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Musart.tharashar Yapar PolonarR , Tond ong Tankersang Pangcheous une Log Hoe ISIS Barrantpooter IP 60 70 80 90 100 10 120 130 140 2.50 160 Kholyrando E M XP Honkong Ramanoff lacze R Paline TRKOUTS Nertchinsk Suriganak Tanden Cajou Kiakhta Dron Rumoer Zonin Alakdougal Alakoul Hitcha Staten 1 - Saghalin Merghan tai pelinga Sachalia novca eruse Purpe , C. Zaisant Orchen I Mana Palkati Ochabckan hunaskor Irtish Kouloun Yeteicar So Tanar Tekellauto Str 10 4 Manas 2 SESSO L.Uriantajuna Tshiga SONGARIA tai 2 3 Oualin Niman Nimgouta Tchould the con del Fourdun Changai 31. BI OR SHAM O Siolla 40 MTurlan O 1.Tchakan Hongou Karalium • Peroergeting Roma Saha Hami Farkand R. Tulcha Oulijouluu Nr Poro Hocho G Cashgar Farkand Roten Stran o Courbanajater China DLockor Paria Pera 0 0 Maomo S.SE donha Wall 2 Ich bund com rand Lighan Karakoorun Hara Manitou LITTLE Karia PThanglou Mare E SER T of Fochin Yang Chitral lloutai OF Tchacaos Sado Oua la olare Pichana angsing nale skvm TUBE Dei-tching pou PEKANG dat all of China leche o Gumak wer Oulen widos S AND Y Zakaiotore Kink.ao agang Yang There SE Jag card Leh Rhue Spinglosa 1 hante Cocosai Disoring ipoon SO 6000 Bangoy Setledge Firque Meno na un pas Panca ACORE A Teinichezo Longhang fola Hingnang R 2 Tamhaen Jhai cheow Hindshou Badshop Paihe Lean Tugntchcou. Tuntchwou Kitchcoan cheon Potcheou 4 Hoan Ho R Matchou Honan Hantchong Huitchepu 5 Leigtcheca NANKIST incheou SEA HRiv. I N Sangkiang Hanncheou 1 7 Tinglyhion Yongun Tchutchou) Conchou (13 USHL E TEXT Shehura Nangad Strean Diemen Wadaki Hoaille Sanpoo 1 HIN N ) Paucto B в stort H н mraning 9 mkampooter Packing SchapłodyTehingtorget. praghas curan I 8 Assa Olle P Thahabi Tchajim gran 75 houldng mandoo 0 CEA XY Ganges angt de CHOO Pungpoort elaru Formosa REFERENCE TO THE PROVINCES 1. Shensee 2. Shansee 3. Petchelle 4 Shantung 5. Kiangnan 6. Honan 7. Honquang 8. Setchuen 9. Koeitehoo 10. Yunnan 1. Quan sát 12 Quanglong 13. kiangsee 11. Folien 15. Tchetchiang VA 14 20 Vuqpoor BIRMA Tehchean Trumyton, Yshian Tonginiou Pratintchecuo Toutcheche Ýinning 9 secheca. Yunnan chanichec Nalitchecul" Kingyeunhien 11 ikiang R Haya Tiaomung alaca Vadinamah CALCUTTAY 30 10 12 Toatchepus CANTON 30 FORITOS - Quangth UMMERAH Dors OTOVINY AND Pochou Ponytch.com CHINA SE4 Hainan I CHINESE EMPIRE JAPAN. Bashee Isles BENGAL Kesho Bo 90 100 Longitude Fast no from Greenwich 120 130 140 Cli ili LAI. DE ' .. i ATLANO TIE . i ;;?!! Shiv,!11) !. 로 ​ CHINA PICTORIAL, DESCRIPTIVE, AND HISTORICAL. WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF AVA AND THE BURMESE, SIAM, AND ANAM. WITH NEARLY ONE HUNDRED ILLUSTRATIONS. LONDON: HENRY G. BOHN, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN. usua mens de constamus MDCCCLIII. DS 507 C82 LONDON: Printed by G. BARCLAY, Castle St. Leicester Sq. 6o1116-234 ADVERTISEMENT. The earlier portion of this Work (to page 265), which relates exclusively to China, was written by Miss CORNER. In the present Edition this has been carefully revised, and the remainder of the volume furnished by a gentle- man who has devoted much time to the study of China and the Indo-Chinese nations. H. G. B. YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN, July 1, 1853. INTRODUCTION GEOGRAPHY, CLIMATE, PRODUCTIONS, LANGUAGE, ANCIENT INTERCOURSE WITH EUROPE. N extent, in square miles, and in gross amount of population, China is not only one of the greatest empires in the world, but one of the very greatest that has ever existed, or, rather, that has ever cohered for so great a length of time. With all its dependencies and tributary states, it may be considered as extending from the north of the sea of Japan to the river Sibon in the west-a space of 81 degrees, equal to 4900 British miles. From north to south, it stretches from the Ural mountains, in north latitude 50°, to the southern border, about latitude 21°, being twenty-nine degrees, or nearly 2300 British miles. Of this immense area, China Proper measures about 1200 geographical miles in length, and not much less in average breadth. Beyond the widest limits are other regions, professing dependence on the Celestial empire, or whose populations have the laws and manners, and speak or read the lan- guage, of the Chinese ; with whom, in fact, their own are almost identified. The climate of China presents every variety of tem- perature, from the snows and chilling blasts of Siberia to the scorching heat of the torrid zone, on its southern B ii INTRODUCTION. borders. In other words, nearly every kind of climate may be found within the limits of the empire. “ No country,” says a recent writer, “presents greater diver- sities in its physical, geography, productions, and natural history, than this extensive territory, whether we regard its verdant and cultivated plains, or its sterile and solitary deserts, its mountains and its valleys, its gigantic rivers, its cities teeming with intelligent and civilised inhabitants, or its mountain fastnesses and its forests, the abodes of wild beasts or marauding banditti. Its frontier barrier — the Great Wall --and its principal Canal, are justly re- garded, from their magnitude and antiquity, as among the wonders of the world."* The loftiest mountains are chiefly at the extremities of the empire, but in the interior are found many ridges, ranging in elevation from 3000 to 8000 feet. Without considering the difference and variety of original races (for China, no more than any other great country, was stocked by one sole race), the diversity of climate must of necessity have produced a wide difference in its inha- bitants ; for, to take only the extreme points, the people settled in the bleak regions of the north must have grown up unlike those inhabiting the sultry and enervating south. Even a practised European in China can, at mere sight, make an approximation to the part of the empire to which any Chinese presented to hím may belong. The popu- lation, though less varied, perhaps, than any inhabiting an equal extent of territory in any other part of the globe, presents this diversity as caused by climate, as also that which proceeds from difference of races. Of these are many others blended and intermixed, but the principal elements or races are the Chinese, Mantchu, Mongol, Kalmuck, Corean, and Thibetan. In its general aspect, China presents a series of river basins, or broad valleys of rivers, and of low lands along the sea-coast, divided by ranges of hills, which rise in many places to a very considerable elevation. Yun-nan, * The Rev. W. Ellis, Introduction to Gutzlaff's “ Journal of Three Voyages along the Coast of China.” GEOGRAPHY. iii sea. the south-western province, is exceedingly mountainous, and sends out two branches eastward; one of which sepa- rates the valley or basin of the Si-Kiang river from the coasts of the Gulf of Tonquin; the other separates it from the basin of the Yang-tse-kiang river and its affluents, whose basins are themselves divided by ranges which diverge from each other, and from the coasts of the east The basin of the Yang-tse-kiang is separated from that of the Whang-ho by a continuation of high land, which trends eastward from the Peling mountains on the borders of Tartary, but which, terminating before it reaches the coast, leaves a broad alluvial plain between the mouths of these two great rivers. The remaining portion of the country lying between the Whang-ho and gulf of Pe-che-lee consists of the basin of the Pei-ho and the Eu-ho, having the hills of Shantung province on the south, and a cross range on the west, and communicating with the basin of the Whang-ho by an opening at the angle formed by the two ranges. The appearance of even that portion of the country which has been traversed during these last sixty years by Europeans is exceedingly diversified, Between Canton and Peking, a distance of 1200 miles, the first British embassy observed nearly every variety of surface, but each variety was very remark- ably disposed in large broad masses. For many days they saw nothing but one continuous plain ; for as many days they were hemmed in by precipitous mountains, naked and unvaried; and for ten or twelve days more their course lay through lakes, swamps, and morasses. There was a constant succession of large villages, towns, and cities, with considerable navigable rivers, communicating with each other by means of artificial canals. Both canals and rivers were crowded with boats and barges. They saw no hedge- rows, and trees were scarce. Generally the surface of the country rises in terraces from the sea. As yet, its geo- logy is very imperfectly known. China, however, has been well mapped. “ The scientific skill of the Jesuit mission- aries accomplished a survey of the whole on trigonometrical principles, so admirably correct, as to admit of little improvement; and, with the exception of the British iv INTRODUCTION. possessions in India, there is no part of Asia so well laid down as China.* Since the time of the Jesuits' survey, however, an alteration has taken place in the divisions of the country, as the provinces, which then consisted of fifteen in all, have been increased, by the sub-division of three of the largest, to eighteen. The two principal rivers of China occupy a very high rank. The Yang-tse-kiang and the great Yellow River surpass all the rivers of Europe and Asia, and are secondary only to the Amazons and the Mississippi in America. The Yang-tse-kiang, or the “Son of the Sea,” rises in Kokonor, not far from the sources of the Yellow River. Making a circuitous course, and receiving the tribute of innumerable streams and the superfluous waters of two immense lakes (the Tong-ting-hoo and the Poyang-hoo), it flows past Nanking into the ocean, which it reaches under the thirty- second parallel of latitude. This vast stream runs with such a strong current, that Lord Amherst's embassy found extreme difficulty in sailing up its course towards the Poyang lake. The Yellow River also rises in the country of Kokonor; but while the Yang-tse-kiang turns to the south, the Yellow River strikes off abruptly to the north, passes across the Great Wall, making an elbow round the territory of the tous, then strikes back and again crosses the Great Wall, whence it flows due south, and forms the boundary of Shan-sy and Shen-si; from which boundary it turns sharply to the east, and so flows on until it reaches the ocean in latitude 34º. It is remarkable that the two great rivers of China, which rise at a small distance from each other, after taking such opposite courses, and being separated by full 15° of latitude, should reach the sea within two degrees of the same point. The stream of the Yellow River is so excessively rapid as to be nearly unnavigable throughout the greater part of its * Sir John Francis Davis, “ The Chinese; a general Description of China and its Inhabitants.” This is, on the whole, the best and most complete work that has ever been written by an Englishman about a foreign country and people. GEOGRAPHY. V course. It carries along with it a prodigious quantity of yellow mud in a state of solution, and its frequent floods occasion great damage to the country, and expense to the Government in maintaining artificial embankments. But its waters fill numerous canals, which are furnished with locks, and carry fertility to many districts which would otherwise be dry and sterile. As for the internal commerce of the empire, the Chinese are rendered almost entirely independent of the rivers and of coast navigation by their Imperial Canal, which, in point of extent and magnitude of undertaking, is, like the Great Wall, unrivalled by any other work of the kind in the known world. The flat, sandy, and unproductive province in which Peking is situated offers, according to universal report, little that is worthy of notice. The vast plateau, or ele- vated plain, which surrounds that capital, is entirely de- void of trees, but wood is procured from the nearest bills and mountains of Tartary. The province of Keang-nan, now divided into two, is described as the richest province in all China. It is famous for its silks and japanped goods, made principally at Soo-chow, a very ancient city. Nanking, the capital of the province, and at one time of the whole empire, measures seventeen English miles in circumference; but only a corner of this vast area is now occupied by the habitations of men, the city having suffered greatly in the wars with the Tartars, and in consequence of the removal of the court and capital to Peking. In the district of Hoey-chow-foo, the most southern part of the province, is grown the best green tea ; the soil in which the tea-plants are reared is a decomposition of granite, abounding in felspar, as is proved by the soil being ex- tensively used in the manufacture of fine porcelain. Thus, as Davis observes, the same soil produces the tea and the cups in which it is drunk. The adjoining province of Keang-sy is described as being, in natural scenery and climate, the most delightful part of the empire. Here the Poyang Lake, in size ap- proaching the character of an inland sea, spreads its broad waters, and exhibits on its west side a long frame-work of strikingly beautiful mountain-scenery. 1 vi INTRODUCTION. The maritime province of Che-keang competes with the great province of Keang-nan in the production of silk and the extent of its plantations of young mulberry-trees, which are constantly lopped and renewed, as the most certain way of improving the silk spun by the worms which feed on the leaves. The younger the tree, the more tender the leaves ; and the more tender the leaves, the finer the silk. It is by want of attention to this rule that silk, in several parts of the continent of Europe and in various Asiatic countries, has deteriorated in quality. The principal city of this province is the celebrated Hang-chow, close to the famous lake Sy-hoo. This beautiful lake is about six miles in circumference, its water is quite limpid, and almost over- spread with the beautiful water-lily. It figures continually in Chinese tales, poems, apothegms, similes, and songs, and is held as a place sacred to pleasure and enjoyment. Its extensive sheet of water is described as being covered with barges, which are splendidly fitted up, and appear to be the perpetual abodes of gaiety and dissipation. The province of Fokien, which is contiguous to Che-keang, and like it maritime, is very far from being so fertile. But its inhabitants are the best sailors, and the boldest and most adventurous part of the Chinese population ; they chiefly supply the emperor's war-junks with sailors and com- manders; they build an immense number of the trading junks that are found in the seas of China and Malacca, and they furnish the greater part of the Chinese emigrants to foreign countries. Fokien, moreover, is the great country of the black teas; and our word Bohea is merely a cor- ruption of Bu-ee, the name which the natives give to the hills on which those black teas are principally grown. The inland provinces of the empire, though surveyed by the Jesuits, are less known to Europeans, and are be- lieved to be less suited to the purposes of commerce. One of the largest of them is Hoo-Kuang, which is divided by the vast lake, Tong-ting-hoo. To the south-west of this is the province of Kuang-sy; and to the north of Kuang-sy, a mountainous province, inhabited by a race called Meaou-tse, who have ever defied the Chinese in the midst of their empire, and maintained their independence in their rugged vü GEOGRAPHY. country and mountain fastnesses in spite of every effort made by the Celestial emperors to subdue them. The greatest of Chinese armies have failed in penetrating into the country, and have invariably retreated from that iron boundary with shame and heavy loss. The ridges occupied by these Meaou-tse are said to extend from west to east for the length of nearly 400 miles. The men do not shave off their hair like the Tartars and Chinese, but wear it tied up in the ancient fashion of the Celestials before they were conquered by the Mantchu Tartars. The Chinese, who both hate and fear them, in affected contempt call them “ dog-men,” and “ wolf-men,” and vow that they have tails like apes and baboons. There is hardly any intercourse between the two. The Chinese, without venturing into their mountains, purchase from them the timber-trees of their forests ; and these being thrown into the rapid rivers which intersect the upland country, are floated down into the plains. The Meaou-tse manufacture carpets for their own use, and make linen from a species of wild hemp. They are said to inhabit houses of one story, raised on tall piles, and to stable their domestic animals under their houses. The province of Yun-nan, the most western part of China Proper, borders on the Burmese territory, and extends nearly to Amara-pura, the old capital of that kingdom. It is extremely mountainous, and abounds in metals and other valuable minerals, among which is said to be good coal. The copper is said to be very fine, and nearly equal in quality to the copper worked in the islands of Japan. Gold is found in the sands of the rivers, and the Yang-tse-kiang, in this part of its course, is called the “golden-sanded river.” Towards the north-west of this province, and the borders of the Thibet country, is found the Yak, or cow of Thibet, the tails of which are so famous The people of the province use the tail-hairs in various manufactures, particularly carpets. Though presenting a more Alpine character than any other part of China Proper, Yun-nan yet contains some extensive, broad, and finely-watered plains. The extensive province on the north-east of Yun-nan is traversed by very lofty mountains, called the “ Mountains viii INTRODUCTION. of Snow.” These peaks, which are probably from 10,000 to 12,000 feet high, look over the mysterious, closed country of the Delli Lama. The province of Shen-sy, which also borders on Thibet, is said to abound in mineral wealth — in mines which have neither been worked nor visited by any people of the west for very many ages. Both this country and the adjoining province of Shan-sy, towards Peking, abound in craters and other symptoms of extensive and tremendous volcanic action. Sulphur, tufo, salt-water lakes, hot wells, springs with jets of inflammable gas, pools of petroleum (which the Chinese burn in lamps), are found all through these regions. The countries contiguous to, and dependent on, China, may be briefly dismissed. The region of Mantchu Tartary consists of three provinces,— 1. Mougden, or Shing-King, commences at the eastern extremity of the Great Wall, and is bounded on the south by the gulf of Pe-che-lee. Here, in the country from which they originally came, the emperors are buried. 2. Kirin, the second province of Mantchu Tartary, is to the eastward of Mougden, and borders on Corea. Here the famous wild plant, ginseng, to which the Chinese attribute miraculous properties, is gathered, as an exclusive monopoly of the emperor. They would never believe that this plant could grow in any other part of the world ; but a few years ago some Americans carried the very same to Canton, it having been discovered in their New-England States, in a climate and situation very similar to those of Eastern Tartary. 3. Heloong. keang, or “ the river of the Black Dragon," is inhabited by the Tagours, and borders on the Russian territory. The river which gives its name to the province is, in fact, the Amur. All these regions are excessively cold in winter, and sterile, and thinly peopled. The population seems to be chiefly employed in tending sheep, or rearing horses and other cattle. As they approach the frontiers of the dominions of the Tzar of Russia they become very in- dependent of Chinese rule, yet they acknowledge the laws and follow most of the customs of the “Central Kingdom.” The western or Mongol Tartars, commencing from the ISLANDS. ix western line of the Great Wall, extend as a distinct race to the very borders of the Caspian Sea, where they, too, give the hand to the subjects of Russia. They are thoroughly a nomadic people, wandering with their flocks from one region to another, dwelling in tents, and still making use of the bow and arrow in warfare as in hunting. They appear to be all Buddhists ; the bonzes or priests, who accompany them in their wanderings, are called Shamans. They are governed through the medium of their own princes or khans, but a vast portion of them acknowledge a dependence on China. On the western side of China, bordering principally on the province of Szehuen, are other Tartar tribes, called the Sy-fan, or Too-fan, who occupy inaccessible mountains, and are pretty independent of the Chinese, who, however, count them among their subjects : they are all Buddhists, and said to be completely under the control of their Llama priests, and excessively superstitious. On the southern side of China, bordering on Yun-nan, are the Lolos, a people very similar in aspect, habits, language, and religion, to the Burmese, or people of Ava, from whose territories they are not very distant. The imperial authority over them is but doubtful, although their chiefs receive titles of honour from Peking. On the utmost outskirts of the empire, towards the west, are found a number of small settlements or stations, called “native jurisdictions," where the people are ruled by their own khans, but, apparently, stiſl in the name of the emperor. The principal islands of China are Formosa and Haenan, which are both completely exposed to the power of any con- siderable maritime and commercial nation that may wish to try the experiment of an insular settlement near the coast of China. Formosa, which owes its present name to the Portuguese, who called it Ilha Formosa (the beautiful island), is by far the more desirable region of the two. It lies just opposite the coast of Fokien, from which it is distant about 20 leagues. It is nearly 200 miles long, with an average breadth of about 50 miles: the climate is delightful. The island is divided longitudinally by a chain ANIMALS. xi teas, sugar-canes, rice, pomegranates, black and white mul- berries, the vine, walnut, chestnut, peach, apricot, and fig, are seen growing on the same spot of ground. Camellias, cypresses, and bamboos, of all sorts and sizes, and in im- mense quantities, are also found. The mountains, for the most part, are covered with pines and other forest trees. The list we already possess of Chinese plants is a very copious one, but many new discoveries remain to gra- tify and reward botanical research. The principal object of cultivation is rice; but in the north-western provinces, where there are many districts too cold and dry for this grain, rice is replaced by wheat. Yams, potatoes, turnips, onions, beans, and, above all, a white kind of cabbage, called potsai, are extensively and very carefully cultivated. The Chinese pay more attention to the manuring of the soil of their gardens and orchards than any other people, whether in the east or in the west. The Zoology is very rich and varied; for although China possesses scarcely any animals which are not to be found in some other countries, she has within her wide limits and diversified surface nearly all those which are found collectively in all the other countries of the globe. The elephant, the rhinoceros, the dromedary, abound in various parts. Bears are very common in the hilly country west of Peking, and the paws of these ani- mals, which abound in fat, are eaten by the Chinese as a delicacy. Deer of various kinds, from the majestic elk to the diminutive tippity, wild boars, foxes, and other wild animals, swarm in some of the provinces. The lion, the Bengal tiger, the leopard, the once, the lynx, the hyæna, the jackal, and other savage creatures, are found. According to the Jesuit missionaries, and to their successors in our own days, the tiger abounds to a fearful extent in some parts of the empire; but we are inclined to believe that a good many of the animals they saw in their lonely perambula- tions were not tigers, but leopards. The lion has become degenerate and scarce. The woods of the south swarm with the breed of a wild cat, which, though rather small, is fierce, and altogether untameable. This noxious creature is considered by Chinese epicures as an exquisite kind of xii INTRODUCTION. game, and it is served up in ragoûts and stews at table, after being fed for some time in a cage. They have domesticated the horse, the ox, the buffalo, the dog, the cat, the pig, and all the other animals which have been domesticated in Europe, together with some creatures with which we have failed. They eat, indis- criminately, almost every living creature which comes in their way; dogs, cats, hawks, owls, eagles, and storks, are regular marketable commodities : in default of which, a dish of rats, field-mice, or snakes, is not objected to. Cockroaches, and other insects and reptiles, are used for food or for medicine. Their taste for dogs' flesh is quite a & passion. Young pups — plump, succulent, and ten- der—fetch good prices at the market-stalls, where a supply is always to be found. A dish of puppies, prepared by a skilful cook, is esteemed as a dish fit for the gods. At every grand banquet it makes its appearance as a hash or stew. A young Englishman attached to our Canton fac- tory, dining one day with a wealthy Hong merchant, was determined to satisfy his curiosity in Chinese gastronomy by tasting all, or most of the numerous dishes which were successively handed round. One dish pleased him so well that he ate nearly all that was put before him. On return- ing homewards some of his companions asked him how he liked the dinner, and how such and such dishes; and then began to imitate the whining and barking of half-a-dozen puppies The poor young man then understood, for the first time, that he had been eating dog, and was very angry, and very sick at the stomach. Other Europeans, however, have been known to declare that they succeeded in con- quering a prejudice, and that a six-weeks old pup, properly fattened upon rice, and dressed à la Chinoise, was really a bonne bouche. Some of the native birds are very splendid. The gold and silver pheasants of China are now quite familiar to the eye in England. The still more splendid bird, called the Reeves's pheasant, is still a rarity, even in China. Its tail feathers are of the extraordinary length of six feet, and surpassingly beautiful. It comes from the cold climate of the north, and might be propagated in England in a natural state, but, unfortunately, Mr. Reeves xiii W BIRDS — FISH. could procure only four male birds. Another description is called by the eminent naturalist, Mr. Bennett, the me- dallion pheasant, from a beautiful membrane of resplendent colours, which is displayed or contracted according as the bird is more or less roused. The brilliant hues are chiefly purple, with bright red and green spots, which vary in intensity according to the degree of excitement. It should appear that this rare pheasant might be acclimated in most parts of Europe, and in our own islands. The country abounds in wild fowls of all kinds. The immense flocks of geese and wild ducks, which, during the winter months, quite cover the Canton river, excite the notice of all strangers. In the summer season they migrate to the north. A handsome species of teal, usually called “the mandarin duck," is very common. Uvlike its fellows, it generally roosts in high situations, upon trees or rocks. The fishing cormorant, which the Chinese have perfectly tamed and trained to their will, is well known by drawings, engravings, and descriptions. It is a brown bird, of the pelican family, with yellow bill, white throat, and whitish breast spotted with brown, having a compact rounded tail. While employed in diving and fishing for their masters, these birds are prevented from swallowing what they catch by means of a ring or tight collar passed over the lower part of the neck ; but when their work is over, this ring is removed, and they are allowed to fish for themselves, or to feed upon the refuse. It is said, however, that they are sometimes so perfectly trained and disciplined, as to need no restraint whatever -that they will finish the work for their masters before they think of themselves. On the Canton river, and on nearly every other considerable stream, there is a large aquatic population, dwelling in boats and barges, and seldom setting foot on shore. With two or three good fishing cormorants, a family of this sort can nearly support itself. Quails are very abundant, and the Chinese have trained them to fight, like our game-cocks. The sport is. much cherished by the common people, who will frequently stake all they possess on the result of a quail-fight. A delicate species of ortolan makes its appearance in the xiv INTRODUCTION. neighbourhood of Canton during the rice-harvest. The Chinese call it the “rice-bird.” In other parts of the empire, crocodiles, alligators, and monstrous serpents exist; but the neighbourhood of Canton, though under the tropic, is little infested by these reptiles, or by any venomous creatures. There is, however, a slender snake, between two and three feet long, which is very much dreaded by the natives, and the bite of which is said to cause inevitable death in a few hours. It is co- vered from head to tail with alternate bands of black and white, and is called by the Chinese the black-and-white snake. Fish are in great and almost endless variety. Besides those produced in the seas, gulfs, bays, and estuaries, fresh-water fish (of which great care is taken) swarm in most of the rivers, lakes, canals, and brooks. On the sea- coast and at Canton the sturgeon is held in high estimation. Sir John F. Davis remarks, · The Chinese stew made from this fish is so palatable, as to have been introduced at the tables of Europeans. Some gastronome or other has observed, that every country affords at least one good dish.” Is stewed sturgeon the one good dish of China ? We have heard of others, but think we should prefer it to stewed puppy or a fry of cockroaches. The beautiful gold and silver fishes which ornament our vases and garden ponds came originally from China, where they are very numerous. They are a species of carp, and were carried by the Dutch first to Java, and thence to Holland. But, according to another account, they were first brought to Europe by some of the Jesuit missionaries, to whom we are indebted for many other importations, and for more information about China and the adjacent countries than has been supplied from any other quarter or class of men. Among the insects of China, there are some which call for notice even in a brief and general sketch like the present. A monstrous spider is found inhabiting trees, and attaining to such size and strength as to be able to catch and devour small birds, as our spiders do flies. Locusts sometimes commit extensive ravages, but it is said that their depre- dations do not usually extend over any great track of INSECTS. XV country at once, and that they seldom appear two years successively. Eastward of the city of Canton, on a range of hills called Lo-fow-shan, there are butterflies of large size, and night-moths of immense dimensions and most brilliant colouring, which are captured for transmission to the court at Peking, and for sale at Canton and other cities. Some of these insects measure nine inches across ; their ground colour is a rich and varied orange-brown, in the centre of each wing there is a triangular transparent spot, resembling a piece of mica. Sphinx-moths, also, of great beauty and size, are common around Canton, and in their splendid colouring, rapid, noiseless flight from flower to flower, at the close of day, remind one of the humming-bird. The common cricket is caught and sold in the markets for gambling, and persons of high rank, as well as the vulgar, amuse themselves by irritating two of these insects in a bowl, and betting upon which shall prove the conqueror. A gigantic species of the cicada -- described as being more than four times the size of the cicada of the south of Italy and Greece—is very common among the trees in the neighbourhood of Canton, and in every other part of the country where the climate is warm and the pine-tree abundant. All through the summer its stridu- Tous sound is heard from the trees and woods, with deafening loudness. Even those who have been stunned by the noise of the cicala in the pine-forests of the Italian peninsula, have been astonished and almost stunned by the Chinese insect. These loud sounds proceed solely from the males, the females being perfectly silent. This difference must have been known to the old Greek epigrammatist, who said, “The male cicada leads a happy life, for he makes all the noise himself, and his wife makes none." Chinese boys often capture the males, tie a straw round the abdo- men, so as to irritate the sounding apparatus, and carry them through the streets in this predicament, to the great annoyance of strangers. The fire-fly, or, as it is called here, the “ lantern-fly," is very abundant in many parts of the empire. It is far larger than the fire-fly of Southern Europe, and said to be infinitely more luminous. It has xvi INTRODUCTION. orange-yellow wings, with black extremities. Its appear. ance, when seen flitting through the skirts of a thicket or grove, in the summer evenings, is striking and poetical, and imparts a brilliant aspect to the shades of night. The pe-la-shoo, or wax-tree, affords nourishment to an insect which is smaller than a common English fly, and which is supposed to belong to the coccus tribe, though it would appear not to have been as yet correctly examined or classed by entomologists. It is covered with a white powder, which it imparts to the stem of the particular plant it inhabits, from the bark of which it is collected by the natives. This substance resembles bees'-wax, and is used as such. A casing of it, coloured with vermilion, is often used to enclose the tallow candle. Small as are these insects, the quantity of wax is said to be very consider- able. This wax is used as a medicine, as well as made into candles and tapers. The tree or shrub it inhabits resembles our privet. An insect, examined during our first embassy to China, by the late Sir George Staunton, was completely covered with a white powder, and the stem of the shrub from which it was taken was whitened all over by a similar substance. Wax is also made from wild and domestic bees, but honey is said not to be much in demand. According to an official document published at Peking, which our best Chinese scholars and investigators have accepted as authentic, the population of China and its colonies and dependencies amounted, a quarter of a century ago, to considerably more than 360,000,000. This statement was made after a census, and is contained in the last collection of statutes put forth by the late emperor. The learned Mr. J. R. Morrison observes, “ It will probably serve to set at rest the numerous speculations concerning the real amount of population. We know, from several authorities, that in China the people are in the habit of diminishing, rather than increasing, their numbers in their reports to Government. And it is unreasonable to suppose that in a work published by the Government, not for the information of curious inquirers, but for the use of its own officers, the numbers so reported by the people should be LANGUAGE. xvii more than doubled, as the statements of some European speculators would require us to believe."* Whatever view we take of China, --whether we regard it in its vastness of dimensions and amount of population, the singularity and extensive. use of its written language, the varieties of its literature, its early acquaintance with the arts and most useful inventions of civilised life, the stupendous monuments of its skill and power, its indisputably high and venerable antiquity, or the nations now amalgamated under its rule, it is impossible to contemplate it without intense interest. † The extent to which the written language is understood, renders it one of the most remarkable that has ever been used amongst mankind. Dr. Morrison says, “ The Chi- nese language is now read by a population of different nations, amounting to a large proportion of the human race, and over a most extensive geographical space,--from the borders of Russia on the north, throughout Chinese Tartary on the west, and in the east as far as Kamschatka; and downwards, through Corea and Japan, in the Loo Choo Islands, Cochin-China, and the islands of that archipelago, on most of which are Chinese settlers, till you come down to the equinoctial line at Penang, Malacca, Singapore, and even beyond it on Java. Throughout all these regions, however dialects may differ and oral languages be confounded, the Chinese written language is understood by all. The voyager and the merchant, the traveller and the Chinese missionary, if he can write Chinese, may make him- self understood throughout the whole of Eastern Asia." ; The Chinese, as is well known, is a language to the eye, and understood by all the nations who have received and learned its extraordinary characters, however different their vernacular or spoken languages may be from the spoken * “ Companion to the Anglo-Chinese Kalendar for 1832," printed at Canton. Mr. Morrison, the editor of this publication, is the son of the late Rev. Dr. Morrison, who has done so much to spread a knowledge of the language and customs of the Chinese. Treading in the steps of his honoured father, Mr. Morrison has devoted his energies to the same difficult task. + Rev. W. Ellis, Introductory Essay to Gutzlaff's “Journal of Three Voyages along the Coast of China.” I “Chinese Miscellany,” vol. i. xviii INTRODUCTION. languages of China. Mr. J. Crawfurd, on his embassy to Siam and Cochin China, stopped at an island in the Gulf of Siam, which was inhabited only by a few poor Cochin-Chinese fisher- men and their families. They could not speak a word of Chinese, but they could read Chinese characters; and when Mr. Crawfurd's interpreter wrote down questions in Chinese, one of the head fishermen gave him intelligible replies in writing, in the same character. Not a word, not a syllable, was exchanged orally between the two, and get our envoy obtained the information he wanted about the island. * But if a knowledge of the written language will carry a traveller all through Eastern Asia, a familiarity with the spoken tongue is invaluable in China. It is a passport to the con- fidence of the people, and a full knowledge of the people is not to be obtained without it. A recent American missionary was returning home one evening on a narrow causeway running across the rice-fields, when just a-head he saw a little boy standing by the side of his father. The child began to whimper on seeing the ogre of a barbarian coming, but the parent instantly pacified him by saying, “ Don't cry, he won't hurt you; he can talk Chi- nese." + Although China was, incontestably, a great empire in the flourishing time of the Greek republics, and at the later period when the Macedonian conqueror invaded India, it is now admitted on every hand that the Greeks had no knowledge of it at either of these periods. Alexander seems to have fancied that the remotest East ended with India. “Were modern conqueror to stop on the banks of the Ganges, and sigh that he had no more nations to subdue, what has been admired in the pupil of Aristotle himself would be a mere absurdity in the most ignorant chieftain of our times." I Until some centuries after the death of Alexander the Great, there is not in any Greek writer a single word or phrase that can be twisted or tortured, by any ingenuity, so as to signify China. * “Journal of an Embassy from the Governor-General of India to the courts of Siam and Cochin-China." † S. Wells Williams, “ The Middle Kingdom ; or, a Survey of the Chinese Empire, &c." New York, 1848. Sir J. F. Davis, " The Chinese.” EARLIEST EUROPEAN INTERCOURSE. xix The Romans, even as late as the time of the Emperor Augustus, or on the very eve of the Christian era, seem to have known no more of the Chinese than was known to the Greeks, whom they had succeeded as conquerors, colonists, and ex- plorers. The people mentioned by Horace and other Latin writers under the name of Seres, were not Chinese, but a people inhabiting a part of Asia (no doubt India) far to the westward of China ; and these people furnished the Romans, not with silk, but with fine cotton manufactures — the gauzes and muslin of modern commerce. About 140 years after the birth of Christ, Arrian first speaks of the Sina, or Thinæ, a people in the remotest parts of Asia, by whom were exported the raw and manufactured silks, which were brought by the way of Bactria (Bokhara) westward, to be sold at Rome, and the other great and luxurious cities of that empire. It must, at least, have been known by this date that there was some rich, extensive, and civilised country beyond the most eastern limits of India. The eager demand for silk, which was brought in continually increasing quantities by land caravans through central Asia and Asia Minor to the shores of the Mediterranean or Black Sea, awakened curiosity as to the country of its production, preparation, and manufacture. Some twenty years after the time in which Arrian wrote, the Roman em- peror, Marcus Antoninus, despatched an embassy to the ruler of the land of silks, without knowing with any precision where that country was situated. The mission embarked either on the Red Sea or the Persian Gulf, and appears to have pur- sued the same navigation (across the Indian Ocean, and along the coasts of India, Pegu, Siam, and Malacca,) which was afterwards commonly followed by the mariners and traders of Arabia. The learned De Guignes shows, from Chinese authors, that this expedition took place in A.D. 160. Like nearly every attempt of the kind in subsequent days, the mission of Antoninus appears to have been an entire failure, and to have returned without accomplishing any practical benefit to inter- course or trade between the two greatest empires in the world. It is believed that it was received at Low-Yang, at that time the capital, with ostentatious show and patronising kindness. The embassy is noticed in an old Chinese work, “ History Made Easy,” where it is stated that, in the reign of Wan-ti, of the dynasty of Han, a people came from India and other XX INTRODUCTION. western nations with tribute; and from that time foreign trade was carried on with Canton. This maritime trade, however, appears to have been very scanty, until it was taken up in good earnest by the enterprising Arabs, who before the eighth century had a great factory at Canton, and extensive esta- blishments and a very considerable Arab population in some other of the maritime parts of the empire. It appears to have been chiefly in the ships of these people that a very con- siderable number of Parsees, Jews, and Nestorian Christians, were conveyed to the Coromandel coast, and even to China, where they amounted to very many thousands by the middle of the ninth century. Carpini, St. Quintin, Rubruquis, and the other missionary monks despatched by Pope Innocent IV. and Louis IX. of France, in the middle of the thirteenth century, to the Grand Khan of the Tartars, in order to stop that peeple's destructive irruptions into Western Europe, never reached any region at all near to the frontiers of China. It was not until the return of the celebrated Venetian traveller Marco Polo, or, rather, not until Marco produced the written account of his travels (some- where between the years 1298 and 1308), that a flood of Chinese light was let in upon Europe, and that the “ Middle Kingdom” really ceased to be what it had so long been- more than half-fabulous country. The other links in the chain of the history of the inter- course between the nations of the West and the Chinese will be found briefly related, in chronological order, in the course of the following sketches. а CHINA EARLY HISTORY. 1 HE origin of the Chinese mo- narchy is unknown, but its high antiquity is too well at- tested to admit of the slight- est doubt. Some native his- torians, who have been followed without any examination, or even reflection, by European writers of the sixteenth, seven- teenth, and eighteenth centu- ries, place the foundation of the empire in the third cen- tury after the deluge ; but it is now universally admitted, on the testimony of the most respectable Chinese historians, that this is a point which has been very much exaggerated.* Their earliest traditions, like those of the Japanese, the Siamese, and all the neighbouring nations, are wildly and extravagantly fabulous. All their first sovereigns are described as mighty giants, taller than the loftiest pagodas, as beings endowed with all manner of miraculous powers, and gifted with a longevity, * “ The Chinese," by Sir John Francis Davis. ORIGIN. compared with which the life of Methusaleh was but a span. “National vanity, and a love of the marvellous, have influenced in a similar manner the early history of most other countries, and furnished materials for nursery tales, as soon as'the spirit of sober investigation has supplanted that appetite for wonders which marks the infancy of nations as well as of individuals."* It is supposed that the first migratory tribe that passed beyond the deserts of Central Asia settled in the province of Shen-si, which borders on Tartary, where they laid the found- ation of the present monarchy, and became the progenitors of the people known to Europeans as the Chinese, who gradu- ally spread themselves over that vast tract of country which they at present occupy. According to most of the native historians, the first mortal or non-fabulous emperor was Fohi, a chief chosen by his countrymen to rule over them, on ac- count of his manifold virtues, and styled by his subjects “the Son of Heaven," a title borne by the sovereigns of China to this day. This Fohi is often and absurdly confounded with Fö, or Buddha. He is said to have invented the arts of music, numbers, &c., and to have taught his subjects to live in a peaceful state, under the protection of wholesome laws. He inhabited what is now the northern province of Shen-si, an- ciently the country of Tsin or Chin, whence some derive the word China, by which the empire has been for many ages de- signated in India.f It is quite uncertain how long a space of time elapsed from the reign of Fohi, if such a person ever existed, to that of Yu the Great, who is probably the first real character in Chinese history, the date of whose accession is fixed at somewhat more than two thousand years before the Christian era. Supposing that the monarchy was established before the time of the patriarch Abraham, we may reasonably conclude, that whilst the mighty Pharaohs were ruling over Egypt, the Chinese were in existence as a great nation. Whether they held any intercourse with the ancient Egyptians is uncertain, but there is sufficient evidence to prove that they had attained to as high a degree of civilisation as that people, and greatly resembled them in many of their laws and customs, which have descended from generation to generation, with so * Royal Asiat. Trans. vol. i. “Memoir concerning the Chinese.” + Sir John Francis Davis, “ The Chinese.” ANCIENT ANNALS. 3 few changes, that there is but little difference between the habits and customs of the Chinese of the present day, and those of their forefathers who dwelt on the land two thousand years ago. The ancient records mention nine sovereigns of the first dynasty, founded by Fohi, whom they suppose to have been gifted with superhuman virtues and knowledge, by which they were enabled to rescue the people from their original barbarism, and to instruct them in the arts of civilised life, which were undoubtedly acquired at a very early period, and promoted by the rulers of the country. The earliest and most useful of these arts were husbandry and silk-weaving, both of which must have been taught by necessity as soon as the nation was established, as the people depended for subsistence on the cultivation of the land, and for clothing, on the chief natural produce of the country, adapted for that purpose, which was found in the vast forests of China, where silkworms were abundant on many species of the forest trees. The merit of teaching the people to weave silk into garments, and dye it of various colours, is ascribed to an empress, whose name holds a place in the fabulous history of the empire; and that of instructing them in husbandry, is given to Shin-noong, or “the Divine Hus- bandman,” the immediate successor of Fohi, whose name is held in veneration accordingly: and even to this day the Chinese offer up annual sacrifices, and hold a festival in honour of the princess who first wove silken garments, and the no less praiseworthy monarch who taught his people to plough the earth, and who is commemorated under the title of “the Divine Husbandman." Agricultural pursuits have always been, and still are, held in the highest estimation by the Chinese, who commence the year with a grand festival in honour of the spring; ou which occasion the emperor, in imitation of his ancient predecessor, performs the operations of ploughing and sowing seed in a field set apart for that purpose ; a custom that has seldom been neglected by the sovereigns of China, who have thus, by their own example, stimulated their subjects to the perform- ance of these useful labours, and maintained the honourable character of the husbandman, who even now holds a rank in society above that of the soldier or the merchant, however wealthy the latter may be. Among the ancients, particularly AGRICULTURE. the Egyptians, Persians, and Greeks, it was a common prac- tice to hold games and festivals, mingled with religious cere- monies, at that season when the earth is ready to receive the seed; thus showing the cheerfulness with which the farmers returned to their rustic toils, and the reliance they placed on a superior Being to reward them with an abun- dant harvest. The old festival of Plough ‘Monday, in Eng- land, was probably derived from these customs of the ancients, and was formerly celebrated in all the rural districts with great merry-makings on the Monday following twelfth-day ; some of the rites observed being not unlike those among the Chinese : as an instance of which, the plough-light was set up before the image of some patron saint in the village church a custom somewhat similar to that observed among the Chinese, who placed lighted candles opposite certain images in their temples. But as a particular description of the spring festi- val is reserved for a future page, we will return to the sub- ject of the ancient Chinese emperors. One is said to have been the inventor of writing, another of musical instruments, a third the discoverer of the art of working in metals, while a fourth has the credit of having taught his subjects to build bridges. But how these royal instructors acquired their know- ledge of the arts and sciences they taught, history does not inform us; and it is rather amusing to read, that one of the early emperors ordered his empress to teach the people to weave silk, although no mention is made that the lady was herself previously acquainted with the art of weaving. Shin-noong, or the “ Divine Husbandman,” was the father of other inventions. His successor, Hoang-ty, divided all the lands into groups of nine equal squares, of which the middle one was to be cultivated in common for the benefit of the state. He is said, likewise, to have invented the mode of noting the cycle of sixty years, the foundation of the very curious Chinese system of chronology. Other em- perors of this semi-fabulous period are celebrated for their skill in astronomy and chronological computations. Among the wonderful inventions which there is every reason to believe originated in China, is that of the mariner's compass, which, according to an old tradition, was invented by the same Hoang-ty, to guide him through the forests when hunting. This story may be, and most probably is, an utter LINE OF FOHI. 5 fiction ; but it forms a reasonable ground for supposing that the powers of the magnet were originally discovered by the Chinese, ages before the Christian era. It appears, however, from modern research, that although the attractive power of the loadstone has been known to the Chinese from remote antiquity, its property of communicating polarity to iron is for the first time explicitly noticed in a Chinese dictionary, which was finished in the first quarter of the second century of the Christian era. The Arabs borrowed the invaluable invention from the Chinese, with whom they then traded, and we Europeans borrowed it from the Arabs during the early Crusades ; for it is now universally admitted that Gioia of Amalfi was only the introducer, and not the inventor of the magnetic needle. The last two emperors of the line of Fohi are celebrated under the names of Yaou and Shun, as the wisest and best of princes, and have always been held up as bright examples to all Chinese sovereigns. They are reckoned among the sages of China, and to them are attributed most of the political institutions by which the country is even now governed. About this time it is mentioned that the lands were flooded. It was then that Yaou the Great, one of the ministers of Shun, distinguished himself by draining the lands, which by his mcans were again rendered fit for cultivation ; and for this eminent service, added to his wisdom and numerous good qualities, he was appointed by the emperor to succeed him on the throne, according to the laws of China, by which the reigning sovereign chose his successor. Yaou, to promote Shun, set aside his own son. Even at the present day, the choice of the emperor regulates the succession to the throne, and it is seldom that the eldest son succeeds in preference to the rest. By this time the empire was extended over all the northern pro- vinces, as far as the Yang-tse-kiang river, not by conquest, but by the establishment of new colonies as the population increased. The monarchs, from time to time, bestowed the government of these new settlements on their relatives, so that there arose, by degrees, a number of petty kingdoms, each having its own sovereign, who was dependent on the emperor. Of the southern part of the country very little was then known, but it is supposed it had but few inhabitants, and that these were in a state of barbarism. 6 EARLY CIVILISATION. Time rolled on without producing any material change, so that after a lapse of many ages the only difference appears to have been, that the country had become more populous and the people more civilised than in earlier times. The emperors, who succeeded each other without interruption, employed sages to record the principal events that occurred during their several reigns; but in these early annals so much fable is blended with the truth, that they cannot be relied on, and it is supposed that the earliest authentic history relating to the Chinese empire is contained in the works of Confucius, who was born in China about 550 years before the Christian era, and who was one of the most illustrious characters that ever appeared in that country. The greatest of our modern authorities, Sir John F. Davis, says decidedly, “The Chinese have no existing records older than the compilations of Con- fucius, who was nearly contemporary with Herodotus, the father of Grecian history, and to whom Pope has given a very lofty niche in his Temple of Fame :'- •Superior and alone Confucius stood, Who taught that useful science-- to be good.'” The monarchy had probably then made great progress in civilisation. The people lived under a regular form of go- vernment, were skilled in agriculture, and were acquainted with many useful and elegant arts. The government was despotic, and the northern part of the country was still divided into the several small principalities which had been granted by the emperors at different times to their sons and brothers, who constituted the only hereditary nobility of the state, and were all tributary to the chief sovereign. Each of these petty states contained a city, where the prince resided, and all around it were numerous villages and detached dwellings,- inhabited by the peasantry, who held small farms, which they cultivated for their own advantage, growing rice and vegetables in abundance, so that every poor man could support his family by his own industry. They were not held in bondage by the great, like the peasantry of Europe during the feudal ages; and amongst other privileges which they enjoyed were these :- A ninth part of the land was in common amongst them for pasturage and farming, and all the poor were at liberty to fish in the ponds and lakes a right that was denied to the lower COINS. 7 orders in feudal countries, where the mass of the people were vassals and slaves. The peasants of China, therefore, appear to have been at that period in a better condition than those of any other part of the world, working for themselves, and paying taxes to their respective princes, who by that means raised the tribute which the emperor claimed of them. At the time of Confucius all taxes and tribute were paid as they are at present, chiefly in kind; but it is supposed there was always some sort of coined money current among the Chinese ; and that at a very early period of the monarchy they had coins of gold and silver, as well as of lead, iron, and copper : but many ages have elapsed since any other than SER O Copper Coin. copper money has been in use among them. A very usual medium of exchange was silver beaten out into thin sheets, or cast in small bars, the buyer cutting off so much as was required to pay for his purchase, which was weighed by the merchant, who was always provided with a small pair of scales for that purpose. Their reckonings were, and still are, made by means of a machine (the Chinese abacus), which is still in use for buying and selling, and answers all the purposes of numerical figures. It consists of a number of little balls of various colours, strung upon wires fixed in a box and divided into compartments; the balls in one division being units, in another fives; and with these they add up and multiply with as much facility as we do by the aid of figures. This is the Chinese system of arithmetic, and has been so long practised that its invention is attributed to the emperor who succeeded the Divine Husbandman," and the same who is said to have found his way through the 66 ARITHMETIC. forests by means of the compass. Their arithmetic, as well as their weights and measures, proceed universally on the de- cimal scale; and decimal frac- tions are their vulgar fractions, or those in common use. It is remarkable that the single ex- 10000 ception to this consists in their kin, or marketing pound-weight, which, like ours, is divided into sixteen ounces or parts. The Chinese had and have no alge- braic knowledge. In the science of numbers, and in geometry, they never had anything to teach F00000 us. On the contrary, within the 00000 last two hundred years they have borrowed largely from the 00000 Europeans.* 00000 There were public markets in the towns, to which the people 00000 generally resorted about noon; and there were shops also, where 00000 the artizans pursued their vari. 00000 ous callings, and sold, or ex- +00006 changed with the farmers, the produce of their labours for rice and other commodities of which they stood in need. Beyond the cultivated lands were pastures for sheep; and the rest of the country generally consisted of extensive forests, inhabited by tigers and other beasts of prey, which were so destructive, especially among the flocks, that great hunting-parties were made every spring for the purpose of destroying them; and this dangerous sport seems to have been the favourite amusement of the sovereigns and great men of the land. For a long series of years, trade, even with foreign nations, appears to have been remarkably free. The markets of China * Sir John F. Davis. ARCHERY. 9 were the resorts of foreign merchants before the Romans in- vaded Britain, and her ports were annually visited by great squadrons of commercial vessels from the Red Sea, the Per- sian Gulf, Ceylon, the Malabar Coast, and the coast of Coro- mandel. The principal weapons used both in war and hunting were bows and arrows, consequently the practice of archery was a constant and favourite sport of the great, and there were particular rules by which it was conducted; as, for example, the imperial target was the skin of a bear, while that of a stag was set up as a mark for a prince to aim at, and of a tiger for the grandees of the court. Yet the Chinese were never distinguished as a martial nation, holding literature, as they did husbandry, in far higher estimation than military achievements : regarding the man who distinguished himself by his literary attainments beyond him who gained renown by his warlike exploits; and the husbandman who laboured in the field as a better member of society than the soldier who fought in it. Yet the petty princes were frequently at war with each other, so that the whole of the empire was seldom quite at peace. The education of youth was considered of so much impor- tance, that every district was obliged by law to maintain a public school, where boys were sent at eight years of age to be instructed in reading, writing, arithmetic, and their several duties to parents, teachers, elders, and magistrates, as well as to their equals and inferiors. They were also taught to com- mit to memory a great number of wise maxims and moral sentences contained in the writings of the ancient sages; and many of their lessons were in verse, that they might be the more readily learned and remembered. A new school was always opened with much ceremony, in the presence of the chief magistrate, who delivered a discourse to the boys, exhort- ing them to be diligent and submissive to the master, and setting forth the advantages of learning, which has been, in every age, the only road to wealth and honours in China. At fifteen, those who had most distinguished themselves were sent to higher schools, where public lectures were given by learned professors on the laws and government of the empire, and such subjects as were best calculated to fit them for offices of state, to which those who attended these schools usually as- 10 EDUCATION. pired, but which were never bestowed on any but such as had studied profoundly, and given proofs of their knowledge. Subordination, passive submission to the law, to parents, and to all superiors, and a peaceful demeanour, were strictly in- culcated. This instruction has continued unchanged. “The Chinese," says a modern writer, “ teach contempt of the rude, instead of fighting with them; and the man who unreasonably insults another has public opinion against him; whilst he who bears and despises the affront is esteemed . . . . . A Chinese would stand and reason with a man, when an Eng- lishman would knock him down, or an Italian stab him. It is needless to say which is the more rational mode of pro- ceeding.” But, on the other hand, it cannot be doubted that this training and these habits have deprived the Chinese of valour and military virtue. HATUALITAT Ne UNITETIT பாபாாாாாாாாாாாாாாாாயாாாாாமாயார் சாராபாரITTHIINாாாாாா TUTTI OTTITITUTITUTMATTINONIM Among the arts that are held in high estimation among the Chinese is that of writing, which was known at so distant a SILK-WEAVING. 11 period of their history that it must have been one of their earliest steps in civilisation. This art, as practised in China, may perhaps be rather difficult of attainment, on account of the number and not very simple formation of the characters; yet it was rare to meet even with a poor peasant who could not read and write, for rich and poor were all educated alike, in the manner just described, which is mentioned as “ the ancient system in books that were written more than two thousand years ago. The general occupation of the females of China, from the empress to the wife of the meanest peasant, was the spinning and weaving of silk; which material, from the earliest times known, was used for clothing by the poor as well as by the rich, for the same reason that wool was used by the ancient English–because it was the material of which they had the greatest abundance. It is therefore no proof of superior wealth or grandeur that the peasantry of China wore silk garments, but merely a simple evidence of the fact that silk was the staple commodity of their country, as wool was of ours. “ When the King of France,” says Barrow, “ introduced the luxury of silk stockings, the peasantry of the middle provinces of China were clothed in silks from head to foot; and when the nobility of England were sleeping on straw, a peasant of China had his mat and his pillow, and the man in office enjoyed his silken mattress.” The empresses of those days were as zealous in promoting the branches of industry adapted for females by their own example, as were the emperors in encouraging agriculture by similar means. A plantation of mulberry-trees was formed within the gardens of the palace, and a house built purposely for rearing the worms, which were tended by the ladies of the court, and often fed by the fair hands of royalty. Every au- tumn a festival was held to commemorate the invention of silk-weaving, when the empress, attended by the princesses and ladies of her train, made sacrifices in the temple of the earth, and then proceeded to her mulberry-grove, where she gathered leaves and wound the cocoons of silk, which were afterwards spun and woven by her own hands into small webs. These were carefully preserved for the grand spring festival, when they were burned in sacrifice. Great attention was bestowed on the management of silk- 12 VARIOUS DRESSES. worms throughout the whole of the empire ; and as it had been discovered that those which were fed on mulberry leaves produced a finer kind of silk than the wild worms of the forest, a law was made by one of the early emperors that every man possessing an estate of not less than five acres should plant the boundary with mulberry-trees. The difference between the garments of the higher and lower orders consisted in the quality and colours of the silks of which they were composed, and the fashion in which they were made. The robes of the grandees were often richly embroidered with gold and silver, and ornamented with various devices, according to their rank and occupation. As instances of these distinctive marks, the dress of a literary man was ornamented by a bird worked on a square of black silk on the back ; while that of a military chief was adorned with the figure of a tiger, or some other savage animal; and these are among the innumerable customs that have been continued from that time to the present. The wars among the princes, and the efforts of some of them to render themselves independent of the emperor, led to a vast deal of disorderly conduct in the several states, each petty sovereign being more intent upon his own aggrandise- ment than on keeping good order among his people, who, finding that the affairs of government were neglected, and the laws seldom enforced, paid very little attention to them. Such was the state of the Chinese empire when the cele- brated philosopher, Confucius, was born in the kingdom of Loo, one of the small sovereignties in the north of China. This event occurred when the ancient Greek republics were in all their glory, and Rome was just beginning to rise into power and greatness. The Greeks and Romans, however, knew little or nothing of China, nor did the Chinese imagine there was any truly great empire in the world besides their own : an opinion they have maintained even until our own days. REFORMS. 13 CONFUCIUS. seems KUNG FUTSE, or, as the Catholic missionaries have Latinised it, Confucius, was born between five and six hundred years before our Saviour appeared on earth, being contemporary with Solon, the lawgiver of Athens. He was the only son of a lady of illustrious family, if not of royal rank. His father, who had several other sons by another wife, held a high government employment, but dying some three years after his birth, to have left the future philosopher very indifferently provided for. According to the Jesuit Du Halde, he was born in the province of Canton, where he grew up, and where, in his nine- teenth year, he married. Mr. Gutzlaff, the Protestant mis- sionary, condemns him for having divorced his wife after she had borne him a son; but the Catholic missionary excuses this part of his conduct by saying, it was “ in order that he might attend to his studies with greater application.” As it is particularly mentioned by Chinese writers that he had only one wife, it has been inferred that in his time the laws of China permitted the practice of polygamy. This fact may also be assumed from the degraded condition in which females were held, and from the very little respect paid to them by the philosopher himself. The Chinese tell marvellous stories of his love of study when a child, and of his early proficiency. They also record a little fact which may interest our phre- nologists, viz. that Confucius' head was remarkable for the elevation of its crown. His object in acquiring knowledge was to turn it to the purposes of moral reform and good government. When he thought himself sufficiently qualified to instruct the age in which he lived, he quitted his solitude for populous cities and the courts of princes and rulers. China was not then united and governed by one emperor, as now. When Confucius began his mission, it should seem that there were a good many more independent kings in China than existed in Eng- D 14 CONFUCIUS. land in the time of the Saxon heptarchy. From the vast extent of the country, however, each of these divisions was in all probability larger than all England put together. The Chinese were not then more pacific than the rest of mankind. King warred against king, and every part of the Celestial empire was in its turn deluged with blood. Not long before the birth of the philosophical reformer, the horrors of internal war had been increased by some of the belligerents calling in the foreign aid of the Tartars, but at the period when he commenced his travels a powerful international confederacy had been formed, and China was comparatively tranquil. 00 . VAA 6 Go SORDADOS DESDE 100 Spin T.C. He made a progress through the different states, giving public lectures on the benefit of virtue and social order; which produced such good effects, that in a short time he was at the head of about three thousand disciples, who were converts to his doctrines, and practised the rules he laid down for their conduct. His fame increased with his years. He HIS WISDOM AND JUSTICE. 15 now visited the different princes, and endeavoured to prevail upon them to establish a wise and peaceful administration in their respective territories. His wisdom and birth recom- mended him to the patronage of the kings; he was anxious to apply his theory to practical government, but he had to learn by sad experience that his designs must frequently be thwarted. After many changes and disappointments, he be- came prime minister in his native country Loo, when fifty-five- years of age. By his influence and his prudent measures the state of the kingdom underwent a thorough change within the space of three years. It is said, that while he continued in power justice was so well administered, that if gold or jewels were dropped on the highway they would remain untouched until the rightful owner appeared to claim them. But a similar story is told of Alfred the Great, Robert duke of Normandy, and others, and it may be considered as only a figurative mode of depicting the extreme good order that was preserved in the state. The prosperity created by the philo- sophic prime minister excited the jealousy of the neighbouring king of Tse, who resolved to take measures that might prevent Loo from becoming too powerful. After proper deliberation, instead of a corps d'armée, he despatched a corps de ballet, sending a number of dancing-girls to the court of his rival. The old king of Loo was presently captivated by those seductive posture-makers, who caused him to neglect the business of government and the counsels of Confucius. The philosopher pitted himself against the dancing-girls, and was beaten. He then offered as an alternative that the king should either dismiss him and retain them, or retain him and dismiss them. The king preferred the girls, and the philosopher and states- man went to seek employment elsewhere. He was repulsed at three different courts to which he applied for office, in order that he might render the people happy; and after many other wanderings and disappoint- ments, he went into the kingdom of Chin, where he lived in great misery. From Chin he went again to Loo, and vainly solicited to be re-employed in the government of that state. Meanwhile war had again broken out among the rival king doms. Not being able to rule, or to make people virtuous, * The Rev. Charles Gutzlaff, “ Sketch of Chinese History, &c.” 16 WORKS OF CONFUCIUS. peaceful, and happy, Confucius devoted himself entirely to philosophy, and the composition of those works which have rendered his name immortal, and the precepts of which, like those of the Koran of Mohammed, even to this day, regulate both the government and the religion of the state. The latter may be more properly termed a system of morality than a religion, as it is intended to inculcate the duties of men towards each other, rather than those which they owe to a superior being. The Confucians believe in one supreme Deity, and adore the earth as the mother of all things; but they have no particular form of worship, nor any regular priesthood ; their religious rites consisting solely of sacrifices made in the temples on stated occasions, when the emperor officiates as high priest, and the chief mandarins of the court as his subordinates. The books of Confucius, which are studied by the Chinese as sacred volumes, teach them that the true principles of virtue and social order are, obedience to parents, elders, and rulers; and the acting towards others as they would wish that others should act towards them. In the works of this great moralist, the duties of the sovereign are as strictly laid down as those of his subjects; and while they are enjoined to obey him as a father, he is exhorted to take care of them as though they were his children. There was nothing new in this patriarchal system of government, which had existed from the very beginning of the monarchy; but it was brought into a more perfect form, and the mutual obligations of princes and people were more clearly defined, than they had ever been before. But it was not only on the government of the empire col- lectively that this celebrated teacher bestowed his attention ; he also made laws for private families, founded on the same principle of obedience from the younger to the elder, and submission from the inferior to the superior. Indeed, all classes of persons, including even young children, were in- structed in the duties of their several stations. Through his rigid principles, and firm, uncompromising practice of them, the philosopher gained many enemies. His life was more than once in danger, but he looked at death with a calma, philosophic eye. Mr. Gutzlaff has thus described the last scene of his life :-“When he was sick, he did not wish that any should pray for him, because he had himself prayed. Whilst approaching his end, he deeply deplored the wretched HIS DEATH. 17 99 state of his country. His great regret was that his maxims were rejected. He exclaimed, 'I am no longer useful on earth; it is necessary that I should leave it.' Having said this, he died, in his seventy-third year. His sepulchre was erected on the banks of the Soo river, where some of his disciples, repairing to the spot, deplored the loss of their master.' The envy and hatred of his contemporaries soon passed away, and his disciples succeeded in erecting Confucius and his philosophy as the great objects of national veneration. When the empire was amalgamated and peace restored, his works, which had largely contributed to that happy issue, were looked upon as of paramount authority, and to muti- late, or in any way to alter their sense, was held a crime deserving of condign punishment. Unfortunately, however, the obscurity of the language rendered alterations and mis- takes of the sense numerous and inevitable. Though he had been left to conclude his life in poverty and neglect, the greatest honours and privileges were heaped upon his descend- ants, who still exist, and may be called the only hereditary nobility of China. In all the revolutions that have happened their privileges have been respected : every male of them is by birth a mandarin, and they are all exempted from the pay- ment of taxes. The writings of Confucius are chiefly on the subject of moral philosophy; but there are among them two books which may be considered historical, the one relating to his own, and the other to more ancient times. From the former is gathered all that is known of the state of the country at that period ; but the latter is regarded more as traditionary than as his- torical, as it is supposed to be merely a collection and ar- rangement of the records kept at the courts of the early mo- narchs by their historians. This work is entitled the Shoo King, and there is another called the Shi King, containing all the ancient poems and songs of the country, which, it is recorded, used to be sung or recited before the emperors. It may, therefore, be imagined that there were bards among the Chinese in those olden times, who celebrated in verse the great and good actions of their heroes and sages. These traditional poems were collected and revised by Confucius, who formed them into a volume, which is still one of the standard works of the Chinese, and must be studied by all who aspire 18 LAWS OF CONFUCIUS. to preferment, as it forms the subject of a part of their exami- nation, ere they can be admitted as candidates for any high office. The same great man formed into a code of laws all the ancient observances, both in public and private life, being of opinion that the preservation of order in a state depended much upon the outward forms of society in general. This code, which is called the “ Book of Rites,” entirely regulates and governs the manners and customs of the whole com- munity, from the emperor to the most obscure of his sub- jects; and as it has maintained its influence from that time to the present, we may readily account for the little change which has taken place in the habits of the people. The study of this book constitutes an important branch of the educa- tion of every Chinese. Confucius spent the whole of his long life in the practice and teaching of virtue. Two thousand and nearly four hundred years have elapsed since his death, yet his name continues to be held in as much veneration as ever throughout the Chinese empire; and although he did not pre- tend to divine inspiration like Mohammed, or profess to be endowed with more than human attributes, he is worshipped as a superior being, and many temples are dedicated to him in all the provinces of China. In the time of Confucius an- other sect was founded in China, by a sage named Laou Keun, whose disciples assumed the title of Taou-tse, or “ Doctors of Reason;" but their claim to this distinctive appellation appears doubtful, their principal studies being al- chemy and the art of magic. From them emanated the ab- surd notion, which in former times was very prevalent in Europe, that a liquid might be prepared, the use of which would prolong human existence beyond its natural term; and also that an art might be discovered of turning inferior metals into gold : the former termed the elixir of life, the latter the philosopher's stone. The Taou-tse mingled religious rites with their pretended skill in magic, and were, in fact, the priests of their sect. They long possessed great influence in China, and were patronised by many of the emperors. The Thibetan, the Buddhist, and other idolatries, have divided influence with the system of Confucius, but have never overthrown its empire. The superstitious and the vulgar (and they are, as they ever have been, of all classes, from the em- peror on the throne to the poor mariner on board the junk) HIS SYSTEM. 19 burn gilt paper and offer sacrifices to wooden idols, practise incantations, and offer up prayers to the invisible Mother of Heaven; but at the same time they revere the name of Confucius, and the more enlightened of the nation pretend to be wholly guided by his merely philosophical dictates. The mass of his laws and instructions is still followed to the letter by Chinese, Corean, Cochin-Chinese, and other people, who, taken collectively, will probably exceed 400,000,000 souls ! It was the great object of the Chinese philosopher strictly to regulate the manners of the people. He thought outward decorum the true emblem of excellence of heart; he therefore digested all the various ceremonies into one general code of rites, which was called Le-ke. In this work every ritual in all the relations of human life is strictly regulated, so that a true Chinese is a perfect automaton, put in motion by the regulations of the Le-ke. Some of the rites are most excellent; but his substituting mere ceremony for simplicity and true politeness has proved most mischievous. If Christianity had nothing else in its favour than the elevation of the female condition and character, it ought to be revered as the purest and best of faiths. Confucius scarcely ranked women higher than did Mohammed, and other Eastern lawgivers that preceded or followed him. The worthy Pro- testant missionary, Gutzlaff, remarks, -“We regret to say that he treats women, and the duties of husbands towards their wives, very slightly. By not giving a proper rank in society to females, by denying to them the privileges which are their due, as sisters, mothers, wives, and daughters, the more sensitive and devoted part of our kind, he has marred the har- mony of social life, and put a barrier against the improvement of society. The regeneration of China will, in fact, never take place, unless the females be raised from the degraded state which Confucius assigned to them.” There was, perhaps, something in the system of Con- fucius calculated to carry the Chinese to a certain pitch of learning and civilisation, but not an inch beyond or above it. After the fall of the Roman empire, and when all Europe was involved in the darkness of the middle ages, China might be considered as the greatest and most civilised kingdom upon earth. But, one by one, all the countries in the West awoke to a second dawn, and have continued pretty uniformly to 20 TARTAR WARS. improve ever since, whilst China has remained just where she was, or, if she have made any movement, it has been retrograde. There is not at this moment a single European kingdom but has gone far beyond the point at which the Chinese stopped as the bourn of perfection. The peculiarity and enormous difficulty of their written language, which almost requires a life's study to be perfectly mastered—the geographi- cal situation of their country—the fact that, for many centuries, their neighbours, and the only people they had frequent inter- course with, were rude barbarians, that could suggest no im- provement and no comparison except such as was most flatter- ing to the Chinese, and calculated to make them remain perfectly satisfied with the state of excellence in civil polity, arts, and literature, at which they had arrived ; — all these, and other causes, doubtless worked with the Confucian sys- tem in producing their bigoted attachment to things as they were, and in rendering the Chinese the greatest and most self-complacent statu-quo-ites in the world. THE CHIN DYNASTY. THE BUILDING OF THE GREAT WALL. For three hundred years after the death of Confucius, the internal peace of China was incessantly disturbed by the wars and quarrels of the petty kings, whom the emperors were unable to keep in subjection, and who constantly refused to pay their tribute. At length there came to the throne a prince named Chi-hoang-ti, a great warrior, who resolved to put an end to these troubles by uniting all the small kingdoms into one monarchy. There was no difficulty in finding pretexts for invading the several states of the tributary kings, as scarcely a year passed but one or other of them rebelled against his authority. By degrees, however, he conquered them all, and after some years became master of the whole empire, about two hundred years before the Christian era; and was the first monarch of the dynasty called Tsin, or Chin. The chief government now began to assume the aspect of an empire, which comprehended all that half of modern China THE GREAT WALL. 21 which lies to the north of the great Keang river. When Chi-hoang-ti had subdued all the petty princes, he turned his T.01.1