above quotation does not mention, however, all the 
 places where tea is cultivated, or where attempts have been 
 made to do so ; we may add to the list the well-known 
 names of Ceylon, India, Assam, Japan, and the lesser 
 known experiments in Johore, the United States, Natal, 
 Fiji, Borneo, Servia, Mexico, and South Carolina ; doubt- 
 less, in other places as well, trial has been made of the 
 cultivation of this useful shrub. The troops in Java are 
 supplied with local tea. The attempts to grow it in the 
 Trans-Caucasian territory have turned out a success, 
 flourishing plantations are in the neighbourhood of Batoum, 
 and during the last few years Natal has developed into a 
 tea-producing country, the output in 1898 amounting to 
 
 688
 
 Tea 
 
 over 1,000,000 Ibs., one estate alone producing more than 
 one half of this. 
 
 'Successful attempts have been made this year [1901] 
 to grow tea in America. Experts declare it to be equal in 
 flavour and aroma to the best imported product.' 
 
 Machinery would appear to have been largely used of 
 late years in the manufacture of Indian teas ; electricity 
 has even- been yoked in the service of man for the 
 preparation of tea ; but the Chinese still retain their old 
 style, and object, probably from prejudice, to any innova- 
 tions, and as long as their tea sells they are content, though 
 attempts have been made to influence them in the favour 
 of machinery. 
 
 'Whether China tea, if and when it is prepared by machinery, 
 will retain its present advantage in the time that it will last in com- 
 parison with the short period that Indian and Ceylon teas keep, is 
 a question that can only be answered when we have had actual 
 experience. It is notorious at present that Indian and Ceylon teas 
 go off a few months after arrival in this country (England), whilst 
 China tea, as hitherto prepared, could be kept for considerable 
 periods of time without showing any decided signs of having "gone 
 off.'" 
 
 A trial of preparation of tea by machinery has been 
 made by the ' Foochow Tea Improvement Company,' and 
 some parcels of this tea were put on the London market, 
 and all concerned were very sanguine of success, but the 
 venture has not been able to make its way. 
 
 This experiment has unfortunately proved a failure on 
 account, so we are told, of the difficulty of procuring a 
 sufficiency of tea to keep the machinery going. 
 
 In fact, machine rolling has been tried in several places 
 two at least, and it is to be hoped that it, or something 
 else to be discovered, will resuscitate the dying China tea 
 trade. One of the difficulties in the way will be shown by 
 the following : - 
 
 ' It is the custom in this country [this is written at Hankow in 
 1897] often to keep the newly picked leaf for a day or so, in hopes of 
 obtaining a higher price for it, or it is passed on in bags from one 
 district to another where a better sale is looked for. This of course 
 entirely spoils it for the London taste of the present day that is, 
 Strength and rankness, which is obtained only through immediate 
 
 689 2 X
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 firing. So long as quotations of taels 50 or so continue for fine teas 
 suitable for Russia, it is hardly to be expected a change will be made. 
 The old fashion pays well enough.' 
 
 That this should be so seems unfortunate, as it is stated 
 that : 
 
 ' Machine-rolling gives the leaf a more even twist and causes 
 less breakage than by hand ; but, more important still, the even re- 
 gulated pressure of the machine keeps the- sap of the green leaf 
 working among the rolling leaf, and it is not expressed, as is the 
 case with teas prepared by the Chinese method. The use of the 
 roller, too, brings out the small Pekoe leaves with a bright golden 
 appearance, whereas the Chinese method of preparation causes the 
 leaves to turn black.' . . . The first small shipment of these 
 teas to Melbourne gave a result of some Taels 7 per picul more 
 than was obtained by native-made tea selling side by side with it ; 
 such teas ' received most favourable notice in the London reports,' 
 and 'some "Golden Pekoe" sold at iofd.' 
 
 To those who like a good article, the 'darker liquor 
 which brews out from Indian and Ceylon tea' with its 
 greater pungency will be no recommendation in its favour ; 
 for softness of flavour is to be found in China teas ; but 
 cost seems to be the point round which the struggle will be 
 maintained ; and if China will only listen to the suggestions 
 of those who are able to advise her, and send home as 
 good an article as she used to ship so largely, the victory 
 may yet be hers. 
 
 The Indian and Ceylon teas are offering a serious com- 
 petition to China, the original tea-producing country. The 
 trade is declining, and some vigorous efforts will have to 
 be made to retain what they already possess ; but, un- 
 fortunately, the Chinese do not appear to be alive to the 
 importance of taking steps to hold their own in the 
 world's market against the stronger article produced in 
 India, neither have they yet learned the wisdom of putting 
 up smaller ' chops ' (brands) of tea, as is the practice in 
 India, nor have they entered into the combinations which 
 the Indian planters have formed to push their productions 
 into notice wherever a chance of doing so presents itself. 
 
 'Americans having acquired a taste for green tea which is now 
 chiefly supplied by China, and the crusade to push Indian and Ceylon 
 black teas in the United States not having met with the .success 
 anticipated, a few Indian planters have turned their attention to the 
 
 690
 
 Tea 
 
 manufacture of green tea for the American market. The first con- 
 signment of this tea has now arrived in Calcutta.' 
 
 There is necessity for improvement, at some places in 
 China, in the manufacture of tea prepared for the foreign 
 market ; and some endeavours have been made to meet 
 the competition of Indian and other teas, and the heavy 
 burden of Chinese taxation, by lessening the costs of pro- 
 duction. Both Foochow and Shanghai foreign merchants 
 have recommended more careful cultivation and packing. 
 
 ' If China were to remove the export duty on tea and sweep 
 away the various local burdens that hamper the planter, then indeed 
 Chinese tea might be regarded as a formidable competitor with the 
 product of India and Ceylon, but so long as it is weighted with a 
 burden of taxation that leaves no reasonable margin of profit, the tea 
 trade of China will continue on the down grade.' 
 
 Were it not for the heavy taxation on the China leaf 
 by the Chinese Government, in the way of likin and export 
 Duties, Chinese tea, when carefully manufactured and 
 cultivated, could easily stand the competition of India, 
 Ceylon and other countries, and ' would be always able to 
 command a good market.' 
 
 ' " I fear that unless the Chinese can produce stronger and more 
 Indian and Ceylon-like tea, it is only a question of time to see their 
 total exclusion from foreign markets ; and the only chance for China 
 now is, in my opinion, to produce a good, wholesome, sweet article at 
 a low price something that can be mixed with Indian and Ceylon 
 teas." 
 
 'These remarks, confirmed as they are by all our local [Kiukiang] 
 experts, make it appear that two requirements are specially wanted 
 to retrieve the fortunes of the China tea trade improved cultivation 
 and manipulation (so as to produce "a good, wholesome article") 
 and a reduction in the cost of production. So long, however, as the 
 present heavy taxation exists in China all along the route from the 
 place of origin to the point of shipment a taxation amounting to 
 about 25 per cent, of the cost whilst the teas of other countries 
 (India, Ceylon, etc.) are free of duty, neither the improvement of the 
 leaf nor the reduction of the original cost can be reckoned as prime 
 factors in the question. The wonder is that an article so heavily 
 handicapped as China tea is in the matter of duty and taxes should 
 still hold a respectable place in the world's markets and still retain 
 such a large share of foreign patronage. It would almost seem as if, 
 even without any other alteration in the present state of affairs, 
 China tea, with a wise removal of, say, half its fiscal burdens, could 
 hold its own with its modern rivals, to the immense benefit of the 
 Chinese Government and people.' 
 
 691
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 'The China tea is undoubtedly the best tea in the world naturally, 
 but no pains are taken to maintain the stock, and the lower qualities 
 exported were so mixed with dust and rubbish that much harm was 
 done and the way effectually prepared for the competition of the 
 Indian leaf.' 
 
 In this connection it may be interesting to give the 
 results of the analyses of different teas. 
 
 'The following table, taken from a number of analyses recently 
 made by the late Professor Dittmar, shows clearly the effect of 
 allowing the water to stand on the tea leaves 5 minutes and 10 minutes 
 respectively, and the varying amount of theine and tannin given off by 
 China, Ceylon, and Indian teas : 
 
 FIVE MINUTES INFUSION. TEN MINUTES INFUSION. 
 
 Theine. Tannin. Theine. Tannin. 
 
 China . . 2.58 3.06 China . . 2.79 3.78 
 
 Ceylon . . 3.15 5.87 Ceylon . . 3.29 7.30 
 
 Indian . . 3.63 6.77 Indian . . 3.73 8.09 
 
 ' From this it will be seen that though Indian tea contains 25 per 
 cent, more theine than China tea, it also contains 100 per cent, more 
 tannin. Indian teas are much more widely used in England than 
 China teas, and the " strong syrupy teas " advertised as of good value, 
 and so largely consumed by the working classes, are, as a rule, blends 
 of various Indian teas rich in tannin and astringent matters.' 
 
 It is thought that if the nearly contiguous towns of 
 Lung-sing, Wong-sa-ping and Kie-kow in the turbulent 
 province of Hunan were only opened to foreign trade, the 
 English merchants resident at the centres of the Onfa tea 
 trade could then compete with better success with the Indian 
 tea merchants as the laid down cost on the spot is so low. 
 At present these are taken to Hankow. 
 
 The following extracts will show how China tea has 
 been ousted out of the English market : 
 
 1 In tea the most observable phenomenon of the twelvemonth has 
 been the rapid rise in the imports from Ceylon. It is 48 per cent., the 
 increase being gained at the expense alike of Indian tea and of Chinese. 
 For the first time Ceylon tea has exceeded China tea in quantity. 
 Year by year China tea declines, and it is impossible to say where the 
 decadence will stop. To a certain extent, China planters and 
 merchants might arrest the tendency by more care in cultivation, 
 preparation of the leaf, and attention to European tastes. In general, 
 though the best Chinese will please delicate palates, the Indian and 
 Ceylon kinds are certain to predominate popularly on account of their 
 strength.' [1892.] 
 
 692
 
 Tea 
 
 'It is noteworthy that while we took 93 per cent, of our tea from 
 China in 1865, and only 2 per cent, from India, and not so much as 
 i per cent, from Ceylon, in 1895, we took 46 per cent, from India, 32 
 per cent, from Ceylon, and only 16 per cent, from China. The 
 importations from China have steadily dwindled.' 
 
 In 1890 there were 101,000,000 Ibs. tea imported from 
 India into Great Britain, 74,000,000 from China, and over 
 42,000,000 from Ceylon, Ceylon was expected to export 
 70,000,000 Ibs. of tea in 1892; there being then 230,000 
 acres of land planted with tea in that colony, an increase of 
 nearly 40,000 acres during two years. Japan and China 
 still retain the two largest markets for tea, which are those 
 of America and Australia. The trade in tea with Russia is 
 increasing. 
 
 In four months, in 1894, the consumption of Indian tea 
 in England had increased by about 1 1,000,000 Ibs. and that 
 of China had decreased 5,000,000. 
 
 The following figures will show how the China tea 
 trade with England is being eclipsed by the Indian : 
 
 In 1859 there was no Indian tea trade, and China sent 
 70,303,664 Ibs. to England ; ten years after the Chinese 
 export of tea to England had increased to 101,080,491 Ibs., 
 and there was an Indian trade of 10,716,000 Ibs. In 1879 
 the export of the two countries to England was, China, 
 126,340,000 Ibs., India, 34,092,000 Ibs., which shows both 
 China and India with a material increase, and China with 
 still a long lead ahead of India. The tables, however, 
 were turned in the next decade, for China's export to 
 England had fallen to 61,000,000 Ibs., while India's had 
 risen to 124,500,000, and in 1899 China had fallen to the 
 figure of 16,677,835 Ibs., and India had risen to the enormous 
 figure a figure never attained by China of 219,136,185 
 Ibs. Ceylon began the export of tea in 1884, and in five 
 years sent 28,500,000 Ibs. In 1889 Ceylon sent five times 
 what China sent to England. 
 
 Amoy, some 30 years ago, exported as much as 65,800 
 piculs ; in 1898 the amount was 10,528 piculs, for the tea 
 trade of Amoy has gone down hill rapidly. ' At one time 
 the Amoy teas were excellent and tea districts correspond- 
 
 693
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 ingly prosperous ' ; but both quality and quantity fell off 
 with the natural consequences in trade. 
 
 As an illustration of how the decline in the tea trade 
 has affected the Chinese cultivator, the following statement 
 in the report on Amoy, in the Customs' Annual Returns for 
 1896, is not devoid of interest : 
 
 ' The annual value of the trade has fallen from Hk. Taels 2,000,000 
 a quarter of a century ago to less than Hk. Taels 100,000 to-day, and 
 the cultivator, whose plantation formerly supplied him with a comfort- 
 able income, is now compelled to plant rows of sweet potatoes between 
 the tea-bushes to keep body and soul together.' 
 
 The report by the Commissioner of Customs for Amoy 
 in 1897 showed to what a low state the tea trade in 
 China had arrived. 
 
 ' In all probability this trade report will be the last in which reference 
 will be made to Amoy tea as an important factor in our trade. Twenty- 
 five years ago, 65,8oopiculs were exported ; this year the total is 12,127 
 piculs. . . . The extinction of the Amoy tea trade has been 
 predicted in previous trade reports. The export and likin duty are 
 factors which militate against the hopes of the most sanguine. It is 
 now too late to propose remedial measures which would resuscitate the 
 already moribund leaf, formerly the leading article of export. The 
 native growers are not entirely free from blame ; of late years they 
 have been content to produce any article which would sell, but the new 
 United States law establishing standards has practically shut out the 
 article as now produced.' 
 
 Tea has now disappeared from Amoy. (See Article on 
 Trade.) There were no shipments to London direct from 
 Hankow in 1900, for the first time on record. 
 
 The following is from the Report on the Foreign Trade 
 of China for the year 1897, by F. E. Taylor, of the I.M. 
 Customs' Service : 
 
 ' I am one of those who believe in the possibility of reviving this 
 trade. It may not be generally known that the most delicate and 
 highly prized teas from India and Ceylon are grown on the higher 
 altitudes and are produced from plants of Chinese origin. The bulk of 
 the tea exported from India comes from the plains, and is the product 
 of the indigenous plant which grows as a forest tree in Manipur 
 attaining in its wild state a height of thirty feet and which will not 
 flourish except at low elevations. The teas made from these plants 
 yield a strong liquor, and they are consequently economical in use ; 
 but they are certainly unwholesome, and they lack altogether the 
 delicious aroma of the teas grown at higher altitudes from Chinese 
 plants. They can be placed on the market at low prices because the 
 
 694
 
 Tea 
 
 tea-estates are so large that the quantity of leaf to be dealt with makes 
 the use of machinery profitable and even necessary. The essential 
 difference between the process of manufacture in India and Ceylon and 
 in China is that the teas are packed within 24 hours of the leaves 
 having been plucked which would seem to be impossible in this 
 country under present conditions. It has been stated recently that 
 the peculiar excellence of fine China teas would be ruined by the 
 adoption of Indian methods. This may be true of fancy teas for 
 exhibition, but is certainly not true if applied to ordinary fine teas. 
 Not being an expert, my opinion is of little value, but I may be 
 permitted to say that I have been unable to procure, in China, tea of 
 such delightful fragrance and digestibility as some I have tasted from 
 Darjeeling and the Kangra Valley grown from Chinese plants, but 
 manufactured by machinery.' 
 
 The following extracts show pretty much how matters 
 stand at present : 
 
 ' Experts in tea are agreed that the desiderata to retrieve the fortunes 
 of the China tea trade, are improved cultivation and manipulation, 
 and a reduction in the cost of production.' 
 
 ' If China were to remove the export duty on tea, and sweep away 
 the various local burdens that hamper the planter, then indeed Chinese 
 tea might be regarded as a formidable competitor with the product of 
 India and Ceylon ; but so long as it is weighed with a burden of 
 taxation that leaves no reasonable margin of profit, the tea trade of 
 China will continue on the down grade.' 
 
 'The 25 per cent, mentioned by Mr. Hughes as the amount 
 of taxation to which Kiuking tea is subjected is somewhat less 
 than the amount given by competent authorities at other ports. Mr. 
 Brenan, in the Canton Consular Report for 1897, placed the figure at 
 35 per cent., while Mr. Cass, of Amoy, in a review of the tea trade 
 supplied by him to the Consul and incorporated in the 1896 report, 
 said the reason for the decline was not far to seek ; the entire crop 
 realised 136,000 while the lekin paid amounted to 20,000 and the 
 export duty to 35,000, or a total of 55,000, considerably more than 
 one-third of the value of the tea. The result is that at Amoy the tea 
 trade has practically ceased to exist.' 
 
 Notwithstanding the above, it is interesting to find the 
 following statement made in 1901 : 
 
 ' It is generally supposed that China tea trade has been beaten out 
 of field by the more potent brands of British India and Ceylon. That 
 is not entirely the case. China's exports dropped in the earlier years 
 of the decade ; but since the year of Jubilee they have risen from 
 204,000,000 to 217,000,000. This, however, is a serious decrease 
 from 282,000,000 Ibs., fifteen years ago.' 
 
 This is doubtless the result of the reaction which it was 
 
 695
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 reported two years before had set in, in favour of China 
 tea in England. China tea was about a third dearer than 
 the Indian and Ceylon article. It was said that in the best 
 hotels and best houses in London, China tea was generally 
 used, and medical men more and more advised their patients 
 to give it the preference. It remains to be seen whether 
 the new regulations as to likin being abolished and a 
 new incident of taxation imposed will have any appreciable 
 effect upon lowering the charges on tea which at present 
 so handicap and form one of the important factors in the 
 decline of the China tea trade. 
 
 Some idea of the immense consumption of tea in the 
 world, and the quantities that the most successful tea-pro- 
 ducing countries might put on the market may be gathered 
 from the calculation that the whole number of cups of tea 
 taken a day in the United Kingdom ' will probably be not 
 less on the average than 100,000,000.' The British people 
 drank 184,000,000 Ibs. per annum a_few years since, being 
 at the rate of 5 Ibs. per head. In England the consump- 
 tion is rapidly increasing, so that it is a pound or two 
 higher now. The Dutch are the greatest tea and coffee 
 drinkers, the quantity consumed by each being 240 ozs., or 
 1 5 Ibs., a year. We are unable to say how much of this 
 is tea and how much coffee. ' The French only consume 
 half an ounce in the same period, whilst the Australians, 
 the greatest tea drinkers in the world, consume 7| Ibs. of 
 tea per head every year.' Even the Maoris drink tea ; 
 their consumption is very small though, not having been 
 more than i Ib. per head per annum in 1889, and the 
 people of Tunis 'consume a certain amount of green 
 tea.' It was stated in 1892 that the Kamchatkans are 
 beginning to use tea. The largest annual consumption 
 [of tea] per head was in Western Australia 10.70 Ibs. ; 
 'Great Britain figures at 4.70; the United States at 1.40' 
 [there were 83,494,956 Ibs. of tea imported into the 
 United States in 1890, an increase over the previous 
 decade, and amounting to i Ibs. for each inhabitant] ; 
 ' Germany stood at .07, and France at .03; the 'continental 
 
 696
 
 Telegraphs 
 
 nations, even including Russia/ came ' a long way behind 
 the United Kingdom.' The large consumption of wine in 
 France and Germany unfortunately retards the more 
 healthy consumption of tea. It is calculated that 500,000,000 
 people drink Chinese and Indian tea; and all over the 
 world there would appear to be a constant increase to 
 their number, for nations which never drunk it before are 
 being taught its use, while amongst those people who 
 know it, larger numbers are gradually imbibing more 
 and more of it. 
 
 TELEGRAPHS. The first telegraph line in China 
 was opened in 1872, and of recent years the Chinese 
 Government finding the necessity, by the Franco-Chinese 
 war, of having rapid communication with the centres of its 
 numerous provinces, has taken up the electric telegraph. 
 
 ' " The telegraph is the only institution of modern science which 
 has obtained any considerable foothold in China," say Messrs. Fearon 
 and Allen in an article in The Engineering Magazine. "Peking is 
 connected by wire with Tientsin and with Manchurian points 
 up to the Russian frontier, whence connection is continued by 
 Russian Siberian lines to Europe. The capital is also connected 
 with all the treaty ports, and principal cities in China proper, and 
 these again with each other. Canton has connection also through 
 Yunnan with Burma. China learned the value of the telegraph in 
 the war with France, and it has long since been admitted to have 
 become indispensable. The telegraph, however, is under imperial 
 control, and there is probably little opportunity for its extension as a 
 private enterprise. Chinese writing being not alphabetic, but syllabic, 
 and there being as many characters as there are words in use, the 
 telegraphic messages are sent in a number cypher. For transcrib- 
 ing messages received, a double-ended type is used ; on one end is the 
 character, and on the other the corresponding number. When a 
 message is received, it is set up by the numbers, and then printed 
 from the reverse, or character, end." ' 
 
 Speaking in a general way, the system may be described 
 as consisting, in the main, of a line, starting from the 
 northern part of China's colonial possessions, lying to the 
 north of China proper, and running down not far from the 
 coast to the south ; in the southern portion there is another 
 line as well, forming a loop further inland, while from this 
 northern and southern main line spring three large lines 
 
 697
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 running in a westerly direction, the northernmost one 
 through the northern provinces, the southern one through 
 the southern provinces, and a central one along the 
 Yangtsz valley. Besides these grand lines there are short 
 branch lines connecting different places with the main lines. 
 By means of all these, telegraphic communication is main- 
 tained with every province. The province of Hunan even 
 having it now ; the people of the frontier town of Lichow 
 rose en masse in 1891 to prevent its introduction into their 
 province, but five years later the introduction of it excited 
 no opposition. 
 
 Extensions are being still made every little while to the 
 system, and it is being rapidly extended over the empire. 
 
 The work of putting up the lines in China was entrusted 
 to the Danish Great Northern Telegraph Company. 
 Compared with the numerous important centres of trade, 
 the stations are but few in number ; and the rate for 
 messages is not sufficiently low to bring them within the 
 reach of the multitudes that avail themselves of such 
 conveniences in the West. Looked at from a foreign point 
 of view, it is unsatisfactory to find that these native lines 
 are not available to Europeans if a riot occurs. The 
 following was written about Chinese telegraphs in 1892, 
 and is still of interest, though the lines have extended 
 considerably since : 
 
 ' The Chinese telegraph system already comprises about 42,000 
 li [say 14,000 miles] of line, carrying 58,000 li of wire ; stations have 
 been established in 171 different towns ; and Formosa, the Pescadores, 
 and Hainan have been connected by submarine cable with the 
 mainland. From Hehlungkiang to Hainan and from Corea to the 
 Burma frontier of Yiinnan, the Chinese telegraph lines stretch over 
 greater distances than from Norway to Sicily and from Lisbon to 
 the Caucasus.' 
 
 'The telegraph lines [in China] have a length [in 1901] of nearly 
 14,000 miles, with 250 telegraph offices.' 
 
 Amongst the wonders of the Chinese telegraphs may be 
 mentioned the line across the Gobi desert, 3,000 miles long. 
 
 Book recommended. A very short account is given in ' Peeps into China,' 
 by the Rev. Gilbert Reid, M.A., chap. 33, of the introduction and extension 
 of the telegraph in China. 
 
 698
 
 Tenure of Land 
 
 TENURE OF LAND. All land is held direct from 
 the crown in China, there is no allodial property ; and no 
 law of entail. As has been so often stated, the family being 
 the unit of society in China, it is natural to find that a large 
 amount of land is held by the family or by the clan, though 
 individuals as well often invest their savings in the South 
 of China in paddy fields. 
 
 'The conditions of common tenure are the payment of an annual 
 tax, the fee for alienation with a money composition for personal 
 service to the Government, a charge generally incorporated into the 
 direct tax as a kind of scutage.' 
 
 The land tax varies from li to 10 cents a mao, or 
 Chinese acre, which is equivalent to from 10 to 66 cents an 
 acre, the amount being dependent on ' the quality of the 
 land and the difficulty of tillage,' its fertility, situation, or 
 the use to which it is put. Reckoning this tax at an average 
 of 25 cents an acre, the income to the Government from 
 this source ought to be about Si 50,000,000, were it all to go 
 into the Imperial coffers without paying tribute to the host 
 of rapacious underlings, clerks, and constables, and the 
 hundred and one people who all put in for a share of the 
 plunder. 
 
 'As the exactions for alienation on sale of lands are high, 
 amounting to as much as one-third of the sale price sometimes, the 
 people accept white deeds from each other as proofs of ownership and 
 responsibility for taxes. As many as twenty or thirty such deeds of 
 sale occasionally accompany the original hung k^ai, without which 
 they are suspicious, if not valueless. In order to keep the knowledge 
 of the alienations of land in Government offices, so that the taxes can 
 be assured, it is customary to furnish a k^ai nu : i, or "deed-end," 
 containing a note of the terms of sale and amount of tax liable on the 
 property. There is no other proof of ownership required ; and the 
 simplicity and efficiency of this mode of transfer offer a striking 
 contrast to the cumbrous rules enforced in Western Kingdoms.' 
 
 The eldest son inherits his father's property, but, from 
 the customs of the people, it appears more as if it devolved 
 upon him as a trust administered by him for the good of the 
 family, for all the members of the family are allowed to reside 
 on and live upon the property, generation after generation, if 
 they so choose, or an ' amicable composition can be made.' 
 
 A mortgagee enters into possession of the property and 
 
 699
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 ' makes himself responsible for the payment of the taxes' ; 
 the land may be redeemed at any time on the payment of 
 the sum advanced, if the payment be made within thirty 
 years. 
 
 The Chinese Government is liberal in its treatment 
 of those who reclaim waste hill-sides, and poor soil ; or who 
 first cultivate newly-formed alluvial strips of land : in the 
 former cases sufficient time is allowed for the cultivator to 
 recoup himself for the outlay incurred before his land is 
 assessed ; and in the latter case the authorities have to be 
 informed. 
 
 ' All buildings pay a ground rent to the Government, but no data 
 are available for comparing this tax with that levied in Western cities. 
 The Government furnishes the owner of the ground with a hung 'a/, 
 or " red deed," in testimony of his right to occupancy, which puts 
 him in possession as long as he pays the taxes [ground rent]. There 
 is a record office in the local magistracy of such documents.' 
 
 Most explicit rules are laid down for the registration of 
 land in China, and theoretically everything should be clear 
 and plain as possible ; but if we may be excused the 
 apparently contradictory statement, we should describe, like 
 many things in China, the system of land registration in 
 this land as normally in what should be an abnormal 
 condition. It is often difficult to get such a good insight 
 into a state of affairs- such as the acquisition of the New 
 Territory in Hongkong has revealed. Those who know 
 the Chinese in their transactions with their officials will have 
 little difficulty in reasoning from the small to the great, or 
 drawing inferences concerning the unknown from what is 
 known. True, there are certain reasons assigned for what, 
 viewed from the standpoint of the laws and regulations, 
 appear an anomalous state ; but those who know China, the 
 invasions of its coasts in the past, its almost chronic rebellions, 
 the waves of immigration that have swept down from the 
 North to the South bringing sometimes civil war and inter- 
 necine struggles in their train those who know their China 
 thoroughly will have but little difficulty in believing that 
 similar anomalous conditions prevail largely in this land 
 where morals, ethics, laws and regulations are perfect, but 
 
 700
 
 Tenure of Land 
 
 where practice differs so widely from precept. As showing 
 in a general way what may be expected to be found in 
 other parts of China we shall enlarge on the conditions 
 prevalent in the neighbourhood of Hongkong. 
 
 Different clans, who were the first settlers in the 
 neighbourhood of the Canton Delta, collected land-tax for 
 which they never accounted to the Chinese Government, 
 though paying Crown Rent on a small area, which was 
 but a small fraction of the whole land they claimed. 
 Unrest and disorders have prevailed for generations in this 
 part of China. About two centuries and a half ago the 
 coast and some distance inland was laid waste to prevent 
 Koxinga (See Article on History) from being able to carry 
 on his operations in favour of the late Ming dynasty. 
 Supposing now, on resettlement, a family should have a 
 certain number of Chinese acres on which they paid Crown 
 Rent, doubtless a certain latitude would be allowed, and the 
 family might cultivate, as the years went on, though still 
 confined to the same number of acres, different plots of 
 land in the same upland valley or sea-coast. As the 
 years then went on it would be essentially Chinese-like for 
 this family to claim the whole district of land over which 
 they had cultivated plots here and there at different 
 times ; and further, it would be essentially Chinese-like for 
 other new settlers, as they arrived in the depopulated 
 districts, to acknowledge the assumption of the family ; 
 especially would they have no disposition to dispute such a 
 claim when told that such was the case, as it would be more 
 to their interests to keep quiet, pay some yearly sum to 
 them and thus avoid the expenses, squeezes, and troubles 
 incident to litigation in this land of squeezes and official 
 corruption. Besides, by so doing, they would not incur 
 the enmity of the family, who would feel incensed should the 
 true facts of the case come to light, and they be required 
 to pay full taxation on the land thus occupied instead 
 of only on a small moiety of it. These sums would be 
 paid as taxes (though they never reached the Government) 
 to the family by these subsequent settlers as they arrived and 
 
 701
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 the wasted lands were thus repopulated. Any trouble with 
 the Mandarin, or his subordinates, could be easily hushed 
 up by the family by the judicious use of bribes which they 
 could pay out of the monies received from these curiously 
 obtained tenants of theirs. 
 
 Another reason for the registration laws not being 
 complied with is the excessive cost of registration, 
 the original cost was Sioo for a heading in the Register, 
 and this was necessary, if a man's own name or that of 
 his ancestors had not already appeared. After this initial 
 expense, other expenses, legal and illegal, were incurred, and 
 there was the trouble of going to the Land Registry in the 
 District City. All these things combined, along with what 
 has been already stated, to lead in the New Territory to 
 what Mr. Gompertz, the President of the Land Court, 
 estimates as ' four-fifths of the land-tax passing through the 
 hands of intermediaries before reaching the Government.' 
 
 The result of all this is natural, and it can be stated in a 
 few words : ' few sales of land were registered.' 
 
 What resulted from these sales not being registered is 
 what the writer knows is not confined to the immediate 
 vicinity of Hongkong, but prevails elsewhere as well, and it 
 is as follows. A ' red deed,' or registered deed as it is called, 
 is necessary ; this is granted on registration by the pro- 
 prietors ; but in lieu of the handing over of this 'red deed ' on 
 alienation of property, one which is styled a ' white deed,' 
 is generally given. This ' unregistered deed containing a 
 Covenant by the purchaser to pay the vendor a yearly 
 sum to meet the tax which the vendor continued to pay 
 as before.' The purchaser occasionally got the 'red 
 deed ' as well as a ' white deed,' even if he bought the 
 whole parcel of land set forth in the former. This he kept 
 as security against the vendor trying to sell the land again 
 to some one else. ' Thus the taxes were still paid in the old 
 name though the land had passed into other hands.' 
 
 It can thus easily be imagined what confusion arises 
 from land matters in China. The modes of acquiring owner- 
 ship of property was by grant from the Crown and by 
 
 702
 
 Theatre 
 
 purchase ; but the most common way of dealing with land is 
 by perpetual lease from the Government, and even between 
 private individuals this was carried out, and most often in 
 the latter case it was simply a verbal agreement, and at 
 times, without even this, it was taken an agreement was 
 implied. Another common mode of acquiring property 
 was by mortgage. 
 
 This Chinese mortgage is tantamount to a conditional 
 sale ; in this respect being like ' the Welsh mortgage of the 
 text-books.' It is either in writing or orally, more often 
 the latter ; it is hardly ever registered. 
 
 What is known as a Welsh mortgage is thus described 
 in the English law-books, and the same account might have 
 been written of the Chinese. 
 
 ' What is known as a Welsh mortgage is a Transaction whereby 
 the estate is conveyed to the mortgagee, who is to go into possession 
 and take the rents and profits as an equivalent for his interest, the 
 principal remaining undiminished. In such a Transaction there is no 
 contract, express or implied, between the parties, for the repayment of 
 the debt at a given time, and though the mortgagee has no remedy by 
 action to enforce payment of his money, yet the mortgagor or his 
 heirs may redeem at any time.' 
 
 These mortgages when oral give occasion to many 
 disputes and much litigation, as the mortgagor wishes to 
 redeem if the value of the land appreciates ; and the 
 difficulties are increased when, as is often the case, ' mort- 
 gages are frequently assigned three or four times over.' 
 
 Daughters never inherit land in China. 
 
 ooks recommended. See 'Land and Land-tax,' in Williaras's 'Middle 
 Kingdom.' Transactions N. C. Br. R.A.S. 1848, vol. i., Article by T. T. 
 Meadows. See ' Memorandum on Land ' in Hongkong Government Gazette 
 Supplement, 28th April 1900, Appendix No. III. Also 'Report on the Land 
 Court for 1900,' containing 'Some Notes on Land Tenure in the New Terri- 
 tory,' in same Gazette for 1901. 
 
 THEATRE. Theatrical exhibitions in China are often 
 connected with religion, as mystery plays were in the 
 mediaeval times in the West, for in China they are often 
 held in honour of a god's birthday. Subscriptions in these 
 cases are obtained from the residents of the locality, and 
 
 703
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 a large stage of bamboo and matting covered in, is put up. 
 No nails are used in its construction, but the bamboos are 
 securely tied together with strips of rattan. The putting 
 up of matsheds is a trade by itself; they are quickly run 
 up, a few days' time suffices for erecting one large enough 
 for holding two thousand people. They are taken down 
 even quicker, as sharp hook-knives cut through the rattan 
 strips, and these latter are the only materials which cannot 
 be used again, the same bamboo poles and oblongs of 
 matted leaves bound together, doing duty scores, if not 
 hundreds, of times. One large shed may serve for the 
 performers, while smaller ones accommodate those who 
 pay for seats ; the pit is the paved square, and standing 
 room is all that the rabble, who are packed as thick as 
 herrings in a barrel, are allowed. 
 
 Players stroll in companies from place to place, open to 
 engagements as above, or are hired by wealthy families to 
 perform their plays in their private dwellings, where all the 
 inconveniences of the female members of the family appear- 
 ing in public are avoided. In Hongkong there are two 
 substantial buildings used for native theatres, and the 
 Chinese appear to be copying this example at Canton and 
 elsewhere. 
 
 What would we think in the West of performances 
 lasting three days instead of three hours, and only rests 
 for sleeping and eating? Smoking and refreshments are 
 allowed in the theatre itself, and the splitting and munching 
 of dried melon seeds which is carried on must be immense, 
 while play follows play without any interval. 
 
 The stage is simplicity itself, with two entrances from 
 the back where the ' green-room ' is placed ; and a few 
 tables, chairs, and stools, are about all that are used, and 
 they do duty for any and every thing. The writer saw a 
 frail structure, composed of tables and chairs piled up in 
 the middle of the stage, used to represent lofty crags and 
 precipitous mountains, over which the heroine of the play, 
 accompanied and assisted by a trusty family retainer, 
 clambered up, clutching imaginary projecting points, trees, 
 
 704
 
 Theatre 
 
 bushes, or grass, to help her in her dangerous climb. Some 
 of the actors display considerable talent, most realistic 
 effects being produced at times. 
 
 The assistants come in and remove different articles 
 when done with, or bring them as required, going out and 
 in among the actors with perfect nonchalance, as no curtain 
 falls between the different acts. Considerable force of 
 imagination is required to add all the accessories so vividly 
 pictured on the modern stage in the West ; but perhaps 
 their absence is not an entire defect, as more attention can 
 be bestowed, without their distraction, on the acting itself. 
 Young men dressed as women, take the female parts, 
 and the others are so represented as to be known at 
 once, the villain, for instance, being painted with a white 
 nose. 
 
 Historical plays are often performed, the dresses being 
 those of the Chinese when under native rule, between two and 
 three centuries ago, and most gorgeous they are, making up 
 for all the lack of scenic effect ; robes of rich hues, glitter- 
 ing with gold ; long feathers, several feet in length, falling 
 in graceful curves from the caps of the performers, and 
 swaying with every motion of the actors. The spectacular 
 effect of all this glitter and sheen proves a strange contrast 
 to the poverty of the building and the bare appearance of 
 the stage. Marches past of soldiers ; the exaggerated 
 stride of the hero ; the prancing of the warriors as they 
 enter into mimic contests where lunges and feints, a la 
 Chinois, are indulged in to an extravagant extent ; all 
 present a coup d"oeil, weird and fantastic, grotesque at times, 
 but so full of life and vigour that for some time one enjoys 
 the kaleidoscopic scene to be witnessed nowhere else in the 
 world : and were it not for the clash of the cymbals which 
 emphasise different passages, the scrapings of the fiddles, 
 and the indescribable effect of the Chinese music, added to 
 the heat of the crowded building and the disagreeable 
 odour from the perspiring and unwashed masses, one would 
 enjoy it more, but a headache is the Westerner's reward for 
 the patient sitting out of a Chinese play. 
 
 705 2 \
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 ' The efforts of certain actors are worthy of the highest commenda- 
 tion from the naturalness of their actions and the vivid portrayal of the 
 incidents of the play. There is, however, much of conventionality re- 
 minding one of the Italian opera among us.' 'The performances' are 
 ' largely of the character of pantomime and more largely perhaps . . . 
 opera.' 
 
 Though we have particularised the historic play, it 
 must not be supposed that the ' Brethren of the Pear 
 Orchard,' as Thespians are called in China, confine their 
 attention to that branch of the histrionic art. Plays of 
 various kinds, comedies, tragedies, and farces, all find 
 acceptance from a Chinese audience. 
 
 'While it is true that the Chinese themselves make no distinction 
 between comedy and tragedy, a translator from their language is still 
 at liberty to apply these terms, according to the serious and dignified, 
 or comic and familiar character, of the composition which he selects.' 
 Sir John Davis, from whom we quote, says further, of a tragedy which 
 he translated from Chinese into English : ' In the unity of the plot, 
 the dignity of the personages, the grandeur and importance of the 
 events, the strict award of what is called poetical justice nay, in the 
 division into five principal portions or acts, it might satisfy the most 
 fastidious and strait-laced of the old European critics. Love and war, 
 too, constitute its whole action, and the language of the imperial lover 
 is frequently passionate to a degree one is not prepared for in such a 
 country as China.' 
 
 ' The stage, and everything pertaining to it, enjoys a lower estima- 
 tion than in any part of Europe.' It is not considered proper for 
 respectable Chinese ladies to go frequently to the theatre. ' The 
 Chinese cannot strictly be said to possess dramatic poetry.' ' No 
 Shakespeare has . . . yet arisen in China ; no analyst of motives 
 either amongst novelists or playwrights.' ' The dialogue of their stage 
 pieces is composed in ordinary prose', while the principal performer 
 now and then chaunts forth, in unison with music, a species of song or 
 "vaudeville" ; and the name of the tune or air is always inserted at 
 the top of the passage to be sung.' 'A considerable portion of the 
 plays of the Chinese consists of a sort of irregular verse, which is sung 
 or chanted with music. This is often very obscure in its import ; and 
 as, according to the Chinese themselves, the gratification of the ear is 
 its main object, sense itself appears sometimes to be neglected for the 
 sake of a pleasing sound.' 'The Chinese are enthusiastic theatre- 
 goers, and sit for hours enthralled by the performance, bereft as it 
 necessarily is of much of the scenic effects of the Western stage.' 
 
 ' The Chinese drama . . . was marked out into three distinct 
 epochs The T'ang Dynasty (720-905 A.D.), the Sung Dynasty (720- 
 II 19 A.D.), the Kin and Yuan Dynasty (i 123-1341 A.D.).' 
 
 'The character of the plays represented was at first religious, but 
 subsequently was more devoted to historical subjects, and also repre- 
 
 706
 
 Tigers 
 
 sented the occupations of the people in times of peace as well as the 
 exploits of their heroes in war.' 
 
 'The Chinese drama sprang up no earlier than the time of the 
 caliphate and subsequent ages. The Greek drama was already trans- 
 planted and had grown luxuriantly in India. The Mohammedans 
 naturally derived pure ideas from it in their religious shows, and the 
 miracle-plays of Europe show how the same principle of dramatic 
 imitation was working there also. So it was in China. The whole 
 idea of the Chinese play is Greek. The mask, the chorus, the music, 
 the colloquy, the scene and the act, are Greek. The difference 
 between Chinese plays, and those of Terence and Plautus is simply 
 that the Roman dramatists translated a good deal. The Chinese took 
 the idea and worked up the play from their own history and their own 
 social life. The Chinese drama is based on music just as the Greek 
 play was, and the whole conception of the play is foreign, while the 
 details and the language are Chinese. But for the arrival of Western 
 musicians in the Sung and Yiian dynasties, pleasing the people's ear 
 with more lively and stirring strains than they had ever heard in the 
 old music of China, the modern dramatic music would not have been 
 developed. The spread of education and the love of poetry in the T'ang 
 dynasty constituted a training for dramatic authorship. The Sung 
 dynasty influence in this direction is vouched for by Su Tung-po. 
 After such men had appeared it was easy for the drama and romance 
 to be originated, but it was the increasing inflow of foreign actors and 
 musicians all through the age of the Golden Tartars which gave 
 direction and shape to the new power. Every attempt to explain the 
 Chinese drama as purely native must therefore fail.' 
 
 The social position the actor holds in China is low ; he 
 is considered on a par with the barber, and debarred from 
 entering the examinations ; and this, though the Chinese 
 play has a moral tendency, the villain getting his deserts, 
 and the virtuous hero and heroine coming off with flying 
 colours. 
 
 Books recommended. Besides the notices of the theatre in text-books such 
 as ' Willianis's Middle Kingdom,' there are some very interesting pages on the 
 subject in Professor Douglas's 'Chinese Stories,' Introduction, pp. xxiii-xxxvi. 
 'The Chinese Drama,' by W. Stanton, contains an interesting account of 
 theatrical matters in China, as well as three plays and two poems. 
 
 TIGERS. In the earlier days of European residence 
 in the East, and even until a recent date, most foreigners 
 were very sceptical of the tiger stories of the Chinese ; but 
 of recent years it has been well established as a fact that in 
 some parts of China the tiger is a common beast of prey 
 and a source of constant danger, especially to the juvenile 
 members of the community. There have been numerous 
 
 707
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 cases of children being seized and carried off from the very 
 doors of their homes, nor has the abduction of a child from 
 the very gates of a city been unknown. The tiger appears 
 to be widely spread over the empire, but it is mostly found 
 in the provinces of Fuhkien, Kiangsi, Kwangtung, and 
 Kwangsi. They even come, at times, within what is now 
 the newly acquired territory on the mainland opposite 
 Hongkong. They frequent, amongst other spots, the 
 neighbourhood of Swatow, Amoy, and Foochow, and a few 
 days' journey from Canton up the North, East, or West 
 Rivers would bring one to tiger districts. Tigers are also 
 found in Manchuria. One foreign resident 'in Amoy has 
 shot 19 tigers to his own rifle, and has been present at the 
 death of 40.' Foreign sportsmen, however, with but few 
 exceptions, have not gone tiger shooting. The average 
 length of those that have fallen to their guns has been for 
 males 9 feet and females 8 feet. ' Immensely long tigers 
 are not always proportionately large ; they are mostly thin 
 and low animals ; the heaviest and most muscular tigers 
 average about 9 feet 6 inches. The longest tiger shot in 
 India measured 12 feet 2 inches. ... In China there are 
 several good records ; one of 10 feet 6 inches, and another of 
 1 1 feet 2 inches.' The writer, from whom we quote above, 
 states that he has measured tanned skins in Shanghai and 
 found some of them as long as 12 feet 9 inches 'and they 
 were not " faked " in any way.' The tiger is supposed to 
 attain maturity in the course of four years, and only those 
 full grown could be of large size. 
 
 As compared with his Indian brother, the Chinese tiger 
 being a very well-fed animal which generally inhabits 
 the hills, while the Indian tiger being a jungle animal has 
 his hair and skin much damaged by friction against the 
 undergrowth is better marked, and the skin naturally 
 commands a higher price in Europe, for, while a ' full-grown 
 Chinese tiger will fetch a price of ^100 in some of the 
 large zoological gardens in Europe,' the highest amount 
 given for an Indian tiger is 70. The Chinese tiger is 
 said not to be so aggressive as the Indian tiger, though its 
 
 708
 
 Time 
 
 ferocity ' when aroused and put to bay ' is equal : ' the 
 tiger living in the jungle [the Indian] has less supply of 
 food and will attack more instantaneously and with less 
 provocation.' The Chinese dig a pit and cover it with 
 poles or branches, the tiger's weight carries him through, 
 and a common way of killing him then is to run a 
 red-hot iron down his throat, though he often escapes 
 from these pits. 
 
 A tiger shot by trap-gun at Kuliang, and measuring 
 7 1 feet and weighing 210 Ibs., was sold in Foochow for $80 
 in 1898. They are shot with poisoned arrows, probably 
 from cross-bows in that neighbourhood, and the poison is 
 said to do its work in two or three minutes. 
 
 The ' white tiger ' is an important element in the 
 pseudo-science of fung-shui : it represents one of the 'two 
 supposed currents running through the earth,' the other 
 being the 'green dragon.' These are believed to be 
 situated on the right and left respectively of propitious sites 
 and graves. ' A skilful observer can detect and describe 
 them, with the help of the [geomantic] compass, direction 
 of the water-courses, shapes of the male and female ground, 
 and their proportions, colour of the soil, and the permuta- 
 tions of the elements.' 
 
 Books recommciidcd.Zool. Soc. Proc. 1870. p. 626. Also see Hongkong 
 Weekly Press for 27th May 1896. Also see Article in this book on 
 G eomancy. 
 
 TIME. Time but what idea has a Chinaman of 
 time ? Time does not enter into the essence of his ordinary 
 conceptions of a day, or, at all events, the idea is so very 
 vague that the conception of it seems but an inchoate one. 
 At the Treaty Ports' and in their neighbourhood, as well as 
 at Hongkong and Macao, clocks are found in every shop, 
 and watches abound, but in many places there is no 
 standard of correct time, and, in places where there is, it is 
 ignored extensively. Life is not such a mad rush as with 
 us in our feverish pursuit of wealth, a livelihood, or learning. 
 Fix a time for an engagement with a Chinese, and he 
 
 709
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 comes in half-an-hour late, or even two or three hours after, 
 occasionally a few days later than the day fixed upon, with 
 no idea that he has done anything out of the way. Hire a 
 coolie or a street vehicle or a boat, and what the man 
 employed bases his calculation on, as to payment, is more 
 the distance traversed than the time spent over it ; and, 
 compared with his fraternity in the West, he patiently 
 waits your return, while the minutes and hours that fly are 
 almost next to nothing to him. This disregard of time is 
 seen in the language, where vagueness takes the place of 
 our precision. When a man says ' to-morrow ' he does not 
 necessarily mean the next day, but some indefinite time in 
 the future which sometimes never comes, like St. Patrick's 
 ' to-morrow/ for the saint when exterminating the snakes 
 in Ireland put the last one in a box, and flung it to the 
 bottom of a lake, promising to let it out ' to-morrow/ and 
 as each new day began, the snake asked to be let out, but 
 the saint always replied that this was to-day and not 
 to-morrow. 
 
 The Chinese employ two methods in reckoning time : 
 one, the cycle of sixty years (See Article on Cycle) ; but 
 this way of counting time is an uncertain one, for, unless it 
 is distinctly stated, one is at a loss to know whether, say, a 
 certain book was copied or printed some score or two 
 years ago, or fourscore or more years ago. Another better 
 method, one of the most common and one used by us 
 to a small extent, notably in the Headings of Acts of 
 Parliament is that of employing the years of the reign ; 
 but with the Chinese it is not the sovereign's name that is 
 used, that is too sacred to be so debased, but some high- 
 sounding combination of words is employed, and this 
 designates the reign, or a part of it, as has often happened 
 in ancient Chinese history, when the reign-name was 
 changed several times in the life-time of one monarch. The 
 present occupant of the throne has had selected for him 
 for his 'year-style' the words Kuang-Hsii, which may be 
 rendered into English as ' Illustrious Succession ' ; so this 
 year, which we date from the greatest event that earth has 
 
 710
 
 Time 
 
 ever seen, as A.D. 1903, is known to the Chinese as parts 
 of the Jen-yin and Kuei-mao years of the cycle and parts of 
 the 28th and 29th years of the ' Illustrious Succession ' 
 period. The Chinese year is a lunar one ' but its com- 
 mencement is regulated by the sun.' To those who are 
 astronomically inclined, it may be interesting to know that 
 ' New Year falls on the first new moon after the sun enters 
 Aquarius, which makes it come not before January 2ist 
 nor after February iQth.' In 1899 it has happened on the 
 loth of February. It is therefore unlike the Mohammedan 
 year which now has its new year in summer and now in 
 winter ; the Chinese feasts are almost as certain as our 
 European movable ones, for by the addition of an inter- 
 calary month every three years or so the differences are 
 roughly adjusted ; this extra month is, however, not the 
 thirteenth and added on at the end of the year, but it is 
 inserted at different times in different years, and takes its 
 name from the month it immediately follows ; for instance, 
 one year it may be the intercalary second month, on 
 another occasion it may be the intercalary seventh month, 
 and so on. ' An intercalary moon must lie completely 
 within one sign of the zodiac ; i.e., the sun must not pass 
 from one sign to another.' The Quakers would not be a 
 singular people in China as far as their nomenclature of 
 time was concerned ; for instead (in common parlance) of 
 the months having names as we, who are outside the pale 
 of Quakerism in the West, employ, the Chinese know them 
 as the first, the second, the third months, and so on. The 
 close connection between the month and the moon is more 
 noticeable in Chinese even than with us, for the same word 
 does duty for both. Again, the indefiniteness of the 
 Chinese as regards time is seen in the days, for though they 
 are known as the first, second, etc., yet they are further 
 divided into three decades as regards their position in the 
 month, so a Chinese can fix a matter as having occurred 
 in the first decade, or the second, or the third, as the case 
 may be, and delight his unprecise nature by a margin of 
 ten days. 
 
 711
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 There is no week, amongst the Chinese, in our accep- 
 tation of the term, but multitudes of them have learned 
 what a week is, and have terms to express it and its days, 
 and it is well known wherever foreigners have stayed or 
 travelled much. 
 
 The Chinese hour is twice the length of ours, but again, 
 in the neighbourhood of the Treaty Ports, where clocks and 
 watches are common, the more convenient foreign system, 
 as shown by the faces of those important and useful 
 horological instruments, is largely used, and is probably 
 increasing in use every year ; and en passant we may say 
 that it is in this way that progress is accomplished in China, 
 by the adoption of some foreign invention which gradually 
 extends from the sphere of foreign influence or introduction 
 further into the country. There is no rapid, wholesale 
 sweeping away of former things, and the importation, en 
 bloc, of new ideas, as has frequently happened with Japan 
 in her case often to be followed by a revulsion, or the 
 acceptance of something else, and a discarding of the former 
 inventions adopted so hastily. China's progress, being 
 slower, is steadier, and will be none the less sure in the 
 long run. 
 
 ' The Chinese calendar, more or less in its present form, is of very 
 old origin. Errors crept in naturally in the course of time, as they 
 did into the Julian Calendar, and the first Jesuit missionaries turned 
 to good account their mathematical skill by proving the inaccuracy of 
 the native calendar upon occasions of eclipses. Fr. Schall was the 
 first to introduce corrections, and Fr. Verbiest, in the time of the 
 Emperor K'ang Hsi, drew up the calendar in its present form, carrying 
 his calculations as far as the year 2020. His calendar has been faith- 
 fully followed ever since, with some rare exceptions, as when the year 
 1894 or rather the twentieth year of Kuang Hsu was curtailed of a 
 day on account of the disastrous war with the Japanese.' 
 
 The Chinese watch at night is like the Western dog- 
 watch, only two hours in length. The first watch lasts from 
 7 P.M. to 9 P.M. and is shown by one beat on the revenue- 
 cutter's drum or one blow on the street-watchman's hollow 
 bamboo tube ; the second watch is from 9 P.M. to 1 1 P.M. 
 and is signalled by two beats, etc. ; the third, fourth, and 
 fifth are of equal duration, and shown in a corresponding 
 
 712
 
 Tobacco and Pipes 
 
 manner. Each of these watches is divided into five lesser 
 divisions, which are distinguished on the revenue-cutters by 
 their numbers from one to five strokes on a small gong, the 
 stroke on the gong immediately following the drum beat. 
 The watch is set and called off both afloat and ashore by a 
 tattoo on the drum or bamboo, commencing with slow and 
 measured beat, gradually increasing in time until it ends in 
 a regular rattle ; this is repeated several times. 
 
 The peculiar phrases that one comes across, in use by 
 the common people, for the expression of short periods of 
 time strike one as very odd. The following are examples 
 of such phrases : 
 
 The time it would take to drink a cup of tea. 
 
 The time it would take to drink a cup of hot tea. 
 
 The time it would take to eat a meal. 
 
 The time it would take to eat a bowl of rice. 
 
 The time it would take to smoke a cigarette. 
 
 The time it would take for an incense-stick to burn. 
 
 TOBACCO AND PIPES. Tobacco was introduced 
 into China from Luzon about A.D. 1530 'and smoking 
 spread among all classes of the people, and both sexes, 
 with incredible rapidity.' Decrees were issued against its 
 use by some of the Ming dynasty rulers, but proved as 
 ineffectual as those of James I. against it in England, for 
 everyone smokes in China. There are two kinds of pipe 
 in use, the dry pipe, and the water-pipe : the latter is a 
 copy of the Indian hookah ; it consists of a receptacle for 
 the water into which a tube-like piece, about the size of 
 a small finger, is inserted ; the upper end of this tube 
 contains a small cavity into which the tobacco is put. The 
 smoke is inhaled through the water up the pipe part, 
 which is a tube about a foot long, gradually narrowing and 
 bending over at the mouth-piece. These pipes are made 
 of copper and argentan (an alloy of copper, zinc, nickel, 
 iron, and sometimes a little silver), and are used by ladies 
 and gentlemen. The common coolies have a primitive 
 style of water-pipe which consists of a length of bamboo 
 about the size of a man's arm, and, part of the way up, a 
 
 713
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 little tube of bamboo, the size of a finger, is inserted for 
 the tobacco. 
 
 The other pipes are often made of bamboo, as far as 
 the stems are concerned, and vary in length from a few 
 feet to a few inches, though short pipes are not very 
 common. The bowls, of metal, are small, holding scarcely 
 more than a thimbleful of tobacco ; a few whiffs exhaust 
 them ; and with the gentleman or lady a servant is ready 
 who steps up, takes the pipe, empties out the ashes, refills 
 it, sticks it into the mouth of his master or mistress, and 
 lights it with a paper spill. 
 
 The tobacco is prepared for smoking by drying the 
 leaves and cutting them into shreds ; it is milder than 
 that used in the West, and is of different prepara- 
 tions. It is used in several ways, such as in pipes, in 
 paper cigarettes, and in snuff, but not in cigars : when 
 used as snuff, it is put into snuff-bottles, over the 
 purchase of which the man of means spends money 
 lavishly, and the patient toiler also lavishly spends 
 weeks, or sometimes even months, in the production 
 of one. They are often cut out of ' stone, amber, 
 agate, and other rare minerals, with most exquisite 
 taste.' They are carved at times like cameos ; a little 
 bone spoon is attached to the stopper, and a pinch of snuff 
 is taken out by it and put on the thumb-nail, from which it 
 is drawn up into the nose. 
 
 Considerable quantities of tobacco are exported to the 
 East Indian Islands ; and an attempt was made to introduce 
 it on the Western markets. 'Japanese tobacco is already 
 largely consumed in Europe, but the bulk of it goes to 
 Antwerp, Amsterdam, and Hamburg, where, with the 
 addition of the Sumatra or Havana leaf, it is made 
 into cigars.' 
 
 On the other hand, the Chinese have developed a liking 
 for Manila cigars, and many of them may be seen smoking 
 them. The street coolies in Hongkong, whose stock of 
 cash is too small to invest in such luxuries, keep an eye 
 open for the discarded ends tossed away by the extravagant
 
 Tobacco and Pipes 
 
 foreigner, and, picking them up, enjoy a few whiffs. Nor is 
 the manufacture of these cigar ends into new cigars 
 unknown to the ingenious Chinaman. 
 
 It is curious to notice how very similar pipes that were 
 used in England on the first introduction of tobacco 
 smoking are to the small Chinese pipes in use in China 
 at present. If the general opinion that the Portuguese 
 spread the knowledge of tobacco smoking into Asia soon 
 after its introduction be accepted (the Chinese, it is stated, 
 learned it from the Philippine Islands), then this similarity 
 in the pipes is easily accounted for. A writer in MacmillaiJs 
 Magazine for August 1 896, throws out the suggestion that, 
 as with so many other things, the Chinese were the 
 introducers of tobacco smoking into America and the 
 West. If this be true, the similarity in pipes is also 
 accounted for. 
 
 In this connection it may be interesting to note the 
 following account of tobacco cultivation in the Szchuan 
 Province, as reported on by Mr. Smithers, the United States 
 Consul at Chungking. 
 
 'The tobacco plant is grown all over the province of Szechuan, 
 but more abundantly in the districts of Pe-shan Hsien, which is about 
 150 li (60 miles) north-east of this city, and Kin-t'ang Hsien, about 
 100 li (40 miles) east of Chengtu, the provincial capital. 
 
 'The plant grows to the height of about i\ to 3 feet from the 
 ground, and the usual time for planting the seed is during the tenth 
 or eleventh moon (November or December). The method, before 
 putting the seed into the ground, is to sift out a quantity of soil and 
 manure it. When dry, the seed is wrapped with this soil and put 
 into the ground at intervals of a foot and a half. The soil must not 
 be rich, and ground where cereals have not been already planted is 
 generally chosen. 
 
 'During the year, there are three crops the first is cut six months 
 after it has been planted, the second twenty days afterwards, and 
 the third crop twenty days after the second crop. 
 
 ' So soon as it is cut, it is hung up to dry for about a fortnight, 
 in a sheltered place with a good draught, so that it may dry quickly. 
 When ready for sale, it is done up in bundles weighing 70 to 80 
 catties (39.3 to io6'6 pounds) a piece. 
 
 'The Kin-t'ang tobacco leaf receives a little more care. After it 
 is dried, it is put into a press, to enable some of the juice to be pressed 
 out and the leaf made much milder than the other leaves that are 
 sold in the market. It is done up in bundles of 40 to 50 catties 
 (53.3 to 66'6 pounds) each. The seed is sown under shelter. When 
 
 715
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 the leaves are ready, they are picked, and exposed to the dew for 
 several nights ; they are then dipped in a dye, and hung up to dry 
 again before being taken to the markets for sale.' 
 
 The article goes on to say that a Chinese is making 
 cigars, but they are not equal to Manila cigars ; but with 
 proper curing they would be probably improved. The 
 Chinese in that neighbourhood are said to take off a piece 
 of leaf, roll it into a sort of cheroot, and smoke it in their 
 pipes, consisting of a small brass bowl and long bamboo 
 or cane stem. 
 
 ' Tobacco leaf was shipped away [from Shanghai in 
 1898] to the extent of 210,000 piculs, of which 94 per cent, 
 went to Japan, or say, 197,000 piculs, as against 13,000 
 piculs in 1897.' 
 
 ' Tobacco of excellent quality is produced in China, 
 and at one time it looked as though this was a promising 
 trade, 371,137 piculs having been exported in 1898 ; but 
 fraudulent packing has spoiled these prospects and the 
 export has fallen off, although the export of 158,383 piculs 
 was an improvement on the figures for the previous 
 year.' 
 
 TOMBS. A book itself might be written on the sub- 
 ject of tombs in China, so important are they considered in 
 this land of anomalies ; they are frequently to be found 
 scattered over the hill-sides everywhere, or forming a com- 
 pact mass of whited sepulchres, as at Amoy ; or occupying 
 a place of honour in the middle of a rice-field, as in the 
 neighbourhood of Swatow. Different chapters in such a 
 book might be filled with accounts of the graves them- 
 selves ; their construction ; the different styles used in 
 different dynasties ; the different styles used in different 
 parts of the country at the present day ; the different 
 styles used by high officials, lower officials, and the 
 common people ; the inscriptions on the tombstones 
 differing at different periods of history and even in 
 different parts of the country at the present day ; the 
 different superstitions connected with the graves, the folk- 
 
 716
 
 Topsyturvydom 
 
 lore, the worship paid at the tombs to the spirits of the 
 deceased ; the wonderful farrago of nonsense and only 
 glimmerings of a stray truth here and there amidst such 
 an amount of darkness and ignorance, as to create a 
 doubt whether there be anything but a mass of falsehood 
 in the whole system of Fung Shui the wonderful 
 geomantic superstition which centres round the tomb of 
 the deceased ancestor as the hope and dread of future 
 generations. (See Article on Fung Shui.) Not a few 
 chapters might be occupied with descriptions of the coffin 
 to be put in the tomb, accounts of the procession to the 
 tomb, and the funeral with all the varying customs for 
 different parts of the country ; while interesting pages might 
 contain investigations as to how much of all the ceremonial 
 has come down from a high antiquity and how much has 
 grown on to the original system in the course of ages 
 how much is original ancestor worship and how much is 
 due to Buddhism and Taoism ; all these would require 
 a full treatment to do justice to the subject, and even 
 then much of interest would have been left out. We 
 cannot, therefore, in this article do more than thus point 
 to some of the various aspects that the tomb presents 
 itself to the Chinese in, and refer our readers to our 
 articles on Ancestral Worship, Fung Shui, and Mourning, 
 for a notice of one or two of the aspects mentioned 
 above. 
 
 Books recommended. Gray's 'China,' vol. i. pp. 308-325. Williams's 
 ' Middle Kingdom,' vol. ii. pp. 246, 252. Most books on China contain 
 something on the subject. 'The Religions System of China,' in seven 
 books, by J. J. M. de Groot, Ph.D., now being published, contains most 
 full and particular accounts of tombs, coffins, graves, etc., very much on the 
 lines laid down in the above article. 
 
 TOPSYTURVYDOM. It is the unexpected that one 
 must expect, especially in this land of Topsy-turvydom. 
 The Chinese are not only at our antipodes with regard to 
 position on the globe, but they are our opposites in almost 
 every action and thought. It never does to judge how a 
 Chinese would act under certain circumstances from what 
 
 717
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 we ourselves would do if placed in similar conditions : the 
 chances are that he would do the very actions we would 
 never think of performing ; think the very thoughts that 
 would never occur to us ; and say what no foreigner would 
 ever think of uttering. He laughs when he tells you his 
 father or mother, brother or sister, is dead ; a bride that did 
 not wail as if for the dead would be a fraud. He asks you 
 if you have eaten your rice, instead of saying ' How do you 
 do ? ' and locates his intellect in his stomach. For ' good- 
 bye' he says 'walk slowly.' Instead of telling you to take 
 heart and be brave when any danger threatens, he tells you 
 to lessen your heart ; he makes the most earnest enquiries, 
 not only as to your health, but asks your age, and 
 compliments you if you are old ; he wishes to know 
 what your salary or income is, what your rent is, and 
 numberless other polite questions which we think 
 impertinent. On the other hand, let no enquiry cross your 
 lips as to the welfare of his wife ; nor had you better ask 
 after his daughters his sons he will be glad to parade 
 before you ; but do not compliment him on the chubby 
 cheeks and healthy looks of his baby boy, as any accident 
 or disease happening to the youngster will be laid to your 
 account. While you have doffed your hat on entering his 
 house, he has put his on before receiving you. He shakes 
 his own hands instead of clasping yours ; he places you on 
 his left as the seat of honour ; and if he hands you any- 
 thing he does so with two hands. He, perhaps, shows you 
 with pride the set of coffin boards which his dutiful son has 
 presented to him. 
 
 If we look at Chinese books, here again everything 
 seems different : the end is the beginning and the 
 beginning is the end ; the lines of printing are vertical and 
 not horizontal, as with us ; the title is often written on the 
 outside bottom edges of the books, as they are not stood 
 up in rows in book-cases, but laid on the shelves one above 
 the other ; while the reader puts in his marker at the bottom 
 of the page and not at the top ; footnotes are on the top 
 margin or occur in the body of the text, the title is on the 
 
 718
 
 Topsyturvydom 
 
 edge, where the headings of the pages also appear, as well 
 as their numbers ; the edges are uncut and are intended to 
 remain so, as the paper is only printed on one side, and 
 the interior pages are blank. Sometimes two books are 
 bound in one, but then the upper half of the page is taken 
 up with one, and the lower half with the other, all the way 
 through the book, somewhat like the French feuilleton 
 printed at the bottom of the newspaper in France. It is in 
 the same way that he keeps his debit and credit accounts 
 in his office or shop books, one on the upper half of the 
 page and the other on the lower. 
 
 His classical works of poetry of ancient times, as well as 
 of the great T'ong and Sung dynasties, are printed like 
 prose, just as German hymn-books are. 
 
 In his dictionaries he uses no alphabet, but laying hold 
 of 214 key words, he arranges his tens of thousands of 
 words under these. At other times he arranges them by 
 the termination of their sounds, so that ling, ming, ting, 
 sing, would all come under one heading, just as if we were 
 to class all our words ending in er together in one part of 
 our dictionary, like a rhyming dictionary. 
 
 In the matter of dress we come again across curious 
 examples of doing things in a different way from ours. 
 The Chinese official rank is shown by different coloured 
 buttons of various materials stuck on the top of the 
 official hat ; the mandarin's clothes are embroidered with 
 animals and birds, front and back, for the same reason, and 
 a peacock's and other feathers show his honours all these 
 instead of epaulettes, gold-lace, and decorations while a 
 string of beads round his neck completes the ' great man's ' 
 effeminate appearance. The wearing of bracelets is not 
 confined to women, men often have expensive jadestone 
 ones on. Neither men nor women wear gloves, but their 
 sleeves are so long, falling over their hands, as to be used 
 as muffs in cold weather ; these capacious sleeves also 
 serve as pockets. 
 
 A Chinaman wears his hair on the back of his head as 
 long as a woman's, but on the front it is all shaven off. By 
 
 719
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 the hair on his face you may approximately judge his age ; 
 before forty-five or thereabouts he is clean shaved, after 
 that he cultivates his moustache, and later in life he grows 
 all he can, which is not much. The women, as well as the 
 men, wear jackets and trousers, and the men long robes. 
 As a general rule, the women wear socks, and the men often 
 wear stockings. The men go with comparatively thin soles, 
 and the large-footed women often with thick ones. Some 
 of our ladies are foolish enough to tight-lace ; the Chinese 
 ladies bind their feet. We blacken our shoes ; the Chinese 
 whiten the sides of their soles. We use our hands to play 
 at battledore and shuttlecock ; the Chinese have no 
 battledore and kick the shuttlecock with their feet. Boys 
 fly kites with us ; they do also in China, but the finest 
 kites are the property of grown-up men, who enjoy the 
 flying of them as much as boys, if not more. 
 
 Black is mourning with us ; white, grey, and blue, with 
 the Chinese, and the shoes, as well as cap, hair, and clothes, 
 all show it. Red is the sign of rejoicing, and is consequently 
 used at marriages. 
 
 Babies are habitually carried on the back, nor does a 
 gentleman or lady hesitate to accept a similar position 
 when being landed from a boat through the mud. Most 
 of the small boats are ' manned ' by woman. Ladies smoke 
 as well as gentlemen, and gentlemen fan themselves as well 
 as the ladies. 
 
 The Chinese compass points to the south, not to the 
 north, as with us, nor do they say north-west, north-east, 
 south-east, and south-west ; but, on the contrary, west-north, 
 east-north, east-south, and west-south. On Chinese boats 
 the cooking is done at the stern and not in a galley forward. 
 They often haul their boats up on the shore stern foremost ; 
 their oars, instead of being in one piece, are in two, joined 
 in the middle, a short end piece being put on at the handle, 
 and, in contravention of our rules of rowing, one hand often 
 caps it. They, as often as not, do not keep stroke in rowing, 
 but each one pulls his own time ; nor does a Chinaman ever 
 think of walking in step, they follow each other, one after 
 
 720
 
 Topsyturvydom 
 
 the other, like a flock of geese. The stone coolies, carrying 
 heavy slabs of granite, persistently keep out of step, if we 
 may be allowed the Irishism. 
 
 We have read of an exhibition in Western lands where 
 a house was built upside down, and the attic built on the 
 ground and the cellar up in the air. The Chinaman, 
 however, does not do this, but he puts his ridge pole 
 up first, suspended in the air and then he builds his 
 house up to it. 
 
 But there seems to be no limit to the contrariety of the 
 Chinaman. He turns his names backforwards, as we do in 
 our directories : the surnames first and the other names 
 afterwards; and in the same way he transposes (according 
 to our ideas) his titles of respect and relationship ; for 
 instead of saying His Lordship the Chief Justice, the 
 Chinese he uses, if literally translated, would be Chief 
 Justice His Lordship, Uncle Sam would be Sam Uncle, 
 and Mr. Brown would be Brown Mr. There is one occasion 
 when we put an official's titles after his name, and that is 
 in a proclamation issued by him ; here again the Chinese 
 reverses his usual method and put all the titles first, and 
 the official's name last. He arranges his dates just the 
 opposite to what we do ours, for he puts the year first, the 
 month next, and the day last. He sometimes buys a little 
 girl and brings her up in the house as a future bride for his 
 son, who, in any case, has not the trouble of searching one 
 out, for his father and mother will do that for him, sometimes 
 even arranging a matrimonial alliance before he is born, on 
 the contingency that he will prove to be a boy and that the 
 other family will chance to have a girl. When a servant 
 wishes to leave your employ, instead of telling you so, it 
 often happens that he asks leave to return to the country, 
 puts in a substitute, and never returns. When a Chinese 
 wishes to consult you about any matter he generally 
 sends a friend, and either does not come at all, or waits 
 downstairs, to be ready if it is imperatively necessary for 
 him to appear ; and in the same way nearly everything 
 is done through a friend, or go-between, or middle-man. 
 
 /21 2 Z
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 He turns his fractions upside down and, instead of 
 saying four-sixths, says sixths-four. 
 
 Man is the beast of burden in a great part of China, 
 and not only does he carry his fellow-man, but pigs are even 
 carried by the coolies. 
 
 The blade of the saw is set at right angles to the frame, 
 and the Chinese carpenter sits to his work, using his feet to 
 hold the wood firm ; he sticks his footrule in his stocking 
 or down his back. 
 
 ' As regards their order of nobility, the Chinese offer 
 another instance of their contrariness ; not only ... do 
 a son's deeds ennoble his ancestors, but heredity is the 
 exception, and extinction the rule.' 
 
 TORTURE. Torture is divided in China into two 
 classes : legal and illegal ; what is permitted, and what is 
 supposed not to be allowed. 
 
 'The clauses under Section i of the Code describe the legal 
 instruments of torture ; they consist of three boards with proper 
 grooves for compressing the ankles, and five round sticks for squeezing 
 the fingers, to which may be added the bamboo ; besides these, no 
 instruments of torture are legally allowed, though other ways of putting 
 the question are so common as to give the impression that some of 
 them at least are sanctioned. Pulling or twisting the ears with 
 roughened fingers, and keeping them in a bent position while making 
 the prisoner kneel on chains, or making him kneel for a long time, are 
 among the illegal modes. Striking the lips with sticks until they are 
 nearly jellied, putting the hands in stocks before or behind the back, 
 wrapping the fingers in oiled cloth to burn them, suspending the 
 body by the thumbs and fingers, tying the hands to a bar under the 
 knees, so as to bend the body double, and chaining by the neck 
 close to a stone, are resorted to when the prisoner is contumacious. 
 One magistrate is accused of having fastened up two criminals to 
 boards by nails driven through their palms ; one of them tore his 
 hands loose and was nailed up again, which caused his death ; using 
 beds of iron, boiling water, red-hot spikes, and cutting the tendon 
 Achilles are also charged against him, but the Emperor exonerated 
 him on account of the atrocious character of the criminals. Compel- 
 ling them to kneel upon pounded glass, sand, and salt mixed together, 
 until the knees become excoriated, or simply kneeling upon chains is 
 a lighter mode of the same infliction. . . . Flogging is one of the five 
 authorised punishments, but it is used more than any other means to 
 elicit confession ; the bamboo, rattan, cudgel, and whip are all 
 employed. When death ensues, the magistrate reports that the criminal 
 died of sickness, or hushes it up by bribing his friends, few of whom 
 are ever allowed access within the walls of the prison to see and 
 
 722
 
 Trade 
 
 comfort the sufferers. From the manner in which such a result is 
 spoken of it may be inferred that immediate death does not often 
 take place from torture.' 
 
 It is not only the prisoner who is tortured ; but the 
 witnesses are also liable to be so treated ; the prisoner to 
 make him confess, without which he cannot be punished ; 
 the witnesses to make them divulge what they are supposed 
 to know, and are holding back. The fear that the lower 
 officials are in of being reported by their superiors acts as 
 a deterrent in some cases ; but, notwithstanding this check, 
 there must be an immense amount of torture inflicted on 
 poor humanity in China, when once within the clutches of 
 the law. No wonder the Chinese dread the law and its 
 minions : they have reason to do so. The mere incarcera- 
 tion in the loathsome cells attached to the yamens is 
 torture itself; and how much more this is aggravated by 
 the racks and bambooings and hangings up by thumbs 
 and big toes can be better imagined than described. 
 
 Books recommended. Williains's 'Middle Kingdom,' vol i. pp. 507-508. 
 Gray's ' China,' vol. i. pp. 32-38. 
 
 TRADE. The Chinese are pre-eminently a trading 
 race; 'their merchants are acute, methodical, sagacious, 
 and enterprising, not over-scrupulous as to their mercan- 
 tile honesty in small transactions, but in large dealings 
 exhibiting that regard for character in the fulfilment of 
 their obligations which extensive commercial engage- 
 ments usually produce.' 
 
 In dealing with the trade of China, it may conveniently 
 be divided into internal, or domestic, and foreign. Trade 
 may be compared to the breath of prosperity. A nation 
 that has little trade is in a backward state of development, 
 and those nations which place less restrictions on the inter- 
 change of commodities, occupy a foremost place in the 
 world's march of progress. 
 
 The volume of the internal trade of China must be 
 something enormous. When one travels into the interior, 
 especially in the vicinity of some large distributing centre 
 
 723
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 like Canton, one is surprised at the constant succession of 
 craft, sailing swiftly to remote towns and villages, laden 
 with goods for local consumption. The natural facilities 
 in the way of broad rivers have been fully availed of and 
 added to by numerous canals, while footpaths connect all 
 the inland towns and villages, and are traversed by carriers 
 bearing loads of merchandise slung to poles thrown across 
 their shoulders. In the North of China animals are used 
 as beasts of burden, but, in the South, man fulfils that 
 function. 
 
 Nor has the trade of China been simply a modern 
 affair. From remote antiquity the Chinese have been true 
 to their commercial instincts, and have not only been the 
 civilisers of Eastern Asia, supplying them with their letters 
 and literature ; but they have also provided for their 
 more material wants, and received in exchange the com- 
 modities which they required from the neighbouring nations. 
 Nor did their trading voyages go no further than to their 
 immediate neighbours; as they extended to India and 
 even beyond. (See Article on Chinese Abroad.) This 
 trade with foreign lands was continued through successive 
 dynasties, and to it has been added, during the last two 
 or three centuries, the maritime trade with European 
 countries, which has risen from small beginnings, till it has 
 now attained vast proportions. A most interesting chapter 
 in the world's history will be revealed when future investiga- 
 tions have added sufficient to the material, already gathered 
 and published by patient scholars, to form a comprehensive 
 survey of the commercial relations of this vast country, not 
 only with her immediate neighbours, but with distant 
 countries in Asia, and even with the Roman empire, while 
 its more modern developments with Europe and America 
 will not be found devoid of interest. 
 
 The Foreign Trade of China ' has been gradually growing since 
 the days, when, in the forties, a few ships made one voyage each year 
 to China in order to barter their cargoes, and has now become 
 positively enormous. Moreover, it involves so many interests, and 
 touches so many people, that those who have not studied the matter 
 can form ' no idea of its varied character and great vastness. 
 
 724
 
 Trade 
 
 When thus ' refreshing our memories, and informing our minds, 
 of the tremendous volume of trade done with China by foreign 
 countries, of which Great Britain is responsible for consider- 
 ably more than one-half, we are, after all, only looking at the 
 branches of the tree, with its rich foliage of leaves and burden of 
 fruit. We have not yet looked, so to speak, at the soil and the roots 
 which have produced the tree. Yet these must not be forgotten. In 
 other words, we must not overlook the sources whence this enormous 
 mass of cargo comes. We must look upon the almost countless 
 number of human beings who are employed in the production thereof. 
 Without noticing, for the moment, the destination of the exports, 
 though this is really as important as the other, let us call to mind the 
 many sources whence China's imports come. We shall only refer to 
 a few specimens, but by so doing, when we multiply the number by 
 ten, we shall see how many people are involved in the China trade 
 and how important it is that in the arrangements about to be made, 
 not only should every care be taken to protect it, but every facility be 
 insisted on for its further development. The thousands of lamps, of 
 which China now uses so many, are made in America, whilst most of 
 the lamp glasses are made in Germany. Shirtings, calicoes and 
 woollens are made in England, whilst cotton yarns come from 
 India. Kerosene comes from America, Dutch East Indies, and Russia. 
 In these two or three brief references almost all the civilised world is 
 involved. Moreover, the different classes of persons, whose living, 
 more or less, depends on China trade, will appear evident, when we 
 recall the fact that during 1899 no less than 2,566 musical boxes were 
 imported into Shanghai alone. Indeed, the Customs report will show 
 that the number and different classes of workers interested in the 
 making and the receiving of goods from China, were almost un- 
 countable. 
 
 ' Much might be added, pointing out the possibility of gradually 
 introducing new industries into China, which in course of time would 
 benefit all parties. We need only point to the large area of practically 
 valueless land in the North of Kwangtung province. Huge flocks of 
 sheep could, without doubt, be reared thereon, which would supply 
 the people with much acceptable food and necessary clothing.' 
 
 Doubtless, in years to come, this or similar projects 
 will be tried. 
 
 There was a great expansion in the Foreign Trade 
 of China in 1899 and the first half of 1900, but the 
 Boxer disturbances and the resultant hostilities with the 
 Foreign Powers acted not only as an estoppel on all trade 
 at the two Northern Ports but affected, more or less 
 seriously, other of the Treaty Ports, as well ; but the 
 recuperative energy of the Foreign Trade of China is 
 great, and the unrest and uncertainty, incident to the 
 war in the North, over its vitality was quickly shown. 
 
 With the end of 1900 another decade in the modern 
 
 725
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 compilation of statistics under the cognisance of the 
 Imperial Maritime Customs is available, and the following 
 points are worthy of attention. 
 
 The importation of cotton piece goods has remained 
 practically stationary, though some items shown total up 
 a smaller figure than before, and others have advanced. 
 The advance of American Trade is evinced in drills, 
 jeans, shirtings and cotton, flannel and lastings ; the 
 class of English goods of this nature generally have 
 shown no advance. Japanese cotton goods are in 
 favour, Indian and Japanese yarns have made rapid 
 headway. Woollen goods and metals are stationary, 
 candles, cement, clocks and watches, aniline dyes, window- 
 glass, paints, and perfumery are rising in demand, by 
 gradual steps. Flour, kerosene, matches, and soap arrive 
 in much larger quantities every year. 
 
 A great advance in Trade is predicted with the advent 
 of railways, for the few miles already constructed are almost 
 a negligible factor at present. Not only will this future 
 development from railways afford a better means of com- 
 munication and bring distant parts of the country within 
 easy reach of the ports where cargo is landed from foreign 
 parts, and which are now almost inaccessible to goods 
 on account of the difficulty and cost of transit and the 
 dangers from robbers and pirates in transitu, but the capital 
 employed for their construction will afford the means to 
 purchase the foreign goods ardently desired by the native. 
 
 In 1890 the Foreign Goods imported into China 
 were valued at Hk. Tls. 134,640,288 (34,922,320). In 
 1900 they were 223,791,888 (34,734,365). They rose to 
 280,907,296 (42,282,402) in 1899. 
 
 As to exports, nearly every year shows a large increase 
 in nearly every article. Bristles, fans, feathers, hemp, 
 hides, mats and matting, oils, rhubarb, sesamum seed, skins, 
 tobacco, and wool, all are increasing in the quantity sent 
 out of the country. Silk, excepting steam-filature silk, is 
 not doing well, the disease amongst the worms being 
 against it. 
 
 726
 
 Trade 
 
 Black tea is in a bad way, green tea holds its own, and 
 brick is doing better than it did. The statistics published 
 by the I.M. Customs do not, however, include the consider- 
 able trade across the Russian frontier, and they take DO 
 cognisance of the trade with Tibet. The Export Trade 
 was valued at Hk. Tls. 100,947,849 (^24,816,346) in 1891 
 and in 1900 it was 158,996,752 (.24,677,621). 
 
 The record of the Trade for 1901 is a very good one 
 indeed, the total revenue being Hk. Tls. 25,537,574, the 
 only year previously exceeding it being 1899, with 
 26,661,460. The Statistical Secretary writes: 
 
 ' It was to be expected that the figures would compare favourably 
 with those for 1900, but even when compared with 1899 we find in- 
 creases under Import Duties, Coast Trade Duty, Tonnage Dues, 
 and Transit Dues. There was a falling off in Export Duty and in 
 Opium Duty and Likin ; the former is of no significance, as it was 
 due to exceptional circumstances. . . . From the nth November the 
 Import Duties were under the provisions of the Peace Protocol, 
 calculated on an effective 5 per cent, basis, but there was no time 
 for the adjustment to add much to the year's collection. With the 
 additional Import Duties, and the opening up of so much country 
 by railways, it seems not unreasonable to hope that the collection 
 during 1902 may not fall far short of thirty millions of taels. 
 
 'In spite of the adverse circumstances alluded to above, the year 
 was a good one for Foreign Trade, especially as regards Imports, 
 and the total estimated value of Imports and Exports was Hk. Tls. 
 437,959,675, higher than any other year except 1899. The northern 
 ports showed a satisfactory recovery, although Tientsin did not 
 altogether regain its former position. There was no rush of Imports 
 to escape the increased Duty, except at one or two of the southern 
 ports, and the trade was thoroughly healthy. The future depends 
 very much on an increase in the trade and the course of exchange. 
 Heavy taxation to pay indemnities will to that extent diminish the 
 purchasing power of the people, and unless Exports are stimulated, 
 silver must be exported or Imports must decline. . . . The value of 
 Imports exceeded the value of Exports by Hk. Tls. 49,916,706 and 
 for first time for many years, there was a net export of silver to the 
 value of Hk. Tls. 6,097,802. The explanation why more silver was 
 not exported to pay for the difference between Imports and Exports 
 is that an unusually large proportion of Imports came in during the 
 last three months and were not paid for when the year closed, and 
 also that China never has to pay for part of the goods received. Re- 
 mittances from Chinese emigrants abroad, contributions to missionary 
 societies, expenditure on Foreign troops and officials, expenses of 
 exploitation by sundry syndicates, and of railway construction with 
 Foreign capital, as well as value in China's favour of the frontier 
 trade across the Russian border and into Thibet, would probably be 
 found to cover the difference as well as providing for other obligations. 
 
 727
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 The net value of gold exported amounting to Hk. Tls. 6,635,313, must 
 also be taken into consideration. The principal fact to bear in mind, 
 however, would seem to be that the Chinese, in spite of their difficul- 
 ties, were able to spend twice as much silver on Foreign goods as they 
 did in 1891.' 
 
 As to foreign shipping entering Chinese ports, the 
 British, notwithstanding the keen competition of the 
 Germans, still hold a preponderating enormous advantage 
 both as regards entries and tonnage, and have largely 
 increased during the decade. 
 
 As far as entries into port are concerned, the British 
 shipping in 1890 figured to the extent of 1,836 in 1890, 
 and in 1900 the numbers were 3,335. The tonnage was 
 2,031,608 and 3,239,924, for the two periods respectively. 
 The German entries were in 1890, 393, in 1900, 433 ; 
 tonnage, 262,480 in 1890, and 637,653 in 1900. It will 
 be seen from these figures how rapidly the Germans have 
 advanced in these respects. The next after Germans 
 come the Chinese, who, though making an immense 
 number more of entries, have not proportionately increased 
 the tonnage entries in 1890, 382, in 1900, 1,485 ; tonnage 
 in 1890, 205,667, in 1900, 223,255. 
 
 The Japanese come fourth, with also a very large 
 advance in the decennial period, viz., 1890, entries 267, in 
 1900, 751; tonnage in 1890, 219,263; in 1900, 774,481. 
 With the coastwise trade in foreign bottoms, the British 
 again lead well, the figures in 1890 being for entries 6,632, 
 and in 1900, 8,080; and for tonnage, 6,025,347 in 1890, 
 and 8,303,336 in 1900. In entries in the same trade the 
 Germans are again rapidly pulling up, as in 1890 they were 
 677, and in 1900, 1,334, while the tonnage in 1890 was 
 410,940 and in 1900, 1,381,467. The Chinese have also 
 made 15,331 entries in 1900, as against 4,689 in 1890; and 
 the tonnage in 1900 was 3,674,917, as against 2,944,033 in 
 1890. The Japanese increase in this branch of the carry- 
 ing trade is very large; for whereas in 1890 there were 
 only 46 entries put down to their credit, they had increased 
 to the comparatively enormous number of 1,712 ; and the 
 tonnage, of course, also shows a large increase, for in 
 
 728
 
 Trade 
 
 1890 it was 33,225 and in 1900, 1,165,879. The total 
 tonnage employed in the foreign trade, entries and 
 clearances, was 48,416,000 tons, Great Britain contributing 
 54 per cent, Germany 16, China 13, Japan 11, America 2, 
 Russia i, and all other countries I per cent. 
 
 ' The increase under the German flag, as well as that to 
 be noted in the case of the British and American, is further 
 accounted for by the disappearance in June ... of the 
 Chinese ensign from all steamers on the coast.' This was 
 on account of the war. 
 
 The French also have shared in a large increase in both 
 the foreign carrying trade and the coastwise carrying trade. 
 Foreign trade entries for 1890, were 63, ten years after, 376 ; 
 tonnage 1 14,479 at the beginning of the decade and at 
 the end 280,539. In the coastwise trade the figures are 
 24 and 1 15, and 4,500 and 50,923 respectively. 
 
 The Danish and Spanish ships would appear from the 
 statistics to be either run off the China coast with competi- 
 tion, or nearly so ; for though there is a slight rise in the 
 tonnage trade as regards the Danish, yet the other figures 
 all show a large fall ; the Spanish have none of the foreign 
 carrying trade in 1900, as against 14 entries in 1890, 
 though on the other hand they have 6 entries and 269 tons 
 in 1900, as against none in 1890. 
 
 All the other figures pertaining to other nationalities 
 show an increase in the ten years, the totals for all 
 nations in 1890 being entries under the heading of Foreign 
 Trade 3,114; in 1900, 6,948; tonnage 2,944,092 and 
 5,539,404, while in the Coastwise Trade the figures are 
 entries 12,243 in 1890, and in 1900, 27,431; the tonnage 
 in 1890 being 9,490,316 and in 1900, 14,850,166. 
 
 We will now proceed to take the Treaty Ports 
 seriatim, making a few remarks on the trade of each in 
 1900, commencing with Newchwang, the most northerly. 
 
 The year started with brilliant prospects. ' Wonder- 
 ful as had been the progress during the preceding year, 
 there was every indication that it was to be exceeded,' 
 both exports and imports arriving and departing in large 
 
 729
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 quantities. Over 2,000,000 piculs of bean cake were 
 exported, and melon seeds and medicines were in excess 
 of previous years ; the season was favourable, bubonic 
 plague was absent ; but suddenly the Boxer troubles 
 arose, and trade virtually stopped. 
 
 Chefoo is again another port which the Boxer troubles 
 affected seriously. Chinese merchants and labourers left 
 the port, the Boxers threatening to kill all connected with 
 Foreigners, and a Coolie riot occurred, fortunately quelled 
 before ill results ensued. ' Inland waters steam traffic has 
 doubled,' and ' silk filatures are increasing in number.' 
 What Chefoo requires is a railway to connect it with the 
 capital of the province. 
 
 At Kiaochow, the German port, the unsettled state of 
 the country, due to rumours of war from the North, was 
 a disturbing element and prevented the possibility of a 
 bumper year being reported. But on the resumption of 
 trade there was a sharp demand for cottons, yarn, and 
 kerosene, while a new line was opened in exports in straw 
 braid at the expense of Chefoo. A famine season affected 
 the supply of salted pigs, as the peasants not having 
 sufficient for themselves were not able to rear their pigs. 
 
 Chungking, in the heart of the Szchuan Province, was 
 seriously affected by the war in the North, and business 
 went to the dogs. 
 
 Ichang did better, all things considered, while Shashi's 
 trade was almost double of any year, due to the drought 
 and shipping facilities offered, when native boats were not 
 available for the traffic. 
 
 Yochow's first year of being open to foreign trade is not 
 an encouraging one. Its selection as a Treaty Port appears 
 an unfortunate one, for one thing, and the hampering 
 restrictions of the Inland Waters Rules are another 
 factor telling against it. In Hankow again, the unpre- 
 cedented prosperity with which the year commenced 
 in all branches of trade was checked by the Boxer 
 war, and almost paralysed. Some 70,000 piculs of 
 antimony were exported to Europe. Only a third of 
 
 730
 
 Trade 
 
 the brick tea sent to Kalgan reached its destination, 
 and no trace of it is discoverable. 
 
 In Kewkiang the same old story is told of the disastrous 
 consequences resulting from the war in the North ' a con- 
 siderable falling-off as compared with the splendid figures 
 of the two preceding years. A few items are reported as 
 showing an increase,' notably beans and peas, which show 
 an extraordinary advance of 108,669 piculs, due to the 
 stoppage of trade at Newchwang, and the consequent 
 enhanced demand in the southern ports. 
 
 Almost a standstill of trade, owing to the troubles in 
 the North, in -the summer in Wuhu ; the revenue from this 
 port would have been as great if not greater than in 1899, 
 but for the above cause. 
 
 1900 was the first complete year of Nanking as a 
 Treaty Port. There was a panic amongst the merchants, 
 owing to the same causes that affected the trade at the 
 other Treaty Ports. There was consequently ' an utter 
 stagnation throughout all branches of the silk industry. 
 77 per cent, of the Exports here are silk products of one 
 sort or another.' 
 
 In Chinkiang the loss was 2\ million taels for the year 
 1900, as compared with 1899; but this port did not suffer 
 as much as might have been expected. Strange to say, 
 the Mexican dollar appreciated in value, as every one 
 wished to realise owing to the general uneasiness dis- 
 organising trade, and the native banks would not part 
 with their money. 1901, however, showed a reassuring 
 buoyancy in trade. 
 
 In Shanghai, on the whole, the storm was weathered re- 
 markably well, all things considered, merchants and traders 
 adapting themselves to the altered circumstances of the 
 case. Cotton mills did badly, having abnormally adverse 
 circumstances to contend with. Were ' lighter taxation 
 afforded, these Chinese mills could easily compete with 
 their Indian and Japanese rivals.' The Commissioner 
 of Customs in his report calls attention to a circumstance 
 which shows what a necessity kerosene has become to the 
 
 731
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 Chinese ; for, ' notwithstanding the loss of the northern 
 trade [due to the war], deliveries were only about 10 per 
 cent, short of those of 1899.' The Russian product 
 maintains its popularity ; American oil dropped from 
 26,438,138 to 19 million odd gallons, while the Sumatra 
 article showed an increase of a million odd gallons. 
 Kerosene is such a bright light compared with pea-nut 
 oil and the tiny wick formerly used so largely. Notwith- 
 standing the general business integrity of the Chinese 
 mercantile class, which compares favourably with that of 
 the Japanese, the Chinese trader is not above resorting at 
 times, like his Western contemporary in Europe, to tricks 
 of trade. The practice of putting inferior quality of goods 
 in the middle of straw bundles, tends to drive this branch 
 of trade to Japan, where the Japanese turn out, it appears, 
 a reliable article. What a disquieting effect the war caused, 
 may be gathered from the wholesale departure of natives 
 from this large Treaty Port ; for, though far distant from 
 the seat of operations, ' it is estimated that something like 
 80,000 persons left the port.' In 1901 the trade improved 
 by 20 per cent. 
 
 An upheaval of business and a panic is reported from 
 Soochow, while Ningpo reports a certain depression in 
 trade, and Hangchow, that the trade suffered, though the 
 Customs Revenue only declined 10 per cent., and in 
 Wenchow the trade ' was influenced to a great extent 
 by the troubles in the north of China ' ; ' from July onwards, 
 there was very little demand for the principal Exports.' 
 
 In Santuao, the year was 'an uneventful one, from a 
 commercial point of view.' 
 
 In Foochow the year 1900 was a disastrous one, the 
 outbreak in the North being one of the factors, and a 
 flood which paralysed trade another. The Swedish matches, 
 which poured into China a few years ago, gave way to the 
 Japanese article, and the latest development in Foochow and 
 other parts of China has been the ousting of the last by the 
 native manufacture. ' The great increase in the production 
 of both Indian and Ceylon Tea has seriously interfered with 
 
 732
 
 Trade 
 
 the China Tea Trade.' In the season 1899-1900, Foochow 
 exported 16 million Ibs. odd of tea to Europe, and 6 million 
 odd to the Colonies. In the next season this small amount 
 had still fallen to 1 1 million odd and 6 million odd. Shang- 
 hai and Hankow sent in 1900-1901, 14 million Ibs. odd of 
 tea, a falling-off of well on for i millions on the previous 
 year. Canton and Macao in 1900-1901, sent 3,818,000, a 
 falling-off of more than 2 million Ibs. on 1899. There was 
 a total of 52,486,000 Ibs. for the season 1900-01 from 
 Shanghai, Foochow, and Amoy (Formosan Tea) to Canada 
 and America, being an increase of 7,495,000 Ibs. Such 
 enormous quantities of tea were in stock in London, 
 Hamburg, Melbourne, and Sydney, the chief distributing 
 markets, that the lowest prices for tea ever known were 
 reached. In Australia, tea selling in China at /d. a Ib. 
 was sold for 5^d. to 5id. a Ib. Something similar happened 
 in America, but from a different cause, as the following 
 extract from the Customs Report will show : 
 
 ' From China last season there was an increase of 5,381,000 Ibs. to 
 America, brought about by international complications. American 
 importers were under the impression that the unrest prevailing would 
 stop the Tea trade, so they made haste to buy all they could in 
 advance. The result is that the market is now overstocked, and that 
 great losses have resulted in consequence. New York circulars quote 
 Congou at yf cents, per Ib., which costs 9 to 10 cents, out here.' 
 
 Locally-grown opium has increased enormously : 
 
 'As the Native looks to the profit to be reaped from his land, he, 
 in many cases, turns to the poppy, which yields him 300 or 400 per 
 cent, more than wheat would. The cheapness of the Native drug, as 
 compared with the Foreign, commends its use to the Native, who 
 either uses it pure or mixed with the Foreign drug.' 
 
 In 1901 the Foochow Customs Revenue was the 
 smallest for ten years. 
 
 In Amoy the trade in 1900 'was unremunerative and 
 unsatisfactory all round.' The kerosene oil trade con- 
 tinued to expand. For the first time since Amoy has been 
 a Treaty Port, nearly sixty years, ' no Amoy-grown Tea was 
 purchased by foreign buyers for the home markets, and 
 thus an important commodity, the export of which 25 
 
 733
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 years ago, amounted to upwards of 9 million pounds, 
 finally disappears.' The Reports call attention to the 
 continuous demand for morphia, which has increased 
 thirty-five times what it was ten years ago, reaching for 
 the year 1900 the total of 16,776 ounces. The native- 
 grown opium is also increasing in quantity, the local 
 production being estimated at 8000 piculs, being over 30 
 per cent, more than in the previous year. Both cultivation 
 of the poppy and the yield of opium are on the increase 
 rapidly, and there appears to be very little doubt will 
 continue to increase in the future, and before long it is 
 expected that the province of Fukien will be independent 
 of all other sources for opium. It may be here remarked 
 that the people of Amoy are great opium smokers. 
 Besides the 8000 piculs already mentioned, about 4000 
 piculs was brought by land from Szchuan, and 241 by 
 steamer, 1250 piculs from Yunnan, and some further 
 amount by junk from Wenchow. In 1901 the Revenue 
 showed a slight improvement. 
 
 In Swatow, strange to say, the year's figures compare 
 satisfactorily with those of the year before, for not only was 
 there the war in the North, but an incipient rebellion in the 
 South. With all this the Customs Revenue suffered only 
 a fall of rather less than 10 per cent. The Commissioner 
 makes the following remarks : 
 
 ' Woollen goods nowhere appeal to the Chinese. . . . Nor do the 
 people seem to need metals, three-quarters of a million taels only being 
 paid for them. Old iron (i.e., worn-out cart-tires, horse-shoes, and 
 such things) supplies the small needs of local blacksmiths. Tin is 
 used in making the well-known Swatow pewterware.' ' Though 
 [American flour is] nearly 10 per cent, dearer than the native product, 
 it is preferred, as superior in colour and fineness and for its freedom 
 from grit.' 'The export of fresh eggs grows steadily, and the value for 
 1900 reached Hk. Tls. 128,000, representing 18 million eggs.' 
 
 The trade improved in 1901. 
 
 At Wuchow ' a wave of restlessness, succeeded by nervousness, 
 swept along trade routes from Wuchow north to the capital, and 
 west to Nanning. Trade was affected between June and September, 
 particularly in July and August, when business was almost at a stand- 
 still.' ' The check in the Kerosene Oil business is reported to be due 
 to the wide distribution of an anti-Foreign placard which appeared 
 
 734
 
 Trade 
 
 in July. This placard deprecated the use of [Kerosene] Oil as being 
 made from human bone ashes, and harmful to the eyes. The use of 
 Ground-nut Oil, on which the prosperity of the people largely depended, 
 was urged, and a good harvest with higher prices promised. Strangely 
 enough the autumn crop was good, and prices rose ; many " stupid 
 people" threw away their Kerosene Oil, others hid lamps and stock, 
 and importers say they must take steps to counteract the harm thus 
 done to the trade. But Kerosene will doubtless win its own battle, 
 on account of its convenience and cheapness.' 
 
 There was a large export of mouse deer-skins, 63,000 
 pieces ; there is a large demand for star aniseed ; and a 
 company has been formed to cultivate the castor-oil plant. 
 
 Under the Report on Samshui are included Kongmun, 
 Shiuhing, and Takhing. The trade was less by two-thirds 
 of a million of taels. But in 1901 trade was prosperous, 
 and the figures of the Customs' Revenue amounted to a 
 million taels more than in 1900. 
 
 Canton does not seem to have been so largely affected by 
 the unrest and disturbances as might have been supposed. 
 The exports are silk, tea, cassia, matting, sugar, chinaware, 
 fresh eggs, fruit, vegetables, black-wood furniture, human 
 hair, medicines, prepared tobacco, etc. In 1901, the I.M. 
 Customs having taken over the Native Customs Depart- 
 ment, the Revenue was well on for 61 million Hk. Tls. 
 
 At the Kowloon Customs the value of the Trade was 
 less by 9^ million taels than in the record year 1899. 
 
 Troubles in the North, and local troubles in the 
 Province ' have caused a feeling of uncertainty in the 
 minds of the Commercial class, and made it very cautious 
 in business transactions,' was the Report from Lappa ; but 
 1901 appears to have been a record year. 
 
 Kiungchow suffered severely from the plague, 5000 
 dying in the city. This, with small-pox and the disloca- 
 tion of trade from the troubles in the North, all had a 
 disastrous effect. As in other parts of China, ground- 
 nut oil is being superseded by kerosene. 
 
 At Pakhoi the same reiterated story of disturbances in 
 the North affecting the trade. 
 
 In Lungchow, notwithstanding all the disturbing 
 elements, the year 1900 was a good one from a Customs 
 
 735
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 point of view. In Mengtsz the year's transactions were, on 
 the whole, satisfactory, while in Szemao it had been a 
 gloomy year, and in Yatung trade ' experienced a " set- 
 back,"' unsettled times and disease being responsible for this. 
 
 Tientsin is ' the second largest port in China whose 
 trade has doubled itself during the last ten years [this 
 was written in 1900], and is capable of enormous develop- 
 ment. No port in China has increased in trade in the same 
 ratio in the corresponding time.' The Returns for the first 
 half of 1902 showed that the trade had progressed, the totals 
 being Hk. Tls. 7,992,394. In 1901 the total for same half 
 year was Hk. Tls. 6,440,160, and in 1900 Hk. Tls. 6,385,596. 
 
 What has been written above deals mainly with the 
 foreign exports and the import trade of China, though 
 goods sent from one treaty port of China to another, etc., 
 are included in the Returns, as such goods are carried in 
 foreign bottoms and have to pass the Imperial Maritime 
 Customs. 
 
 The volume of the internal trade of China must be 
 something enormous ; but highly interesting as the subject 
 would be, it is impossible to write on it, for the simple 
 reason that no statistics are available, no reliable data are 
 in existence, to form the groundwork of such a narrative. 
 Any account purporting to deal with it would be made up 
 to a large extent of hearsay and guesswork. 
 
 Books recommended, The Imperial Maritime Customs Annual Returns are 
 most interesting reading. The history of the foreign trade with China will bo 
 found in Williams's 'Middle Kingdom,' and interesting accounts of this branch 
 of the subject will be found in different books on China as well as in papers 
 scattered through the China Meview. See Articles in this book on Chinese 
 Abroad, Tea, Silk, Opium, etc. For an account of ancient trade, sec ' China 
 and the Roman Orient : Researches into their Ancient and Mediaeval Relations 
 as represented in Old Chinese Records,' by F. Hirth, Ph.D. 
 
 TREATY PORTS. The Treaty Ports in China are so 
 called from having been designated by treaties, entered into 
 between England and other Foreign Powers on the one 
 part, and China on the other, as places where foreign 
 merchants shall be allowed to reside and trade. The first 
 of these treaties was that of 1842, signed at Nanking, and 
 
 736
 
 Treaty Ports 
 
 consequently known as the Nanking Treaty. By it, the 
 five cities of Canton, Amoy, Foochow, Ningpo, and 
 Shanghai, were declared to be treaty ports. By the Treaty 
 of Tientsin, so called owing to its having been signed there 
 in 1 858 (though ratified at Peking in 1860), the additional 
 ports of Newchwang, Tangchow (Chefoo), Taiwan (For- 
 mosa), Chao-chow (Swatow), and Kiangchow, were opened 
 to foreign trade. By the Chefoo Convention, signed at 
 that port in 1876, though not ratified till 1886 in London, 
 ' Ich'ang in the province of Hupeh, Wuhu in Anhui, 
 Wenchdw, in Chekiang, and Pei-hai' (Pakhoi in the local 
 pronunication) in Kwangtung, were opened to trade and 
 made Consular stations. By the Chungking Commercial 
 Convention, concluded in February 1890, it was arranged 
 that Chungking in Szchuen should be a Treaty Port, but 
 cargoes have to go in native boats, owned by natives or 
 foreigners, until Chinese-owned steamers ply as far up the 
 Yangtsz as that city, when British steamers may do likewise. 
 By the Chefoo Convention Tat'ung and Nganching, in the 
 province of Anhui, Hokau, in Kiangsi, Wusue'h, Luchikou, 
 and Shashih, in Hukwang, all on the Yangtsz, though not 
 considered treaty ports, were allowed to be used as stopping 
 places by steamers on that river, but native boats are em- 
 ployed to land and ship the cargo and passengers. By the 
 Burmah Frontier Treaty the West River was what is styled 
 'opened to trade' on the 4th of June 1897, and two ports 
 on it made treaty ports, Samshui and Wuchow-fu, and four 
 ports of call established, viz., the towns of Kongmun and 
 Kamchuk, and the cities of Shiuhing and Takhing. In 1899 
 Santuao also came into the list of treaty ports. By the 
 Commercial Treaty of the 5th Sept. 1902 four new ports 
 Changsha, in Hunan, Ngankin, in Anhvvei, Wanhsien, in 
 Szchuan, and Waichou, in Kwangtung, are named as treaty 
 ports, to be opened in 1904, and also Kongmun, which last 
 is at present a port of call. 
 
 The above is what the English Government has done. 
 The French, by their Treaty of 1858 (ratified in 1860), 
 mention, in addition to some of the ports in the English 
 
 737 3 A
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 treaties, Nanking as an open port, and it was supposed 
 to 'enjoy the same privileges as Canton, Shanghai; 
 Ningpo, and Foochow.' However, Nanking was not an 
 open port until the 1st of May 1899, although specified 
 as such, though formal opening could doubtless have 
 been claimed at pleasure by the French Government. 
 By the Convention of Peace between France and China, 
 signed in 1860, Tientsin, in the province of Chihli, is made 
 a treaty port. 
 
 Again, by the Treaty between France and China, signed 
 9th June 1885, provision was made for two more places 
 to possess similar privileges to the Treaty Ports, though 
 situated inland near the French possessions in Tonquin ; 
 and by the Subsequent Trade Regulations for the Annam 
 frontier, jointly determined on by France and China, 
 signed in 1886, it was agreed that two places should be so 
 opened ; these two places are named in the Additional 
 Convention between France and China of 1887, they are 
 Lungchow in Kwangsi, and Mengtseu in Yunnan, and 
 another place, Manghao, is also put in the same category. 
 
 'Under the provisions of the Convention between France and 
 China signed at Peking on the aoth June 1895, a Vice-Consulate was 
 established on the 29th October 1895 at Tunghsing, a port on the 
 coast and Chinese frontier, some 80 miles west of Pakhoi and 
 opposite the village of Moncay in Tonkin,' the French Consul at 
 Pakhoi representing his country at Tunghsiang as well. 
 
 ' In accordance with the stipulations contained in the third 
 paragraph of the " Gerard Supplementary Frontier Convention of 
 
 1895" Szemao was opened to the frontier trade on the 2nd January 
 
 1897.' 
 
 'Under the provisions of the [same] Supplementary Convention 
 between China and France ... a French Consulate was opened at 
 Szemao early in August 1890, and a Vice-Consulate, subordinate to 
 the Mengtsz Consulate, was established on the 22nd August at Hokau, 
 a small village opposite Laokai on the left bank of the Red River, at 
 its junction with the Nan-hsi River.' 
 
 We next come to the part taken by Germany in extort- 
 ing concessions from China : in the Treaty between Prussia 
 and China, signed in 1 86 1 (ratified in 1863), the names of 
 Treaty Ports are set out in Article 6, and the riverine ports 
 of Chinkiang, Kiukiang, and Hankow appear in addition 
 
 738
 
 Treaty Ports 
 
 to those already at that time granted to England and 
 France. By the Supplementary Convention between 
 Germany and China, signed in 1860 (ratified the following 
 year), German ships are allowed to touch at Woosung, in 
 the province of Kiangsu, to take in or discharge merchandise 
 intended for, or coming from, Shanghai. 
 
 Besides all these must be mentioned Whampoa (locally 
 pronounced Wong-po), the port of Canton, now shorn of 
 all its ancient glory. 
 
 ' By a new convention with China,' it is stated that ' Russia is to 
 be allowed to establish consulates in Central China, Mongolia, and 
 Manchuria. The main purpose of these consulates is believed to be 
 the prosecution of Russian trade in these regions.' 
 
 On the ist May 1894, a European, who is a Chinese 
 Commissioner of Customs, was stationed at Tatung, a 
 frontier station on the Tibetan side, 250 miles from 
 Lhassa, and close to our Indian frontier. 
 
 Japan, profiting by her war with China, amongst other 
 matters, procured the opening of several other treaty ports 
 to trade. By the Treaty between China and Japan, signed 
 on 1 7th April 1895 at Shimonoseki, and ratified at Chefoo 
 on 8th May 1895, by Article 6, the following places were 
 opened to ' trade, residence, industries, and manufactures,' 
 viz. Shashih, in Hupeh; Chungking, in Szechuan ; Suchow, 
 in Kiangsu ; and Hangchow, in Chekiang (port opened 
 in 1 896) ; and by the same Article ' steam navigation for 
 vessels under Japanese flag on the Upper Yangtsz River 
 from Ichang to Chungking,' and ' on the Woosung River 
 and the Canal, from Shanghai to Suchow and Hangchow.' 
 In the Protocol made at Peking I9th October 1896, to the 
 Treaty of Commerce and Navigation between China and 
 Japan (made at Peking on the 2ist July 1896), sites for 
 special Japanese settlements at Shanghai, Tientsin, Amoy, 
 and Hankow, are provided for, in addition to special 
 Japanese settlements to be formed at the places newly 
 opened to commerce, as stated above. China announced, 
 on the 5th April 1898, the opening to trade of three ports, 
 viz., Funing (opened 8th May 1899), m Fokien, Yochow on 
 
 739
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 the Tungting Lake, and Chinwang, near Shanhaikwan. 
 These were opened in 1899, Santu being a treaty port in 
 the Bay of Samsah in the Fukien province, was opened in 
 1899. Woosung has also now been made a treaty port. 
 Szemao was opened to the frontier trade in 1897, in accord- 
 ance with the GeYard General Supplementary Frontier 
 Convention of 1895. 
 
 The Chinese Government opened the West River and 
 several ports to trade, on the 3rd June 1897, under the 
 Special Article of the British Treaty of 4th February 1 897. 
 These ports are four in number, viz., Kongmun and Kam- 
 chuk, Shiuhing and Takhing. The two treaty ports opened 
 on the West River under the same Article are Samshui 
 and Wuchow. 
 
 The ratification of the Burmah Agreement was 
 exchanged on the 5th June 1897, which allows the 
 settlement of British subjects at Szumao and Momein 
 or Shunning-fu. 
 
 Nanning-fu, in the Kwongsi province, with a popu- 
 lation of 120,000, will shortly, if not already, be another 
 of the treaty ports. 
 
 A writer thus sums up the incidents that led to the 
 acquisition of the rights to use the Treaty Ports, etc. : 
 
 ' Outrages on subjects of powerful states . . . led to the first war 
 of 1842, and the opening of the five ports. A renewal of these out- 
 rages led to the second and third wars, and the opening of 
 the northern and Yangtsze ports. The massacres in Szchuen and 
 Fuhkien led to still further demands, and the attempts to oust the 
 Japanese from Korea only ended in the loss of Formosa and 
 Shingking. Outrages in Shantung led to the establishment of 
 Germany in Shantung, and this to a military occupation by Russia 
 of Manchuria and Liaotung, the cession of Weihaiwei to England, 
 and, as a counterpoise, of Kwongchau to France.' 
 
 We have prepared the following table showing the 
 position and other particulars about the different treaty 
 ports, ports of call, etc., trusting that it may prove ot 
 interest to our readers. It must be remembered that 
 the attempt to give the population of a Chinese city 
 or town is often a mere guess on the part of those who 
 state it, and, at the very best, rather uncertain. 
 
 740
 
 Treaty Ports 
 
 TREATY PORTS. 
 
 PROVING*. 
 
 PORT. 
 
 DATR OF 
 OPENING. 
 
 POPULATION. 
 
 RKMAKKS. 
 
 Shingking 
 
 Newchwang 
 
 1860 
 
 60,000 
 
 On River Liao, 13 miles from 
 
 
 
 
 
 mouth, near Shanhaikwan. 
 
 Manchuria 
 
 Chingwantao 
 
 1899 
 
 
 
 Chihli 
 
 Tientsin 
 
 1860 
 
 950,000 
 
 On Peiho. 
 
 Shantung 
 
 Chefoo 
 
 1863 
 
 30,000 
 
 
 Kiangsu 
 
 Shanghai 
 
 1843 
 
 400,000 
 
 At junction of Hwangpoand 
 Woosung Rivers, 24 miles from 
 
 
 
 
 
 sea. 
 
 
 Woosung 
 
 1898 
 
 35.000 
 
 12 miles from sea, on Woo- 
 
 
 
 
 
 sung River. Was made a port 
 
 
 
 
 
 of call in 1861. 
 
 
 Soochow 
 
 1896 
 
 Over 500,000 
 
 80 miles inland from Shanghai. 
 
 
 Chinkiang 
 
 1861 
 
 140,000 
 
 On Yangtsz, 150 miles from 
 
 
 
 
 
 mouth, at junction of Grand 
 
 
 
 
 
 Canal. 
 
 
 Nanking 
 
 1899 
 
 150,000 
 
 On S. bank of Yangtsz, 45 
 
 Anhwei 
 
 Wuhu 
 
 1877 
 
 79,000 
 
 miles beyond Chinkiang. 
 282 miles from sea, on Yang- 
 
 
 
 
 
 tsz. 
 
 
 Ngankin 
 
 1904 
 
 
 Capital of the Province. On 
 
 
 
 
 
 left bank of Yangtsz, 100 miles 
 
 
 
 
 
 from Wuhu. 
 
 Kiangsi 
 
 Kiukiang 
 
 1861 
 
 55.000 
 
 On Yangtsz, 466 miles from 
 
 
 
 
 
 sea, near outlet of Poyang 
 
 
 
 
 
 Lake. 
 
 Hupeh 
 
 Hankow 
 
 1861 
 
 1,000,000 
 
 River Han, at its junction 
 
 
 
 
 
 with the Yangtsz, 600 miles 
 
 
 
 
 
 from Shanghai. 
 
 
 Shasi 
 
 1896 
 
 83,400 
 
 836 miles from sea, on Yang- 
 
 
 
 
 
 tsz and 85 miles below Ichang. 
 
 
 Ichang 
 
 1877 
 
 35,000 
 
 On Yangtsz, 393 miles above 
 
 
 
 
 
 Hankow and 966 from sea. 
 
 Hunan 
 
 Yochaufu 
 
 1899 
 
 60,000 
 
 On Yangtsz, 722 miles from 
 
 
 
 
 
 sea. 
 
 
 Changsha 
 
 1904 
 
 300,000 
 
 Capital of the Province. On 
 
 
 
 
 
 right bank of Hsiang Kiang, 190 
 miles S. S. E. of Ichang. 
 
 Szechuan 
 
 Chungking 
 
 1891 
 
 300,000 
 
 On Yangtsz, 1,400 miles from 
 
 
 
 
 
 sea. 
 
 
 Wanhsien 
 
 1904 
 
 
 In Eastern Szechuan, on left 
 
 
 
 
 
 bank Yangtsz. 
 
 Chekiang 
 
 Hangchow 
 
 1896 
 
 750,000 
 
 150 miles S.W. of Shanghai. 
 
 
 Ningpo 
 
 1842 
 
 255,000 
 
 On River Yung. 
 
 
 Wenchow 
 
 1877 
 
 800,000 
 
 On River Au, 20 miles from 
 
 
 
 
 
 mouth. 
 
 Fuhkien 
 
 Foochow 
 
 1842 
 
 650,000 
 
 On River Min, 34 miles from 
 
 
 
 
 
 sea. 
 
 
 Amoy 
 
 1842 
 
 300,000 
 
 At mouth of Dragon River. 
 
 
 Santuao 
 
 1899 
 
 
 Near Samsha Bay, the port 
 
 
 
 
 
 is Funing. 
 
 Kwangtung 
 
 Swatow 
 
 1860 
 
 30,000 
 
 On Han River. Chauchowfu, 
 
 
 
 
 
 35 miles distant, is really the 
 
 
 
 
 
 treaty port. 
 
 
 Canton 
 
 1842 
 
 2,500,000 
 
 On Pearl River, 50 miles from 
 
 
 
 
 
 mouth. 
 
 
 Pakhoi 
 
 1877 
 
 20,000 
 
 
 
 Samshui 
 
 1897 
 
 30,000 
 
 Near junction of North, West, 
 
 
 
 
 
 and Canton Rivers, 2 miles from 
 
 
 
 
 
 the bank, Hok'ou is the port. 
 
 
 Hoihow 
 
 1876 
 
 12,000 
 
 Kiangchow 41,000, is really 
 
 
 
 
 
 the treaty port, Hoihow being 
 
 
 
 
 
 the port from which it is distant 
 
 
 
 
 
 3^ miles. 
 
 
 Waichau 
 
 1904 
 
 
 On East River. 
 
 
 Kongmun 
 
 1902 
 
 100,000 
 
 Delta of Canton River. Was 
 
 
 
 
 
 made a port of call in 1898. 
 
 741
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 TREATY PORTS continued. 
 
 PROVINCE. 
 
 PORT. 
 
 DATE OF 
 OPENING. 
 
 POPULATION. 
 
 REMARKS. 
 
 Kwangsi 
 
 Wuchow 
 
 1897 
 
 50,000 
 
 West River, at junction with 
 
 
 
 
 
 Cassia River, 220 miles from 
 
 
 
 
 
 Canton. 
 
 
 Lungchow 
 
 1889 
 
 22,000 
 
 At junction of Sungchi and 
 
 Yunnan 
 
 Mengtsz 
 
 1889 
 
 12,000 
 
 Kaoping Rivers. 
 Was opened with Manghao, 
 
 
 
 
 
 latter being on left bank of 
 
 
 
 
 
 Red River. 
 
 
 Szemao 
 
 1897 
 
 15,000 
 
 
 
 Hokow 
 
 1896 
 
 4,000 
 
 At junction of Man-hsi and 
 
 
 
 
 
 Red Rivers. 
 
 Tibet 
 
 Yatung 
 
 1894 
 
 
 250 miles from Lhassa. 
 
 PORTS OF CALL, &c. 
 
 PROVINCE. 
 
 PORT. 
 
 DATE OF 
 OPENING. 
 
 POPULATION. 
 
 REMARKS. 
 
 Chihli 
 
 Taku 
 
 
 
 At the mouth of the Peilio, 
 
 
 
 
 
 is the port of Tientsin, and 67 
 miles distant from it. 
 
 Kiangsi 
 
 Tat'ung 
 
 1886 
 
 
 
 
 Nganching 
 
 1886 
 
 
 
 Hukwang, 
 
 
 
 
 
 /.c.,Hupehand 
 
 Wusueh 
 
 ^886 
 
 
 
 Hunan 
 
 Luchikou 
 
 1886 
 
 
 
 
 Shashih 
 
 1886 
 
 73,000 
 
 
 Kwangtung 
 
 Whampoa 
 
 1842 
 
 
 The port of Canton, 12 miles 
 
 
 
 
 
 from it, on the Pearl, or Canton 
 
 
 
 
 
 River. 
 
 
 Hok'ou 
 
 1897 
 
 
 Harbour of Samshui. 
 
 
 Kamchuk 
 
 1898 
 
 
 Delta of Canton River. 
 
 
 Shiuhing 
 
 1898 
 
 80,000 
 
 On West River. 
 
 
 Takhing 
 
 1898 
 
 6,000 
 
 Do. 
 
 
 Tunghsmg 
 
 '895 
 
 
 80 miles West of Pakhoi, 
 
 
 
 
 
 French Consulate established. 
 
 
 Dosing 
 
 1903 
 
 
 
 
 Yuetling 
 
 1903 
 
 
 
 
 Lukto 
 
 1903 
 
 
 
 
 Lukpa 
 
 '93 
 
 
 
 
 Howlik 
 
 i3 
 
 
 
 
 Kankong 
 
 1903 
 
 
 
 
 Mahning 
 
 '93 
 
 
 
 
 Yungki 
 
 1903 
 
 
 
 Foreign subjects are allowed to travel for five days 
 within 100 li, about thirty-three miles, of the treaty ports ; 
 but for longer distances or time, passports, obtained from 
 their respective consuls, are required. 
 
 At the treaty ports there are certain spots reserved for 
 the use of the foreign residents, foreign concessions they 
 are often called, though at the same time foreigners are 
 allowed to reside amongst the Chinese as well. These have 
 
 742
 
 Treaty Ports 
 
 generally been common to all nationalities, the Americans 
 having Hongkew, and the French also having a separate 
 one at Shanghai. Of late years a strong tendency has 
 developed towards the securing of concessions by different 
 nationalities for themselves, instead of joining together as 
 has hitherto been done to a great extent, and there are 
 now a number of such concessions at various treaty ports. 
 A part of Shamien in Canton was set apart for the French. 
 At Tientsin there are concessions for British, French, 
 German, Italian, Russian, and Japanese, and at Hankow 
 for Japanese, German, British, French, and Russian. At 
 Newchwang the Japanese have acquired a slice of land for 
 a concession, and the British also a piece for the same 
 purpose. The Japanese have also a settlement at Shasi, 
 and at Hangchow, Soochow, and at Chungking. There are 
 constantly new developments on these lines. 
 
 There are said to be about 13,500 European residents 
 at the treaty ports over 5000 being British. 
 
 ' The Authorities at Amoy have consented to the Island 
 of Kulangsu becoming a foreign settlement entirely under 
 international control,' ' under the pattern of Shanghai.' 
 
 Besides these treaty ports there are the different ports 
 or portions of land belonging, or leased, to foreign nations. 
 There is Port Arthur at the point of the Regent's 
 Sword, guarding the Northern entrance of the Gulf of 
 Pechili with Talienwan (which Russia has declared to 
 be a free port), and the Russian zone of influence. ' By 
 Agreement with the Chinese Government, dated 2/th 
 March 1898, Russia is in possession of Port Arthur, 
 and Talienwan and their adjacent territories and waters, 
 on lease for the term of 25 years, which may be extended 
 by agreement' Then there is Weihaiwei, held by the 
 British since the 24th May 1898 (and to be held 'for 
 such period as Russia may hold Port Arthur.' The agree- 
 ment is dated 2nd April 1898), close to the Shantung 
 province and guarding the southern entrance of the gulf 
 mentioned above, which gives access to Tientsin and 
 Peking, with a portion of land on the map described as the 
 
 743
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 British zone of influence. The territory of Weihaiwei is 
 300 sq. miles in area, with an estimated population of 
 80,000 while the 'sphere of influence' is very much more 
 extensive, with a population of 900,000. A few miles 
 further south, down the coast, we come to the Germans at 
 Kiauchau, and their zone of influence. Kiauchau was 
 declared a free port on 2nd September 1898. It was 
 seized by the Germans in November 1897, and a 99 
 years' lease of the town, harbour, and district, were obtained 
 in January 1898. It is situated on the east coast of 
 Shantung. While in the south we have the important 
 British Colony of Hongkong which has twice enlarged its 
 boundaries on the mainland opposite. Forty miles off is 
 the ancient Portuguese settlement (and Colony now) of 
 Macao, some 300 years old. Further south, ' on the coast 
 of the Lien-Chau peninsula, opposite the Island of 
 Hainan,' is the most recent of all, Kwongchauwan, with 
 some adjacent land where the French have established 
 themselves, hauling up the tricolour on the 2nd April 
 1898. The French hold it by lease, dated 2nd April 
 1898, for 99 years. 'In November 1899, China conceded 
 to France the possession of the two islands commanding 
 the entrance to the bay.' 
 
 It must be remembered by strangers that Hongkong 
 and Kowloon (British), Macao (Portuguese), Port Arthur 
 (Russian), Kiaochau (German), Weihaiwei (British), and 
 Kwongchauwan (French), are not treaty ports, but Colonies 
 or Settlements, belonging to the different nationalities 
 mentioned above. It is almost necessary to call attention 
 to this, as letters addressed to the British Consul, or to his 
 care, are not infrequently received in this British Colony of 
 Hongkong, and a British official here has been addressed 
 as U.S. Customs' officer by a Chinese. 
 
 Books recommended. 'The Treaty Ports of China and Japan,' by W. 
 F. Mayers, N. B. Dennys, and C. King. This is out of print. 'The 
 China and Hongkong Directory." 'European Settlements in the Far East: 
 China, Japan, Corea, Indo-China, Straits Settlements, Malay States, 
 Siam, Netherlands India, Borneo, The Philippines, etc., with Map and 
 Illustrations,' by D. Warres Smith. 
 
 744
 
 Typhoons 
 
 TYPHOONS. The similarity of this word to the 
 Greek word TU</>UJV, a whirlwind, has attracted the attention 
 of scholars ; but it is thought that the Chinese word 
 tai-ftng, used in Formosa, is the origin of the term, for, 
 strange to say, the Chinese themselves, in the South of 
 China, at all events, do not call these cyclonic disturbances 
 tdi-fung, which simply means a big wind, but they speak 
 of them as fung-kati, storms, or they say td-fung-kai'i, 
 a storm is blowing. 
 
 Much has been done of late years in studying the 
 ' grand but perplexing laws which regulate the formations 
 and movements of typhoons ' ; but still much remains to 
 be done, and when stations for their observation shall 
 have been established at elevated heights, such as at the 
 Peak in Hongkong, and Taf Mo Shan in the New Territory, 
 much more in all probability will be known, and a complete 
 mastery of the difficult subject may be hoped for ; as yet 
 the upper strata of the air, as regards typhoons, is almost 
 unexplored. Col. Palmer thus writes of these storms : 
 
 'The theory of rotatory storms (whether called cyclones, 
 typhoons, or hurricanes) . . . may be popularly stated thus. If 
 from any initial cause, interchanging motions are set up between the 
 air in a certain district and another surrounding it, the air in the first, 
 or inner district, tends, in consequence of the earth's rotation, to 
 gyrate round its centre, in a direction contrary to that of watch-hands 
 in the Northern hemisphere, and with watch-hands in the Southern 
 hemisphere. In the outer district these movements are reversed, by 
 the principle of the preservation of areas (or moments). These two 
 systems of contrary gyrations, especially in the upper strata of the 
 atmosphere, where they are less influenced by friction with the earth's 
 surface, and therefore more circular, than those below, tend to draw 
 the air from the centre of the inner district and from the exterior part 
 of the outer district, and heap it up along the zone dividing the two. 
 On this zone accordingly, which is the annular region where the 
 gyratory velocity in one direction dies out and that in the other direc- 
 tion begins, the atmospheric pressure -is greatest, while it is least at 
 the centre and at the outermost limit ; and the pressure from this 
 accumulation tends to force the air near the earth's surface out from 
 beneath it, on the one side towards the centre of the cyclone, and on the 
 other towards the exterior limit of the outer district, or " anti-cyclone." 
 
 ' The gyrations once set up, two other forces come into play 
 centrifugal force, and friction of the moving air with the earth's 
 surface, the former tending to drive the air still more from the centre 
 of the inner district and so increase the barometric pressure there. 
 
 ' To be brief, the result of all the conditions which affect the case 
 
 745
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 is that, on and near the earth's surface, the air of the inner district, 
 instead of preserving a circular movement, converges somewhat to 
 the centre, flowing round and round in a spiral directed inward from 
 the zone of maximum pressure. Under ordinary circumstances, this 
 inclination diminishes with the altitude, and it diminishes as the 
 velocity of the wind increases, so that it is least near the centre of the 
 storm, where, indeed, the winds, being of intense violence, are circular, 
 or very nearly so. It is greatest on the periphery of the typhoon, 
 where, at great distances, the convergence is often nearly directly 
 towards the centre. It is greater also on land than on the sea, owing 
 to the increased friction with the rugged surface of the land ; and it is 
 greater in low than in high latitudes. The air of the outer district, on 
 the other hand, describes a spiral directed outwards from the centre. 
 In the middle regions of the atmosphere, the air above the cyclone 
 inclines outwards from the centre, and at a great distance flows nearly 
 directly away from it.' 
 
 The causes of typhoons, though they are not quite 
 understood yet, appear to be ' differences of temperature ; 
 pressure, and humidity, the last named being less con- 
 spicuous as a primary cause than as a means of maintain- 
 ing the cyclonic action after it has once been started.' The 
 typhoon, once being evolved from 'the manifold and 
 highly complicated operations ' of the causes stated above, 
 having commenced its life in the Pacific, starts on its 
 travels, at first slowly, and then more rapidly. The 
 tendency of typhoons is to seek the north, but, influenced 
 by the currents of air, they are deflected westwards towards 
 the continent of Asia, and the consequence is they 
 generally take a north-westerly direction. They are more 
 at home on the sea, as, when they go inland, mountain 
 ranges block their progress and they lose much of their 
 energy, and finally, after proceeding northwards, they seek 
 the sea again, ending their course in the Yellow Sea, 
 Corea, or Japan. ' As a broad definition then, applicable 
 to the normal typhoon, it may be stated that its path is 
 approximately a parabola, the vertex of the curve being 
 turned westward and situated not far from the boundary 
 of the tropic, while its two branches pass respectively 
 over the archipelago of the Philippines and that of Japan.' 
 
 The following interesting account may serve to make 
 plainer this difficult subject to the reader. It is from the 
 pen of a former Harbour Master at Kobe : 
 
 746
 
 Typhoons 
 
 'The body of wind of which a typhoon consists is in shape nearly 
 circular. . . . The diameter of this circle has been found to vary 
 from about fifty to several hundred miles in length, and the height of 
 this body of wind is estimated to be from one to ten miles in 
 perpendicular height. This mass of wind, or typhoon, has two 
 different motions, one being progressive and the other circular. 
 When a typhoon forms near the Equator its progressive motion is 
 first towards the westward, but its course thereafter changes gradually 
 northward of this, and by the time it reaches Japan its course has thus 
 been changed to some direction between north and east. This 
 progressive motion may be taken to be from 7 to 24 miles per hour. 
 While the typhoon is thus moving onward, the whole body of wind 
 within its circumference is whirling round its centre at a velocity of 
 from 50 to perhaps 100 miles per hour. An observer standing at the 
 centre of a typhoon would most likely be surrounded by a calm, 
 extending probably to a distance of from one to ten miles ; but if he 
 moved towards the circumference of the typhoon he would, upon 
 coming within the wind circles, find the direction of the wind to be 
 from his right towards his left, or in other words, the wind would have 
 a rotary movement in a direction opposite to that of the hands of a 
 watch. Consequently the wind must be east at the most northern 
 margin of a typhoon and west at its southern margin. In like manner 
 it must be south at the most eastern margin and north at the western, 
 and it follows that the wind on every part of any straight line drawn 
 from any part of the margin to the storm's centre must be from the 
 same direction as it is at the point where such line cuts the margin. 
 It also follows that the direction of wind on opposite semi-diameters 
 must blow from opposite directions. The winds outside the limits of 
 typhoons often blow in a direction pointing more or less towards the 
 typhoon's centre ; this is mostly the case in front and rear of such 
 storms. As has been stated, the motion of the wind within the body 
 of a typhoon is circular, and it must therefore blow from every point 
 of the compass during its circuit ; and in order to more fully explain 
 from which direction the wind blows at different places, the body of 
 the storm may be divided into sections by imaginary diameters. 
 First by drawing two diameters through the body of the storm, one in 
 a direction from north to south and the other from west to east, the 
 storm is divided into four quadrants, called the NE., S.E., S.W., and 
 N.W. quadrants ; and, bearing in mind the explanation already given, 
 it will be found that the wind in the N.E. quadrant must always be 
 from between east and south, in the S.E quadrant between south and 
 west, in the S.W. quadrant between west and north, and in the N.W. 
 quadrant between north and east. Another division of the typhoon is 
 made by drawing a line (called the axis line) through its centre repre- 
 senting the latter's path, or in other words, its progressive motion ; this 
 divides the storm into two semicircles, named the right-hand and left- 
 hand semicircles, according as they are to the right or left hand of the 
 said line. To distinguish one from the other the reader should 
 imagine himself placed on this axis line at the rear of the typhoon, 
 looking at it in the direction it is travelling. As the path of typhoons 
 do not always lie in the same direction, it becomes evident that the 
 axis line does not always cut off semicircles containing the 
 same winds. For instance, in the right-hand semicircle of a 
 
 747
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 typhoon travelling to the north-east, the winds would be from S.E. to 
 N.W., round by way of S., S.W., and W., while in the left-hand semi- 
 circle the winds would be from S.E. to N.W., round by way of E., 
 N.E., and N. On the other hand, in a typhoon travelling due north, 
 the winds in the right-hand semicircle would be from E. to W., by 
 way of S, and in the left-hand semicircle from E. to W., by way of N. 
 In the latter case the wind on the axis line would be E. on the 
 northern side of the centre, and W. on the southern side thereof. The 
 number of compass points through which the wind veers at any place 
 depends therefore upon how near the centre passes to such a place. 
 The veering of the wind indicates at once whether the right or left- 
 hand semicircle is passing over a place, for if it veers from its initial 
 direction towards the right, say from S.S.E. to S., then the right-hand 
 semicircle is passing over the place, but should the wind veer to the 
 left, or say from S.S.E. to S.E. then the left-hand semicircle is passing 
 over. The Barometer falls as long as the centre of a typhoon is 
 getting nearer, and vice -versd. 
 
 '. . . . According to the above explanation, the wind strikes all 
 straight lines, joining the centre and circumference of a typhoon at 
 right angles. 
 
 ' With the given explanation, the reader will find no difficulty in 
 making other interesting deductions, by comparing the two observa- 
 tions. To aid him in this, I suggest that he supply himself with a 
 circular piece of cardboard, make a small hole in its centre, and 
 draw through this two diameters at right angles to each other. 
 Mark the ends of the diameters N., E., S., and W. respectively. 
 Placing this card before him on a table, with that part of its diameter 
 marked N. pointing towards the north, and imagining a body of wind 
 to be whirling round the centre, but limited by the circumference of 
 the card, he will then have a very good illustration of a typhoon, and 
 one which will make the meaning of quadrants, semicircles, circular 
 motion, etc., easily understood. To further represent the progressive 
 motion of a typhoon, the card requires to be moved in the direction 
 towards which the storm is travelling, still keeping the N. point of 
 the card pointing towards the north, and still supposing the wind to 
 be whirling round the centre of the card.' 
 
 September is the month par excellence, for typhoons, 
 but the typhoon months are generally considered to be 
 those of July, August, September, and part of October, 
 though they are not confined to those months. 
 
 Until late years the advent of typhoons had to be 
 judged by the intense heat which prevailed for several 
 days, the fall of the barometer, and other signs, but, with 
 the extension of the telegraph to this part of the world, 
 timely warning of their probable arrival or vicinity is 
 telegraphed from Manila, and many lives have been thus 
 
 748
 
 Typhoons 
 
 preserved. Fortunately for Hongkong, the course of these 
 dreadful visitations of Providence is often deflected by one 
 cause or another before they reach this ' dot in the ocean,' 
 and they generally strike the land further North, up the 
 coast of China, or further South, down in the neighbour- 
 hood of Hainan nor Annam. Occasionally, in the course of 
 many years, some of most dreadful intensity occur ; such 
 especially was the awful one of the 27th of July 1862, the 
 terrific force of which expended itself in wrecking the 
 whole river frontage of Canton, so that scarcely a house on 
 the river escaped more or less damage, in fact the place 
 looked as if it had suffered from a bombardment, while 
 thousands of the boat people were drowned before the eyes 
 of the spectators on shore, who were powerless to render 
 them any assistance. The loss of life in the city and 
 neighbourhood was estimated at 40,000. The author will 
 never forget, as long as he lives, that awful day, the wind 
 blowing with titanic force in great bursts which shook the 
 buildings, the air darkened with leaves and bits of debris, 
 the raging of the usually calm river, the cries of the 
 drowning, the consciousness that any moment might be 
 one's last, the passing of the centre of the storm when a 
 lull occurred, giving one hopes that the worst was past, to 
 be followed by a recurrence of all its force and danger ; 
 the flooded house, streets like rivers all combined to form 
 a lurid picture, which, once seen, one never cares to see 
 again. Such an indelible impression did this great typhoon 
 make on the Chinese of that city that for many years they 
 dated occurrences from that event. 
 
 Fortunately, such terrific typhoons occur but seldom. 
 The places in their vicinity, however, participate in the 
 disturbances which they cause around them, having blows 
 of more or less intensity, or high winds and downfalls of 
 rain, lasting for several days, which serve to cool the 
 atmosphere. The minimum velocity of the wind entitled 
 to be called typhoon force is 80 miles an hour. It is 
 interesting in a slight typhoon, when one feels tolerably 
 safe, to watch the needle of the barometer fall slightly with 
 
 749
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 each gust of the wind, and rise slightly again as it dies 
 down. In a typhoon the barometer falls from 28.80 to 
 28.50, and even lower readings are seen. In 1880 there 
 were fourteen recorded typhoons ; in 1 88 1 , twenty ; but 
 the average is more than fifteen a year. 
 
 Books recommended. 'The Typhoons of the Eastern Seas,' by Col. H. S. 
 Palmer, R. E., 1882. 'The Law of Storms in the Eastern Seas,' by W. 
 Doberck, Director of the Hongkong Observatory. 'The Typhoons of the 
 Chinese Seas in the year 1880,' by M. Dechevrens, S. J. Idem for 1881. 
 Idem for 1882. Also the Annual Reports of Dr. Doberck, published in The 
 Hongkong Government Gazette. 
 
 VACCINATION AND INOCULATION. From 
 the reports of the European doctors in China in the earlier 
 years of the century, there is no doubt that smallpox used 
 to be a common disease, not only in the South of China, in 
 the neighbourhood of Hongkong, Canton, and Macao, but 
 also in the north in Peking, in the metropolis of the empire, 
 where it was epidemic in spring, and much mortality 
 resulted from the visitations, not only to children, but also 
 amongst the grown-up population. In the neighbourhood 
 of Canton, or in a portion of the province of Kwangtung, 
 it is also stated to have been an invariable annual epidemic, 
 lasting from February to June, amongst the crowded 
 native population in boats and elsewhere. In the province 
 of Shansi, the mortality from it was very great, not even 
 inoculation, much less vaccination, being known there in 
 the first half of this century. In the western provinces of 
 China, the ravages must have been great in those days, as 
 also there inoculation was said not to be practised. 
 
 These instances are sufficient to show that smallpox 
 was a dreadful and dreaded visitant in China, the means 
 for coping with it, or stopping its spread, being either 
 entirely wanting or inadequate. 
 
 Before the introduction of vaccination, the Chinese were 
 acquainted with, and employed, inoculation, which is said 
 to have been introduced by a philosopher of Go-mei Shan 
 in the province of Szchuen. This knowledge was handed 
 down to posterity from the time of Chen Tsung of the Sung 
 dynasty (A.D. 1014). 
 
 750
 
 Vaccination and Inoculation 
 
 Another account states that : 
 
 ' It is not to be wondered at that in China they have tried some 
 means to check the virulence of smallpox which has repeatedly 
 produced terrible havoc amongst its inhabitants. Chinese practi- 
 tioners describe various methods of inoculation which, it is said, 
 was discovered at the latter end of the second century for protecting a 
 grandson of Prince Tchiu-Siang (P. Dabry's ' La Me'decine chez les 
 Chinois'). They have also learned by experience the dangers of 
 inoculation.' 
 
 Different methods were employed ; one plan was to 
 insert in the nose a pledget (a piece of cotton-wool, in 
 most cases probably), impregnated with the virus ; another 
 plan was to take the lymph itself, or the crust rubbed down 
 with water, and introduce into the sore ; while another 
 mode was to dry the crusts, reduce them to powder, and 
 blow this powder up the nose this being called dry 
 inoculation ; yet another and more loathsome way was to 
 dress the child with clothes that had been worn by some 
 one with smallpox. Inoculation would appear to have 
 been largely practised by the Chinese. It was stated that 
 in Shanghai the greatest number of the children were thus 
 treated. One Chinese writer, the author of a treatise 
 entitled, 'the Preservation of Infants by Inoculation,' 
 supposed that smallpox arose from poison introduced into 
 the system from the mother's womb, and he believed this to 
 be proved since smallpox only occurs once in a life-time. 
 All diseases amongst the Chinese are associated with, or 
 are the result of, the principles of heat or cold. Smallpox 
 is due to the heat principle. It remains latent, or 
 concealed, in the human system ' till it is developed through 
 the agency of some external, exciting cause.' Hence, as it 
 might break out at any time, they thought it advisable 
 to use some means to modify its virulence : they 
 believed that, by inoculation, when the patient's system 
 was in a healthy condition, and at times and seasons 
 which appeared most advantageous, this might be 
 accomplished. The Chinese writer we have mentioned 
 above says : 
 
 'The disease when it breaks out spontaneously is very severe, 
 and often fatal ; whereas, when it is introduced by inoculation, it is 
 
 751
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 generally mild, and casualties do not occur oftener than once in ten 
 thousand cases. . . . To discard this excellent plan and sit waiting 
 for the calamity, is much to be deprecated.' 
 
 This author has evidently been carried away with 
 enthusiasm for his subject, as foreign writers speak of 
 the dangers attendant on inoculation as compared with 
 vaccination. The fatality is described as being very great, 
 by one in Soochow, and when the doctor comes to ' plant 
 the smallpox,' as it is described, ' the family go through 
 extensive religious ceremonies, the god being worshipped 
 with a feast, incense, and firecrackers.' Another, a doctor, 
 thus writes : 
 
 'A child generally thus takes the smallpox mildly, but the 
 children thus treated sometimes take the confluent form of the 
 disease, by which sight and even life is lost. 
 
 ' It is true that the disease taken by inoculation is generally milder 
 than when it is taken spontaneously, but the great objection to 
 inoculation is, that the disease itself is thus maintained among the 
 community, and every case is a focus of infection ; whereas in 
 vaccination the tendency is to get rid of smallpox altogether, serious 
 accidents do not occur from it, and there is no liability to take on a 
 fatal form of disease.' In the report of the hospital at Ningpo 
 published in 1851, it is stated that, 'inoculation at one time proved 
 frequently fatal.' 
 
 However, in lieu of a more excellent way, the Chinese 
 put their confidence in inoculation. 
 
 It was stated that without inoculation the mortality 
 from smallpox in Shansi under the most favourable 
 circumstances was 20 to 30 per cent, of deaths, while in 
 worse cases it rose to 50 or 60 per cent. ; but ' after 
 inoculation only one per cent, proved fatal.' 
 
 It is curious that, like several other things, inoculation 
 appears to have been introduced into the West from 
 China. 
 
 ' It has been known and practised in China since the time of the 
 Sung dynasty, about 800 years ago. It was first introduced into 
 England by Lady Montague, the wife of the British Ambassador 
 at Constantinople in 1721, and doubtless had found its way to Turkey 
 across the centre of Asia from China. The Turks who lived on the 
 Chinese frontier must have carried the knowledge of it when they 
 moved westward.' 
 
 752
 
 Vaccination and Inoculation 
 
 There are ten rules with regard to inoculation compiled 
 by a retired scholar of the name of Lew Lan in obedience 
 to an Imperial Decree, and these were inserted in the 
 ' Golden Mirror of the Medical Practice.' They have in 
 latter times been discoursed upon by celebrated physicians 
 who have ' revised them with much care and attention.' 
 
 The rules are as follows : 
 
 ' 1st Regarding variolous lymph : This is the fluid that comes 
 from the smallpox pustules, and must be taken from a child which 
 has a mild form of the disease ; whether arising spontaneously or from 
 inoculation, the pustules ought to be round or pointed, and of a clear 
 red colour, the fluid abundant and the crust which comes away clear 
 and consistent like wax. 
 
 ' . . . . After [inoculation] seven days, fever appears ; three days 
 afterwards the spots show themselves ; three days after this the spots 
 become pustular ; in three days more the crusts form, when the whole 
 is completed. If the inoculation does not take effect it may be 
 repeated in fourteen days. 
 
 ' 2nd. Seasons : The Spring and Autumn are the most favourable 
 seasons for inoculation, or any time when the weather is moderate ; 
 during the very hot, or cold months, it ought not to be done. 
 
 ' 3rd. Choice of Lucky Days : A lucky day ought always to 
 be chosen; the nth and I3th days of the moon must always be 
 avoided. 
 
 *4th. Management of the Patients : During the process of inocu- 
 lation it is of great importance that strict rules of management be 
 adopted in respect to heat and cold, with attention to diet and the 
 avoidance of any cause of alarm or fright. 
 
 ' 5th. At the time for inoculation the child must be examined and 
 the state of its health ascertained ; strict attention must also be paid 
 to the state of the family, and if the child be sick, the operation must 
 not be performed. All children ought to be inoculated when they are 
 one year old ; if the health be good, this ought by no means to be 
 neglected. 
 
 ( 6th. Restricting : The room of the inoculated child ought to be 
 clean and airy, and well lighted ; all excitement must be avoided, and 
 the child kept quiet and placid. 
 
 ' 7th. Promise of the Eruption : After the inoculation and before 
 the fever appears, there suddenly arise on the child's face several 
 pustules like smallpox ; these are called the "sin miau," promise, or 
 belief of emption ; it is the forerunner of the disease, and the evidence 
 of the poison having taken effect. 
 
 '8th. Repetition of the Inoculation If after waiting fourteen days, 
 the fever does not appear, should the season still be favourable, the 
 inoculation may be repeated. 
 
 '9th. Mode of Action : The inoculation must affect the viscera, 
 
 753 3 B
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 and the fever commences. The nose is the external orifice of the 
 lungs ; when the variolous lymph is placed in the nose, its influence 
 is first communicated to the lungs ; the lungs govern the hair and 
 the skin ; the lungs transfer the poison to the heart ; the heart governs 
 the pulse, and transfers the poison to the spleen ; the spleen governs 
 the flesh, and transfers the poison to the liver ; the liver governs the 
 tendons, and transfers the poison to the kidneys ; the kidneys 
 govern, the bones, the poison of the smallpox lies hid originally in 
 the marrow of the bones ; but when it receives the impression 
 from the inoculation, it manifests itself and breaks out externally. 
 
 ' loth. General Rules : Inoculation is to be performed when there 
 is no disease present in the system ; good lymph must be selected, a 
 proper time chosen, and good management adopted, and then all will 
 go on well.' 
 
 As to the introduction of vaccination. 
 
 Many attempts were made to introduce the practice of vaccina- 
 tion into China during the early period when commercial relations 
 were in existence between the East India Company and the Chinese. 
 In 1805 a Portuguese subject, a merchant in Macao of the name of 
 Hewit, brought vaccine over " upon live subjects from Manila," the 
 King having had vaccine conveyed to the Philippines by suitable 
 means and professional men across the South American continent. 
 It was extensively practised by Portuguese practitioners in Macao as 
 well as by Dr. Pearson upon the inhabitants of that ancient city, as 
 well as amongst the Chinese.' 
 
 Dr. Pearson, a surgeon of the East India Company in China, 
 carried on the work of its introduction to the natives with great 
 vigour and perseverance. 
 
 ' Stated periods were fixed at which the Chinese received the 
 benefits of vaccination from the doctor's hands, nor was the experi- 
 ment unattended with success. It soon sprang into favour amongst 
 the Chinese, who, though very conservative in their feelings, when 
 once convinced of the benefit of any new method, take it up very 
 readily, and great numbers were brought to be operated on during 
 the period of the raging of smallpox in the course of the winter and 
 spring months of 1805-6.' 
 
 Thousands were vaccinated in the course of twelve 
 months, and the Chinese who had been instructed by Dr. 
 Pearson, practised it extensively, not only under his 
 immediate inspection but at a distance as well. When 
 the immediate need for this protective influence against 
 the fell and foul disease was gone when in short, small- 
 pox ceased to be epidemic, ' the evil and the remedy 
 against it were equally forgotten,' and Dr. Pearson ' found 
 great difficulty in procuring a sufficient number of subjects 
 by means of which, merely to preserve the vaccine.' 
 
 754
 
 Vaccination and Inoculation 
 
 Twice was it necessary to have it reintroduced from the 
 ' islands of Lucona,' and twice it was found to have been 
 kept up at country districts. In his report for 1816, 
 Dr. Pearson speaks about its spreading greatly ' from 
 among the lower classes of society, so as to have become 
 general among the middling ranks, and to be frequently 
 resorted to by those of the higher conditions.' 
 
 The Chinese native doctors had strenuously opposed 
 it, and still at that period it met with but little acceptation 
 by them, and alarms of failures had occasionally been 
 spread ; there was also a prejudice against submitting 
 children to vaccination in the summer and autumnal 
 months, doubtless owing to the fact that in the time of 
 such great heats it had been observed ' that all diseases 
 attacking or brought on at that season are more than 
 usually dangerous or severe.' 
 
 The principal members of the ' Chinese commercial 
 corporation, in whom was vested the exclusive privilege of 
 dealing with Europeans,' established a fund for the gratui- 
 tous vaccination of the poor at all times, offering a small 
 premium to those who brought their children for that 
 purpose ; and from fifteen to forty were vaccinated every 
 ninth day by a Chinese vaccinator, while Dr. Pearson 
 inspected the pustules from which the lymph was taken, 
 and this simply to put an end to a malicious rumour that 
 the Chinese vaccinators had not been circumspect in the 
 choice of the matter they used. 
 
 The medical servants of the East India Company were 
 always ready to vaccinate gratuitously all persons who 
 wished it ; though the taking of it thus up by the Chinese 
 themselves conduced to the spread of the practice ; and 
 it became a source of reputation and emolument to the 
 Chinese who were employed for the purpose. 
 
 Great numbers must have been vaccinated at this early 
 stage, and it was believed that the greater mildness of the 
 epidemics of smallpox which followed were due to the 
 Chinese acceptance to such an extent of this protective 
 against the disease. 
 
 755
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 A report on the subject was again made in 1821. This 
 states that ' the practice of vaccination had been uninter- 
 ruptedly continued ' and had ' received a steady and great 
 extension with increased confidence in its efficacy.' Small- 
 pox had in the preceding and that season ' prevailed in an 
 unusual degree of severity and attended with mortality'; 
 but the results of the investigations that were instituted 
 proved that vaccination was satisfactory, though every 
 endeavour was made to discover whether certain 
 complaints were well founded. These complaints had 
 divided themselves into two heads : viz., vaccination with 
 spurious matter, or imperfectly, or unskilfully conducted ; 
 and the other, the following of the vaccination by a 
 modified smallpox. Under the first heading none presented 
 themselves who had been vaccinated under inspection, or 
 at the Canton Institute ; under the other heading the 
 number was few. The general reliance of the Chinese was 
 not shaken. 
 
 Vaccination had by this time extended to the neigh- 
 bouring province of Kwangtung, but had met with a check 
 from the hostility of the priesthood, and had been dropped. 
 This opposition was due to two circumstances ; for the 
 priests had been used to inoculate after the Chinese methods, 
 and their deities had been resorted to in times of visitation 
 of this plague. Unfortunately scarlet-fever also broke out, 
 and the blame of this was laid on vaccination, which it 
 was said ' retained the poison in the system, to appear at a 
 future time in still worse shapes.' 
 
 Between 1821 and 1833 two reports were made, and 
 from them it is learned that the practice extended itself 
 largely amongst all sorts and conditions of Chinese in the 
 Canton province. It was also conveyed to the Kiangsi, 
 Kiangnan, and Fukien provinces, and even reached Peking, 
 but was lost there. 
 
 ' Its anti-variolous efficacy' was 'universally known and confided 
 in ; ... its preservation during the period specified had greatly, 
 almost exclusively, resulted from the well-adapted system pursued 
 at the institution, and the agency of the Chinese vaccinators ; the 
 principal of whom A-he-qua (who' had ' been engaged in the practice 
 
 756
 
 Vaccination and Inoculation 
 
 since 1805') was 'a man remarkably qualified for the business, by 
 his cast of judgment, method, and perseverance. He had been 
 encouraged in his laudable exertions by the favourable opinion of his 
 countrymen and by marks of distinction or consideration which ' had 
 'been conferred upon him by the higher functionaries of the local 
 government.' 
 
 A further mention is made of the same man at a later 
 date in the same magazine for the year 1842, when it was 
 stated that some cases of smallpox prevailed, and it goes 
 on to add that ' vaccination for the prevention of this 
 disease had been regularly and successfully practised every 
 eighth day during many years by He-qua at the Public 
 Hall of the Hong merchants.' Dr. Pearson, at the same 
 time as he started vaccination, caused a tract to be printed 
 on it in Chinese, Sir George Staunton translating it : this 
 was in A.D. 1805. It set forth the advantages and benefits 
 to be derived from vaccination, and was of great use, 
 being republished at Shanghai subsequently, with some 
 corrections and slight additions ; part of this same 
 tract of Dr. Pearson's was incorporated into a native 
 tract also republished in Peking in 1828, this latter 
 having been originally published at Canton in 1817. 
 
 The Russians introduced vaccination into Peking before 
 1828 'as early as 1820, the medical gentlemen attached 
 to the Legation . . . practised vaccination among the 
 Albasines now Chinese naturalised subjects.' 
 
 ' Vaccination among the Mongols was attempted before it was 
 introduced at Canton by Dr. Pearson, but excepting the following 
 notice, we do not know whether it has since been practised. " Mr. 
 Rehmann, physician to his S.H. Prince of Fiirstenberg, has lately 
 received a letter from his son, physician to the Russian embassy in 
 China. This letter is dated from Kiakhta on the frontiers of China, 
 I4th October 1805. Mr. Rehmann, Junr., writes that he has 
 vaccinated a great number of the children of the Mongols. . . . He 
 assures his father, that in consequence of the measures he has 
 employed, vaccination is now propagated from Jekutzh, as far as 
 Jakutsh and Ochotzk, and consequently from England to the remotest 
 extremity of the northern part of the globe." ' 
 
 We have seen how it was introduced into Canton and 
 some of the other provinces. Its utility soon became 
 known, 'and the practice quickly spread over the empire.' 
 
 Vaccination was introduced into Peking ' by the Prefect 
 
 757
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 Tseng who had formerly been a mandarin in the South ' in 
 1828. In 1864 there were three vaccination establishments 
 in the city, one having a branch in Tientsin, it was stated 
 then concerning Peking : 
 
 'Smallpox is still a great scourge, owing chiefly to the careless- 
 ness of the people in not availing themselves of it [vaccination] in 
 time. It is said to be endemic all children, they assert, take it by 
 the will of Heaven ; there is no escape sic volvere Parcas.' This 
 report goes on to say ' the vaccine establishments here are well 
 conducted. Attendance is given every eighth day, or oftener, if the 
 weather be very dry, and the lymph operates rapidly. Tickets of 
 admission are granted, the name, address, age, and sex are carefully 
 noted down in a register kept for the purpose. A note is taken of 
 the number of vaccination days each year ; the number of children 
 vaccinated, those in which it succeeds amongst those who return. 
 The statistics for 1893, of the oldest and principal establishment here 
 I subjoin, as given by the vaccinator : 
 
 'Number of vaccination days, 61 ; number vaccinated, 2227; 
 children, of those who returned, 1229 ; of successful vaccination, 
 each child being vaccinated in six places, 6080 ; vaccination days 
 during 37 years, 811. 
 
 'The establishments are not only gratuitous, but a gratuity is given 
 to the parents to bring the children back. In Spring, when the cases 
 are numerous, they receive, on their second visit, about 2d. ; in the 
 Autumn and Winter, when the cases are few, they receive about 2d. 
 on their first visit, and on their return, about gd. When there is the 
 least danger of the lymph becoming exhausted, beggar children are 
 hired to be vaccinated, who live in the Hospital. 
 
 'When called upon to vaccinate the nobility, these children are 
 taken in a cart to the residences of the aristocracy, in order to have 
 the lymph, in the recent state, transferred from their arms to those 
 of more fortunately-situated children. This method, which could not 
 always have been of the most agreeable description, has been super- 
 seded by tubes from this Hospital [London Mission Hospital]. 
 When it was first proposed to introduce vaccination into the 
 metropolis, it was arranged to have a relay of boys upon the road to 
 be vaccinated in succession every eighth day, but this plan was 
 abandoned when the means of conveying scabs was found out. The 
 dried scabs on reaching Peking were mixed with Mother's milk. . . . 
 The tracts and sheets printed and distributed on the subject display 
 a great ignorance of the true principles of physiology. They suppose 
 the poison of the smallpox to be located about the insertion of the 
 deltoid muscle, and hence direct the lymph to be introduced at three 
 distinct places in each arm, the upper one to be four inches from the 
 shoulder, and the lower one two inches from the elbow. They give 
 drawings of the position and of the lancets which, by-the-bye, are 
 all of foreign manufacture. They are very particular regarding the 
 diet, warning most carefully to avoid the smells of whisky, opium, 
 heated kangs, and dirty or decaying matter. 
 
 758
 
 Vaccination and Inoculation 
 
 'For at least 100 days after vaccination, cocks, certain kinds of 
 fish, beef, eggs, beans, and bean flour are to be avoided. For three 
 years after vaccination, buckwheat, and cherries are to be shunned. 
 The things enjoined are vegetables, pork, and salted ham. Three 
 days after vaccination, they are allowed to eat shrimps, with rice 
 spirit, Mongolian mushrooms, and mutton ; and only in Winter must 
 birds' nests, steamed with sugar-candy, be eaten.' 
 
 The medical missionary hospitals have had a large 
 share in both carrying on the work of vaccination when 
 once started and in introducing it into parts of the country 
 where it was unknown before. In this way it was first 
 brought into Shanghai in 1861, and at other times into 
 various other places. 
 
 By all these different ways, included in which, of course, 
 is the use of it by the Chinese themselves, the employment 
 of vaccination has pretty well spread through the empire ; 
 not only have individual Chinese taken it up as a means 
 of earning their living ; but charitable institutions have 
 employed men to go about the country and vaccinate, as 
 well as at the institutions themselves. 
 
 The following extract from a Customs' Medical Report 
 for 1877-1878, by Dr. Wong Fung, a Chinese, but an M.D. 
 of Edinburgh University, the doctor for some years of the 
 Foreign Community in Canton, and of the Imperial 
 Maritime Customs, will be of interest here : 
 
 'To Dr. Alexander Pearson of the East India Company is due the 
 great credit of first establishing by a long course of labour extending 
 from 1805 to 1820, the practice of vaccination among the natives of 
 Canton. But although this practice was introduced so early and has 
 been kept up, more or less, among the population ever since, it 
 appears that the people have been rather careless to avail themselves 
 of it ; and it is only of late, perhaps within the last 15 years, that it 
 has obtained extension to all classes and conditions of men from the 
 highest to the lowest, whether living on land or on water, so that at 
 present it may be estimated that, at least 95 per cent, of the children 
 of the city receive the benefits of vaccination. The general age at 
 which children are vaccinated is about the second year, and the 
 earliest about the fourth or fifth month. There are in the city 
 many men engaged in the practice, some of whom receive pay from 
 benevolent individuals to open dispensaries for free attendance on 
 the poor on stated days. In the country, vaccination has also made 
 great progress in the confidence of the people, and professional men 
 are found in villages, either practising on their own account, or hired 
 by the gentry for the purpose. The two most noted vaccinators of 
 the city are Yan Hee and Tan Yih-sing. The grandfather of the 
 
 759
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 former was instructed in the art by Dr. Pearson in 1806, and carried 
 it on with such success and became so widely known that his family ' 
 received ' marks of recognition from the Government in the shape of 
 some official title, and also, I believe, a grant of Tls. 100 per annum 
 for the preservation of lymph. Tan Yih - sing has also a large 
 practice, some say on account of the confidence placed in him as one 
 skilful in the diagnosis of leprosy, and likely to be circumspect in the 
 selection of lymph. It was always the custom to vaccinate direct 
 from the arm, but of late years many Chinese, including the 
 individuals above mentioned, have been taught by Dr. Kerr to 
 preserve lymph in glass tubes. Chinese mothers strongly object to 
 have lymph taken from their children, under the idea that it weakens 
 their constitution, and would not part with it but for money, so that 
 vaccinators have to secure their supply of lymph by paying children 
 successfully vaccinated to come to their houses. When a doctor is 
 called to a family to perform vaccination he takes a child with him to 
 furnish the vaccine, for which he generally gets 50 cents or $i, as a 
 fee, and the child 25 cents for the lymph. Poor people may be 
 vaccinated for 10 or 25 cents.' 
 
 Again as to its present practice. In the Report on 
 Ningpo, in the Customs' Annual Trade Report for 1896, 
 appears this : 
 
 ' Among the local developments of the year may be noticed a 
 free vaccination institution supported by contributions from the 
 Customs' banker, Yen Taotai.' 
 
 Vaccination is carried on at the Tung Wa Hospital in 
 Hongkong, free to all comers ; the subjects are nearly all 
 children, but there are some grown-up people as well. 
 This hospital does not send out doctors into the country 
 to vaccinate ; but some hospitals in Canton do. These 
 doctors go to some principal city and stay there for some 
 time and vaccinate. At these benevolent hospitals there 
 is no charge ; but the private practitioners charge a small 
 fee, and only have occasional patients. The Chinese 
 within the last ten years are beginning to see the good of 
 it more and more every day. In the country they vaccinate 
 from child to child without procuring fresh lymph. This 
 is done amongst the poor and even amongst the rich, 
 unless they understand about it ; there is, of course, a 
 chance of getting it from a poor subject ; they take 
 precautions to only inoculate from the healthy, though the 
 possibility exists of getting it from an unhealthy child. 
 
 760
 
 Vaccination and Inoculation 
 
 The writer has heard of one case where the lymph was 
 taken from a leper's child, who appeared to be free from 
 the disease, and the vaccinated child took it. The general 
 run of doctors take their lymph from the arm ; but rich 
 people, who can afford it, do not. The Chinese are not 
 aware of the necessity of re-vaccination. They think they 
 are not so liable to smallpox as Europeans, for they do 
 not eat roasted and broiled meats, as they (the Europeans) 
 do. 
 
 The Chinese doctors vaccinate very carefully three 
 spots on each arm, that is six spots, with an English 
 lancet, and cutting very deep. 
 
 The lymph now used in Hongkong, Canton, and neigh- 
 bourhood, is procured from the Government Vaccine 
 Institute in this Colony. 
 
 Except in the neighbourhood of treaty ports or where 
 European influence prevails, as at all mission stations, it 
 may be said that practically vaccination, as at present 
 performed by the Chinese themselves, is from arm to arm, 
 lymph being now used is hundreds of generations from the 
 original arms ; but where, as above, European influence 
 prevails, calf lymph is being introduced, but the style of 
 vaccination from arm to arm prevails. Re-vaccination is 
 not practised. 
 
 'When vaccinating, the child is first given a bath and its head 
 shaved, either of which performances is not repeated until ten days 
 have passed. The boys, of course, being more valuable than the 
 girls, the doctor charges 50 per cent, more for them, the price being 
 generally $1.00 for a boy, and 50 cents for a girl.' 
 
 Special attention is given to vaccination at the Mission 
 Hospital in Canton, ' and the work begun by the hospital 
 has been taken up and pushed vigorously forward by 
 native associations, as many as five hundred specialists 
 being despatched in one season to interior districts, in the 
 interests of this work.' 
 
 Books recommended. Different volumes of the Chinese depository 
 contain accounts of the introduction and progress of vaccination amongst 
 the Chinese in the early davs. Also The Chinese and Japanese Repository. 
 The Annual Reports of the numerous missionary hospitals throughout 
 
 761
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 China also contain, very often, accounts of what is being done not only in 
 the hospitals themselves, but, sometimes, of what is being done by the 
 Chinese in their neighbourhood with regard to vaccination. 
 
 WOMAN, THE STATUS OF. Woman, in China, 
 occupies a totally different sphere from that of man ; a 
 sphere which, though it must of necessity touch that of 
 man at certain points, should be kept as separate as 
 possible. At the early age of seven, according to the 
 practice of the ancients, ' boys and girls did not occupy the 
 same mat nor eat together ' ; and this is still carried to 
 such an extent that a woman's clothes should not hang on 
 the same peg as a man's, nor should she use the same 
 place to bathe in. The finical nonsense that all this 
 engenders is something absurd ; it is not even proper for 
 a woman to eat with her husband. Amongst the lower 
 classes, fortunately, the proprieties in this respect are more 
 honoured in the breach than in the observance, and it is a 
 pleasant sight to see a labourer and his wife partaking 
 together of their frugal meal ; common-sense and the 
 exigencies of common life getting the better of philo- 
 sophy, vainly so called. 
 
 Woman is made to serve in China, and the bondage is 
 often a long and bitter one : a life of servitude to her 
 parents ; a life of submission to her parents-in-law at 
 marriage; and the looking forward to a life of bondage 
 to her husband in the next world, for she belongs to the 
 same husband there, and is not allowed, by the sentiment 
 of the people, to be properly married to another after his 
 death. The birth of a son frees her to a certain extent 
 from the degradation of her position, for it promotes her to 
 some degree, within the house only, of equality with her 
 husband. All these restrictive customs are based on the 
 idea that woman occupies a lower plane than man : he is 
 the superior, she the inferior ; as heaven is to earth, so is 
 man to woman. All her bringing up is with the aim of 
 teaching her perfect submission to the paramount authority 
 of man ; for she ought to have no will of her own : her will 
 must be in complete subjection to that of his. Does her 
 
 762
 
 Woman, The Status of 
 
 husband have friends at his house? She is invisible, a 
 nameless thing, for it would be an insult for a visitor to 
 enquire after his host's wife. Do the gentlemen require 
 female society? The absurd seclusion of respectable 
 women drives them to seek it in the company of the 
 courtesans, who, in order to fit them for their life, are 
 educated in music, and taught such accomplishments as 
 will render their society more acceptable ; reminding one 
 of the position held by the Grecian hetcerce. 
 
 Of so little account is woman in China, that a father, if 
 asked the number of his children, will probably leave out 
 the girls in reckoning ; or, if he has no boys, his reply will 
 be ' only one girl,' said in such a tone of voice, as to call 
 forth the sympathy of his listener for his unfortunate 
 position. 
 
 In the very great majority of cases the girls are 
 not taught to read or write ; not, as was the case with 
 some of our great-grandmothers, for fear they should 
 learn how to write love-letters (for the billet-doux does 
 not flourish in China), but for the simple reason that 
 it is useless for girls to learn to read. (See Article on 
 Education.) Embroidery, plain sewing, the manufacture 
 of tiny shoes for her cramped-up feet, ' golden lilies', as 
 they are euphemistically termed, and interminable gossip, 
 fill up the lady's uneventful life, not even broken by 
 the pleasure of a daily walk, for she must be closely 
 shut up in her sedan if she ventures out on a call. 
 The chivalry of the West, with its modern Christianised 
 crystallisation of place aux dames and other mottoes 
 of polite conduct where the weaker sex is concerned, 
 is utterly unknown, as witness the brutal chaff, descend- 
 ing sometimes even to obscenity, whenever a young girl 
 or lady is seen in the street : every man makes a point 
 of turning round and staring at her ; no matter how 
 respectable she may be, some boisterous fun is made of 
 her pretty face ; she has to run the gauntlet of jeers from 
 a crowd of rough men, all the worse to bear on account of 
 her usual seclusion from all out-door life, and as her small 
 
 763
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 feet handicap her pace, her rude reception is reduced to a 
 slow torture. 
 
 No fashionable mother in England, lost to all the 
 instincts of natural affection, who sacrifices her daughter 
 in marriage to position or wealth, but will find a counter- 
 part in nearly every Chinese mother and father, who no 
 more think of taking their daughter's feelings into con- 
 sideration than they would think of asking her to fly. 
 Shut up in the ' inner apartment,' the Chinese equivalent 
 of the Indian zenana, though not such a horrible imprison- 
 ment as the latter the young maiden, as she blossoms 
 into womanhood, has but little chance of seeing her future 
 husband. 
 
 As the Chinese poet sings : 
 
 ' A mien severe and eyes that freeze, 
 
 Become the future bride ; 
 No whispering underneath the trees, 
 Ere yet the knot be tied.' 
 
 But it would not be human nature were such stolen 
 pleasures not to be found sometimes amongst the sweets of 
 life for a Chinese girl ; and if she chance to have picked 
 up a little knowledge of the Chinese printed character, her 
 novel reading will occasionally give her natural feelings 
 such a fillip as to develop the latent instincts of affection 
 and enable her to burst through some of the prudery of the 
 unnatural system of Confucianism. 
 
 Human nature is the same the wide world over, and 
 Chinese boys' and girls' hearts are cast in the same mould 
 as those of the West ; but, unfortunately, girls' hearts here, 
 like their feet, are cramped and distorted out of all shape 
 and recognition. Every tendency towards love between 
 man and woman is immoral, and to be repressed, and, 
 being repressed in its natural and pure direction, takes an 
 unnatural one ; for many a Chinese girl or woman has to 
 be content with the position of a secondary wife ; her 
 husband having married his first legitimate one from 
 family policy, may select his secondary or subsequently- 
 taken wives, from pure affection. Women are sometimes 
 
 764
 
 Woman, The Status of 
 
 thus rescued from an immoral life and brought into a 
 home ; but a dwelling where several wives usurp the place 
 which ought to be reserved for one, falls far short of the 
 English conception of the word home. Sometimes the 
 husband distributes his ' weaker vessels ' into as many 
 different houses as there are wives, in order to minimise 
 or prevent altogether the jealousies or bickerings which 
 often ensue when all live in one house. In the latter case 
 they are sometimes distributed through the house, which 
 must be a large one. Apropos of this is the Chinese 
 proverb, ' one key makes no noise, but two keys create a 
 jingling.' 
 
 Notwithstanding all the disadvantages under which 
 women labour in China, they at times rise superior to 
 them, and, pushing past all the obstacles in their path, take 
 a foremost position, not only in the state, but in the 
 humbler sphere of the family, as well as in the more 
 difficult one of letters and literature. 
 
 In some Chinese works, passages are found which 
 show that the respective authors look upon marriage, 
 occasionally at all events, as we in the West do, for 
 instance : 
 
 ' They ate together of the same animal and joined in 
 supping from cups made of the same gourd ; thus showing 
 that they now formed one body, were of equal rank, and 
 pledged to mutual affection.' 
 
 ' The ceremony of marriage was intended to be a 
 bond of love between two of different surnames ' after 
 which this passage goes on to speak of ancestral worship, 
 etc. 
 
 Whatever affection a girl may feel for her own family 
 must receive a wrench on her marriage, for she is after 
 that important event almost entirely lost to her own 
 kin and transferred to that of her husband. In fact, so 
 far is this carried that, should her intended die, it is an 
 act of virtue for the girl to leave her own people, and 
 embosom herself in the bereaved household, there to live 
 in subjection to the deceased's mother till death joins 
 
 765
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 the couple whom the fates kept separate on earth. A 
 woman can never marry twice, legitimately, that is to say 
 a man falling in love with a widow, may take her as a 
 concubine. A woman only once rides in a red sedan, 
 and only then if she is being married as a legal, that is a 
 first, wife. 
 
 A high type of virtue for a woman, in some parts of 
 China, is to commit suicide on the death of her husband or 
 intended ; in some cases the relatives force her to do it, 
 in hopes of the &lat.and the erection of a stone portal, 
 which a representation of the case will probably cause the 
 Government to sanction. Remaining a perpetual so- 
 called widow without ever being married (in the event of 
 her intended dying), is another strong recommendation for 
 these monuments to virtue ! What wonder that in some 
 places the girls band themselves together never to marry, 
 and, to prevent being forced into matrimony, commit 
 suicide ! 
 
 The lower classes have more freedom of action in some 
 respects; that is to say, they are not confined to the 
 house, but, as the exigencies of their life demand it, they 
 go about in public to perform their duties : seamstresses 
 sit at the street corners, repairing clothes ; farmers' wives 
 assist in field operations ; servants go about the streets 
 and make purchases ; domestic slave-girls run errands ; 
 grass-cutters ramble up the hill-sides to cut the grass for 
 fodder or fuel ; villagers go from house to house of the big 
 cities to gather pig's wash for food for these unsavoury 
 quadrupeds ; scavengers busy themselves in the narrow 
 streets and crowded throughfares, to the discomfort of the 
 foot passengers ; tea-girls pick tea, seated- at the doors of 
 the tea hongs ; beggars go in troops, or singly through the 
 crowds ; while the blind singing-girls, with their duennas, 
 seek for hire; and the little sampans are manned by 
 women and girls. 
 
 But the employment of women in outdoor pursuits 
 differs in different parts of the country ; in some places 
 they are conspicuous by their absence, whilst in other 
 
 766 

 
 Writing 
 
 places their engaging in labour, for which they are not so 
 well fitted as man, renders their presence even more 
 conspicuous. To one accustomed in Canton and neigh- 
 bourhood to the constant presence of women in the fields 
 and streets and on the river and sea, busy with various 
 kinds of manual labour, it is strange to note their entire 
 absence, with but trifling exceptions, in the country round 
 Swatow. 
 
 Books recommended. 'The Status of Women in China,' 'The Famous 
 Women of China,' two small pamphlets, both by the late Rev. E. Faber, 
 Dr. Theol. 'Typical Women of China' [abridged from the Chinese Work, 
 ' Records of Virtuous Women of Ancient and Modern Times '], by Miss A. C. 
 Safford. Also see an amusing Article in The Chinese Recorder and Mission- 
 ary Journal, vol. xxviii. pp. 10-18, entitled 'Chinese Women from a 
 Chinese Standpoint,' by I. T. Headland. 
 
 WRITING. As to the introduction of writing 
 amongst the Chinese, it has been stated that: 
 
 ' Chinese writers, unable to trace the gradual formation of their 
 characters (for, of course, there could be no intelligible historical 
 data until long after their formation), have ascribed them to Huang Ti, 
 one of their primitive monarchs, or, even earlier, to Fu-hsi. A mythi- 
 cal personage, Tsang-kieh, who flourished about B.C. 2700, is credited 
 with the invention of symbols to represent ideas, from noticing the 
 markings on tortoise-shell, and thence imitating common objects in 
 nature.' 
 
 If the study of the origin of English words is interest- 
 ing, that of Chinese, is, if anything, even more so. The 
 mode of writing the character presents facilities for this 
 study which are wanting in English. Here are hundreds 
 and thousands of word pictures, some of them patent to 
 the most casual glance, requiring scarcely a thought to 
 elucidate them. 
 
 The Chinese divide their language into six classes ; 
 the first class, ' imitative symbols,' includes 608 characters, 
 amongst them some of the first characters invented, but 
 they have been modified by the exigencies of time and 
 convenience in writing, the metal stylus having been 
 replaced by the modern pencil, or brush, so that angular 
 strokes have given place to curves, and circles to squares 
 and oblongs, while parts of the original character have 
 
 767
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 dropped out as the writing became more contracted. As a 
 specimen of this class of character is the word for child, 
 the rude picture having given way to the modern character 
 ^ where the head, arms, and legs, in profile, are still 
 visible. Again, the outline of three peaks, which was 
 used to represent the idea of a hill, has been modified 
 into the present form, [\\ . Yet again, the rude picture of 
 an eye has changed into an upright oblong with two strokes 
 in the middle, viz., Q, and so we might go on at great 
 length. 
 
 The second class, which only contains 107 characters, is 
 called ' symbols indicating thought.' These characters are 
 formed by the combination of those of the previous class, 
 for instance, the sun appearing above a line indicates the 
 morning, as El, 
 
 The third class contains 740 characters, called ' com- 
 bined ideas.' These ideographs are built up of two or 
 three of the other symbols : for instance, ' sun ' and ' moon ' 
 are put in juxtaposition to represent brightness, as ^ ; a 
 boy and a girl together represent the idea good, : it is 
 not good for man to be alone. 
 
 The fifth class is called ' uniting sound symbols/ 
 containing 21,810 characters; nearly all words, it will thus 
 be seen, belong to this class. They are formed of two 
 distinct parts : one called the phonetic, giving the sound to 
 the complex character thus formed, while the other com- 
 ponent part of the character is ' formed of an imitative 
 symbol,' as, for example, $[!, a carp. 
 
 The sixth class contains 598 characters, and is 
 styled ' borrowed uses,' including ' metaphoric symbols 
 and combinations, in which the meaning is deducted 
 by a fanciful accommodation.' As an example of this 
 class there is the word for character, word, or letters 
 (literature), fj2, a child under a shelter ' characters 
 being considered as the well-nurtured offspring of 
 hieroglyphics.' 
 
 Besides this sixfold division there is likewise another 
 sixfold division of Chinese characters, with respect not to 
 
 768
 
 Writing 
 
 their original formation but to their form, which may be 
 compared to Roman, italic, or writing, German, Arabesque, 
 and other forms used in English ; for, though the correct 
 form of writing Chinese approaches very nearly to the 
 printed form, more so than in English, yet there are, besides 
 this somewhat easy style of writing, a flowing hand, which 
 requires special study, and a still more running hand, which 
 is undecipherable to those unfamiliar with it. These two 
 latter styles allow latitude, as in English writing, for the 
 idiosyncrasies of the individual writer. In them, more 
 especially in the latter of the two, contractions are largely 
 availed of, the brush (Chinese pen) flies over the paper 
 linking word to word somewhat in the style of shorthand 
 writers in English. In short this running or 'grass writing' 
 may be likened in some degree to shorthand, though many 
 of the Chinese characters, even in it, are too complicated to 
 permit of a rapid enough writing to constitute it shorthand. 
 Neither of these styles is allowed to be employed in the 
 Government examinations, where every character must be 
 well formed, and no contractions used ; but they are found 
 necessary for business purposes. The books of large firms 
 are kept most beautifully, very few contractions being used, 
 but the ordinary business firms intersperse the more correct 
 and formal characters with running forms to a greater or 
 lesser extent. Scarcely any Europeans trouble themselves 
 to learn thoroughly more than one style, if they even go as 
 far as that. 
 
 Chinese writing is largely employed for ornamental 
 purposes. The caligraphy of masters of the art, for it is an 
 art in China, is highly pri/.ed, and commands a high price. 
 Even the prosaic shop is ornamented with numerous scrolls, 
 bearing poetical phrases, antithetical sentences, sometimes 
 of high moral import, and even single words, beautifully 
 engrossed, which line the bare brick walls, and are hung 
 here and there. Fans are inscribed with poetic effusions 
 and presented to friends, who treasure them as autographs. 
 Some fine specimens of a fluent writer's skill are carved 
 into the semicylindrical surface of a pair of nicely varnished 
 
 769 3 C
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 split bamboos, and these form another embellishment for the 
 mansions of the wealthy Chinese. The backs of combs, 
 the end pieces of folding fans, porcelain vases, and numerous 
 other objects, are all adorned with specimens of caligraphic 
 skill, and most effective this ornamentation is ; at times, 
 the stiff, rigid forms of the seal character are employed ; 
 and at other times the rambling style of the rapid 
 writer, with its bold dashes, firm curves, slender, spider- 
 like threads connecting distant parts, thick down-strokes, 
 and all the other elegancies, which constitute the beauty 
 of Chinese writing, so highly appreciated by Chinese 
 connoisseurs. 
 
 Chinese writing, when written carefully, is slow work at 
 the best : its speed is comparable to the engrossing of a 
 legal document by a lawyer's clerk with us ; or again, one 
 may liken the slow, laborious writing of the careful scribe 
 to an attempt in English to write in print, while the rapid- 
 running hand approaches nearer to our writing. 
 
 Although Chinese is not an alphabetical language, the 
 Chinese writing is composed of simple strokes and dots, 
 perpendiculars and horizontals, modified according to 
 certain rules, conditioned by the position in which they 
 are to appear ; further, the more complex characters are 
 built up of the simpler ones, some of the compound char- 
 acters being formed of a combination of only two or three, 
 while others may be the result of a union of half a dozen 
 or more. A page of writing would present an unsym- 
 metrical appearance were the original size of the component 
 parts of the characters to be preserved. They are modified 
 to suit their position lengthened, shortened, compressed, 
 enlarged, or diminished as necessary the idea being that 
 each character shall only occupy a given space. 
 
 'The Chinese have the greatest respect for any writing, and it no 
 doubt enhances their contempt for us by noticing how we fail to 
 reverence the written character, and, no doubt, they also fancy that we 
 must indeed be barbarians and our writing not "that fairest jewel in 
 heaven above or earth beneath " which theirs is, or we would doubt- 
 less take the greatest care that not a scrap of it should fall to the 
 ground and be trodden under foot, or torn, or destroyed in any way but 
 by fire, when the extremely punctilious will also go as far as to bury 
 
 7/0
 
 Zoology 
 
 them deep in the earth in a sealed earthen vessel, or sink them to 
 the bottom of the river.' Men #0 about the streets gathering up 
 every scrap of paper on which there is the least bit of writing or 
 printing, so that they may be destroyed by fire at certain places 
 prepared for that purpose. These chiffoniers are paid by rich men. 
 Little boxes will also be seen here and there along the streets, not 
 only in Chinese cities but in Hongkong itself, with the four characters 
 King sik tsz chi, ' Reverence printed (or written) paper' on them. These 
 boxes serve as receptacles into which the passers-by, or neighbours, 
 may stuff their refuse paper. 
 
 Books recommended. 'The Six Scripts.' A traiwlation by L. C. Hopkins 
 of H.M. Consular service. 'I low to Write Chinese,' l>y the Author of the 
 present work. 
 
 ZOOLOGY. Though China is a well-settled country, 
 there are still vast tracts sparsely inhabited, and sufficiently 
 different species of animals are found to make the study of 
 zoology a pleasure, and the discovery every now and then 
 of some new species lends a zest to its pursuit. 
 
 The Fauna in the South, in the Island of Hainan and a 
 portion of the mainland, is tropical to some extent ; but 
 North China and Manchuria resemble, in their zoology, 
 Corea and Japan. 
 
 Of monkeys, there are several varieties, some of most 
 remarkable appearance ; the Chinese train a few to perform 
 tricks. Of bats, one list gives twenty species, belonging to 
 nine genera. There are black and brown bears, as well as 
 other varieties. The carnivora, though not such a pest as 
 in India, are still common enough in some parts, and, in 
 certain thickly-populated places, they are a cause of con- 
 siderable apprehension to the natives. Amongst them 
 may be mentioned the tiger (See Article on Tigers) 
 ranging over large districts in the southern provinces ; 
 panthers, leopards, and tiger-cats are also not unknown. 
 Wild cats are occasionally seen in Hongkong ; civet cats, 
 tree-civets, and martens, are found in China. The domestic 
 cat is very common, a species of Angora cat being a pet 
 in Peking. As to the dog, a glance at it reminds one of 
 the pictures of Esquimaux dogs. These are known as 
 ' chow ' dogs, or ' wonks,' amongst foreigners, looking very 
 pretty when pups, with their fluffy, yellow, black, or reddish 
 
 771
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 hair, but they often deteriorate in appearance as they grow 
 older, though this does not appear to be a general opinion, 
 as they are sometimes made pets of by foreigners. Strange 
 to say, the tongues and mouths of dogs and cats are often 
 black or blue-black. (See Article on Dogs.) Wolves, foxes, 
 and racoon-dogs are common. The Chinese horses are 
 ponies, and the cattle are also small ; some of the latter 
 have a hump. The water-buffalo is an uncouth, large, 
 clumsy-looking animal, and is used for drawing the plough, 
 as well as for other agricultural purposes ; the milk supplied 
 by the buffalo cow is richer than common cow's milk. The 
 black tongue and mouth are also found in buffaloes. (See 
 Article on the Buffalo.) Yaks are found in Tibet and 
 Kokonor. Sheep abound in the North, and goats all over 
 China. Antelopes and deer of eleven varieties are known 
 deer are kept in gentlemen's grounds in China as well as in 
 England and many other genera of ruminants are in- 
 cluded in China's fauna. Three varieties of the musk-deer 
 may be mentioned. Mules and donkeys are largely used 
 in the North as beasts of burden, and the wild ass, 
 or onager, is to be found in Kokonor. The elephant, 
 rhinoceros, and tapir, are to be met with in the forests 
 of Yunnan ; the wild boar in the North and in Chekiang. 
 Different varieties of pigs abound in the North and South, 
 and pork is largely consumed by the Chinese. The camel 
 is also a beast of burden in Manchuria, Mongolia, and 
 Northern China. Among smaller animals may be men- 
 tioned weasels, otters (used for fishing, for which purpose 
 they are trained), badgers, sable-ermine, pole-cats, stoats, 
 sea-otters, moles, musk-rats, shrew mice, hedgehogs, 
 marmots, and molerats. 
 
 There are many kinds of rodents. Hares and rabbits 
 abound in some places, but are almost, if not entirely, 
 unknown in others. There are ten or twelve kinds of 
 squirrels known, as well as two genera of flying squirrels. 
 Twenty-five species of rats (See Article on Rats), and mice 
 are known as existing in China, and all but three are 
 peculiar to the country. One species has been named 
 
 772
 
 Zoology 
 
 after Confucius (tints Confucianus\ an honour which prob- 
 ably the sage would not appreciate were he aware of it, 
 while another has been named after Koxinga, the con- 
 queror of Formosa. The porcupine is supposed by the 
 Chinese to use its quills as javelins to fling at its enemies, 
 while the scaly ant-eater, or pangolin, is thus described by 
 one sapient (!) Chinese writer : 
 
 'Its shape resembles a crocodile; it can go in dry paths as well 
 as in the water; it has four legs. In the day time it ascends the 
 banks of streams, and, lying down, opens its scales wide, putting on 
 the appearance of death, which induces the ants to enter between 
 them ; as soon as they are in, the animal closes its scales and returns 
 to the water to open them : the ants float out dead, and he devours 
 them at leisure." 
 
 The great, white porpoise (Dclpliinus chincnsis} is found 
 in the estuary of the Canton river, and at Swatow, as well 
 as in the Yangtsz. It is an amusing sight to watch one or 
 two of them swimming for an hour or more just in front 
 of a steamer. A species of fin-whale is found between 
 Formosa and Hainan. Seals disport themselves on the 
 coast of Liang-tung. 
 
 The lists of Swinhoe and David contain 200 species 
 of mammalia ; many more have been discovered since 
 these lists were drawn up. 
 
 Of birds there have already been over 700 species 
 described. (' The avifauna of the Yang-tsz Valley com- 
 prises, at least ... 359 species, of which 97 species are 
 known to be migrant') Vultures, eagles, and ernes are 
 widespread ; the golden eagle is trained by the Mongols 
 for the chase ; falcons are common in the streets of Peking, 
 where they act as scavengers. Bustards, gledes, sparrow- 
 hawks, night-hawks, and swallows, are all to be seen ; of 
 the latter bird there are 1 5 species. The feathers of king- 
 fishers are used for decorative purposes. (See Article on 
 Kingfisher.) The hoopoe, bee-eater, and cuckoo are all 
 known, as well as 1 1 species of shrikes and many other 
 birds, such as nut-hatches, tree-creepers, wall-creepers, 
 wrens, chats, willow-wrens, and redstarts. There are great 
 varieties of song-birds, such as the thrush and lark, of 
 
 773
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 which the Chinese are very fond ; for a Mongolian lark 
 $25 will be given. (See Article on Larks and other 
 Songsters.) Amongst other birds may be named wag- 
 tails, orioles, jays (a most beautiful blue jay is found in 
 Hongkong), magpies, choughs, crows, blackbirds, owls, 
 mainahs (See Article on Larks and other Songsters), 
 robins, ouzels, tailor-birds, woodpeckers, parrots, 14 species 
 of pigeons, gold and silver pheasants, and others ; and 
 poultry, of which the common fowl, the Shanghai and the 
 diminutive white bantam are the best known. Some of 
 the Chinese fowls appear to have black bones, owing to 
 a thin membrane of that colour surrounding the bones. 
 Besides these, are grouse, quails, francolins, partridges, 
 snipe, cranes, plovers, curlews, herons, egrets, ibis, spoon- 
 bills, crakes, and rails. ' The Chinese ring-necked species 
 of pheasant has been successfully introduced ' into England. 
 (See Article on Pheasants.) Sixty-five species of web- 
 footed birds are known as existing in China, amongst 
 which are ten species of duck. The whole seacoast is 
 alive with gulls, terns, and grebes ; and swans, geese, and 
 mallards are found in the inland waters. The mandarin 
 duck, a native of the central provinces, is a beautiful object, 
 having as brilliant a plumage as a parrot. (See Article on 
 Mandarin.) 
 
 Alligators, though rare, are to be found in one or 
 two spots, and probably they, or crocodiles, were more 
 numerous formerly than now. Snakes abound, many of 
 which are deadly. (See Article on Snakes.) Frogs are 
 most abundant, and are eaten. (See Article on Frogs.) 
 Tortoises and turtles are plentiful. 'The ichthyology 
 of China is one of the richest in the world, though 
 it may be so more from the greater proportion of food 
 furnished by the waters than from any real super- 
 abundance of the finny tribes.' By this time about a 
 thousand different kinds are known as being found in 
 China. It is said that in Macao one may have a different 
 kind of fish for breakfast every morning in the year if one 
 will eat every sort which the Chinese use as food. 
 
 774
 
 Zoology 
 
 Amongst Chinese fish may be mentioned mackerel, goby, 
 herrings, sharks, rays, saw-fish, sturgeon, huge skates, 
 garoupa, sole, mullet, the white rice-fish (or silver-fish as it 
 is called in some of the languages of China), shad, and 
 carp (52 species of the last). The gold-fish is a most 
 grotesque specimen of nature's caricatures, imitated or 
 fostered by artifice and selection, the eyes are like 
 goggles, sticking out of its head, and tail and fins are 
 tufted and lobed to a most extraordinary extent. ' Gold- 
 fish were first known in China ' ; they were ' brought to 
 Europe in the seventeenth century.' The Chinese say 
 their original habitat was Lake Tsau in the province 
 of Ngan-hwui. (See Article on Gold-fish.) Another 
 variety is the silver-fish. We cannot complete the list of 
 Chinese fish, but we may mention pipe-fish, of a red 
 colour, gar-pike with green bones, beautiful parrot-fish, 
 sun-fish, eels, file-fish, bream, gudgeon, anchovies, perch, 
 and gurnard. There are great varieties of shellfish ; 
 oysters are common, so are prawns, shrimps, crabs, craw- 
 fish, and kingcrabs, the last strange-looking objects. 
 Amongst curiosities, may be mentioned the hammer 
 oyster (Avicula \inalleus\ vulgaris}, found at Swatow. 
 
 'The insects of China are almost unknown to the 
 naturalist.' There are hundreds of different kinds of 
 spiders, some with bodies as large as small birds, which 
 spin their webs from tree to tree, high up in the air. 
 Locusts, centipedes, scorpions, silkworms, fireflies, glow- 
 worms, and beetles ; and many other numerous species 
 of insects have their home in China. (See Article on 
 Insects.) 
 
 J}ooks recommended. Williams' s 'Middle Kingdom,' vol. i. \>\>. 313-354, 
 contains a good, general, short account of the zoology of China. Also see the 
 different Articles in this hook on 'Tigers,' 'Buffaloes.' as well as thos- on tin- 
 other zoological creatures as mentioned in the text. For lards, see Proceedings 
 of the Zoological Society for May 1871, which contains a jiajn-r by the 
 late Mr. Swinhoe. ' Les Oiseaux de la Chine,' jiar M. LTAhhe A. David. 
 Also see Article on 'Cormorant Fishing,' and end of Article on ' Mandarin.' 
 For fishes, see 'Report of the British Association for the Advancement of 
 Science' for 18-15. For insects, see Donovan's 'Natural History of tin- 
 Insects of China.' Also sec Article on ' Insects' and 'Silk' in this hook.
 
 INDEX 
 
 ABACUS, i, 3, 96 
 
 Abatement, 3 
 
 Aberdeen, Professor of Chinese at, 
 
 1 68 
 Aborigines, 5, 33, 128-129, iSS, 211, 
 
 315. 329, 342,' 372, 589-590 
 ' Absence, In,' 547 
 Accessories to the stage, 704-705 
 Accountant, i, 2 
 Account-books, I, 2, 75, 719 
 Accounts, 190 
 Actors, 704, 705, 706, 707 
 Acts, Five, 706 
 Acupuncture, 7 
 Administrative powers, 162 
 Adoption, 9-13, 30, 212, 624 
 Adulterations and tricks, Trade, 622, 
 
 692, 732 
 Adultery, 212 
 Africa, 505 
 
 ,, Chinese in, 142, 156 
 ,, South, 360 
 Agar-agar, 13 
 Agate, 714 
 Age, 96 
 
 ,, Enquiries as to, 25^, 
 Agnates, 9, 10 
 Agriculture, 13, 34, 115, 309, 400, 
 
 590, 767, 772 
 ,, Government fosters, 14, 
 
 15 
 ,, Implements of, 18, 19, 
 
 74 
 
 ,, Importance of, 14 
 
 ,, Theoretical high opinion 
 
 of, 13 
 
 A-he-qua, 756, 757 
 
 Alaska, 358 
 
 Albasines, 757 
 
 Alchemy, 675, 676, 677, 678, 681 
 
 Alienation of land, 699, 702 
 
 Alligators, 774 
 
 Allodial property, 699 
 
 Alluvial land, 307-308, 800 
 ,, plain, 284 
 ,, soil, Creation of, 410 
 Almond, 25-26, 285 
 
 ,, tea, 25 
 Alpinia ^a/an^as, 316 
 Alps, 358 
 Altar-cloths, 244 
 Ambassadors, 69, 70, 71 
 Amber, 714 
 
 America, Chinese in, 142-144, 481 
 ,, Cultivation of tea in, 688, 
 
 689 
 
 ,, South, 358 
 ,, Tea in, 688, 689, 690-691, 
 
 693, 694, 696 
 
 ,, Tonnage of, to China, 729 
 American concessions, 743 
 
 ,, consumption of tea, 690- 
 
 691, 693, 696, 733 
 ,, flour, 726, 734 
 ,, kerosene, 725 
 ,, river steamers, 578 
 
 shipping, 729 
 ,, stamps, 658 
 ,, syndicate, Railway, 601, 
 
 '603 
 
 ,, tonnage, 729 
 ,, trade, 293, 725, 726, 729,. 
 
 732, 733 
 Americans, 359 
 
 ,, in China, 193, 293, 294, 
 
 6i3 
 
 Amoor, 412 
 
 Amoy, to, 40, 102, 148, 175, 202, 
 203, 208, 209, 225, 230, 274, 275, 
 284, 288, 295, 297, 310-311, 372, 
 461, 478, 496, 511, 607, 613, 614, 
 661, 693-694, 708, 716, 733-734, 
 
 737, 739, 741, 743 
 
 Amoy, Books for learning, 1 1 1 
 
 Amsterdam, 714 
 
 Amusements and Play, etc., 26-30, 
 98, 138, 222-223, 236-237, 244- 
 247, 280-283, 284-287, 290-291, 
 
 777
 
 Index 
 
 Amusements (continued) 
 295-296, 301-303, 330, 375-377, 
 405, 406, 407, 420, 423, 431, 462- 
 467, 501-502, 539-554, 576-577, 
 579-585, 614-615, 615-616, 703-707 
 Anamba Islands, Chinese in, 152 
 Anatomy, Ignorance of, 57 
 Ancestor, A son's deeds ennoble, 722 
 Ancestral Hall and Temple, 9, 172, 
 
 313, 422, 469, 644 
 Land, 33-34 
 Tablet, 32, 33, 458-459 
 ,, Worship, 9, 10, 30-34, 91, 
 93, 118, 172, 279, 312, 
 419-420, 422, 423, 426, 
 427, 438, 463, 557, 717 
 ,, Worship is the National 
 
 Religion, 31, 97-98 
 Ancient art, 58 
 
 beliefs, 118 
 bronze-work, 118-120 
 history, 327-341, 585 
 missions, 435 
 music, 462-463 
 Philosopher, The, 672 
 style, 374 
 tablets, 427 
 Anglo-Chinese syndicate, 601 
 
 ,, Japanese Alliance, 305, 344, 
 
 345 
 
 Anhui. See Nganhwui. 
 
 Aniline dyes, 726 
 
 Animals and the animal creation, 17, 
 18, 51, 56, 58, 60, 65, 72, 81, 82, 
 83, 90-91, 119, 125-126, 170-171, 
 177-178, 181-183, 194-195, 201, 
 215-218, 218-222, 234, 243, 244, 
 246, 271-272, 279, 282, 283, 287- 
 292, 296, 314, 318, 327, 346, 350- 
 35 6 > 3 6l > 375-377, 394, 4*7, 420, 
 424, 449, 45 1 -455, 458, 459, 460, 
 497, 505-506, 513, 514, 518, 519, 
 520, 524, 526, 531-532, 532-533, 
 
 535, 536, 545, 548, 549, 55O, 55 1- 
 552, 560, 567, 569, 570, 574, 578, 
 583, 588, 604, 614-615, 617, 618, 
 619-620, 620-621, 622, 629-632, 
 651, 652, 660-661, 669, 670, 685, 
 707-709, 719, 724, 725, 761, 768, 
 
 771-775 
 
 Aniseed, Star, 735 
 Annam, 418, 590, 749 
 
 ,, Chinese in, 146-147 
 Anopheles, 452, 453, 454 
 Answers to questions, 255 
 Ant-eater, 773 
 Antigua, Chinese in, 144 
 
 Anti-matrimonial league, 427-429 
 Antimony, 730 
 Anti-opium pills. See Opium 
 Antipodes, Chinese our, 717 
 Antiquities, 34-35, 84, 585-586 
 Antiquity, Love of, 34, 164 
 ,, of Art, 58 
 ,, of Porcelain, 558-560 
 Antithetical Sentences, 28, 238, 
 
 769 
 Ants, 351-352, 532-533 
 
 White, 351 
 Antwerp, 714 
 Apelles, 65 
 Apples, 35, 299 
 Apricot, 26, 300 
 Arab traders, 142, 293, 444 
 Arabian art, 120 
 
 ,, trade, 142, 190 
 Arbours, 35 
 Arbutus, 300 
 Arch, 41, 42 
 Arch of steel, 648 
 Archery, 28, 51 
 
 Arches, Commemorative, 42, 766 
 Architecture, 35-42 
 Argentan, 713 
 Arhan, 487 
 Arithmetic, I, 239 
 Arms, 42-45, 47, 511 
 Army, 45-54, 197, 198, 344, 477 
 Army, Ever Victorious, 52, 647 
 Arrows, 44, 47, 709 
 Arsenals, 54, 344, 475, 476, 477 
 Arsenic, 429 
 Art, 54-66, 77, 243-244, 244-247, 
 
 276, 286, 405 
 ,, of writing, 767-771 
 Artificial flowers, 284 
 Artillery, 44, 48, 49 
 Artisan, 13 
 
 Ascending on High, 27, 66-67 
 Asceticism, 678 
 Asia, 590, 724, 726 
 
 ,, Minor, 358 
 Asiatic Society, China Branch of the 
 
 Royal, 67-68, 104 
 Assam tea, 683, 688 
 Associations, Money Loan, 632-645 
 Astrologer and Astrology, 68, 458- 
 
 459, 461 
 Astronomical Instruments at Peking, 
 
 1 20 
 
 Astronomy, 404, 669-670 
 Asylums and Leper Villages, 389, 
 
 390, 39i, 392, 393, 394 
 Atlas moth, 354 
 
 778
 
 Index 
 
 Atkinson's, Dr, conclusions on 
 
 Plague, 535 
 Au, River, 741 
 Audience, 68-72, 344 
 
 Hall, 70 
 Australia, 358, 645, 733 
 
 ,, Chinese in, 153-155, 393 
 ,, Consumption of tea in, 
 
 693. 696, 733 
 Austria, 393 
 Austrians in China, 193, 293, 294, 
 
 295 
 
 Au To-huan, 60 
 Autographs, 769 
 Aweto, 72 
 Azalea, 688 
 
 B 
 
 B. A., 265 
 
 Babies, 136-138, 347-350 
 
 Baby-clothes, 92 
 
 Baby-towers, 350 
 
 Babylon, 368 
 
 Bacillus pestis, 533, 534-535 
 
 Back, Carrying on the, 720 
 
 Baden- Powell, 77 
 
 Baldacchino, 199 
 
 Baldness, A cure for, 604 
 
 Ballad singing, 28, 464 
 
 Balls, Ivory, 132 
 
 Bamboo, n, 12, 38, 56, 62, 72-78, 
 114, 117, 131, 170, 243, 
 281, 361, 458, 704, 713- 
 714, 769-770 
 ,, snake, 630 
 
 Bamboo-sprouts, 73 
 
 Banana, 298, 538-539 
 
 Band for the head, 227-228 
 
 Bangles, 324, 357 
 
 Bank-notes, 79-80, 190 
 
 Bankruptcies, 319 
 
 Banks, 78-80, 503, 701 
 
 Banners, 46, 244, 653 
 ,, The Eight, 46 
 
 Bantams, 774 
 
 Barber, 456, 589, 707 
 
 Bargaining, I, 3, 164 
 
 Barometer readings in a typhoon, 
 
 749-75 
 
 Barriers, Likin, 397, 398, 399 
 Baskets, 75, 81 
 Bathing, 81, 761 
 Batoum, 688 
 Batrachians, 296, 774 
 Bats, 8 1, 771 
 Battledore, 615, 720 
 
 Battleships, 474 
 
 Batura, 197-198 
 
 Bays, 306 
 
 Beacons, 502 
 
 Beads, 719 
 
 Beans and bean flour, 731, 759 
 
 Bean-cake, 730 
 
 Beard, 719-720 
 
 Bears, 771 
 
 Bcche-de-mer, 81-82 
 
 Beckoning, 260 
 
 Bed and bedsteads, 82-83 
 
 Beef, 759 
 
 Bees, 83 
 
 Beetles, 350, 354, 775 
 
 Beggar spirits, 31 
 
 Beggars, 74, 98, 252, 355, 430-434, 
 
 492, 510, 665, 758, 766 
 Belgian railways, 601, 603 
 Belgians in China, 193, 293, 294, 
 
 295. 603 
 Belladonna, 300 
 Belles Icttres, 2 58, 400, 407 
 Bells, 83-84, 464-465 
 Bequests for Ancestral Worship, 33 
 Beri-beri, 84-85 
 Betel-nuts, 85, 86 
 
 ,, vine, 86 
 Betrothal, 86-89, 557 
 Bhamo, 357 
 Bible in China, 436, 439, 440 
 
 ,, customs illustrated in the East, 
 
 82-83 
 
 Biblical history, 513 
 Bibliography, 89-90, 403 
 Billingsgate, 253 
 Binding part of a Chinese marriage, 
 
 425-427 
 
 ' Bird of Fate, The,' 542-543 
 Birds, 55-56, 62, 65,' 75, 90-91, 93, 
 243, 246, 287, 289, 291, 292, 361, 
 362, 366, 375-377, 417, 424, 458, 
 497, 505-50, 518, 520, 536, 542, 
 543, 548-549, 550-552, 5 6 7, 570- 
 614, 651, 669, 759, 773-774 
 Birds' nests, 90-91, 289, 291, 759 
 Birth, Customs connected with, 91- 
 
 95 
 
 Birthday of Gods, 12, 26, 97-98, 703- 
 
 704 
 
 Birthdays, 95-98 
 Black, 670, 720 
 
 ,, art, 680-681 
 
 ,, bones of fowls, 774 
 
 ,, death, 535 
 
 ,, eyes, 157 
 
 779
 
 Index 
 
 Black-haired race, 140, 158 
 
 ,, mouths and tongues of dogs, 
 buffaloes, and cats, 772 ; 
 and of bones of fowls, 774 
 plague and death, 512, 514 
 porcelain, 573 
 silk, 619 
 slaves, 628 
 tea, 681, 697, 727, 732-733. 
 
 733-734, 735 
 tongues of animals, 772 
 wood, 131-132, 302 
 Blacksmiths, 734 
 Rlanc de Chine, 560 
 Blankets, 82, 83 
 Blessings, The Five, 486 
 Blest, The Golden Isles of the, 676 
 Blind, 28, 74, 43O-43 1 , 43 2 , 434, 464, 
 
 766 
 
 ,, singing girls, 28, 464, 766 
 Blockade chess, 135 
 Blocks for printing, 586, 587, 588 
 Blood, Drinking, 447 
 Blue for mourning, 456, 720 
 ,, plume, 197 
 ,, porcelain, 565, 566, 573, 574, 
 
 577 
 
 Board, The, of Foreign Affairs, 320 
 Boards, The Six, 320, 388 
 Boat-men, 290 
 ,, people, 32, 33, 98-102, 227, 
 
 423 
 
 ,, racing, 27, 223 
 ,, women, 227, 720, 766, 767 
 Boats, 27, 38, 57, 73, 98-102, 131, 
 136, 252-253, 390, 613-614, 
 720, 724, 730, 737, 766, 
 767 
 
 ,, manned by women, 720, 766 
 Boccaro, 566 
 Bodleian, 359 
 Bogue forts, 48, 50 
 Bohea, 685 
 Boles of trees, 131 
 Bombay, 532-533, 534, 537 
 Bones of dead children, 429 
 Book name, 468 
 
 ,, of Rewards and Punishments, 
 
 678 
 
 ,, of Secret Blessings, 678 
 ,, stalls, 300 
 
 style, 374, 375, 45, 4i 
 Books, 102-111, 111-114, 399-410, 
 415, 441-442, 445, 45, 486, 
 671, 673, 674-675, 678, 718- 
 
 719, 765 
 ,, Business, 769 
 
 Books, Destruction of the, 333 
 
 ,, Difference between English 
 
 and Chinese, 718-719 
 ,, for learning Chinese, 111-114 
 ,, on China, 102-111 
 ,, Printing of, 586-588 
 ,, Sacred, 104, 107, 123, 239, 
 269, 333, 374, 399-400, 400- 
 401, 406-407, 437 ,439, 440, 
 441, 442, 45, 458, 459, 486, 
 506, 541-542, 586, 617,671, 
 672, 673-675, 675-676, 677, 
 678, 679, 680-681, 765 
 ,, The Four, 401, 486 
 Boots, 226, 228-229 
 Borneo, 511 
 
 ,, Chinese in, 151 
 ,, Tea in, 688 
 Borrowed uses, 768 
 Borrowing money by Association, 
 
 632-645 
 
 Botanical works, 56, 117-118 
 Botany, 56, 114-118, 277 
 Bother language, 25 1 
 Bowing, 255, 262 
 Bowls, 170 
 Bows, 44, 255, 262 
 
 ,, and arrows, 44, 47 
 Boxers, 199, 344, 612-613, 657-658, 
 
 725, 730, 73i, 732, 734, 735 
 Boy, The Old, 673 
 Boys, 9-13, 136-138, 170, 234-243, 
 251, 461, 600, 615-616, 627, 
 721, 761, 762, 763, 764 
 
 ,, Esteem in which, are held, 
 137, 76i 
 
 ,, of more value than girls, 761 
 Bracelets, 719 
 Braves, 46 
 Brazil, 145, 358, 505 
 
 ,, Chinese in, 145 
 Brazilians in China, 293 
 Breast-summer, 39 
 Breech-loaders, 44, 48 
 Brethren of the Pear Orchard, 706 
 Bribery, 32, 194, 381, 387, 449, 699, 
 
 702 
 
 Brick tea, 686, 727, 731 
 Bricks, 34, 35, 36, 82 
 Bridal chair, 420, 421, 423, 424 
 ' Bridal Song,' 541 
 Bride, 92, 718 
 
 crying, 718 
 Bridegroom, 92 
 Brigandage, 511 
 Bridge, 35, 41, 42, 75, 98, 301, 302, 
 
 334 
 
 780
 
 Index 
 
 Bristles, 726 
 
 British and Chinese Corporation, 601 
 ,, Columbia, 358 
 ,, Columbia, Chinese in, 143, 
 
 144 
 
 ,, concessions, 743 
 ,, consumption of tea, 696 
 ,, Empire, Population of the, 558 
 ,, Government, 398 
 ,, Guiana, Chinese in, 144 
 ,, gunboats, 511 
 ,, in China, 193, 293, 294, 295, 
 
 490,613, 743 
 ,, in Shanghai, 294-295 
 ,, Museum, 61, 79, 359 
 ,, railways in China, 594, 600, 
 
 601, 602, 603 
 ,, sea-power, 511 
 ,, shipping, 728 
 ,, tonnage, 728, 729 
 ,, zone of influence, 743-744 
 Broad and enlightened views, 321 
 Broken silver, 190 
 Bronze, 118-120 
 Brooches, 346 
 Broth, 170 
 Brush for writing and printing, 55, 
 
 57, 767-768 
 Buckwheat, 759 
 
 Buddhism, 59, 61, 62, 107, 119-120, 
 120-125, !3 2 , M . !88, 189, 219- 
 220, 301, 313, 334, 369, 370, 371, 
 373, 406, 413, 430, 436, 445, 450, 
 458, 460, 464, 500, 563, 577, 605, 
 650, 656, 663-664, 672, 675, 677, 
 678, 680, 717 
 Buddhist Sects and Divisions, 121- 
 
 122, 605, 656 
 Buddhistic School of Art, 59, 61, 62, 
 
 64, 119-120, 165 
 Buffalo, Water, 18, 125-126, 394, 520, 
 
 772 
 Bugle call, 47 
 
 Bugs, 355, 536 
 Bull-frogs, 296 
 Biingarits fasciatiis, 629 
 Bungarus seinifasciatiis, 630 
 Burglars, 504 
 
 Burmah, 6, 121, 146, 339, 342, 357, 
 358, 488, 630, 697 
 
 ,, Agreement, 740 
 
 ,, Chinese in, 141 
 
 ,, Frontier Treaty, 737 
 Burmo-China Railway, 600 
 Business intellect, 732 
 
 ,, men, 164 
 
 ,, name, 471 
 
 Business style, 374 
 Butterflies, 354 
 
 Buttons, 199, 265, 416, 456, 719 
 Buying water for the dead, 457 
 
 CABINET, 126, 320 
 
 Cages, 376, 377 
 
 Cakes, 25, 669-670 
 
 Calendar, The Chinese, 712 
 
 Calicoes, 725 
 
 California, 645 
 
 Calls, Congratulatory wedding, 427 
 ,, Official, 259-260 
 
 Cambodia,"TJtrinese in, 147 
 
 Camel, 333, 772 
 
 Camellias, 286, 682 
 
 Cameos, 714 
 
 Camphor, 126-127 
 
 Camps, 47 
 
 Canada, Chinese in, 143-144 
 ,, Trade with, 733 
 
 Canadian- Pacific Railway, 144 
 
 Canals, 333, 418, 613, 724 
 
 Canary, 377 
 
 Candarin, 190 
 
 Candida, 437 
 
 Candied melon rind, 410 
 
 Candles, 458, 726 
 
 Cangue, 386 
 
 Cannibalism, 127-129, 273 
 
 Cannon, Early use of, 44, 45, 336 
 
 Canton, 35, 36, 37, 39, 40, 89, 102, 
 105, 142, 148, 171, 175-176, io, 
 181, 187, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 
 207, 208, 209, 210, 229, 230, 231, 
 234, 241, 245, 267, 271, 287, 297, 
 298, 300, 307, 309, 314, 346, 347, 
 349, 39, 39*>, 418, 423, 434, 444, 
 445, 476, 479, 481, 496, 501, 511, 
 5'6, 517, 53I-53 2 . 536, 603, 620, 
 646, 662, 695, 697, 704, 723-724, 
 733, 735- 737, 738, 739, 74', 74^, 
 743, 749, 750, 756, 757, 759, 760. 
 See also Cantonese 
 Canton and Hankow Railway, 594, 
 
 595, 597, 598, 601, 603 
 Flotilla, 476-477 
 ,, Kaulung Railway, 594, 595 
 ,, Railway, 594, 595, 602 
 ,, River and Delta, or I'e.irl 
 River, 102, 305. 310, 395, 
 613, 741, 742, 773 
 
 Cantonese, 148, 149, 150, 203, 206, 
 207, 324, 357, 372, 460, 496 
 
 7 8l
 
 Index 
 
 Cantonese, Books for learning, 
 
 ill 
 Capabilities of Chinese as soldiers, 
 
 52. 53 
 Cape Colony, Chinese in, 156 
 
 ,, Town, 360 
 Capital cities, 129-130, 307, 577, 601, 
 
 603 
 
 ,, punishment, 649, 652, 666 
 Capping of verses, 28, 29, 553 
 Caps, 228, 244, 253, 256-257, 456, 
 
 505, 720 
 
 Carambola, 299-300 
 Caravan tea, 686 
 Caravans, 444 
 Cardinal points, 486 
 Cards, 72, 579-580. 584 
 Carnivora, 771 
 Carp, 453 
 
 Carpenter sits to work, 722 
 Carriage, Cost of land, 590 
 Carriers, 724 
 Carrying poles, 724 
 Cart, 592, 758 
 
 ,, tyres, Old, 734 
 Carved lacquer, 366 
 Carving, 38, 39, 42, 81, 130-132 
 Cash, 79, 189-190, 457 
 Cassia, 735 
 
 ,, River, 742 
 Cassini, Count, 70 
 Castor -oil plant, 735 
 Catafalque, 460 
 Cathay, 139, 292, 514 
 Cats, 287, 288, 771 
 Cats' flesh, 287, 288 
 Cattle and cattle-breeding, 449 
 Caucasus, Tea in the, 688, 689 
 Causes of typhoons, 746 
 Cave dwellings, 41 
 Ceilings, 37, 40 
 Celadon, 564, 570-571 
 Celestial Empire, 139 
 Celibacy, Vows of, 428 
 Celibates, 678 
 Celts, 586 
 Cement, 726 
 Censorate, 320-321 
 Census, 55S-55 8 
 Central China, 183 
 Centre, The, of China, 140 
 Cents, 434 
 Ceremonial observances, 178, 279, 
 
 457, 458 
 
 Ceremonies, The Six, 87, 425-426 
 Ceylon, 360, 394, 693, 695, 696 
 ,, Chinese in, 145 
 
 Ceylon tea, 688, 689, 690, 691, 692, 
 
 693, 694, 695, 696, 732 
 'Chaff, '763 
 Chdf-muf, 295-296 
 Chair, 302 
 
 ,, coolies, 300, 346 
 Chairs of Chinese at Universities, 
 
 167-169 
 
 Chdk-'t'in-kau, 583 
 Chance, Games of, 579-584 
 Chancellor, Imperial, 265 
 Chancius, 507, 675 
 Chang Chih-tung, 495 
 ' Chang Liang's Flute,' 553-554 
 Chang Ngo, 669 
 Chang Sang-yiu, 58 
 Chang-sha, 102, 434, 741 
 Channels, 306 
 Chao Chati fii, 1 80, 349-350, 392, 
 
 737 
 
 Chapels, 610 
 Characteristics of a Chinese sage, 
 
 672-673 
 Characters, Divisions of, 767-769 
 
 ,, Chinese, 3, 4, 52, 141, 
 
 157-167, 607-609 
 ,, Mongol, 448-449 
 Charlatanism, 672 
 Charms, 92, 200, 429, 675, 676, 
 
 679 
 
 Chastity, 162, 212 
 Chau, Duke of, 330 
 
 ,, dynasty, 330-331, 345 
 Chau Kung, 330, 331 
 
 ,, Sin, 330 
 Chaiichowfu, 741 
 Chavannes, Professor, 169 
 Chefoo, 174, 396, 661, 730, 737, 739, 
 
 741 
 
 ,, Climate of, 173-174 
 ,, Convention, 737 
 Chekiang, 148, 622, 737, 739, 741, 
 
 772 
 Ch'en dynasty, 577 
 
 ,, porcelain, 562, 577 
 Cheng-fei, 397, 398 
 Ch'engchung fu, 63 
 
 ,, Hwa, 566-567 
 Chengtu, 434 
 Cheques, 78 
 Cherries, 759 
 Chess, 27, 132-136 
 Chests of drawers, 127 
 Chihli, 26, 482, 592, 603, 738, 741, 
 
 742 
 
 Chikiang or Chekiang, 148, 622, 737, 
 739, 772 
 
 782
 
 Index 
 
 Children, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 95-97, 
 136-138, 148, 170, 185, 234-243, 
 271-272, 273, 278-279, 282, 347- 
 350, 456, 457, 458, 460, 461, 615- 
 6 1 6, 624-627, 628 
 
 Chile, Chinese in, 144, 490, 557 
 
 China, 139-141 
 
 ,, Association, 168 
 Proper, 305-307 
 ,, Sea, 306 
 
 Chinanfu, 129, 600 
 
 China's Sorrow, 307 
 
 China-ware, no, 221, 558-578,616, 
 
 735 
 
 Chinese abroad, 99, 141-157, 325, 481 
 ,, American Railway Company, 
 
 603 
 
 Eastern Railways, 60 1 
 newspapers abroad, 480, 481 
 people, Characteristics of, 3, 
 
 4, 141-142, 157-167 
 postage stamps, 579, 658-662 
 tonnage, 728, 729 
 Ching-fei, 397, 398 
 Chinghiz Khan, 412, 450 
 Cbing-te-chen or King-teh chin, 561, 
 
 563 
 
 Chingtu, 603 
 Chingwantao, 741 
 Chinkiang, 490, 601, 617, 731, 738, 
 
 741 
 
 Chinnery, George, 64 
 Chivalry, Want of, 763 
 Chong Jen, 62 
 Chong-ylin-ch'aii, 584 
 Chopsticks, 74, 169-170, 258-259, 
 
 289, 456, 653 
 Chow dogs, 215-218, 559, 771-772 
 
 ,, dynasty, 132, 330-331 
 Chrysalides as food, 619 
 Chrysanthemums, 243, 286, 287 
 Chiin porcelain, 564 
 Chungking, 490, 66 1, 730, 737, 739, 
 
 74J, 743 
 
 ,, Convention, 737 
 
 Ch'ung Yong festival, 66, 67 
 Chwang-tsz, 507, 675-676 
 Cicada, 170-171, 353"354 
 Cigarettes, 714 
 
 Cigars, New, made from old, 715 
 Circulating libraries, 485 
 Cities, 171-172, 240, 307, 434, 487, 
 
 5". 740 
 Citrons, 300 
 Civil Service, 264-270, 416-417 
 
 ,, Admission into, 264-270 
 
 Civilisers, 724 
 
 i Clans, 25, 34, 172-173, 699, 701 
 Clarionets, 465 
 Classes of Society, Relative position 
 
 of, 13 
 
 Classical books and works, 104, 107, 
 113, 239, 269, 333, 374, 
 399-400, 400-401, 486, 
 501, 506, 541-542, 586, 
 617, 719, 765 
 ,, style, 374 
 Cleanliness, 81, 394 
 Climate, 23, 24, 34, 35, 41, 173-177 
 
 ,, Right, for tea, 682-683 
 Clocks, 709, 712, 726 
 Clogs, 229 
 
 Clothing, 136, 223-230, 491, 719-720 
 Coal, 310, 311, 590-591, 602 
 Coalbeds and coalfields, 310, 311, 312, 
 
 590-591, 602, 603 
 Coal-mines, 602 
 Coast formation, 310 
 
 ,, trade, 729 
 Coats, 224, 226 
 
 Cobalt decorations under glaze, 560 
 Cobras, 629 
 
 Cochin-China, 147, 590, 688 
 ,, Chinese in, 147 
 
 ,, Tea in, 688 
 
 Cockroaches, 177-178, 352-353 
 Cocks, 424, 651, 759 
 Cock's head, Chopping off a, 386, 651 
 Cocoa-nuts, 300 
 
 Cocoons, 6 1 8, 619, 620, 621, 622 
 Coffins and coffin-boards, 188, 313, 
 
 456, 460, 461 
 Cognates, 9 
 Coins, 34, 91 
 Collar, 227 
 
 College de France, Paris, 169 
 Colleges, Naval and military, 477 
 Collegiate course, 239 
 Colloquial, 368-369, 374, 450, 481 
 Colomlx), 142 
 Colonial possessions, 304, 305, 697, 
 
 743-744 
 
 Colonies, 304, 305, 697, 743'744 
 Colour and form, Masterly handling 
 
 of, 560 
 
 Colour blindness, 158 
 Colouring, 57, 62 
 Colours, the Five, 487, 670 
 Columbia University, New York, 169 
 Combined ideas, 768 
 Combs, 770 
 Comedies, 300, 706 
 Comity of nations, 320 
 Communicability of leprosy, 393 
 
 783
 
 Index 
 
 Compass, 141, 142, 314, 709, 720 
 Composition, 238-239 
 
 , , of Chinese characters, 770 
 Concessions at treaty ports, 739, 742- 
 
 743 
 ,, for mines and railways, 590, 
 
 595-603 
 
 ,, or Settlements, 739, 742-744 
 <_'oncubinage and concubines, 30, 89, 
 
 212, 213, 425, 428, 764-765, 766 
 Conference on Leprosy, 393 
 Confucian temple, 180, 445 
 Confucianism, 120, 121, 178-180, 318- 
 
 3 1 9, 328, 33i, 33 2 401, 402, 671, 
 
 675, 677, 680, 764 
 Confucius, 172, 178-180, 328, 331, 
 
 332, 392, 399. 40i, 402, 462, 463, 
 
 473, 483, 671, 672, 675, 677, 680, 
 
 772-773 
 Congee, 606 
 Congou, 685 
 Congratulations at examinations, 
 
 266-267 
 
 Connaught, Duke of, 290 
 Conquest, The Mongol, 62 
 Conservatism, 268 
 Constabulary, Local, 46 
 Constellations, 670 
 Consuls, 262, 270-271 
 Consumption of tea, 693-697, 717- 
 
 722 
 
 Contempt, 262 
 Contrarieties, 615-616 
 Conventional expression, 547 
 Converts, 344, 441, 442-443 
 Coolie, 142* 225, 322, 730 
 
 ,, Street, 714 
 Coolie's pipe, 713-714 
 Copper, 713 
 Corea, 336, 418, 698, 740, 746 
 
 ,, Chinese in, 153 
 Cormorants, 181-183 
 Coroner, 665 
 Corps Diploma! ique, 68 
 Corpse, 457, 461 
 Correspondence style, 450 
 Corruption, 32, 162-163, 3 2I -3 22 
 
 449, 5", 701 
 Cosmetics, 183, 422 
 Cosmogony, 122, 327 
 Cotton, 16, 114, 183-187, 730 
 
 ,, mills, 186, 187, 343-344, 73 1 
 
 ,, piece goods, 726 
 
 tree, 187 
 
 ,, yarns, 725 
 Councils of State, 320 
 Counter, Shop, 39 
 
 7 
 
 Counters, 580 
 Counting-board, 1-3 
 Counting-room, 39 
 Country, 240 
 
 ,, of gentlemen, 4 
 Courage, 128 
 Courant, Professor, 169 
 Couriers, 578, 579 
 Court at Peking, 398 
 Courts, 37, 128, 417 
 
 ,, of Appeal, 320, 385 
 Courtesans, 363, 464, 763 
 Courtyards, 37 
 
 Covenants, The Three, 87, 425 
 Coverlets, 82, 83 
 Cowardly, Mongols, 449 
 Cows or oxen, 518, 520 
 Crackled porcelain, 564, 565, 569, 
 
 571-572 
 
 ' Cranes, The Song of the,' 550 
 Credulity of Chinese, 161, 608-609 
 Cremation, 33, 188-189 
 Crete, 393 
 Criminal classes, Punishment of the, 
 
 128, 319, 610 
 Crippled feet, 88 
 Crocodiles, 774 
 Crops, 16, 20, 21, 23, 272 
 Cross-bows, 44, 709 
 Crow feathers, 197 
 Crown lands, 699-703 
 Cruelty, 330, 604, 626, 628 
 Cruisers, 474, 475, 476 
 Cuba, Chinese in, 145 
 Culex, 451 
 
 Cultivation of tobacco, 715-716 
 Cumbersome language, 300 
 Cupola, 42 
 Curing tea, 685-686 
 Curios, 34 
 Currency, 189-192 
 Curtain, No, in theatres, 705 
 Custard-apples, 299 
 Customs, I. M., 192-194, 283, 395- 
 
 396, 397, 398, 477, 578-579, 659, 
 
 660, 694-695, 725, 726, 727, 731, 
 
 732, 733, 734, 735, 739, 759- 
 
 760 
 Customs' Post, 193, 578-579, 659- 
 
 660 
 
 Customs of Mongols, 448-449 
 Cuttle-fish, 194-195 
 Cycle, 195, 328, 710-711 
 Cyclones, 745-75 
 Cyclopaedias, 405 
 Cymbals, 465, 705 
 Czarewitch, 70 
 
 8 4
 
 Index 
 
 DAGGER, 43 
 
 Dahlias, 286 
 
 Damascene Work, 120 
 
 Danes in China, 193, 293, 294, 295 
 
 Dangers of Inoculation, 752 
 
 Danish Great Northern Telegraph 
 
 Co., 698 
 
 ,, shipping, 729 
 ,, tonnage, 729 
 Darjeeling, Tea in, 69 5 
 Dates, 710-711, 721 
 Daughters, 30, 357, 703, 718 
 Days of grace, 637 
 Dead Bride, Marriage of, 42 
 Deadly nightshade, 300 
 Death-rate among children, 95 
 Debt slavery, 634 
 Decadence of art, 63, 64 
 Decades, 711 
 
 Decapitation, 649, 652, 666 
 Decentralisation, 49 
 Decimal system, 328, 660 
 Decline in China tea trade, 689, 690, 
 
 691-696, 727, 732-733, 733734 
 Decorations, 38, 40, 195-199, 773 
 Decorative designs, 81 
 Decrees against tobacco, 713 
 Deeds, White and Red, 670, 699, 
 
 702 
 
 Deer, 614, 772 
 Deforestation, 176, 283, 307 
 Degrees of mourning, 457 
 Deluge, The Great, 328-329 
 Demoniacal possession, 200-202 
 Demons, 200-202, 519, 536 
 Density of population, 556-557 
 Desperate characters, 510 
 Destitution, 510 
 Destroyers, 476 
 Destruction of the books, 333, 369, 
 
 399-400, 404, 463 
 Devil dancers, 201 
 Diagrams, The Eight, 506 
 Dialects, 130, 202-211, 324, 449-450 
 Dice, 583, 584 
 Dictionary, 369, 371, 719 
 Diet, 759. See also Food 
 Dinner parties, 300 
 Dinners, Chinese, 290, 291, 641, 642, 
 
 643 
 
 Diocletian Persecution, 613 
 Diplomatic intercourse, 68-72 
 Disciples of Confucius, 178, 179, 180 
 Discipline, Lack of, in the Navy, 475 
 Discussion. 164 
 
 785 
 
 543 
 
 Diseases due to heat or cold, 751 
 Disgrace, The, of having another girl 
 
 in the house, 349 
 Dishonesty, 283 
 Disowned by the Clan, 172-173 
 Disregard of time, 709-710 
 ' Dissipation of Sorrows, The,' 
 Districts, or Counties, 419 
 Disturlwinces incident to typhoons, 
 
 749 
 
 Divination, 400, 405 
 Divine honours to Confucius, 180 
 
 ,, right of kings, 318 
 Divining blocks and sticks, 74 
 Divisions of the watch, 712-713 
 Divorce, 211-213 
 Doctors, 213-215, 750, 754, 755, 757, 
 
 759, 76o, 761 
 Documentary style, 450 
 Documents, The Three, 87, 425 
 Dog ssvallowing the sun or moon, 670 
 Dogs, 52, 215-218, 234, 287, 288, 
 
 771-772 
 
 Dollars, 190, 434, 731 
 Dome, 42 
 Domestic slavery, 624-627 
 
 ,, trade, 723-724, 736 
 Dominoes, 579-581, 584 
 Donkeys, 772 
 Door-bells, 84 
 Doors, 36 
 Dosing, 742 
 Drafts, 78, 79 
 Draftsmen, 55 
 Dragon, 40, 58, 218-222, 244, 283, 
 
 314, 460, 660, 679, 685 
 Dragon-boats, 27, 222-223, 543 
 
 %, 453 
 
 ,, River, 741 
 
 ,, The Green, 314, 709 
 
 ,, The Order of the Double, 
 
 196 
 Drama, 407-408, 505, 703-707 
 
 ,, History of the, 706-707 
 Draughtsmen, 134, 580 
 Dream of the Red Chamber, 406 
 Dress, 6, 196-197, 198, 199. 223-230, 
 244-247, 253, 256-257/260, 324, 
 346, 705, 719-720 
 Dress-suit, 229 
 Drink, 503 
 
 Drinking tea, 259-260 
 Drought, 730 
 Drowning, 666 
 Drum, 47, 234, 712, 713 
 Drunkards, 449, 503 
 Dual principles, 97, 506
 
 Index 
 
 Duck, Mandarin, 417, 774 
 ,, Receipt for Cooking, 292 
 
 Duennas, 766 
 
 Dunning, 255-256 
 
 Durban, 360 
 
 Dutch consumption of tea, 696 
 ,, East Indies, Chinese in the, 
 
 151-152 
 ,, East Indies trade with China, 
 
 725 
 ,, in China, 193, 273, 293, 294, 
 
 295, 341 
 
 ,, in Formosa, 341 
 Dwarfing plants, 285-286 
 Dyes, 625 
 Dynasties, 716 
 
 The Five, 337 
 
 EAGLES, Golden, 773 
 Earrings, 229, 324, 346, 357, 456 
 Earthenware money-box, 641 
 Earthquakes, 230-234 
 East, The, 140 
 
 ,, Africa, Chinese in, 156 
 
 India Company, 754, 755, 759 
 
 ,, Indian Islands, 714 
 
 ,, River, 708, 741 
 Eastern Chinese Railway system in 
 
 Manchuria, 595 
 Eating houses, 130 
 
 ,, with hands during mourning, 
 
 456 
 
 Eclipse, 234, 670 
 Ecole des Languages Oriental Paris, 
 
 169 
 
 Edible frogs, 296 
 Edict, The Sacred, 403-404 
 Education, 33, 163, 193, 234- 
 
 243 
 Eggs and Red Eggs, 93, 94, 288, 734, 
 
 735. 759 
 
 Eggshell porcelain, 574-575 
 Egrets, 497 
 Egyptians, 296 
 Eight Genii, 131 
 
 Eighteen provinces, 305-307, 418 
 Elements, The Five, 486, 679 
 Elephantiasis, 356, 451, 452 
 Eleuths, 342 
 Elixir of Immortality, 671, 675, 676, 
 
 677, 678, 680 
 Elizabeth, Queen, 484 
 Embankments, 128 
 Emblems, 81, 243-244 
 
 Embroidery, 243, 244-247, 459, 491, 
 
 763 
 Emigration, 20, 141-157, 627, 645, 
 
 727 
 
 Emperor, 14, 15, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 
 142, 179, 218-219, 242, 251, 266, 
 
 269, 303 304, 317, 318, 319, 320, 
 321, 327, 328-345, 371, 419, 445, 
 456, 463, 472-473. 483, 484, 488, 
 600, 617 
 Empire, 419 
 Empress, 488, 617 
 Empress Dowager, 68, 71, 242, 600 
 Enamelled Ware, 565 
 Encroachments of the sea, 309 
 England, English, and Great Britain, 
 
 34, 305, 343. 344, 345> 
 506, 736, 737, 740 
 ,, Chinese in, 155-156, 293 
 English from Chinese pens, 247-252 
 ,, Railways, or English system 
 of Railways, 591, 594, 595- 
 597, 601-603 
 
 EnkyantJms reticulatus, 284 
 Enquiries as to age, 255, 718 
 Entail, None in China, 699 
 Entering a room, 255 
 Enterprising, 723 
 Epidemics, 512-538, 750-761 
 Epidendrums, 243 
 Equity, 640 
 
 Esquimaux Dogs, 215, 216 
 Essayists, 239 
 Essays, 13, 107, 108, 239, 264-270, 
 
 374 
 
 Estates, The Four, 13 
 Etiquette, 252-262, 762, 763 
 Eucalyptus, 453 
 Eunuchs, 331, 336, 340 
 Eurasians, 262-264 
 Europe, 360, 537, 577 
 
 ,, Trade with, 724-736 
 Ever Victorious Army, The, 52, 647 
 Everlasting life, 671 
 Evil spirits, II, 200-202, 280-281 
 Evil, The greatest, of the Age, 495 
 Evils of morphia taking, 495-496 
 ,, opium smoking, 491-495 
 Examination Hall, 172, 265, 267-268 
 Examinations, 239, 264-270, 334, 374, 
 501, 553, 58i, 584, 
 677, 769 
 
 ,, Military, 28, 51, 52 
 
 ,, Naval, 52 
 
 Example to his subjects, The Emperor 
 
 an, 14-15 
 Excelsior, 248-249, 509-510 
 
 786
 
 Index 
 
 Exclusion Act, American, 145, 152 
 Exemption from Plague, 513, 515, 
 
 522, 525, 527, 534-535 
 Exorcism, 675 
 Expenses of officials, 322 
 Extent of Chinese Empire, 303-307 
 Exterritoriality or Extraterritoriality, 
 
 270-271 
 Eyes, 157, 608 
 
 FAILURE of Harvests, 510 
 
 Fairy tales, 201, 271-272 
 
 ' Falcon, The Wounded,' 548 
 
 Falcons, 773 
 
 Family, The, the unit of society, 172, 
 
 419, 624, 699 
 
 Famines, 272-273, 555, 730 
 ' Fan, Lines inscribed on a,' 277 
 Fangyen, 369 
 
 Fans, 28, 273-277, 653, 726, 769, 770 
 Fantan, 581 
 Farces, 706 
 Fares on railways, 592 
 Farmer, 13. See Agriculture 
 Farmers' wives, 766 
 Farmhouse, 24 
 Farms, 19, 20, 24 
 Fashion, 183, 229 
 Fatshan, 536 
 Fauna, 771-775 
 Feasts, 26, 27, 93, 94, 222-223, 281, 
 
 442-443, 711, 75 2 
 Feather-fans, 275, 276 
 Feathers, 197, 705, 719, 726, 773 
 
 ,, Kingfishers', 773 
 Federated Malay States, 150, 151 
 Fees for doctors, 213-214, 760 
 Feet, Bound, 88, 226-227, 2 44> 7^3 
 Female parts in the theatre, 705 
 Ferns, 92, 277, 318 
 Festivals, 26, 222-223, 73 
 Feudal States, 331, 332, 345 
 Fidelity in representing birds, 56 
 Fights, Clan, 172, 173 
 Fiji, Tea in, 688 
 Filature silk establishments, 622 
 Filial piety, 76-77, 129, 278-280, 348 
 Financial Administration, 398 
 Finger nails, 257, 455, 752 
 Fire crackers, 138, 280-283 
 
 ,, Introduction of, 327 
 
 ,, screens, 245 
 
 ,, works, 280-283 
 Fire-fly, Impromptu to a, 545 
 
 Firing tea, 685-686 
 
 Fish, 289, 290, 291, 292, 356, 759, 
 
 774-775 
 
 ,, A crop of, 21 
 Fisherman, 511 
 
 ,, Swatow, 225 
 
 Fishing-nets, 418, 511 
 
 ,, with cormorants, 181-183 
 ,, with otters, 772 
 Fishmaws, 289, 356 
 Five Classics, The, 113, 239, 308, 
 330. 3 6 9, 401, 426, 501, 541 
 542, 617 
 
 ,, clawed dragon, 219, 221 
 ,, coloured porcelain, 566, 567, 
 
 573. 575. 576 
 
 ,, degrees of mourning, 457 
 ,, Dynasties, 345 
 Flag, 220-22 1, 283 
 
 ,, Yellow, Order of the, 199 
 Flails, 19 
 
 Flambe porcelain, 570, 571, 575, 576 
 Fleas, 355, 533, 536 
 Flesh, Cutting out their own, 129 
 Flies, 355, 356 
 Floods, 283-284, 510, 555 
 Flora, 114-118, 301-303 
 Flour, American, 726, 734 
 Flower baskets, 285 
 ,, beds, 301 
 ,, boats, 131 
 ,, gardens, 27, 301-303 
 Flowers, 37, 56, 62, 114-118, 244, 
 284-287, 301-303, 684, 68S 
 ,, used to scent tea, 688 
 Flowery names, 469 
 Flowing hand, 769 
 Flutes, 465 
 
 Fokien. See Fuhkien 
 Fond of animals, 449 
 Fondness for poetry, 539 
 Fong, General and Admiral, 199 
 Foochow, 50, So, Si, 127, 181, 190, 
 200, 202, 208, 209, 229, 
 
 234, 3". 434, 475. 477. 
 478, 479, 491, 614, 661, 
 663, 688, 708, 709, 732, 
 
 733. 737, 738, 74i 
 arsenal, 476, 477 
 Books for learning, 111-112 
 lacquer, 366 
 squadron, 476 
 Food 21, 117, 169, 194-195, 287- 
 
 292, 604, 632, 777 
 all cut up, 109, 289 
 for a baby, 92 
 ,, mother, 92, 93 
 
 787
 
 Index 
 
 Foot-binding, 88, 226-227, 2 44> 324, 
 
 763 
 footpaths, 724 
 
 rule, 74, 722 
 Foreign arms, 42, 43, 44, 47, 48, 49, 
 
 50 
 
 concessions, 739, 742-743 
 ,, customs. See Customs 
 ,, devil, 628 
 ,, drilled troops, 47, 48, 49, 
 
 5. S 2 , 53 
 ,, flowers, 286 
 ,, fortifications, 48 
 ,, goods, 390-399 
 ,, instructors, 46, 47, 48, 49- 
 
 50, 475. 477 
 
 ,, officers, 48, 49 
 
 ,, subjects, 419, 742 
 
 trade, 723'73 6 
 
 ,, words, 372-373 
 Foreigner, The, in Far Cathay, 42, 
 48, 49, 50, 62, 67-68, 68-72, 89-90, 
 102-ui, 111-114, 120-125, 196, 
 !97> J 98, 199, 241, 242, 262-264, 
 270-271, 272-273, 283, 286, 292- 
 295, 311-312, 314, 318, 334, 337, 
 338-339, 340, 341, 342, 343, 344, 
 345, 359-360, 371, 372-373, 395- 
 396, 396-399, 49, 410-415, 434, 
 435-443, 444-446, 446-45i> 473- 
 4/8, 478-482, 487, 488-497, 497- 
 502, 508-510, 511, 512, 527-531, 
 532, 535, S3 6 , 537-538, 578-579, 
 585, 589, 590-604, 607-613, 614- 
 615, 655-656, 656-657, 657-658, 
 658-662, 667-669, 674, 694, 697- 
 698, 707, 707-709, 714-715, 723- 
 
 736, 736-744, 75, 754-762 
 Forfeits, 295-296 
 
 Forks, 170 
 
 Formation of land, 307-309 
 
 Formosa, 342, 344, 591, 688, 698, 
 
 737, 740, 745, 773 
 Formosan stamps, 660-661 
 Forts, 48 
 
 Fortune teller, 87, 92, 461 
 
 ' Fountain, A visit to a clear, cold,' 
 
 545 
 
 Four Books, The, 113, 401 
 Foxes, 201, 271-272, 679 
 Fractions, I, 722 
 France and French, 296, 304, 577, 
 
 740 
 Franco-Belgian Syndicate, 601 
 
 ,, Chinese War (navy), 697 
 Fraudulent, 716 
 Free Ports, 743, 744 
 
 7 
 
 French concessions, 60 1, 602, 603, 
 
 743, 744 
 
 ,, consumption of tea, 696, 697 
 in China, 193, 293, 294, 295, 
 
 304 
 
 Railways, or French system of 
 Railways, 595, 596, 601, 
 602, 603 
 
 ,, shipping, 729 
 ,, stamps, 658, 662 
 
 tonnage, 729 
 
 treaties, 737'738, 744 
 ,, war, 474 
 ,, zone of influence, 744 
 Frescoes, 40, 57 
 Friar Jordanus, 99 
 Friendliness, Marks of, 260 
 Friezes, 57 
 
 Frogs, 296, 353, 774 
 Fruit, 296-300, 735 
 blossoms, 285 
 ,, trees, Cultivation of, 21 
 Fryer, Professor, 169 
 Fuh-hf, 327 
 
 Fuh-kien or Fokien, or Fuk-kien or 
 Fukien, 126, 148, 149, 310, 323, 
 334, 346, 347, 349, 49O, 646, 708, 
 734, 740, 741, 756 
 Fun, 300 
 
 Funeral, or Burial, 34, 75, 76, 138, 
 281, 389-390, 455-462, 
 463-464 
 ,, cards, 458 
 ,, March, 466 
 ,, Procession, 459-460 
 ,, Rites, 457 
 Fungshui, 312-315, 709, 717 
 Funing, 739, 741 
 Furniture, 75, 127 
 Furs, 504 
 Fusong, 418 
 
 GABERDINE, 224 
 
 Gall-bladder, Eating the, 128 
 
 Galley, 720 
 
 Gama, Vasco da, 662 
 
 Gamblers, 27-28, 267, 579-585, 610 
 
 Gambling, i, 27-28, 156, 267, 579- 
 
 584 
 
 Game, 521, 614 
 
 Games, 27, 28, 29, 361-363, 579-584 
 Gardeners, 286 
 Gardenia, 688 
 1 Gardens, 27, 301-303, 688 
 
 88
 
 Index 
 
 Gardins, 630-631 
 
 Garrisons, 46, 47 
 
 Gazette, Peking, 194, 260, 480-481 
 
 Gemmy Lord, The, 459 
 
 ' Gems of Chinese Literature,' 550 
 
 Genealogies, 172 
 
 Genii, The Eight, 131, 487, 676, 679 
 
 Gentlemen, The Country of, 4 
 
 ,, smoking, 714 
 Geography, 239, 303-307, 402-403 
 Geology, 307-312 
 Geomancy and Geomancers, 312-315, 
 
 501, 608 
 
 Geometrical patterns, 38 
 German concessions, 743 
 
 consumption of tea, 696, 697 
 
 hymn-hooks, 719 
 
 Instructors, 46, 48 
 
 newspaper, 478, 479 
 
 shipping, 728-729 
 
 stamps, 658 
 
 tonnage, 728, 729 
 
 treaties, 658, 662, 738, 739 
 
 zone of influence, 744 
 Germany, and Germans in China, 
 193. 2 93. 2 94, 295, 304, 
 344, 481, 577, 601, 
 740, 743 
 
 ,, Chinese in, 156 
 Germany's trade with China, 725 
 Ghengis Khan, 412, 450 
 Giles, Professor, 167-168, 540, 541, 
 
 543 
 
 Gingals, 44, 47 
 Ginger, 92, 93, 315-316, 410 
 Ginseng, 316-317 
 Giquel, 196 
 Girdle of China, 307 
 Girls, 10, 11, 12, 13, 86-89, 136-138, 
 
 240, 244, 347-35. 4i9-429> 471, 
 
 615, 721, 761, 762-767 
 Girls' names, 471 
 Glasses, 214 
 Goats, 520 
 Go-betweens, 86, 87, 88, 89, 426-427, 
 
 625, 721 
 
 God of City, 172 
 Goddess of Mercy, 12, 122, 124 
 
 Silk, 617 
 
 Goddesses, 12, 120, 246 
 Godowns, 37, 318 
 Gods, 12, 120, 131, 172, 650, 679 
 Going to the Bridegroom's house, 
 
 420, 421, 423, 424, 427, 429 
 Gold Coast, 505 
 Gold fish, 302, 318, 775 
 
 ,, Incrustations on, 1 20 
 
 Golden eagles trained for the chase, 
 
 773 
 
 ,, Isles of the Blest, 676 
 ,, lilies, 226, 244, 763 
 ,, Mirror of the Medical Prac- 
 tice, 753754 
 Gongs, 47, 223, 234, 421, 464, 465, 
 
 670, 713 
 
 Goods, Foreign, 396-399 
 ,, ;'// transit '//, 397 
 Goorkhas, 342 
 
 Gordon, General, 52, 196, 343, 647 
 Gossiping, 29, 763 
 Gould's ' Birds of Asia,' 505 
 Government, 108, 129, 279, 318-322, 
 344, 37, 3o, 39<> 
 399, 477, 495, 5"- 
 591, 612, 617, 701, 
 702, 703, 740, 743 
 ,, encouraging vaccina- 
 
 tion, 757, 760 
 
 Graduates, 241, 265-267, 268 
 Grains, The Five, 486 
 Grammar, 368 
 Grand Canal, 418, 741 
 Granite, 36, 39, 42, 308, 309, 310, 
 
 ^3ii, 312 
 
 Grant, General, 262 
 Grapes, 299, 322 
 Grass-cutters, 766 
 
 ,, hand, 769 
 Grasshoppers, 354, 376 
 Grave looks, 300 
 Graves, 188, 457, 716-717 
 Great Britain's consumption of tea, 
 686, 692, 693, 695, 
 696, 697 
 
 ,, shipping, 728 
 
 ,, tonnage, 728, 729 
 
 ,, trade with China, 725 
 
 Greece, 394 
 Greek art, 58, 119 
 
 ,, decorative design, 119 
 
 ,, drama, 707 
 Green porcelain, 567, 568, 570, 574 
 
 ,, room, 704 
 
 ,, standard, 46 
 
 ,, tea, 686, 687, 690-691, 727 
 Grenada, Chinese in, 144 
 Grey is mourning, 457, 720 
 Grits, 309 
 Grosvenor, Mr, 517 
 Growth of foreign trade, 724 
 Grubs, Silkworm, 288 
 Guards for the Palace, 46 
 Guava, 300, 323 
 Guests, 255, 258, 259-260 
 
 789
 
 Index 
 
 Guitar, 465 
 Gulfs, 306, 602, 743 
 Gunboats, 476, 477 
 Gymnastic exercises, 28, 269 
 
 H 
 
 HA, or Hsia, dynasty, 140, 329 
 Habitations of the poor, 37, 38 
 Hades, 675 
 
 Hainan, 5, 6, 106, 147, 149, 209, 
 231, 300, 305, 395, 479, 698, 744, 
 
 749, 771, 773 
 Hainanese and Books for learning, 
 
 112, 209 
 Haiphong, 603 
 
 ,, and Yunnansen Railway, 
 
 603 
 
 ,, Chinese in, 146-147 
 Hair, 6, 227, 229, 324, 719-720, 735 
 
 ,, presses, 357 
 
 Hakka, Books for learning, 112 
 Hakkas, 149, 203, 206, 207, 208, 209, 
 
 227, 229, 323-326, 349 
 Halberds, 42, 43 
 Hall, Reception, 37 
 Ham, 759 
 Hamadryad, 630 
 Hamburg, 714, 733 
 
 ,, Chinese in, 156 
 Hammer oyster, 775 
 Han dynasties, 34, 130, 140, 333-334, 
 
 345, 358, 369, 373, 379, 400, 446, 
 
 577, 676 
 
 Han jin, 140, 333-334 
 Han Man Kung, or Han Yti, 548-549, 
 
 550-551 
 Han River, 602 
 
 ,, Rivers, 741 
 4 Han Wen Kung, In Memoriam,' 
 
 550-551 
 
 Handing things, 258 
 Handling articles, 258, 718 
 Hangchow, 102, 106, 129, 444, 481, 
 
 732, 739, 741, 743 
 
 Hankan, 60 
 
 Hankow, or Hankau, 47, 102, 175, 
 349, 479, 597, 600, 601, 603, 661, 
 689, 694, 730, 733, 738, 739, 741, 
 
 743 
 Hankow and Canton Railway, 594, 
 
 595, 597, 598, 601, 603 
 Railway, 593, 595, 596, 597 
 Hanlin, 266, 584 
 
 ,, College, 266 
 Hanoi, 394, 603 
 
 Harrow, 19 
 
 Hart, Sir Robert, 193-194, 196, 197, 
 
 198, 396, 578-579 
 Hats, 74, 227, 228, 253, 256-257, 
 
 324, 505, 7i8 
 Haii-luk, 583 
 ' Haunts of Pleasure,' 466 
 Havana tobacco, 714 
 Hawaii, Chinese in, 145, 156 
 Hawthorn pattern, 575 
 Headcloths, 227-228 
 Heaven and Earth, Worship of, 118, 
 
 605, 650, 65 1 , 680 
 Heavens, Distance of the, 669 
 Hebrew, 358, 359 
 Hehlung Kiang, 698 
 Height of Chinese, 157, 160-161 
 Hell, 679 
 
 ,, King of, 459 
 Hemp, 726 
 
 Henniken, Major von, 196 
 Henry, Prince, 71 
 Heroes and deceased men, Worship 
 
 of, 650, 679, 680 
 Hia, or Hsia, dynasty, 329 
 Hides, 726 
 
 Hien Fung, or Hsien Feng, 343 
 Hieroglyphics, 767, 768 
 High, Ascending on, 27 
 Hilarity, 300 
 Hillside land, 700 
 Hindrances to travel and trade, 510 
 Hindustanee, 497, 589 
 Hirth, Professor, 169 
 Historical novel, 485 
 plays, 705 
 History, 28, 108, 235, 326-345, 401- 
 
 402 
 ,, of Chinese Porcelain, 558- 
 
 576, 577 
 Hives, 83 
 Ho Sin Kwii, 99 
 Hoang Tsuan, 61 
 Hoe, 19, 184 
 Hoihow, 741 
 
 Hokaii or Hokow, 737, 738, 742 
 Hoklo, 346-347 
 
 ,, speech, 208, 346 
 Hok ou, 741, 742 
 Hokkien, 149, 230 
 Holland Potato, 585 
 Holothuria, 81-82 
 Home of the Tea plant, 683 
 Honan, 140, 328, 329, 331, 358, 490, 
 
 577, 596, 602, 603, 613 
 Honesty, 723 
 Honey, 83 
 
 790
 
 Index 
 
 Hongkew, 743 
 
 Hongkong, 25, 26, 83, 175, 176, 190, 
 
 191, 192, 220, 227, 230, 234, 241, 
 
 263, 271, 277, 280, 286, 287, 293, 
 296, 297, 310, 311, 314, 316, 322, 
 325. 338, 346, 348, 359, 360, 36i, 
 386, 391, 396, 410, 441, 452, 453, 
 454, 455. 479, 481, 4*3, 487, 5 2 . 
 5 12 , 513- 517, 519, 527-530, 531, 
 532, 534, 535, 536, 537, 625, 626- 
 627, 658-659, 704, 708, 709, 714- 
 715, 744, 749, 750, 760, 761, 771, 
 
 774 
 
 Hongkong dollar, 191 
 ,, Flora of, 115 
 ,, Government Vaccine In- 
 stitute, 761 
 
 ,, stamps, 658-659 
 Hong Shan, 281 
 Hongs, 37 
 Honolulu, 480 
 
 Honorary distinction, 195-199 
 Honour, Place of, 255 
 Hookah, 713 
 llornbills, 346 
 Horseback, Permitted to ride on, 
 
 197, 198 
 
 Horses, 60, 449, 459, 772 
 Horse-shoes, 734 
 Hospitals, 394, 441, 442, 758, 759, 760 
 
 ,, Origin of, 394 
 Hosts, 255, 257, 259 
 Hot water cloth, 258 
 Hour, Chinese, 712 
 Houses, or Mansions, 34, 35, 36, 37, 
 38, 39, 40, 41, 100, 130, 
 171, 376, 770 
 Paper, 31 
 
 ' How do you do ?' in Chinese, 718 
 Howlik, 742 
 Ilsia. See Ha 
 Hsiang Kiang, 741 
 
 Hukwong, or Hunan and Hupeh, 6, 
 126, 307, 315, 364, 595-596, 597, 
 612, 692, 698, 737, 741, 742 
 ' Humanity,' 549 
 Hung League, 646, 654 
 ,, Sau-t'siin, 646 
 ,, Wu, 79, 130, 339-340, 43 
 Hungarians in China, 193, 295 
 Huns, 411, 446, 447, 448 
 Hunting, 449 
 Husband going to wife's house, 424, 
 
 428 
 
 ' Husbandman's song,' 543 
 Hwang-ti, or Huang Ti, 7, 328, 462, 
 559, 767 
 
 Hwangpoo River, 741 
 Hypnotism, 657-658 
 Hyson, 684-685 
 
 I 
 
 IBN BATUTA, 99, 188 
 Ichang, 66 1, 730, 737, 739 
 Iconoclastic persecutions, I2O 
 Idolatry, 675, 679, 680 
 Ignorance, 608 
 Hi, 305, 556 
 Iltis, Officers of, 196 
 Images, 131, 180 
 Imitative symbols, 767-777 
 
 ,, words, 371 
 Immigration, 323, 325-326, 329, 346, 
 
 700 
 Immortality, Elixir of, 671, 675,676, 
 
 677, 678, 680 
 Imperial authorities, 194, 398, 399. 
 
 Stu also Government 
 ,, Library, 403 
 ,, Manufactory of Porcelain, 
 
 561, 562, 563, 564 
 ,, Railways, 600, 601 
 Incantations, 429 
 Incense sticks, 74, 91, 458, 460, 648, 
 
 650, 752 
 
 Incompetent officers, 475 
 Indefiniteness of the Chinese, 71 1 
 Index Expurgatorius, 403 
 India, 142, 360, 373, 391, 488, S'3, 
 534, 535- 577, 5^9, 590, 
 629, 631-632,683, 707, 708, 
 724, 725, 731 
 
 ,, Chinese in, 142, 145-146, 724 
 Indian art, 58, 563 
 
 art, in China, 295, 563 
 ink, 195 
 language, 373 
 opium, 489 
 
 tea, 682, 683, 684, 688, 689, 
 690, 691, 692, 693, 694, 
 695, 696, 697, 732 
 ,, yarn, 726 
 Indo-China, 590 
 Industry, 161 
 
 Infanticide, 20, 279, 347-350, 460, 664 
 Infection from Plague, 513, 520, 525, 
 
 530, 533, 535-536 
 Inheritance of property, 699 
 Initiation of Triads, 647-652 
 Ink, 28, 57 
 
 Inland Transportation tax, 396-399 
 ,, Waters and Rules, 511, 730 
 
 791
 
 Index 
 
 Inner Apartments, 764 
 Inoculation, 750-754, 756 
 Insanitation, 177, 188, 522, 525-527, 
 
 528-529 
 
 Inscriptions on fans, 28, 274, 277 
 Insects, 34,41,72, 126, 127, 170-171, 
 
 177, 350-356, 532-533, 536, 775 
 Insecurity, 511 
 Insignia of rank, 417 
 Inspector General of Customs, 192, 
 
 193-194, 196, 197, 198, 578-579 
 Instructor of the Emperor, 199 
 Instruments of music, 463, 464-465 
 
 ,, of torture, 722 
 
 Integrity of the Empire, 344 
 Intellect, Seat of, in the stomach, 
 
 718 
 
 Intellectual qualities, Good, 166 
 Intensive farming, 24, 25 
 Intercalary month, 711 
 Interjectional element in the lan- 
 guage, 371 
 
 Internal trade, 723-724, 736 
 Intonation in Chinese music, 465 
 Introduction of Buddhism, 121, 334 
 ,, ,, inoculation, 750, 751 
 
 ,, ,, ,, into the West, 
 
 752 
 
 ,, ,, tobacco, 713 
 
 ,, ,, ,, into America, 
 
 715 
 
 ,, ,, vaccination, 750, 754- 
 
 760 
 
 ,, ,, western art, 62, 64 
 
 ,, ,, writing, 767 
 
 Invention of printing, 586 
 
 ,, ,, writing, 767-768 
 Inventions, Adoption of Foreign, 712 
 Ireland, Snakes in, 710 
 Iron, 72, 713 
 Iron-capped Princes, 484 
 Ironclads, 473-474 
 Ironworks, 593 
 Irregulars, 46 
 
 Irrigation, Methods of, 17, 25 
 Isinglass, 13, 356 
 Islands, 305, 306 
 Italian, 193, 293, 294, 295, 296 
 
 ,, newspaper, 478 
 Italians in China, 294, 295 
 Italy, 484 
 Ivory carving, 131, 132, 170 
 
 JACKETS, 136, 223, 225, 226, 229, 
 230, 3 2 4, 346, 45 6 > 720 
 
 Jack fruit, 300 
 
 Jade, 356-35S, 7'9 
 
 Jakutsh, 757 
 
 Jamaica, Chinese in, 144 
 
 Japan and Japanese, 7, 304, 318, 341, 
 
 359, 36o, 363, 373, 48o, 505, 
 590, 60 1, 683, 693, 712,731, 
 732, 740, 746 
 
 ,, Chinese in, 141, 152-153, 418 
 Japanese concessions, or settlements, 
 
 739, 743 
 
 cotton goods, 726 
 
 dollar, 191 
 
 in China, 293, 294, 295 
 
 matches, 732 
 
 shipping, 728 
 
 stamps, 658 
 
 tea, 688 
 
 tobacco, 714 
 
 tonnage, 728, 729 
 
 treaties, 739 
 
 war, 473-474 
 
 yarns, 726 
 Jasmines, 688 
 
 Java and Javanese, 149, 511, 590 
 ,, Chinese in, 151 
 ,, Tea in, 688 
 Tay, 774 
 
 Jealousies of polygamy, 425, 765 
 Jeering at women, 763 
 Jehovah, Name of, 674 
 Jekutzh, 757 
 Jelebu, Chinese in, 150 
 
 Jelly, 323 
 
 Jest-books, 300 
 
 Jesuits, 64, 106-107, 341, 342, 404, 
 
 419, 437, 438, 439, 674, 712 
 Jewellery, 357 
 Jews, 107, 358-359 
 Jinrickshas, 359, 360 
 Johore, Chinese in, 149, 688 
 
 ,, Tea in, 688 
 Jokes, 300 
 Joss paper, 67, 458 
 Journals, 67, 104, 106 
 [u porcelain, 562 
 Judges, 386, 387, 388 
 Jugglers, 28, 676, 677 
 Junks, 99, 100, 141-142, 148, 361, 
 
 473, 477, 5.01 
 Justice, Poetical, 706 
 ,, Want of, 128 
 
 K 
 
 KAEMPFER, 316 
 Kaffirs, 360 
 
 792
 
 Index 
 
 Kaifung-fii, 129, 358, 359 
 
 Kaiping and Taku Railway, 591, 592- 
 
 593 
 
 Kalgan, 45. 73 1 
 
 Kamchatkan consumption of tea, 696 
 Kamchuk, 737, 740, 742 
 Kang-hi, or K'ang Hsi, 120, 210, 
 
 269, 341, 342, 343, 366, 371, 43^, 
 ^463, 488, 568, 572, 573, 574, 712 
 Kangra Valley tea, 695 
 Kangs, 82, 758 
 Kansuh, 444, 490 
 Kaolin, 561 
 Kaoping River, 742 
 Karakorum, 358 
 Kashgaria, 450 
 Kaiikong, 742 
 Kaulung, or Kowloon, or Kowloong, 
 
 171, 220, 398, 532, 735, 744 
 Keeping step, 720, 721 
 ,, time, 709, 710 
 Kerosene, 451;, 505, 725, 726, 730, 
 
 ,731-732, 733, 734-735 
 Kerr, Dr., 760 
 Khitai, 139 
 
 Khitans, 139, 414, 447 
 Khotan, 356, 358 
 Kia King, or Ka I ling, or Chia 
 
 Ch'ing, 343 
 Kia Yi, 542 
 Kiakhta, 757 
 Kiang Chow, 737, 741 
 Kiangnam, 148, 304, 316, 756 
 Kiangsi, 126, 310, 315, 323, 577, 708, 
 
 737, 741, 742, 756 
 Kiangsu, 309, 310, 490, 557, 621, 
 
 739, 741 
 
 Kiang Tao-yin, 60 
 Kiaochow, 344, 479. 60 1, 662, 730, 
 
 744 
 
 Kidd, Professor, 167 
 Kidnapping, 10 
 
 Kieh Kwei, or Chieh Kuei, 330 
 Kien Lung, or Ch'ien Lung, 342, 366, 
 
 463, 558, 572, 575-576 
 Kien porcelain, 562 
 Kimberley, Chinese in, 145 
 Kin dynasty, 706 
 King-crabs, 775 
 Kingfishers, 361 
 Kingfishers' feathers, 420, 773 
 King Hao, 61 
 
 ,, of the Beggars, 430 
 King's College, London, 167 
 King-teh-chin, or King-teh-chiu, 561, 
 
 563, 577 
 Kins, 337, 412, 448 
 
 Kiosks, 302 
 
 Kirin, 490 
 
 Kitah, 139 
 
 Kitasato, 530, 533 
 
 Kites, 28, 67, 361-363, 615, 720 
 
 Kit-fat marriage, 426 
 
 Kiukiang, 174-175, 661, 695, 731, 
 
 r 73. 741 
 Kiung Chow, 735 
 Knickerbockers, 224, 225 
 Knives, 169, 456 
 Knotted strings for recording events, 
 
 , 4 ' 3 
 Ko Yan, 564 
 
 Kokonor, 305, 772 
 
 Ko-lo-wui, 656-657 
 
 Kongmun, 735, 740, 741 
 
 Kon-mm-yong, 583 
 
 Kowlung, 171, 220, 398, 532, 735, 
 
 744 
 
 Kow Shing, 196 
 Kowtow, 70, 97 
 Koxinga, or Koshinga, 341, 483, 
 
 70i, 773 
 
 Kuan porcelain, 564 
 Kublai Khan, So, 1 10, 120, 130, 304, 
 r 338, 339, 340, 45' 
 Kucheng massacre, 657 
 Kulangsu, 310, 743 
 Kuliang, 709 
 
 Kwangchowwan, 537, 602, 603 
 Kwang-si, 5, 6, 14, 173, 207, 307, 
 
 ,3io, 323, 3 6 4, 5". 742 
 Kwangtung, or Canton Province, 
 5, 6, 14, 97, 106, 126, 128, 148, 
 173, 206-207, 208, 243, 307, 310, 
 3'5, 323, 3 2 4, 334, 343, 346, 402- 
 403, 5", 595, 7o8, 725, 737, 741, 
 r 742, 75, 756 
 Kweichovv, or Kueichow, 5, 6, 310, 
 
 490, 557, 667 
 
 Kwok Lun : A Forgotten Knight of 
 _ Old, 552-553 
 Kwong-chau-wan, 740, 744 
 Kwong Sui, or Kuan-Hsu, 269, 343, 
 710" 
 
 LL.D., 266 
 
 Labourers, 142, 144, 151, 225, 730 
 
 Labuan, Chinese in, 151 
 
 Lacquer, 363-367, 616 
 
 Ladies, 29 
 
 ,, smoking, 714, 720 
 Lakes, 303, 305-306, 308, 318 
 
 93 
 
 3
 
 Index 
 
 Lampblack, 195 
 Lamp-glasses, 725 
 Lamps, 725, 735 
 Lamp-wick, 170 
 Lances, 47 
 Lancet, 758, 761 
 Land forces, 45, 54 
 
 ,, formed from the sea, 307-309 
 
 ,, registration, 699, 700, 702 
 
 ,, tax, 699, 700, 701, 702 
 Landscapes, 55, 57, 59, 60, 61, 65, 
 
 77, 274, 498 
 Lang, 475 
 
 Langson-Lungchow Railway, 595 
 Language, 5, 6, 7, no, 111-114, 
 
 140, 235, 323-324, 346, 367-375 
 Lanterns, 456, 457, 460 
 Laokai, 602, 603 
 Lao-tsz, 331-332, 671-681 
 Lappa, 735 
 
 Largest coalfield in the world, 312 
 Lark, 375-377, 773-774. 
 Laughing when death is mentioned, 
 
 718 
 
 Laureate, 266 
 Law, 33, 34, 108-109, 334, 33^, 37- 
 
 388, 627-628, 641, 643-644, 652 
 Law-abiding people, 610 
 Lawlessness, 511 
 Laws of the Universe, 68 1 
 Lawyers, 386 
 Lay, Mr H. N., 193 
 Lazar houses in England, 394 
 Lazy Mongols, 449 
 Le, 5, 6 
 
 Leave, Getting, 721 
 Leaves, 98 
 
 Leeward Islands, Chinese in, 144 
 Left the seat of honour, 718 
 Legations, Siege of trie, in Peking, 
 
 102-103, 108, 344, 612 
 Legendary history, 327-328 
 Legge, Dr., 167 
 Leggings, 224, 226, 255 
 Lepers and Leprosy, 211, 288, 388- 
 
 395, 76o, 761 
 Letter-writing, 238 
 Letters of credit, 78 
 Leyden, 169 
 Lhassa, 742 
 Li, 190 
 
 Li Cheng, 60, 61 
 Li Cheng-ho, 60 
 Li Hung-chang, 14, 197, 198 
 Li Kin Kii Sze, 63 
 Li Kwai, 379 
 Li Lung-yen, 65 
 
 Li Tai-p6, 407, 544-546 
 Li Ti, 62 
 Li Tsien, 60 
 Liao River, 741 
 Liaotung, 740 
 Library, 68 
 Lice, 355 
 Lichi, 298 
 
 Licius, or Lieh-tsz, 507, 675 
 Lictors, 387, 610 
 Lien Chow, 524, 744 
 Life and property insecure, 510 
 ,, for a life, 388 
 ,, of little account, 664 
 ,, placid, 709, 710 
 ,, Saving of, 663 
 Light and shade, 54, 63 
 Lighthouses, light-boats, and light- 
 vessels, 193, 395-396 
 Liki, 426-427 
 
 Likin, 192, 396-399, 696, 727 
 Lilies, 286 
 Limes, 300 
 Lin Liang, 63 
 Literary Chancellor, 302 
 Literati, 268, 610 
 
 Literature, 61, 102-111, 111-114, 
 238, 333, 399-410, 412, 
 413-415, 436, 440, 441, 
 442, 445, 765 
 ,, God of, 131, 679 
 Liturgies, 679 
 
 Loan, Money, Associations, 632-645 
 Local Administration, 322 
 ,, Constabulary, 46 
 ,, Post Offices, 578, 659, 661-662 
 ,, Taxation, 399 
 Lodges, 647, 648, 649, 652, 654 
 Loess formation, 309 
 Lo Fau Mountains, 418 
 Loin cloth, 225 
 Lolo, 523 
 
 London, 537, 696, 733, 737 
 ,, Chinese in, 155, 156 
 ,, Professors of Chinese in, 167 
 Loochoos, The, 418 
 Looms, 184, 185, 621, 622 
 Loquat, 299 
 Lotishui, 397 
 Lotteries, 581-582 
 Lotus, 243, 286, 301, 303 
 Love, 706 
 Love letters, 763 
 Lo-yang, 577 
 Lii Ki, 63 
 
 Lu-chi-kou, 737, 742 
 Lucky days, 753 
 
 794
 
 Index 
 
 Lu-Hnn Railway, 600, 601, 602 
 
 Lulq>a, 742 
 
 Lukto, 742 
 
 Lung-chow, 602, 735, 738, 742 
 
 Luttg-ck'iian-yau, 564 
 
 Lung Ngdn, 298-299 
 
 Lutes, 465 
 
 Luzon, 713 
 
 Lyons, Chinese Classes at, 169 
 
 M 
 
 M.A., 265 
 
 Ma Ron, 61, 62 
 
 Ma Twan-lin, 402 
 
 Ma Yuen. 61, 62 
 
 Macao, 89, 106, 175, 176, 227, 230, 
 
 263, 281, 293, 296, 297, 360, 
 
 396,478, 479, 502, 531, 577, 
 
 662, 709, 733, 744, 750, 774 
 
 ,, postage stamps, 662 
 
 Macaoese, 263 
 
 Macartney, Sir II., 198-199 
 
 Mace, 190, 660 
 
 Machin, 139 
 
 Machinery for tea, 689-690, 694-695 
 
 Magic, 313, 608, 676, 678, 680 
 ,, sword, 680 
 
 Magicians, 676, 678-679 
 
 Magistracy, 70x3 
 
 Magnolias, 286 
 
 Mahning, 742 
 
 Malacca, Chinese in, 148, 149 
 
 Malaria, 355, 356, 45 1 -455 
 
 Malay, 318, 361, 497, 508, 511 
 
 Malaya, 356 
 
 Malays in China, 295 
 
 Malaysia, Chinese in, 147, 148, 149, 
 
 15. 151 
 
 Malt sweets, 410 
 ' Mamma, Oh,' 466 
 Mammalia, 771-773 
 Man the beast of burden, 722, 724 
 Manchu, 46, 211, 226, 317, 337, 342, 
 
 343. 344, 345. 3 8o > 4'- 
 415, 450, 451, 589, 650 
 ,, language, 372, 413-415, 45 1 
 Manchuria, 304, 306, 316, 317, 344, 
 556, 601, 603, 619, 697, 708, 740, 
 741, 771, 772 
 
 Manchurian railways, 598-600 
 Mandalay, Chinese in, 146 
 Mandarin, 129, 244, 256, 259-260, 
 262, 283, 324, 344, 416- 
 417, 609, 610, 702 
 ,, Books for learning, 112 
 
 Mandarin duck, 417, 774 
 
 ,, language, 130, 203, 206, 
 
 209, 210, 211, 370, 417 
 ,, orange, 297-298, 417 
 ,, porcelain, 575 
 Mangrove, 417-418 
 ,, hark, 418 
 Mang-hao, 738, 742 
 Mango, 299 
 Man-hsi River, 742 
 Manila, 480 
 
 ,, Chinese in, 152 
 ,, cigars, 714-715 
 ,, men in China, 295 
 Manipur, Tea in, 694 
 Manliness, Want of, 166 
 Man-tsz, 5, 6, 188, 589 
 Manu, Laws of, 139 
 Manuring, 17, 22-23 
 Maoris, Consumption of tea amongst, 
 
 696 
 Maps, 418-419 
 
 ,, on fans, 275 
 
 Marco Polo, 80, 99, no, 123, 129, 
 142, 188, 190, 218, 304, 338-339, 
 
 43 6 > 55> 55 8 
 Marine forces, 46, 473-478 
 Maritime trade, 723 736 
 Market gardens, 171 
 Marks on porcelain, 576 
 Marriage, 34, 86-89, 9^, 98, 138, 281, 
 419-429, 455, 460, 461, 
 463, 467, 469, 558, 625- 
 626, 628, 633, 663, 678, 
 721, 762-766 
 ,, lines, 421 
 ,, name, 467, 469 
 ,, The Three Covenants and 
 
 Six Ceremonies of, 87 
 Marseilles, 505 
 Martial law, 53 
 Martin, Dr., 546 
 Marts, 307, 487 
 Mass, 458, 675 
 Massacres, 344, 608, 611-613 
 Mat, mats and matting. 74, 83, 456, 
 
 45 8 - 726, 735 
 Matches, 726, 732 
 Matchlocks, 44, 47 
 Mathematics, 241, 242, 269, 404, 
 
 405 
 
 Matheson, 196 
 Matricides, 387 
 Mats and matting. Sf? Mat 
 Matsheds, 38, 73, 458, 704 
 Mauritius. 394 
 
 ,, Chinese in, 145 
 
 795
 
 Index 
 
 Mausolea, Imperial, 600 
 
 Meadow land, Absence of, 23, 115 
 
 Meals, 258-259, 289-291 
 
 Measures, 74 
 
 Medals, 195-196 
 
 Medical works, 400, 404, 753-754 
 
 Medicine, 75, 170, 178, 213-215, 
 
 3'6, 491. 735 
 and Disease, Gods of, 679 
 
 Melon rind candied, 410 
 ,, seeds, 704 
 
 Melons, 300 
 
 Memory, 161 
 
 Men of war, 473-478 
 
 Mencius, 319, 328, 332, 473, 483, 507 
 
 Mendicants, 430-434 
 
 Mengtze, or Mengtze, or Mengtsz, 
 or Mengtszii, or Mengtseu, 490, 
 523, 524, 603, 736, 738, 742 
 
 Mental characteristics, 161, 162-163 
 
 Menu of Chinese dinner, 291 
 
 Mercantile honesty, 163, 7 2 3 
 
 Merchant, 13, 356, 396, 730, 731, 
 
 735 
 Metals, or Minerals, 312, 486, 670, 
 
 726, 734 
 
 Metaphoric symbols and combina- 
 tions, 768 
 
 Metempsychosis, 644 
 Methodical in trade, 723 
 Mexican dollar, 190, 731 
 Mexico, 358, 688 
 
 ,, Chinese in, 145 
 Tea in, 688 
 Miau-tsz, 5, 6, 7, 315, 342, 589 
 Mice, 287, 288, 513, 514, 772 
 Micius, 507 
 
 Middle Flowery Kingdom, 140 
 ,, Kingdom, 69, 139-140 
 Midnight burials, 462 
 Midwife, 91 
 Mih-tsz or Micius, 507 
 Mileage of coast, 305 
 
 ,, ,, telegraph, 698 
 Milfoil, 506 
 Military, 45-54, 416-417 
 ,, Colleges, 477 
 ,, Defence tax, 397, 398 
 ,, examinations, 51-52, 269 
 ,, officers, 50, 51, 52, 53, 269, 
 
 416-417 
 Milk, 449 
 Milk-name, 468 
 
 ,, of the buffalo, 126 
 Millet, 607 
 Milne, 440 
 Min River, 741 
 
 Minerals, 312, 590, 714 
 
 Ming, 42, 62, 63, 80, 130, 304, 326, 
 
 333. 339,341,345.371,380, 
 404, 405, 430, 438, 448, 488, 
 559, 5 6 5-5 68 , 629, 649-650, 
 701, 713 
 
 ,, porcelain, 565-568 
 Mining, 603 
 
 Mint, 191-192, 344, 434 
 Minute, Economy of the, 23 
 Miracle plays, 707 
 Mismanagement in Navy, 475 
 Missions and missionaries, no, 199, 
 200, 241, 272-273, 324, 
 344, 346, 435-443, 481, 610, 
 611, 612, 613, 727, 758, 
 
 759, 76o, 76i 
 
 ,, Protestant, 31, 324, 346, 481 
 ,, Roman Catholic, 31, 437-440 
 Moats, 172 
 
 Modern music, 463-467 
 Modes of expressing time, 710-713 
 Modesty, 230 
 
 Mohammedan, 31, 42, 140, 336, 343, 
 359, 444-446, 488, 520, 707, 
 711 
 
 ,, literature, 445 
 Mohammed's uncle, 444, 445 
 Momein, 740 
 
 Monasteries, 123, 680, 688 
 Money, 78-80, 189-192 
 
 ,, Loan Associations, 632-645 
 ,, scales, 190 
 Mongol dynasty, 62, 80, 120, 142 
 
 325, 337-339 
 ,, language, 449-45* 
 Mongolia, 211, 305, 772 
 Mongolian, The Family, 157 
 ,, language, 211, 372 
 ,, lark, 377 
 ,, soldiery, 46 
 
 Mongols, 325, 337-339, 345, 37L 
 411, 414, 446-449, 5 8 9, 
 757, 773, 774 
 ,, Characteristics and customs of, 
 
 448-449 
 
 Monkeys, 533, 771 
 Monsoons, 115, 142 
 Monstrosities in goldfish, 318 
 Monte Video, 358 
 Moon, 27, 234, 651, 669-670, 711 
 ,, cakes, 27, 669-670 
 ,, feasts, 27, 223, 669-670 
 Morality, 162, 165, 678 
 
 ,, The Chinese consider them- 
 selves far superior to us in, 
 35 
 
 796
 
 Index 
 
 Morphia, 419, 421, 622 
 
 Morra, 296 
 
 Morrison, Dr., 439, 440 
 
 Mortality amongst infants, 348- 349 
 
 ,, from inoculation, 751-752 
 Mortgage and mortgagee, 699, 703 
 Mosques, 445 
 Mosquito, 164, 274, 355, 356, 451- 
 
 455 
 
 Motherhood, Dread of, 428 
 Mothers-in-law and fathers-in-law, 
 
 420, 422, 423, 427, 428, 429 
 Moths, 350, 354 
 Mountains, 284, 305, 306, 418, 419 
 
 ,, Worship of, 118, 680 
 Mourning, 9, n, 45:5-462, 628, 650, 
 
 720 
 
 Mouse-deer skins, 735 
 Moustache, 719-720 
 Mulberry, 115, 617 
 Mules, 772 
 
 Municipal Council, Shanghai, 661 
 Municipalities at Treaty Ports, 66 1- 
 662 
 
 ,, taxation, 399 
 
 Mural decorations, 57,58, 221, 222 
 Murder, 279 
 Mushrooms, 759 
 Music, 27, 28, 138, 457, 459, 460, 
 
 462-467, 705, 706, 707, 763 
 Musical boxes, 725 
 
 ,, instruments, 84, 464-465 
 Mutton, 291, 449, 759 
 Mutual responsibility, 319-320 
 Muzzle-loaders, 48 
 Mysore, Chinese in, 145-146 
 Mystery plays, 73 
 Mythological period, 327, 345 
 Myths, 605 
 
 N 
 
 NAKEDNESS, 158 
 
 Names, 137, 138, 139-141, 260-261. 
 
 467-473, 721 
 ,, for China, 139-141 
 
 ,, God, 43^-439, 679 
 ,, ,, tea, 681-682, 684-685 
 Nankeen, 184-185 
 
 Nanking, 42, 130, 174-175. 184-185. 
 339, 36o, 430, 434. 499, 
 501-502, 602, 731, 741 
 ,, pagoda or porcelain tower, 
 
 42, 499, 501-502 
 ,, Treaty of, 441. 73"-/37 
 Nanning, 595, 602, 734, 740 
 
 Narcissus, 284 
 Natal, Tea in, 688 
 National Bank, 78 
 
 ,, ideals, 445 
 Natural Philosophy, 671 
 
 ,, Science, Rudiments of, 313 
 Nature, love <tl, 285, 539 
 
 ,, sounds, 371 
 
 ,, The Three Towers of, 486 
 
 ,, The Worship of, 118, 539, 
 
 605 
 Naval Colleges, 477 
 
 ,, Officers, 52 
 Navy, loo, 283, 344, 473'477 
 Needles, 456 
 
 Negri Sembilan, Chinese in, 150 
 ' Neighbour, My,' 553 
 Nestorian Monument, 435-436 
 Ncstorians, 123, 336, 414, 435'437, 
 
 ,45 
 Netherlands India, Chinese in, 151- 
 
 152 
 
 New Guinea, Chinese in, 155, 156 
 ,, South Wales, Chinese in, 153, 
 
 154 
 
 ,, Territory, Hongkong, 361, 630, 
 700, 702, 744 
 
 Year, 96, 97, 138, 223, 253, 
 280, 284-285, 711 
 
 ,, Zealand, 72, 358 
 
 Chinese in, 153, 155 
 
 Newchwang, i73-'74, 395- 593, oo> 
 
 601, 729-730, 73', 737, 74', 743 
 Newspapers, 441, 478-482 
 Ng Sam-kwai, or Wu San-kwai, 291, 
 
 341-342 
 Ngan-ching, or Nganking, or Ngan- 
 
 kin, 434, 737, 741 
 Ngan Hwui, 61, 65, 741 
 Nganwhui, or Anhui, or Anhuei, 
 
 171, 310, 318, 490, 667, 737. 775 
 Ngaii-p'ai, 584 
 Nickel, 713 
 Nicknames, 469 
 Nienfei, 396 
 Ningpo, 106, 132, 174, 203, 209, 359. 
 
 397, 73 2 , 737, 73 s - 74'. 
 752, 760 
 
 ., Books for learning. 112 
 
 ,, carving, 132 
 
 ,, lac[uer. 3'>6 
 Nirvana, 61 1 
 Nobility, 482-484, 722 
 Noise, 256, 280 
 Noises, Disagreeable, 256 
 yVc'w </</>//////<, 473 
 North America, 505 
 
 '97
 
 Index 
 
 North of China, 82, 103, 176, 187, 
 242, 322, 344, 349, 350, 434, 
 505, 602, 612, 614, 620, 657, 
 700, 725, 771, 772 
 ,, River, 708, 744 
 Northern Buddhism, 121-122 
 
 fleet, 344, 473, 475, 477 
 ,, Mandarin, 130 
 ,, School of Painting, 60, 61 
 ,, Squadron, 473, 475 
 
 Sung, 335 
 Norway, 394 
 
 Norwegians in China, 193, 293, 295 
 Notches in sticks for recording 
 
 events, 413 
 Notification, 234 
 Novels, 334-335, 405-406, 45 8 . 459, 
 
 764 
 Number of Chinese vaccinated, 754, 
 
 755, 756, 757, 7S. 
 759, 76o, 761 
 ,, ,, foreigners in China, 292- 
 
 295 
 
 Numerical Categories, 235, 485-488 
 Numismatics, 34 
 Nuns, 428, 429, 459 
 
 OAK, 253, 619, 620 
 
 Oars, 720 
 
 Oaths, 253, 386-387, 650, 651 
 
 ,, of Triads, 650-651 
 Obeisance to bridegroom's father and 
 
 mother, 427 
 
 Obscenity, 212, 253, 763 
 Observatory, 120 
 Ochotzk, 757 
 ' Ode to a Wife,' 543-544 
 Odes, 541, 544 
 Odoric, Friar, 181 
 Offerings to the dead, 31, 32 
 Officers and Officials, 13, 48, 52, 318- 
 
 322, 344, 396, 397, 398, 399, 416- 
 
 417, 475, 477, 479, 55, S. 5^4, 
 610, 612, 700, 719, 721, 723, 727 
 Off cial calls, 259-260, 464 
 mourning, 458 
 name, 468, 469 
 rank, 719 
 religion, 1 18 
 residences, 40 
 salaries, 322 
 Oils, 726 
 Old age, 131, 132 
 ,, Hoy, The, 673 
 
 Old music, 466 
 
 Oleafragrans, 688 
 
 Olive seeds, 131, 132 
 
 Onfa tea trade, 692 
 
 Open doors, 344 
 
 Opera, 706 
 
 Opium, 399, 429, 488-497, 503, 666, 
 
 667, 668, 669, 733, 734 
 ,, dens, 156 
 ,, pills, 496-497 
 ,, smokers, 490-495, 610, 734 
 Opposition to railways, 591, 593-594 
 Orange-pips, Guessing the number of, 
 
 582 
 Oranges, 115, 297-298, 299, 417, 
 
 424, 582, 688 
 Orders of Merit, 195-199 
 Organ, 465 
 
 Origin of the Chinese, 5, 303 
 Ornaments and Ornamentation, 35, 
 
 38, 324, 357, 769-770 
 Otters, 772 
 Ouan Mo-kie, 60 
 Outdoor pursuits for women, 766-767 
 
 ,, sports, 27, 28, 29 
 Outings, 27, 66, 67 
 Outrages, 740 
 Owen's College, 168 
 Oxford, Chair of Chinese at, 167 
 
 PACIFIC, 746 
 Paddy, 497, 606 
 
 ,, birds, 497 
 
 Pagoda, 42, 171, 445, 497-502 
 Pahang, Chinese in, 150 
 P'af-kau, 584 
 Painstaking, 243 
 Painters, 54-66, 77 
 Painting, 54-66, 77, 81 
 Paints, 726 
 Pakhoi. 524, 525, 595, 602, 603, 735, 
 
 737, 73, 741, 742 
 ,, Railways, 595-596 
 'ak-kop-piii, 582 
 'alace, 70 
 
 'aleozoic rocks, 310 
 'aim leaf, 273 
 
 ,, ,, fans, 273 
 'angolin, 773 
 'antomime, 706 
 "aoting-fii, 302-303, 60 1, 603 
 
 ,, Railway, 603 
 
 'a pay a, 300 
 '^pi-'r, 57, 75, 5^7 
 
 798
 
 Index 
 
 Paper notes, 190 
 
 ,, storks, 458 
 1'apov, Professor, 168 
 Parasites, 137, 355, 356 
 Parental authority, 278-280, 580,6215, 
 
 627, 628 
 
 ,, Parsees, 502 
 ,, Government, 319 
 Parents, 95-97, 457 
 Parker, Professor, 168 
 'arks, 171 
 'assagc boats, 51 1 
 'assenger boat, 101 
 
 ,, traffic, 102, 51 1 
 'assports, 742 
 'asteur system, 622 
 'asture land, Absence of, 23, 115 
 'aternal Government, 272 
 'alienee, 21, 130, 161, 166, 245, 714 
 'atriarchal Government, 319 
 "atrick, St., 710 
 'atriotism, 445 
 'awnshops and pawnbrokers, 245, 
 
 491, 5 3-504 
 'awn-tickets, 504 
 'ay of soldiers, 50, 5 1 
 "eaceableness, 161 
 'eaceful, 607 
 'caches, 26, 285, 299 
 'eacock feather, 197, 199, 719 
 'eak in Hongkong, 176, 745 
 'ea-nut, 504-505 
 
 oil, 505, 732, 735 
 'ear, 299 
 
 'earl River, 310, 741, 742 
 'earson, Dr., 754-755. 757, 759 
 'eas, 731 
 'easants, 610 
 'echili, 309, 743 
 
 ,, Gulf of, 306 
 'ecoe, or Pekoe, 684, 690 
 'eculations, 50 
 'edlers, 244-245, 252 
 'eiho, 308, 741, 742 
 'eking, 46, 71, 103, 105, 120, 130, 
 171, 174, 184, 202, 211, 
 217, 218, 267, 307, 339, 
 
 359, 398, 444, 450, 478, 
 479, 481, 593, 597, 600, 
 601, 602, 603, 612, 697, 
 737, 738, 739, 743, 75. 
 75", 757, 758 
 
 ,, Canton Railway, 593, 597 
 ,, Gazette, 479, 480-481 
 ,, Hankow Railway, 596, 597, 
 
 598 
 Syndicate, 602 
 
 Peking, Tientsin Railway, 597, 600, 
 
 602 
 
 ,, Tientsin Shanhaikwan Rail- 
 way, 600 
 Pekingese, Books for learning, 112, 
 
 481 
 
 Pen, or Pencil, 35, 55, 57, 75 
 I't'n 7's'ao and botanical works, 56, 
 
 115, 117-1 18 
 
 Penal code, 334, 378, 379, 388 
 Penang, 149, 480 
 Peony, 286, 287 
 Perak, Chinese in, 150, 151 
 Perfect morals, ethics, laws, ami 
 
 regulations, 700 
 Perfumery, 726 
 Pcri(xlicals, 478-482 
 Persecutions of Buddhism, 120, 124, 
 
 43 6 
 ,, the Neslorians, 436- 
 
 437 
 
 ,, the Protestants, 613 
 
 ,, the Roman Catholics, 
 
 438, 439, 613 
 
 Perseverance, 161, 1 66, 245 
 Persia, 336, 359, 373, 502 
 Persian Art, 120, 575 
 language, 359 
 Persimmons, 300 
 Perspective, Chinese, 54, 64, 131 
 Peru, Chinese in, 145 
 Pescadores, 698 
 Pese, 595, 602 
 Petit culture, 20, 23 
 Petroleum, 603 
 Petticoats, 225, 244 
 Pewter-ware, Swatow, 734 
 Pheasants, 505, 614, 774 
 Philippines, 394, 511, 688, 715, 755 
 ,, Chinese in, 152 
 
 ,, Tea in the, 688 
 Philistines, 513 
 Philology, 109, no, 367-375 
 Philosopher's stone, 676, 677, 678, 
 
 680 
 Philosophy, 178, 179. 180, 235, 400, 
 
 403, 506-508, 513, 670, 671-681 
 Phonetic, 768 
 Photographs, 1 10 
 Physical Characteristics, 157-161, 
 
 I 66, 177 
 
 Picking tea, 684-685 
 Picnics, 302 
 Pictures, 28, 54-66 
 Pidgin Knglish, 508-510 
 Pietermaritzhurg, 360 
 Pigeons, 532 
 
 799
 
 Index 
 
 Pigments, 57 
 Pigs, 772 
 Pigs' wash, 766 
 Pikes, 42, 43 
 Pillows, 83 
 Pinafore, 225 
 Pineapple, 299 
 P'ing Wang, 331 
 Pins, 357 
 Pipes, 75, 7I3-7I4, 715 
 
 Opium, 75, 488, 493-494 
 Piracies and Pirates, 343, 510-511, 
 
 726 
 
 Pi-se, 562 
 Pith flowers, 284 
 
 Plague, 223, 355-35, 512-538, 604 
 Plains, 306, 307, 309, 556-557 
 Planets, The Five, 670 
 Plantains, 298, 538-539 
 Plantations, Tea, 682-683, 68 4 
 Plays, 370, 703-707 
 Pliny, 402 
 Ploughing, Emperor and Officers, 
 
 14, IS 
 
 Plum, 243, 285, 300 
 
 Poe, E. A., 542 
 
 ' Poet, The,' 546 
 
 Poetry, 77, 109, 503, 539-554, 678, 
 
 706, 719, 764, 769 
 Poets, 77, 503, 539-554 
 Poisoned arrows, 709 
 Polite enquiries, 255, 718, 763 
 Politeness, 161, 252-262, 434 
 Political geography, 306-307 
 Politics, 109 
 
 Polygamy, 322, 425, 449, 558, 663 
 Polygnotus, 65 
 Polytheism, Buddhistic and other, 
 
 122, 673 
 
 Pomegranate, 300 
 Ponds, 301, 303, 318 
 Pools, 301 
 Poor relief, 33 
 Pope of Taoism, 679-680 
 Popped rice, 607 
 Poppy, Cultivation of, 16, 488, 489, 
 
 49> 733. 734 
 
 Population, 555'55 8 > 74O, 77 1 
 Porcelain, lio, 219, 221, 558-578, 
 
 616, 770 
 ,, Tower in Nanking, 130, 
 
 566 
 
 Porcupine, 773 
 Pork, 72, 287, 289, 291, 423, 759, 
 
 772 
 
 Porpoise, 773 
 Port Arthur, 344, 602, 603, 743 
 
 Porto Rico, Chinese in, 145 
 Portraits, 63 
 Ports of call, 737, 742 
 Portugal, 418 
 
 Portuguese, 263, 293, 297, 341, 343, 
 361, 478, 505, 508, 
 
 55f 577, 715, 754 
 ,, colony, 744 
 ,, in China, 293, 294, 295, 
 
 341, 343, 744 
 
 Possession by demons, 200-202 
 Possessions of foreign nations in 
 
 China, 743744 
 Postage, 578, 579 
 
 ,, stamps, 579, 658-662 
 Post-cards, 659, 660, 66 1, 662 
 
 ,, Offices, 578-579, 658, 659, 660, 
 
 66 I, 662 
 Posthumous adoption, 9 
 
 ,, name, 469, 472 
 
 ,, titles, 198-199, 483, 484 
 
 Posts, 193, 578-579, 658, 659, 660, 
 
 661, 662 
 Potato, 585 
 P6-tsz, 579-581 
 Pottery, 558-559 
 Poultry, 774 
 Poverty, 322, 349 
 Powers of Nature, The Three, 486 
 Poyang, 102, 305-306, 741 
 Practical jokes, 300 
 Practice differs widely from precept, 
 
 701 
 
 Prayer Books, 679 
 Precious stones, 312, 336-337, 356- 
 
 358 
 
 Prefectures, 306, 419, 487-488 
 Preliminaries to the marriage, All 
 
 important, 425-427 
 Preparation of tobacco, 714, 715-716 
 Presents, 87, 93, 95-98, 194, 254 
 Priests, 124, 435-436, 439, 45 8 '459, 
 
 460, 464, 675, 678, 756 
 Primitive man, 585, 586 
 Primordial Essences, The Five, 486 
 Prince, The, 278 
 
 ,, The Venerable, 673 
 Principles of government, 318-322 
 Printing, 337, 370, 440, 441, 442, 
 
 480, 586-588 
 
 Prisoners, 271, 381-382, 722-723 
 Prisons, 381, 723 
 Privet, 302 
 Probity, 322 
 Processions, 221, 244, 281, 420, 421, 
 
 423, 426, 427, 459-460, 463-464 
 Proclamations, 721 
 
 800
 
 Index 
 
 Professors of Chinese in Kurope and 
 
 America, 167-169 
 Progress, 344, 712 
 Progressive Party, 243. See Preface 
 
 also. 
 
 Promissory notes, 79 
 Promontories, 306, 309 
 Promotion of officials, 584 
 Proprieties, 252-262, 762 
 Prostitutes, 626-627, 763 
 Prostitution, 558, 626-627, 628, 763, 
 
 764-765 
 
 Protestants, 31, 440-443, 613 
 Proverbs, 588-589, 765 
 Provinces, 305, 306, 307, 309, 310, 
 
 311,312,321,332,418,419 
 Provincial Army and Forces, 46, 49- 
 
 50 
 
 ,, Authorities or (iovern- 
 ment, 194, 398, 399, 
 
 445 
 
 cities, 171, 172, 307, 434 
 Proxy, Marriage l>v, 424 
 Prudery, 762, 764 
 Prussia, 393 
 
 Pseudo-adoption, 10, 11, 12 
 Public buildings and works, 39, 332- 
 
 333 
 ,, opinion, 319 
 
 ,, speaker, 276 
 
 ,, worship, 677 
 Pulse, 214 
 Pumelo, 300 
 Pumpkins, 300 
 
 Punishments, 30, 378, 381, 385-386 
 Punkah, 589 
 Puns, 300 
 
 Pure Ones, The Three, 679 
 Purse, 225, 244 
 Pwan-Ku, 327 
 Python, 631 
 
 QUAKERS, 71 1 
 
 Quail, 614 
 
 Quarrels, 668 
 
 Queen's College, Hongkong, 263 
 
 Queensland, Chinese in, 153-154 
 
 Queue, 227, 257, 456, 649 
 
 ,, Cutting off, 649 
 Quinine, 453 
 
 R 
 
 RACK, 589-590 
 Raconteurs, 484 
 
 Radicals or Key words, 719 
 Railways, 210, 272, 314, 343, 590- 
 
 604, 614, 686, 726, 
 
 727, 730 
 ,, Imperial, of North China, 
 
 600, 601 
 Railway, The, a Messing to rich and 
 
 |Mx>r, 592 
 Rain-coats, 74 
 Rain-fall, 174, 175, 176 
 Rain-hat, 74 
 Rake, 74 
 
 Rangoon, Chinese in, 146 
 ' Rapids of the White River, A Visit 
 
 to the,' 545 
 Rats, 287, 288, 513, 518, 520, 530, 
 
 532, 533. 535, 536, 538, 604, 772 
 Rattan, 704 
 Raven, 542-543 
 Raven, a Chinese, 1542 
 Reading, 113-114, 240-241, 763 
 Rebellions, 326, 342, 345, 445-446, 
 
 510, 520, 555, 610, 700; 734 
 Rebels, 48, IOO 
 
 Receipts, Chinese, 82, 91, 291-292 
 Receiving the bride, 421, 427 
 Reclamation of land, 700 
 Reconstruction of the Navy, 475 
 Record Office for land, 700 
 Red Deeds, 699, 700 
 ,, 1'aper, 456 
 ,, River, 742 
 ,, sedan-chair, 420, 421, 423, 424, 
 
 426, 427 
 
 ,, the festive colour, 230, 720 
 A' ceres' s Pheasant, 505 
 Regatta, 27 
 Regent's Sword, 743 
 Registry of land, 700, 702 
 Reign name, 472, 710 
 Rein's ' Industries of Japan,' 504 
 Religion, n, 12, 30-34, 58, 84, 107, 
 
 120-125, '3 1 ' J3 2 > 178-180, 362- 
 
 363, 403, 449, 604, 605, 671-681, 
 
 703-704, 706 
 
 Renaissance of Buddhism, 62 
 Rendition, 271 
 Reorganisation of Navy, 477 
 Rescripts, 388 
 Residents, 344. Sec Foreigner in 
 
 Far Cathay. 
 Respect for age, 162, 164, 253-254 
 
 writing, 770-771 
 Responsibility, Mutual, 319-320 
 Restaurant, 25 
 Resurrection, 671 
 Retrogressions, 344 
 
 So I
 
 Index 
 
 Returns for trade for ten years, 725- 
 
 726 
 ,, of shipping for ten years, 
 
 729 
 
 ,, 1890,728 
 ,, 190, 728 
 
 ,, of tonnage for 1890, 728, 
 729 
 
 i, 1900, 728, 
 729 
 
 ,, of trade for 1890, 726-727, 
 729-736 
 
 ,, 1900, 727 
 ,. 1901, 73L 
 
 732, 734 
 
 Revenge, 665-666 
 Revenue, 194, 477, 699 
 
 ,, cutter and cruiser, 476, 477, 
 
 712 
 
 Rhubarb, 726 
 Rhyme, 539 
 Ricci, 437 
 
 Rice, 145, 169, 289, 291, 605-607 
 birds, 497 
 crops, 128 
 fields, 20, 21, 296, 606-607, 
 
 699, 716 
 glutinous, 410 
 paper, 281 
 Richardson, 485 
 Ridgepole, 41, 721 
 Rifles, 44 
 
 Right-of-way, 253-254 
 Ring-necked pheasant, 506 
 Rings, 357 
 
 Riots, 426, 607-613, 656, 698, 730 
 Ritual music, 463 
 River of Death, The, 283 
 
 ,, Steamers, American, 578 
 Riverine ports, 174, 738 
 Rivers, 99, 100, 101, 102, 283, 293, 
 305, 306, 307, 308, 309, 310, 311, 
 418, 419, 502, 613, 708, 724 
 Roads, 309, 329, 333, 613-614 
 Robbers, 171, 426, 504, 726 
 Robbery, Highway, 510 
 Robes, 224, 226, 229, 244, 245, 274, 
 
 456, 705, 720 
 Rocher, M.,5i5, 519, 520, 521. 522, 
 
 523 
 
 Rock-dwellings, 41 
 Rock-work, 285-286, 301, 302, 303 
 Rodents, 772-773 
 Roman Catholics, 31, 122-123, *99> 
 
 437-440 
 
 ,, Empire, Trade with the, 724 
 ,, dramatists, 707 
 
 Roman law, 384 
 
 ,, merchants, 292, 334 
 
 ,, missions, 31, 437-440, 613 
 
 Romanisation, in, 112,481 
 
 Romans, 292, 296, 334 
 
 Roofs, 35-36, 37, 38 
 
 Roseapple, 300 
 
 Rose-coloured porcelain, 569, 575 
 
 Roses, 286, 688 
 
 Rouge, 183 
 
 Ruination of the tea trade, The 
 causes of the, 690-692, 693-695, 
 
 732-733 
 Ruins, 41 
 
 Rule of road, 253-254 
 Rules for inoculation, 753-754 
 
 ,, for vaccination, 758-759 
 Ruminants, 772 
 Running away to bark another day, 
 
 216 
 
 Running hand, 769 
 Russia and Russians, 139, 193, 293, 
 
 304, 344, 393, 590, 601, 740, 
 
 743, 757 
 Russian concessions, 743 
 
 ,, consumption of tea, 693, 696- 
 
 697 
 ,, system of Railways, 594, 596, 
 
 598-600, 601, 602, 603 
 ,, tonnage, 729 
 ,, trade with China, 725, 727, 
 
 732 
 
 ,, Treaties, 727, 739 
 Russians in China, 294, 295 
 Russo-Chinese Bank, 601 
 
 SABLE skins, 198 
 Sackcloth, 455, 456, 457 
 Sacred Edicts, 403-404 
 
 ,, music, 463, 464 
 
 Sacrificial vessels, 118 
 Sagacious, 723 
 Sages, 178-180, 328, 673 
 Sailors, 322 
 Salt Revenue, 397, 399 
 Salted pig, 730 
 Sam Hop Wui, 645-656 
 Sampan, 73, 766 
 Samsah, 740 
 Samsha Bay, 74 l 
 Samshu, 737 
 
 Samshui, 102, 735, 740, 741, 742 
 San Francisco, 169, 480, 481 
 San Kwok, 405-406 
 
 802
 
 Index 
 
 San King, 536 
 
 Sanctity of life of parent, 387 
 
 Sandal-wood carving, 1 32 
 
 Sandals, 226 
 
 Sandstone, 308, 310, 311, 312 
 
 Sandwich Islands, 145, 394 
 
 Sang-tie-twitf, 569, 573, 574, 576 
 
 Sanitary Science and want of Sanita- 
 tion, 5', 512-513, 5'5, 5 22 , 525- 
 526, 527, 528-529, 536 
 
 Sanscrit, 121, 370, 373, 406, 497, 
 
 , 577 
 
 Santu, 740 
 
 Santuao, 732, 737, 741 
 Sap, irritating nature of, 363 
 Saw, 722 
 Scaffolding, 73 
 Scale of Chinese music compared with 
 
 that of Nature, 465 
 Scandinavians in China, 293, 294, 
 
 295 
 
 Scarification, 8 
 
 Scarlet fever, 756 
 
 Scavengers, 766, 773 
 
 Sceptics, or Sceptical School of 
 
 Historians, 329, 332 
 Schaal, Adam, 438 
 Schlegel, Professor, 169 
 Scholar, 13 
 Scholarly stoop, 264 
 School-boys, j, 234-243, 264, 276 
 
 ,, name, 468 
 Schools, 234-243, 252, 441, 442, 450 
 
 ,, of Painting, 59, 60, 61, 62 
 Sciences, 403, 405 
 Scripts, The Six, 371, 768-769 
 Scrolls, 57, 769 
 Scutage, 699 
 Sea-air bad for tea, 686 
 
 ,, board, 99 
 
 ,, borne commerce, 398 
 
 ,, cucumber, 81-82 
 Seal characters, 770 
 Seamstresses, 766 
 Seas, 306, 418, 419 
 Season for typhoons, 748 
 Secondary wives, 89, 212, 425, 628, 
 
 663, 764, 765, 766 
 Secret Societies, 75, 109, 164, 173, 
 
 645-658 
 
 Sedan-chairs, 29, 70, 73, SS, 198, 
 420-421, 423, 424, 426, 427, 
 
 459, 763 
 
 ,, Imperial, 70 
 Seeing into the earth, 6oS 
 Selangor, Chinese in, 150, 151 
 Self-denial, Instances of, 279 
 
 Self government by ihc |>cople, 322 
 Selling girls and women into slavery, 
 
 624, 625-626, 627-628 
 Semi -nudity, 230, 256 
 Senegambia, 505 
 Seres, 139, 140 
 Serious looks, 300 
 Servant-girl question, 156 
 Servants, 83, 253, 257, 258, 259, 262, 
 
 624-626, 627, 628, 721, 706 
 Servia, Tea in, 688 
 Servitude of women in China, 721, 
 
 762-767 
 
 Sesamum seed, 726 
 Settlements, 739, 742-744 
 Sevres, 577 
 Sewing, 763 
 Sexagenary cycle, 195 
 Shaking hands, 257 258, 718 
 Shakspeare, 402 
 Sha-shih, 737 
 Shamien, 743 
 Shang dynasty, 118, 330 
 Shanghai, 106, 112, 174, 1 86 187. 
 1 88, 192, 202, 203, 209, 
 231, 234,263, 281, 308- 
 309, 360. 456, 477, 478, 
 479, 481,495,496,591, 
 658, 661, 662, 708, 725, 
 73', 733, 737, 73 8 , 739, 
 74', 743, 759 
 
 ,, Books for learning, 112 
 ,, flotilla, 476 
 ,, Foreign population of, 
 
 294-295 
 fowls, 774 
 
 ,, Ilangchow (and Ningpo, 
 
 Wenchow and Canton) 
 Railway, 602, 603 
 ,, postage stamps, 66 1 
 
 ,, Soochow Railway, 591, 
 
 601 
 ,. Soochow and Nanking, 
 
 60 1 
 ,, and \\oosung Railway, 
 
 591, 600, 60 1, 603 
 Shanhaikwan, 490, 601, 602, 740 
 Shansi, or Shanhsi, 26, 232, 312, 331, 
 349, 477, 490, 595, 60', 603, 617, 
 750, 752 
 Shanties, 38 
 
 Shantung, 106, 129. 311, 328, 331, 
 391. 490. ^56, 60 1. 740, 
 
 74', 743 
 
 ,, Railway, 596, 597, 600 
 
 Shap-tsai, 584 
 Shark, 7/5 
 
 So-
 
 Index 
 
 Sharks' fins, 289, 291-292 
 
 Shashi and Shashih, or Shasi, 730, 
 
 737, 739, 74 , 742, 743 
 Shaving, 93, 94, 137, 337, 448, 456, 
 
 720, 761 
 
 ,, child's head, 93, 94, 137 
 Shawls, 245 
 Sheds, 38, 458, 704 
 Sheep, 520, 725 
 Sheng, 465 
 
 Shenfo, or .S7//////0, 479, 495 
 Shen-si, 303, 444, 490, 577 
 Shi King, 541-542 
 Shin Nung, or Shen Nung, 14, 15, 
 
 328 
 
 Shingking, 740, 741 
 Shin-kiin-t'o, 584 
 Shipping, 728-729 
 Ships, 361 
 Shirtings, 725 
 
 Shiuhing, 735, 737, 740, 742 
 Shoes, 226, 244, 324, 456, 459, 615, 
 
 6 1 6, 650, 720, 763 
 Shooting, 614-615 
 Shop-keeper, 190 
 Shops, 39, 130, 357, 709, 769 
 Shorthand, 769 
 Shrimps, 759 
 
 Shu King, 308, 330, 369, 617 
 Shun, 319, 328, 378, 462, 486, 559 
 Shuo-wen, 369 
 Shutters, 39 
 
 Shuttlecock, 28, 615-616, 720 
 Siam, Chinese in, 147 
 Siamese in China, 193 
 Siberia, Chinese in, 153, 391 
 Siberian Railway, 590, 598, 602 
 Siege of the Legations in Peking, 
 
 102-103, I0 8, 344, 612 
 Signboards, 39 
 Silesia, 358 
 
 Silk, 187, 245, 273, 274, 616-623, 
 726, 731, 735 
 
 ,, filatures, 622, 730 
 
 ,, floss, 245 
 
 ,, worms, 274-275, 354, 617, 618, 
 619-620, 621, 775 
 
 ,, worm grubs, 288 
 Silken cord, 666 
 Silver, 189-192, 713 
 
 ,, fish, 318, 775 
 ,, pheasants, 774 
 Similarity of all Chinese to the new- 
 comer, 158 
 Simpson, Professor, on the Plague, 
 
 .535 
 Smae, 139 
 
 Si-ngan-fu, 130 
 Singapore, 360, 480 
 
 ,, Chinese in, 147-148, 149- 
 
 150, 360 
 Singing, 464 
 
 ,, girls, 28, 464 
 Sinim, Land of, 140 
 Sinologue, 140 
 Skiing down, 255 
 Siuen Tih, or Ilsiian Te, 565-566 
 Six Ceremonials, The, 420, 426 
 Skins, 726 
 Skirts, 225 
 
 Skull-caps, 253, 256-257 
 Slates, 309 
 
 Slavery, 263, 273, 557, 558, 623-629 
 Sleep invented, 327 
 Sleeves, 229, 719 
 Slicing process, 387 
 Small-pox, 735, 750-752, 755- 756, 
 
 758 
 Smokers of opium, 488-489, 490-492, 
 
 492-495, 496-497 
 Smoking, 704, 7I3'7I4, 7*5, 7i6, 
 
 720 
 
 Snake-eating cobra, 630 
 Snake skin, 616 
 Snakes, 288-289, 533, 629-632, 710, 
 
 774 
 
 Snipe, 614, 632, 774 
 Snuff, and mode of taking it, 714 
 
 ,, bottles and spoons, 714 
 Soap, 726 
 
 Soap-stone ware, 132 
 Sobriquet, 469 
 Societies, 532, 658 
 
 ,, Secret, 75, 109, 164, 173, 
 
 645-658 
 
 Socks, 227, 720 
 Sofa, 302 
 Soldiers, 43, 44, 45'54, 3 22 , 344, 
 
 495, 5, IO > 6 9, 612, 705, 727 
 'Soldier's Wife, A, to her Husband,' 
 
 546 
 
 Soles of shoes, 720 
 Solidified scent, 300 
 Son, 9-13, 322, 718, 762 
 
 ,, of Heaven, 15, 69, 445 
 Song birds, 375'377 
 Songs, 541-542, 543-544, 55 
 Soochow, or Suchow, 102, 387, 391, 
 479, 499, 732, 739, 74', 
 743, 752 
 
 ,, Books for learning, 112 
 Soochow-Ningpo Railway, 598 
 Sorrow, The, of China, 283 
 Sorrows, The Dissipation of, 543 
 
 804
 
 Index 
 
 Sou-chong, 685 
 
 Souffle porcelain, 572 
 Souls, Three, 32 
 Soup, 170, 356 
 South America, 630, 754 
 
 ,, Australia, Chinese in, 153, 154 
 
 ,, Carolina, Tea in, 688 
 
 of China, 35, 127, 177, 272, 
 
 296,322, 323, 389, 390, 418, 
 
 505, 613,700,724, 745, 750, 
 
 75*S 771 
 Southern Buddhism, 121-122 
 
 ,, School of Landscape Artists, 
 
 61 
 ,, School of Painting, 60, 61, 
 
 62 
 
 ,, Squadron, 476 
 Sovereigns, The Three, 327 
 
 ,, The Five, 327 
 Spaniards, 394 
 
 ,, in China, 193, 293, 204, 
 
 295 
 
 Spanish, 193, 293, 294 
 ,, dollars, 190 
 ,, shipping, 729 
 ,, tonnage, 729 
 Sparrows, 394 
 Spears, 42, 43, 47, 75 
 Spectacle-cases, 244, 245 
 
 ,, thrush, 377 
 Spectacles, 256 
 Spheres of influence, 344, 595, 743- 
 
 744 
 
 Spiders, 775 
 Spinning-wheel, 619 
 Spirits, n, 12, 200-202, 296, 423 
 
 ,, Calling back the, 215 
 
 ,, Evil, or Devils, n, 200-202, 
 
 423, 469-470 
 Spiritualism, 413 
 Splashed ware, 561, 570-571 
 Spoons, Earthenware, 170 
 Sport, 614-615 
 
 Sports, Outdoor, 28, 29, 614-616 
 Squeezes, 322, 381, 398, 610, 665, 
 
 666, 701 
 
 Squirrels, 533, 772 
 Stage, 703-704, 704-705, 706 
 
 ,, Low estimation of, 706, 707 
 
 ,, properties, 704-705 
 Staking on orange pips, 582 
 Stamps, 658-662 
 Standard, The Green, 46 
 Standing, 254 
 
 ,, Army, 47 
 Stars, 68, 118, 669-670, 679 
 Starvation, 5, 10, 511 
 
 State slaves, 627 
 
 States, The Three, 334-335, 370 
 
 Stations, Tax, 397, 399 
 
 Statistics, 212, 349, 389, 479-480, 
 
 49', 499, 555-557, 667, 
 
 669 
 
 ,, of Railway, 590, 592 
 Statutory law, 388 
 Steam-launches, 101, 102, 511 
 
 ,, traffic, 730 
 Steamers, 99, 102, 142, 578, 737, 
 
 739 
 
 Stern-wheel passage boats, 101 
 Stink pots, 45 
 Stockings, 226-227 
 Stomach the seat of the intellect, 718 
 Stone, 34, 36, 39, 41, 42, 302, 308, 
 309, 310, 311, 312, 714 
 
 age, 585-586 
 
 axeheads, 585-586 
 
 coolies, 721 
 
 drums, 34 
 
 musical instruments, 464 
 
 Philosopher's, 676, 677, 678, 
 
 680 
 Stools, 302 
 Stopping - places for steamers, 737, 
 
 739, 742 
 Stories, 271-272 
 Storks, 243, 458 
 'Stork, The,' 551-552 
 Stoves, 82 
 
 Straits-born Chinese, 149 
 Straits Settlements, 99, 138, 142, 
 173, 190-191, 
 
 95, 325, 356, 
 538, 653-654, 
 
 655 
 ,, ,, Chinese in the, 
 
 142, 147, 148- 
 
 150, 346-347. 
 
 653-654, 655 
 Tea in, 688 
 1 Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio,' 
 
 406 
 
 Strawbraid, 730, 732 
 Streams, Worship of, 118, 680 
 Streets, 25, 26, 36, 39, 244, 763-764 
 Strokes in Shuttlecock-playing, 615- 
 
 616 
 
 Stucco work, 38 
 Style, Another, 469 
 Stylus, Metal, 767 
 Su Tung-po, 407, 549-552, 707 
 Su Wu, 543-544 
 Sub-dialects, 204-205, 207, 208 
 Suburbs, 171 
 
 8CK
 
 Index 
 
 Success of Mission work, 440-443 
 
 Succession to throne, 30, 320 
 
 Sugar, 145, 187, 735 
 
 Sui dynasty, 370 
 
 Suicide, 428, 429, 492, 662-669, 766 
 
 Sumatra, Tea in, 688 
 
 ,, Tobacco in, 714 
 Sumatran kerosene, 732 
 Summer houses, 302 
 Summers, Professor, 167 
 Summons to Secret Society Meetings, 
 
 75, 647-648 
 
 Sun, 234, 651, 669-670 
 Sunday, Want of, 177 
 Sung dynasty, 61, 62, 65, 129, 133, 
 183, 269, 325, 335, 337, 345, 370, 
 379, 412, 507, 562, 563, 564, 565, 
 677, 706, 707, 750, 752 
 Sungchi River, 742 
 Sungei Ujong, Chinese in, 150 
 Sunlight, 533 
 Sun Tsz or Suncius, 507 
 Superiority to other Asiatics, 162, 
 
 163 
 Supernatural Creatures, The Four, 
 
 219 
 
 Superstition, 3, 10-12, 92, 98, 200- 
 202, 234, 271-272, 423, 460-462, 
 519, 524, 666, 670, 675, 676-679 
 Supreme Court, 270, 271 
 ,, Ruler, 679, 680 
 Surinam, Chinese in, 144 
 Surnames, 467-468, 721 
 Suttee, 663 
 Suzerain State, 68, 69 
 Swaddling bands, 92, 95 
 Swallowing gold, 667 
 Swatow, 38, 102, 106, 148, 158, 175, 
 203, 207, 208, 209, 225, 
 227, 230, 233, 268, 275, 
 288 - 289, 296, 297, 298, 
 346, 372, 392, 417, 419, 
 423, 502, 607, 613, 620, 
 687, 708, 716, 734, 737, 
 741, 767, 773, 775 
 ,, and Ch-auchao-fu Railway, 
 
 594 
 
 ,, Books for learning, 112-113 
 
 ,, fans, 275 
 
 ,, oranges, 298 
 
 ,, Railway, 594 
 
 Swedes in China, 193, 293, 295, 613 
 Swedish matches, 732 
 Sweetmeats, 97, 170 
 Sweet potato, 585 
 Sweets, 410 
 Sweet-sop, 299 
 
 Swiftlct, 90, 91 
 Swiss in China, 295 
 
 ,, lake dwellings, 358 
 Sword, 43-44, 658 
 
 ,, scabbard, 198 
 Sydney, 480 
 
 Syllables in Chinese, 209 
 Symbols, Imitative, 767-768 
 
 ,, Indicating Thought, 768 
 ,, Uniting Sound, 768 
 Synagogue, 359 
 Syriac, 451 
 Szchuen, 72, 130, 146, 188, 232, 233, 
 
 234, 3 6 4 444. 490, 586, 603, 617, 
 
 667, 7i5 730. 734, 737, 740, 74i, 
 
 750 
 
 Sz-ma Kwang, 401 
 Szemao, 736, 738, 740, 742 
 
 TABASHEER, 75 
 
 Table of Ports of Call, 742 
 
 ,, of Treaty Ports, 741-742 
 Table-covers, 245 
 Tablets, 300 
 Taboo, 473 
 Taels, 190, 660 
 T'ai P'ing Rebellion, 130, 192, 326, 
 
 343, 396, 555-556, 563, 610, 645- 
 
 647, 653, 655 
 Tai-chow, 113 
 Ta-i cups, 560, 562 
 Tai Mo Shan, 745 
 Takhing, 737, 742 
 Taku, 742 
 
 ,, Forts, 612 
 Talienwan, 743 
 T'ang dynasty, 54, 60-6 1, 65, 140, 
 
 142, 325, 335-337, 345, 370, 373, 
 
 379, 400, 413, 447, 463, 544, 560, 
 
 562, 586, 628, 657, 677, 706, 707 
 Tangchow, 737 
 Tangiereens, 297 
 Tang-ku, 602 
 Tannin, 692 
 Tao, 611, 674, 680-681 
 Tao Teh King, 671, 673-675, 676 
 Tao Kuang, 343 
 Taoism, 107, 120, 122, 220, 272, 313, 
 
 406-407, 445, 458, 459, 460, 464, 
 
 507, 650, 671-681 
 Taotai, 479 
 Tartars, 331, 337-339, 34O, 341-345, 
 
 577, 646, 647 
 ,, Golden, 707 
 
 806
 
 Index 
 
 Tasmania, Chinese in, 153, 155 
 
 'Taste,' 549 
 
 Tal'ung, 737, 742 
 
 Taxation and Taxes, 15, 33, 272, 
 
 396-399. 495, 6 9'. 6 95, 696, 699, 
 
 700, 701, 702, 727, 731 
 Ta-yi Railway, 593 
 Tea, 1 6, 89, 259-260, 289, 429, 448- 
 449, 616, 681-697, 727, 732- 
 
 734, 735 
 ,, girls, 766 
 Teapots and cups, 687 
 Teapoys, 302 
 Tef-P'6-wuf, 641, 642-643 
 Telegraph mileage, 698 
 
 ,, offices, 698 
 
 Telegraphs, 314, 697-698, 748-749 
 ' Tell me a story,' 484 
 Temper, 137-138 
 Temperance of the Chinese, 687-688 
 
 ,, Society, 656 
 
 Temperateness, 166 
 Temples, 14, 26, 32, 33, 34, 35, 39, 
 40, 59, 83, 84, 122, 124, 172, 1 80. 
 188-189, 302, 3 I 3-3 I 4, 392, 445, 
 500, 644, 646 
 
 Tender for loan, 636-637, 639, 643 
 Tent, 37, 42 
 Tenure of land, 699-703 
 Teochiu. See Ilokkien, or Hoklo 
 Term Question, 438-439 
 Terraced fields, 20, 21, 185 
 Thaumaturgic mysteries and priests, 
 
 672, 675 
 
 Theatres and theatricals, 26, 29, 98, 
 206, 300, 302, 456, 464, 505, 628, 
 652, 703-707 
 Theatrical costumes, 245 
 Theine, 692 
 Thieves, 363, 510 
 Three, Character Classic, The, 235- 
 
 236 
 
 Documents, The, 425-426 
 Generations, The, 426 
 Handed Chess, 136 
 Lights, The, 486 
 Posvers of Nature, The, 486 
 Pure Ones, The, 459, 679 
 States, The, 334-335, 345, 
 
 370 
 
 Throneless King, The, 179 
 Thrush, 377, 773 
 
 Tibet, Tibetan, and Tibetans, 105, 
 218, 305, 342, 446, 449, 
 450, 451, 490, 556, 727, 
 742, 772 
 ,, Tea sent to, 727 
 
 Tientsin, 47, 50, 322, 434, 477, 478, 
 
 479, 592, 593, 601, 602, 
 
 603, 612, 658, 727, 736, 
 
 741, 742 
 
 ,, Chin Kiang Railway, 596- 
 
 597, 603 
 ,, Shanhaikwan Railway, 596 
 
 Treaty of, 737 
 Tiger, The White, 314, 709 
 Tigers, 614-615, 679, 707-709, 77 
 Tiles, 34. 37, 40 
 Tillers of the ground. 13-15, 16-23, 
 
 25 
 
 Time, 245, 709-713 
 ,, Keeping, 720 
 Timour postage stamps, 662 
 Timur, 339 
 Tin, 734, 
 T'in Kaii, 584 
 Ting, Admiral, 477 
 ,, Porcelain, 562 
 Titles, 195-199, 482-484 
 Toad in the Moon, 669 
 Tobacco and pipes, 713-716, 726, 
 
 735 
 
 Foil, Unremitting, 21 
 Toleration, 445 
 
 ,, Edict of, 439-440 
 Tombs, 32, 34, 172, 1 88, 313, 716- 
 
 To-morrow, 710 
 
 Tones, 369, 370, 539 
 
 'l^ong name, 470-471 
 
 Tonnage, 728-729 
 
 Tonquin, or Tonkin, 340, 590, 602, 
 
 603 
 
 Topographical works, 402-403 
 Topsy-Turvydom, 95, 717-722 
 Torpedo-lx>ats, 476 
 Tortoise, 219, 506 
 Torture, 75, 271, 382, 722-723 
 Toucans, 346 
 
 Towns, 240, 610, 724, 740 
 Toys, 28, 29, 74, 138 
 Tract on vaccination, 757 
 
 ,, Native, on vaccination, 757, 
 
 758-759 
 
 Trade, 190, 292-293, 396-399, 558, 
 688, 690-691, 693-696, 723- 
 .736 
 
 ,, with Europe, 724-736 
 ,, with foreign lands, 724-736 
 Traders, 356, 511, 610 
 
 ,, Adoption by, 10 
 Trading Race, The Chinese are a. 
 
 723 
 voyages, 724 
 
 807
 
 Index 
 
 Tragedies, 706 
 
 Tramway, Peak, 66 
 
 Trans-Caucasian Railway, 688 
 
 Transit pass, 397 
 
 Transmigration of souls, 32, 124 
 
 Transport, 18, 24 
 
 Transvaal, Chinese in, 155 
 
 Travels, Books of, 104, 105, 106, 
 108, no, in 
 
 Treaties, 396, 397, 399, 441, 736- 
 740 
 
 Treaty Ports, 106, 294, 295, 396, 
 441, 478, 502, 658, 
 659, 66 1, 697, 709, 
 712, 725, 729-736, 
 736-744, 761 
 ,, ,, Foreigners in, 293- 
 
 295 
 
 Tree frogs, 296 
 
 Trees, 11-13, 3 2 , 35, 61-62, 72-78, 
 114-118, 126-127, 131-132, 170, 
 171, 176-177, 187, 246, 249, 271, 
 285, 286, 297-300, 302, 303, 313, 
 323, 327, 354, 363, 364, 4i7-4i8, 
 422, 453, 510, 513, 617, 619, 620, 
 682-684, 688 
 
 Triad Society, 645-656 
 
 ,, ,, in the Colonies. 653- 
 
 654, 655 
 
 ,, ,, ,, United States, 
 
 656 
 
 Tribute, 68, 69 
 
 Tricks of Trade, 732 
 
 Trigrams, The Eight, 506 
 
 Trinidad, Chinese in, 144 
 
 Trinity, 674, 679 
 
 Tripang, 81 
 
 Trousers, 223-226, 720 
 
 Trousseau, 421 
 
 Truitt, 574 
 
 Trustworthiness, 166 
 
 Tsang Porcelain, 572 
 
 Ts'ao Fuk-hing, 58 
 
 Tseng kwo-chuan, 199 
 
 Ts'i or Ch'i dynasty, 335 
 
 Tsin, or China, 139 
 ,, Shih Huang Ti, 332, 333, 369, 
 399-400, 404, 676 
 dynasty, 34, So, 325, 332- 
 333, 335, 345, 577, 676 
 
 Ts'ing, or Ching dynasty, 63-64, 65, 
 So, 140, 326, 341-345, 373 
 
 Tsung Li Ya-men, 396 
 
 Tsz fa lottery, 582 
 
 Tu Fu, 503, 546-547, 5 60 
 
 Tuberoses, 286, 288 
 
 Tung Chih, 68, 343, 456 
 
 Tunghsing, 738, 742 
 
 Tung Ting, 305, 739-74O 
 
 Tung Wa Hospital, 760 
 
 Tung Wen Kwan, 241 
 
 Tuning of instruments, 465 
 
 Turbans, 230, 346 
 
 Turkestan, 358, 451 
 
 Turkey, 590, 752 
 
 Turkish language, 372 
 
 Turks in China, 193, 295, 448, 752 
 
 Two Emperors, The, 486 
 
 Typhoons, 34, 607, 745'75 
 
 U 
 
 UlGHUR, 414, 450-451 
 
 Uganda, 537 
 Umbrellas, 74, 459, 460 
 ,, Official, 199 
 Uncle of Mahommed, 444, 445 
 Uniform, 50 
 
 Union Pacific Railway, 144 
 Unit of Society, The family is the, 10, 
 
 172, 319,419 
 United States, 656 
 
 ,, Chinese in, 142-143, 
 
 144, 656 
 
 ,, consumption of tea, 
 
 690-691, 693, 694, 
 696 
 
 ,, Tea in, 688, 689 
 
 Uniting Sound Symbols, 768 
 Universal Provider, 72 
 University College, Liverpool. 168 
 University of London, 168-169 
 Unknown Husband, An, 429 
 Unpunctuality, 709-710 
 Unshaven and unshorn, 455 
 Urh-ya, 369 
 
 VACCINATION and Inoculation, 750- 
 
 762 
 Vaccinators, 754, 755, 756-757, 759' 
 
 760, 761 
 
 Vaccine establishments, 758, 759, 760 
 ,, Institute, Hongkong Govern- 
 ment, 761 
 
 Vagabonds, 492, 609, 610 
 Vagueness in language, 710 
 Valid marriage, A, 425-427 
 Valour, 52 
 
 Vancouver, Chinese in, 144 
 Varieties of bamboo, 75, 76, 77, 78 
 
 808
 
 Index 
 
 Varieties of fish, 774-775 
 
 Varnish tree, 363 
 
 Vases, 35, 75, 118, 119, 131, 357, 
 
 770 
 
 Vaudeville, 706 
 Vegetables, 289, 735, 759 
 Vegetarians, 21, 73, 657 
 Venerable Prince, The, 673 
 Venezuela, 358 
 Venezuelans in China, 193 
 Veracity, Want of, 161-162, 164 
 Verbiest, 438 
 
 Vermin, 137, 355, 513, 514, 533, 536 
 Verse-making, 238 
 Vessels, 361 
 Viceroys, 14, 46, 49, 50, 321, 322, 
 
 398, 477 
 
 Victoria, Chinese in, 153, 154 
 Village, 108, 128, 136, 172, 511, 724 
 
 ,, fights, 128 
 Villagers, 510, 644 
 
 ,, manage their own affairs, 
 
 128 
 
 Violins, 465 
 Viper, 630, 631-632 
 Virtuous women, 766 
 Viscera, the Five, 670 
 Visiting, 29, 259-260 
 
 ,, cards, 456 
 Vissiere, Professor, 169 
 Vocal gestures, 371 
 Voyages, 141-142 
 
 W 
 
 WAGTAIL, 376 
 
 Waichau, 741 
 
 Waf Sing lottery, 581 
 
 Waistcoats, 224 
 
 Wall, The Great, 41, 332-333, 341, 
 
 418 
 
 Walls, 35, 36, 38, 40, 171, 172, 309 
 Wang, Madame, 466 
 Wang Wei, 60 
 Wanhsien, 741 
 
 Wan Lieh, or Wan Li, 341, 437, 568 
 Wan Wong, 330 
 Want, 510 
 War junks, 100 
 Wars, 128, 331, 332, 333, 334, 335, 
 
 336, 337, 338, 339, 340, 341, 342, 
 
 343, 344, 345> 555, 706-707, 725, 
 
 740 
 
 War-tax, 396-399 
 Washing, 81 
 Washing babies, 92 
 
 Watch of the night, 712-713 
 Watches, 709, 712, 726 
 Watchmen, 712-713 
 Water, 670 
 
 ,, colours, 57, 64 
 
 ,, pipes, hookas, etc., 73, 713- 
 
 714 
 
 ,, rights, 128 
 ,, shoes, 228-229 
 Waterways, 272, 590 
 Waves of Immigration, 323, 325, 326, 
 
 347, 700 
 
 Way, Right of, 253-254 
 Weapons, 42-45, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 
 
 52, 54 
 
 Web-footed birds, 774 
 Wedding feasts, 422, 423, 424 
 ,, march, 466 
 ,, presents, 87, 89, 625 
 Week, 712 
 
 Wei period or dynasty, 577 
 ,, River, 602 
 ,, State of, 672 
 Weighing money, 190 
 Weights and measures, 328 
 Wei-hai-wei, 174, 234, 304, 344,662, 
 
 740, 743-744 
 Welsh Mortgage, 703 
 Wen chang, 243, 269-270 
 Wenchow, 732, 734, 737, 741 
 West Coast of Africa, 505 
 ,, Indies, 358 
 ,, of China, 42, 175, 595, 604, 
 
 668, 741, 750 
 ,, River, 602, 603, 708, 737, 740, 
 
 742 
 Western Australia, Chinese in, 153 
 
 ,, Paradise, 122 
 Whampee, 298, 739 
 Whampoa, 603, 742 
 Wheat, 410 
 Wheelbarrows, 456, 592 
 
 ,, in mourning, 456 
 
 Whipping through the streets, 386 
 Whirlwind caused by dragon, 220 
 Whiskey, or Rice Spirit, 759 
 Whispering, 260 
 White, 230, 456, 458, 670, 720 
 ,, ants, 126, 350-351 
 ,, Deeds, 699, 702 
 ,, is mourning, 456, 458, 720 
 ,, Porcelain, 558, 559, 560,561, 
 562, 568, 569, 570, 573, 
 
 574, 575 
 ,, rice fish, 775 
 ,, porcelain, 569 
 ,, tiger, 709 
 
 809 3 i:
 
 Index 
 
 White wood-carving, 132 
 Wicks, 732 
 
 Widow of Ephesus, 485 
 Widows, 455, 456, 765-766 
 Wife, 86-89, 9i-95> H3. 211-213, 
 148-149, 244, 258, 261, 277, 
 322, 449, 45 6 '457> 471-472, 
 624, 625, 626, 627, 628, 663, 
 668, 718, 762, 763, 764, 765, 
 766 
 
 ,, Hire of, 628 
 ,, Sale of, 627-628 
 ' Wife, The Deserted,' 547-548 
 Wild cats, 771 
 
 Williams, Professor Wells, 169 
 Wills, Chinese, 33 
 Window-glass, 726 
 Windows, 36, 37 
 Wine or Spirits, 28, 250 
 
 ,, parties, 28, 97, 300 
 Winnowing machine, 19 
 Winter solstice, 223 
 Wire-netting, 453, 511 
 
 ,, ,, for mosquitoes, 453 
 Wistarias, 303 
 Witness, 256, 271, 387, 723 
 Woman, The, marrying the man, 424 
 Women, status and position of, 27, 
 28, 29, 86-89, 9 ! -95> 97> '85, 242, 
 244, 245, 261, 281, 282, 457, 492, 
 582, 633, 642, 703, 706, 762-767 
 Wong Fung, Dr., 759 
 Wonks, 771-772 
 Woo, or Wu, Emperor, 132, 330, 
 
 331, 677 
 Wood, 670 
 
 carving, 130, 131, 132 
 Woodcock, 614 
 
 Wooden instruments of music, 465 
 Wool, 726 
 
 Woollen, 725, 726, 734 
 Woosung, 739, 740, 741 
 ,, Railway, 591 
 River, 308, 739, 741 
 World's consumption of tea, 696-697 
 Worms, 288 
 
 Worship, Ancestor, 9, 10, 30-34, 118, 
 172, 419, 420, 422, 423, 
 426, 427, 438, 463, 624' 
 at the grave, 9, 27, 32 
 Evening, 464 
 of antiquity, 118 
 ,, Confucius, 1 80 
 ,, Heaven and Earth, 463, 
 
 605, 650, 651 
 
 ,, mountains and rivers, 
 605 
 
 Worship of Nature, 118, 605, 650, 
 
 651 
 
 ,, stones, 605 
 ,, sun and moon, 463, 651 
 ,, the dead, 458, 650 
 ,, Pleiades, 670 
 ,, Wind, 118 
 when inoculating for small- 
 pox, 752 
 
 Write, Ability to, 240 
 Writing, 55, 1 14, 368, 369, 697, 763, 
 
 767-771 
 
 of the Khitans, 414 
 Les, 6 
 ,, Lolos, 5 
 ,, Manchus, 413, 415 
 ,, Uigurs, 414 
 Written language, 374, 450, 767-771 
 Wu, or Woo, Emperor, 132, 330, 
 
 331, 677 
 
 ,, Empress, 336 
 
 ,, San-kuei, 655 
 Wu, Tao-tsz, 59, 65 
 Wu, Wang, 132, 330, 331, 677 
 Wuchang, 434 
 Wuchow-fu, 102, 603, 734, 737, 740, 
 
 742 
 
 Wuhu, 661, 730, 737, 741 
 Wusueh, 737, 742 
 
 XANADU, 129 
 
 YALE, 169 
 
 Yamen, 81, 171, 322, 381, 610, 723 
 
 ,, Expenses, 322 
 Yang Chii Yiiau, 549 
 Yangtsz, 303, 305, 306, 307-308, 311, 
 
 328, 332, 338, 395, 412, 418, 526, 
 
 600, 601, 603, 614, 698, 737, 739, 
 
 740, 741, 773 
 
 Yao, or Yaou, 319, 328, 378, 486 
 Yasus, 726, 730 
 Yatung, 736, 739, 742 
 Year, A lunar, 71 1 
 
 ,, name, or year style, 472-473, 
 
 710-711 
 Yeh, 197 
 Yellow fever, 356, 451, 452 
 
 ,, Flag, Order of the, 199 
 
 ,, Riding Jacket, 196 
 
 ,, River, 283-284, 305, 306, 
 
 37, 308, 309, 3 28 > 329. 
 412, 418, 447 
 
 8lO
 
 Index 
 
 Yellow Sea, 306, 308, 746 Yung Cheng, 64, 342 
 
 Yen Lf-pun, 59 Yiingki, 742 
 
 ,, Lf-teh, 59 Yung River, 741 
 
 Yersin, 530, 534 Yunnan, 5, 6, 146, 305, 356, 424, 
 Yik King, 114, 506 444, 446, 512, 515, 517- 
 
 Yi-wiif, 633-642, 643-645 518, 519, 520, 521, 523, 
 
 Yochow, 730, 739-74". 74' 524, 557- S 8 ^. 594-595. 
 
 Yokohama, 360 596, 602, 603, 667, 697, 
 
 Young, Arthur, 16 698, 734, 738, 742, 772 
 
 Ysbranti Ides, 569 ,, Railway, 594-595, 596, 
 
 Yu, The Great, 328, 329, 617 602. 603 
 
 } '// kwo /if/i tsin^\ 563 Yunnan-fi'i, or Yunnan-sen, 602, 603 
 Yuan, or Yuen, dynasty, 62, 65, 184, 
 
 l8 5. 337, 340, 345. 379, 
 
 448, 564, 567, 706, 707 Z 
 
 ,, Shih-kai, 477 
 
 Yuen Ying, 60 ZKUXIS, 58, 65 
 
 Yuetling, 742 
 Yuh Yuen, 543 
 
 '/.'me, 713 
 
 /ones of influence, 743-744 
 
 Yule, Colonel, 505 , /oology, 771-775 
 
 811
 
 GLOSSARY 
 
 Attap. A Malay word signifying the kind of mats, or leaves 
 made into these mats, used to cover a house, or even for the walls 
 of a house. 
 
 Bogue. The mouth of the Canton River. The word is derived 
 from the Portuguese Bocca. Bocca Tigris is a translation of the 
 Chinese Fu-miin, 'The Tiger's Mouth.' 
 
 Candarin is the v s of a mace, worth i cents silver, or nearly a 
 farthing and a half. 
 
 Cash is the current coin of the Chinese, ten or more of which 
 are worth a cent silver, and forty a penny English. 
 
 Catty=i3 Ibs. avoirdupois. Plural catties. 
 
 Cent^ltf of a dollar (silver) worth |d. 
 
 Chang = chong is ten Chinese feet (ch'ek or ch'ik), the latter being 
 approximately 14 English inches. 
 
 Character. A Chinese written or printed word, or a syllable in 
 a compound word. 
 
 Chow has a number of meanings as used by foreigners in China. 
 It is not a Chinese word. Amongst its meanings is that of 'food,' or 
 'to eat.' 
 
 Chunam. A mixture of lime and earth beaten into a hard substance, 
 and used in place of cement and concrete. 
 
 Coir is the external husk of the cocoa-nut palm which is made 
 into ropes, cordage, brooms, brushes, etc. 
 
 Colloquial is the language as spoken, differing in different 
 parts of China. In character colloquial the Chinese characters are 
 employed, or adaptations of them. In romanised colloquial the sound 
 of the Chinese is represented by an English spelling, i.e. by the 
 letters of our (or Roman) alphabet. 
 
 Concubine. A secondary wife not holding legally the status of 
 the chief or fully legitimate wife, but whose children are legitimate 
 and who shares as a widow in her husband's estate. Socially she is 
 looked on as a wife, and there is no stigma attached to her position, 
 though subordinate and inferior to the first wife, and a position not 
 desired by well-to-do people for their daughters. 
 
 813
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 District is a division of country, geographical and political, 
 somewhat equivalent to an English county, and occasionally so 
 styled. A district city is the capital city of a district where the 
 district magistrate (the ruler of the district) resides. Its analogue in 
 our country is a county town. 
 
 Dollar always means a silver dollar in the East, constantly 
 fluctuating in value, but worth just at present something between 
 is. gd. or is. i id. A cent is 1^,77 part of this. 
 
 Dutch-wife is a kind of pillow or frame-work, made of bamboo, 
 and used to rest the legs on in bed in hot weather to keep them 
 cool. 
 
 Fish-maws are the stomachs of certain kinds of fish used as 
 food. 
 
 Fu means a city of the second order, i.e. a prefectorial one. 
 
 Go-between is a broker, or brokeress in betrothals, marriages, 
 business transactions, the sale and purchase of slave-girls, and of 
 women and boys, etc. 
 
 Governor. Each province has a Governor. 
 
 Hong is a mercantile firm. 
 
 Hsiu-ts'ai = sm-ts'ai = saii ts'oi is the Chinese B.A. 
 
 Joss-paper is paper stamped with holes to represent money, or 
 folded into the shape of sycee and scattered on the roadside at 
 funerals especially, or burned in worship at the temples, or at the 
 front doors of shops or houses, the incineration, according to the 
 Chinese idea, transmuting it into real money in the spirit world, to 
 which it is wafted by the flames. Joss is from Deos, the Portuguese 
 for God. 
 
 Joss-sticks = incense-sticks. The various substances used for 
 the manufacture of incense are made into a paste and rolled round 
 the upper part of a tiny stick of bamboo. The lower part of this, 
 being uncovered, serves to support it upright in a censer full of ashes 
 or in any hole, while the upper part burns slowly, giving out a fragrant 
 smell. 
 
 Kam-kwat is a fruit of the orange or citron tribe, of a golden- 
 reddish colour, and about the size of half a finger. 
 
 Kowtow. The nine knockings of the forehead on the ground 
 distributed equally over three kneelings on both knees, which is an 
 act of worship or reverence before the Gods of heaven and earth, and 
 an act of reverence or respect accorded to the sovereign officers of 
 Government. It is also rendered to parents on their birthdays, and 
 to superiors in age or station by their inferiors or by those younger 
 in years. 
 
 Kung-he"f-fat-ts'of = ' Congratulations : may you gather wealth.' 
 
 Li has two meanings as thus spelled in English : first, a 
 Chinese mile = -i English mile ; and second, iV of a candarin. Lis, 
 
 8I 4
 
 Glossary 
 
 candarins, mace, and taels are used in expressing the weights of 
 medicine as well as of silver. 
 
 Lictors. See Yamen. 
 
 Mace, ,' of a tael, in money worth 14 cents silver, or jid. As 
 a measure of weight a trifle less than 7 of an ounce avoirdupois. 
 
 Meiling. A range of mountains at the north of the Canton 
 province. 
 
 Moon = Month. The same word is used in Chinese for both 
 moon and month, being also employed very generally by the foreign 
 resident in China to designate the Chinese month, which is a lunar 
 one, to differentiate it, without the need of any explanation, from 
 the foreign month. 
 
 New Dominion = Turkestan. 
 
 New Territory = The latest addition of land to the Colony of 
 Hongkong, leased from the Chinese Government. 
 
 Pei Yang Squadron is the Northern Squadron. 
 
 Provincial Governor. Every province has a Governor. 
 
 Riverine ports. Usually applied to the treaty ports, on the 
 Yangtsz, such as Chinkiang, Kiukiang, etc. 
 
 Runners. See Yamen. 
 
 Sampan. A small boat. 
 
 Sen, or rather Shen, or Slieng. means city, a provincial city. 
 
 Shan sz are the gentry and elders and literary graduates of a 
 village, or of a locality in a city. They are invested by custom, etc., 
 with a quasi-authority over their fellow-villagers and neighbours. 
 
 Shen-nung. A mythical (?) emperor of China, deified as the God 
 of Agriculture. 
 
 Soy. A sauce made from beans, largely used by the Chinese. 
 
 Sycee. Lumps of silver cast into a curious shape said to be like 
 a shoe, but requiring a strong imagination to see the likeness. These 
 were, and are used instead of coins, as the Chinese till recently have 
 had no silver coins in general use. 
 
 Tanka. The boat population, descendants of aborigines, despised 
 by the landsmen, and with customs and habits of their own, scarcely 
 ever intermarrying with the dwellers on shore. 
 
 Taotai. An Intendant of Circuit. 
 
 Tartar-General. Generals who have the banner-men (see 
 Army), etc., under their command at certain important cities, such 
 as Canton, Foochow, and Hangchow. 
 
 Tiao. A string of cash=iooo, worth about Si silver, or from 
 is. Qd. or 2s. id. English money. 
 
 Yamen. An official residence, comprising within its boundaries 
 prisons, court-houses, offices, gardens, etc., etc. 
 
 Yamen lictors. A species of police attached to a yamOn. 
 
 8I 5
 
 Things Chinese 
 
 Yame'n Runners. A species of process-servers or bailifts, etc., 
 attached to a yamen. 
 
 Yen is the Japanese pronunciation for yuan or yiin, which is 
 used as a name for the dollar by the Chinese. 
 
 Yin and Yang = Yum and yong. The two principles of Nature 
 from which everything is derived. 
 
 Viceroy, or Governor-General, has rule over one or two provinces 
 usually. 
 
 Wan means a bay. Kwongchowwan = Kvvongchow Bay. 
 
 PRINTED AT THK KDINDURCH PKESS, Q AND II YOUNG STKEK.T. 
 
 816
 
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