knowledge, a shallow acquaintance with things; they are unable to
  read a word.” On hearing this, the Emperor turned to the examiner
  Yang and ordered him to read the letter, but his eyes wandered over
  the characters as if he had been blind, and he knew nothing of them.
  In vain did his Majesty address himself to the civil and military
  officers who filled the court; not one among them could say whether
  the letter contained words of good or evil import. Highly incensed,
  he broke out in reproaches against the grandees of his palace:
  “What! among so many magistrates, so many scholars and warriors,
  cannot there be found a single one who knows enough to relieve us
  of the vexation of this affair? If this letter cannot be read, how
  can it be answered? If the ambassadors are dismissed in this style,
  we shall be the ridicule of the barbarians, and foreign kings will
  mock the court of Nanking, and doubtless follow it up by seizing
  their lance and buckler and join to invade our frontiers. What then?
  If in three days no one is able to decipher this letter, every one
  of your appointments shall be suspended; if in six days you do not
  tell me what it means, your offices shall every one be taken away;
  and death shall execute justice on such ignorant men if I wait nine
  days in vain for its explanation, and others of our subjects shall be
  elevated to power whose virtue and talents will render some service
  to their country.”

  Terrified by these words, the grandees kept a mournful silence, and
  no one ventured a single reply, which only irritated the monarch the
  more. On his return home, Ho related to his friend Lí everything that
  had transpired at court, who, hearing him with a mournful smile,
  replied, “How to be regretted, how unlucky it is that I could not
  obtain a degree at the examination last year, which would have given
  me a magistracy; for now, alas! it is impossible for me to relieve
  his Majesty of the chagrin which troubles him.” “But truly,” said Ho,
  suddenly, “I think you are versed in more than one science, and will
  be able to read this unlucky letter. I shall go to his Majesty and
  propose you on my own responsibility.” The next day he went to the
  palace, and passing through the crowd of courtiers, approached the
  throne, saying, “Your subject presumes to announce to your Majesty
  that there is a scholar of great merit called Lí, at his house, who
  is profoundly acquainted with more than one science; command him to
  read this letter, for there is nothing of which he is not capable.”

  This advice pleased the Emperor, who presently sent a messenger to
  the house of the academician, ordering him to present himself at
  court. But Lí offered some objections: “I am a man still without
  degree or title; I have neither talents nor information, while the
  court abounds in civil and military officers, all equally famous
  for their profound learning. How then can you have recourse to
  such a contemptible and useless man as I? If I presume to accept
  this behest, I fear that I shall deeply offend the nobles of the
  palace”--referring especially to the premier Yang and the general
  Kao. When his reply was announced to the Emperor, he demanded of
  Ho why his guest did not come when ordered. Ho replied, “I can
  assure your Majesty that Lí is a man of parts beyond all those of
  the age, one whose compositions astonish all who read them. At the
  trial of last year, his essay was marked out and thrown aside by
  the examiners, and he himself shamefully put out of the hall. Your
  Majesty now calling him to court, and he having neither title nor
  rank, his self-love is touched; but if your Majesty would hear your
  minister’s prayer, and shed your favors upon his friend, and send a
  high officer to him, I am sure he will hasten to obey the imperial
  will.” “Let it be so,” rejoined the Emperor; “at the instance of our
  academician, we confer on Lí Peh the title of doctor of the first
  rank, with the purple robe, yellow girdle, and silken bonnet; and
  herewith also issue an order for him to present himself at court.
  Our academician Ho will charge himself with carrying this order, and
  bring Lí Peh to our presence without fail.”

  Ho returned home to Lí, and begged him to go to court to read the
  letter, adding how his Majesty depended on his help to relieve him
  from his present embarrassment. As soon as he had put on his new
  robes, which were those of a high examiner, he made his obeisance
  toward the palace, and hastened to mount his horse and enter it,
  following after the academician. Seated on his throne, Hwantsung
  impatiently awaited the arrival of the poet, who, prostrating himself
  before its steps, went through the ceremony of salutation and
  acknowledgment for the favors he had received, and then stood in his
  place. The Emperor, as soon as he saw Lí, rejoiced as poor men do on
  finding a treasure, or starvelings on sitting at a loaded table; his
  heart was like dark clouds suddenly illuminated, or parched and arid
  soil on the approach of rain. “Some foreign ambassadors have brought
  us a letter which no one can read, and we have sent for you, doctor,
  to relieve our anxiety.” “Your minister’s knowledge is very limited,”
  politely replied Lí, with a bow, “for his essay was rejected by the
  judges at the examination, and lord Kao turned him out of doors. Now
  that he is called upon to read this letter from a foreign prince,
  how is it that the examiners are not charged with the answer, since,
  too, the ambassadors have already been kept so long waiting? Since
  I, a student turned off from the trial, could not satisfy the wishes
  of the examiners, how can I hope to meet the expectation of your
  Majesty?” “We know what you are good for,” said the Emperor; “a truce
  to your excuses,” putting the letter into his hands. Running his eyes
  over it, he disdainfully smiled, and standing before the throne, read
  off in Chinese the mysterious letter, as follows:

    “Letter from the mighty Ko To of the kingdom of Po Hai to the
    prince of the dynasty of Tang: Since your usurpation of Corea,
    and carrying your conquests to the frontiers of our States,
    your soldiers have violated our territory in frequent raids.
    We trust you can fully explain to us this matter, and as we
    cannot patiently bear such a state of things, we have sent
    our ambassadors to announce to you that you must give up the
    hundred and sixty-six towns of Corea into our hands. We have
    some precious things to offer you in compensation, namely, the
    medicinal plants from the mountains of Tai Peh, and the byssus
    from the southern sea, gongs of Tsíching, stags from Fuyu, and
    horses from Sopin, silk of Wuchau, black fish from the river
    Meito, prunes from Kiutu, and building materials from Loyu;
    some of all these articles shall be sent you. If you do not
    accept these propositions, we shall raise troops and carry war
    and destruction into your borders, and then see on whose side
    victory will remain.”

  After its perusal, to which they had given an attentive ear, the
  grandees were stupefied and looked at each other, knowing how
  improbable it was that the Emperor would accept the propositions
  of Ko To. Nor was the mind of his Majesty by any means satisfied,
  and after remaining silent for some time, he turned himself to
  the civil and military officers about him, and asked what means
  were available to repulse the attacks of the barbarians in case
  their forces invaded Corea. Scholars and generals remained mute
  as idols of clay or statues of wood; no one said a word, until
  Ho ventured to observe, “Your venerable grandfather Taitsung,
  in three expeditions against Corea, lost an untold number of
  soldiers, without succeeding in his enterprise, and impoverished
  his treasury. Thanks to Heaven Kai-su-wăn died, and profiting by
  the dissensions between the usurper’s sons, the glorious Emperor
  Taitsung confided the direction of a million of veterans to the old
  generals Lí Sié and Pí Jin-kwei, who, after a hundred engagements,
  more or less important, finally conquered the kingdom. But now
  having been at peace for a long time, we have neither generals
  nor soldiers; if we seize the buckler and lance, it will not be
  easy to resist, and our defeat will be certain. I await the wise
  determination of your Majesty.”

  “Since such is the case, what answer shall we make to the
  ambassadors?” said Hwantsung. “Deign to ask Lí,” said the doctor;
  “he will speak to the purpose.” On being interrogated by his
  sovereign, Lí replied, “Let not this matter trouble your clear
  mind. Give orders for an audience to the ambassadors, and I will
  speak to them face to face in their own language. The terms of the
  answer will make the barbarians blush, and their Ko To will be
  obliged to make his respects at the foot of your throne.” “And who
  is this Ko To?” demanded Hwantsung. “It is the name the people of
  Po Hai give to their king after the usage of their country; just as
  the Hwui Hwui call theirs Kokan; the Tibetans, Tsangpo; the Lochau,
  Chau; the Holing, Sí-mo-wei: each one according to the custom of
  his nation.”

  At this rapid flood of explanations, the mind of the wise Hwantsung
  experienced a lively joy, and the same day he honored Lí with
  the title of an academician; a lodging was prepared for him in
  the palace of the Golden Bell; musicians made the place re-echo
  with their harmony; women poured out the wine, and young girls
  handed him the goblets, and celebrated the glory of Lí with the
  same voices that lauded the Emperor. What a delicious, ravishing
  banquet! He could hardly keep within the limits of propriety,
  but ate and drank until he was unconscious of anything, when the
  Emperor ordered the attendants to carry him into the palace and lay
  him on a bed.

  The next morning, when the gong announced the fifth watch, the
  Emperor repaired to the hall of audience; but Lí’s faculties, on
  awaking, were not very clear, though the officers hastened to bring
  him. When all had gone through their prostrations, Hwantsung called
  the poet near him, but perceiving that the visage of the new-made
  doctor still bore the marks of his debauch, and discovering the
  discomposure of his mind, he sent into the kitchen for a little
  wine and some well-spiced fish broth, to arouse the sleepy bard.
  The servants presently sent it up on a golden tray, and the Emperor
  seeing the cup was fuming, condescended to stir and cool the broth
  a long time with the ivory chopsticks, and served it out himself to
  Lí, who, receiving it on his knees, ate and drank, while a pleasing
  joy illumined his countenance. While this was going on, some among
  the courtiers were much provoked and displeased at the strange
  familiarity, while others rejoiced to see how well the Emperor knew
  to conciliate the good will of men. The two examiners, Yang and
  Kao, betrayed in their features the dislike they felt.

  At the command of the Emperor, the ambassadors were introduced, and
  saluted his Majesty by acclamation, whilst Lí Tai-peh, clad in a
  purple robe and silken bonnet, easy and gracious as an immortal,
  stood in the historiographer’s place before the left of the throne,
  holding the letter in his hand, and read it off in a clear tone,
  without mistaking a word. Then turning toward the frightened
  envoys, he said, “Your little province has failed in its etiquette,
  but our wise ruler, whose power is comparable to the heavens for
  vastness, disdains to take advantage of it. This is the answer
  which he grants you: hear and be silent.” The terrified ambassadors
  fell trembling at the foot of the throne. The Emperor had already
  prepared near him an ornamented cushion, and taking a jade stone
  with which to rub the ink, a pencil of leveret’s hair bound in an
  ivory tube, a cake of perfumed ink, and a sheet of flowery paper,
  gave them to Lí, and seated him on the cushion ready to draw up the
  answer.

  “May it please your Majesty,” objected Lí, “my boots are not at
  all suitable, for they were soiled at the banquet last evening,
  and I trust your Majesty in your generosity will grant me some new
  buskins and stockings fit for ascending the platform.” The Emperor
  acceded to his request, and ordered a servant to procure them;
  when Lí resumed, “Your minister has still a word to add, and begs
  beforehand that his untoward conduct may be excused; then he will
  prefer his request.” “Your notions are misplaced and useless, but
  I will not be offended at them; go on, speak,” said Hwantsung; to
  which Lí, nothing daunted, said, “At the last examination, your
  minister was turned off by Yang, and put out of doors by Kao. The
  sight of these persons here to-day at the head of the courtiers
  casts a certain discomposure over his spirits; let your voice deign
  to command Yang to rub my ink, whilst Kao puts on my stockings and
  laces up my buskins; then will my mind and wits begin to recover
  their energies, and my pencil can trace your answer in the language
  of the foreigners. In transmitting the reply in the name of the Son
  of Heaven, he will then not disappoint the confidence with which he
  is honored.” Afraid to displease Lí when he had need of him, the
  Emperor gave the strange order; and while Yang rubbed the ink and
  Kao put on the buskins of the poet, they could not help reflecting,
  that this student, so badly received and treated by them, only
  fit at the best to render such services to them, availed himself
  now of the sudden favors of the Emperor to take their own words
  pronounced against him as a text, and revenge himself upon them for
  past injuries. But what could they do? They could not oppose the
  sovereign will, and if they did feel chagrined, they did not dare
  at least to express it. The proverb hath it true:

  “Do not draw upon you a person’s enmity, for enmity is never
  appeased; injury returns upon him who injures, and sharp words
  recoil against him who says them.”

  The poet triumphed, and his oath was accomplished. Buskined as he
  desired, he mounted the platform on the carpet and seated himself
  on the cushion, while Yang stood at his side and rubbed the ink.
  Of a truth, the disparity was great between an ink-grinder and the
  magnate who counselled the Emperor. But why did the poet sit while
  the premier stood like a servant at his side? It was because Lí
  was the organ of the monarch’s words, while Yang, reduced to act
  the part of an ink-rubber, could not request permission to sit.
  With one hand Lí stroked his beard, and seizing his pencil in the
  other, applied it to the paper, which was soon covered with strange
  characters, well turned and even without a fault or rasure, and
  then laid it upon the dragon’s table. The Emperor gazed at it in
  amaze, for it was identical with that of the barbarians; not a
  character in it resembled the Chinese; and as he handed it about
  among the nobles, their surprise was great. When requested to read
  it, Lí, placed before the throne, read in a clear loud tone the
  answer to the strangers:

    “The mighty Emperor of the Tang dynasty, whose reign is called
    Kiayuen, sends his instructions to Ko To of the Po Hai.

    “From ancient times the rock and the egg have not hit each
    other, nor the serpent and dragon made war. Our dynasty, favored
    by fate, extends its power, and reigns even to the four seas; it
    has under its orders brave generals and tried soldiers, solid
    bucklers and glittering swords. Your neighbor, King Hiehlí, who
    refused our alliance, was taken prisoner; but the people of
    Putsau, after offering a present of a metal bird, took an oath
    of obedience.

    “The Sinlo, at the southern end of Corea, have sent us praises
    written on the finest tissues of silk; Persia, serpents which
    can catch rats; India, birds that can speak; and Rome, dogs
    which lead horses, holding a lantern in their mouth; the white
    parrot is a present from the kingdom of Koling, the carbuncle
    which illumines the night comes from Cambodia, and famous horses
    are sent by the tribe of Kolí, while precious vases are brought
    from Níal: in short, there is not a nation which does not
    respect our imposing power, and does not testify their regard
    for the virtue which distinguishes us. Corea alone resisted the
    will of Heaven, but the divine vengeance has fallen heavily upon
    it, and a kingdom which reckoned nine centuries of duration was
    overthrown as in a morning. Why, then, do you not profit by the
    terrible prognostics Heaven vouchsafes you as examples? Would it
    not evince your sagacity?

    “Moreover, your little country, situated beyond the peninsula,
    is little more than as a province of Corea, or as a principality
    to the Celestial Empire; your resources in men and horses are
    not a millionth part those of China. You are like a chafed
    locust trying to stop a chariot, like a stiff-necked goose which
    will not submit. Under the arms of our warriors your blood will
    run a thousand _lí_. You, prince, resemble that audacious one
    who refused our alliance, and whose kingdom became annexed to
    Corea. The designs of our sage Emperor are vast as the ocean,
    and he now bears with your culpable and unreasonable conduct;
    but hasten to prevent misfortune by repentance, and cheerfully
    pay the tribute of each year, and you will prevent the shame and
    opprobrium which will cover you and expose you to the ridicule
    of your neighbors. Reflect thrice on these instructions.”

  The reading of this answer filled the Emperor with joy, who ordered
  Lí to make known its contents to the ambassadors; he then sealed
  it with the imperial seal. The poet called Kao to put on the
  boots which he had taken off, and he then returned to the palace
  of Golden Bells to inform the envoys concerning his sovereign’s
  orders, reading the letter to them in a loud tone, while they heard
  tremblingly. The academician Ho reconducted them to the gates of
  the capital, and there the ambassadors asked who it was who had
  read the imperial instructions. “He is called Lí, and has the
  title of Doctor of the Hanlin.” “But among so many dignitaries,
  why did the first Minister of State rub his ink, and the general
  of the guards lace up his buskins?” “Hear,” added Ho; “those two
  personages are indeed intimate ministers of his Majesty, but they
  are only noble courtiers who do not transcend common humanity,
  while Doctor Lí, on the contrary, is an immortal descended from
  heaven on the earth to aid the sovereign of the Celestial Empire.
  How can any one equal him?” The ambassadors bowed the head and
  departed, and on their return rendered an account of their mission
  to their sovereign. On reading the answer of Lí, the Ko To was
  terrified, and deliberated with his counsellors: “The Celestial
  Empire is upheld by an immortal descended from the skies! Is it
  possible to attack it?” He thereupon wrote a letter of submission,
  testifying his desire to send tribute each year, which was
  thenceforth allowed.

  Lí Tai-peh afterward drowned himself from fear of the machinations
  of his enemies, exclaiming, as he leaped into the water, “I’m going
  to catch the moon in the midst of the sea!”

The poetry of the Chinese has been investigated by Sir John Davis,
and the republication of his first paper in an enlarged form in 1870,
with the versification of Legge’s translations of the _Shí King_
by his nephew, and two volumes of various pieces by Stent, have
altogether given a good variety.[338] Davis explains the principles of
Chinese rhythm, touches upon the tones, notices the parallelisms, and
distinguishes the various kinds of verse, all in a scholarly manner.
The whole subject, however, still awaits more thorough treatment.
Artificial poetry, where the sound and jingle is regarded more than
the sense, is not uncommon; the great number of characters having the
same sound enables versifiers to do this with greater facility than is
possible in other languages, and to the serious degradation of all high
sentiment. The absence of inflections in the words cripples the easy
flow of sounds to which our ears are familiar, but renders such lines
as the following more spirited to the eye which sees the characters
than to the ear which hears them:

  _Liang kiang, siang niang, yang hiang tsiang,
  Ki ní, pí chí, lí hí mí_, etc.

Lines consisting of characters all containing the same radical are also
constructed in this manner, in which the sounds are subservient to the
meaning. This bizarre fashion of writing is, however, considered fit
only for pedants.

The Augustan age of poetry and letters was in the ninth and tenth
centuries, during the Tang dynasty, when the brightest day of Chinese
civilization was the darkest one of European. No complete collection of
poems has yet been translated into any European language, and perhaps
none would bear an entire version. The poems of Lí Tai-peh form thirty
volumes, and those of Su Tung-po are contained in one hundred and
fifteen volumes, while the collected poems of the times of the Tang
dynasty have been published by imperial authority in nine hundred
volumes. The proportion of descriptive poetry in it is small compared
with the sentimental. The longest poem yet turned into English is the
_Hwa Tsien Kí_, or ‘The Flower’s Petal,’ by P. P. Thoms, under the
title of _Chinese Courtship_; it is in heptameter, and his version is
quite prosaic. Another of much greater repute among native scholars,
called _Lí Sao_, or ‘Dissipation of Sorrows,’ dating from about B.C.
314, has been rendered into French by D’Hervey-Saint-Denys.[339]

~CHINESE SONGS AND BALLADS.~

It is a common pastime for literary gentlemen to try their skill in
versification; epigrams and pasquinades are usually put into metre, and
at the examinations every candidate must hand in his poetical exercise.
Consequently, much more attention is paid by such rhymesters to the
jingle of the words and artificial structure of the lines than to the
elevation of sentiment or copiousness of illustrations; it is as easy
for them to write a sonnet on shipping a cargo of tea as to indite a
love-epistle to their mistress. Extemporaneous verses are made on every
subject, and to illustrate occurrences that are elsewhere regarded as
too prosaic to disturb the muse.

Still, human emotions have been the stimulus to their expression in
verse among the Chinese as well as other people; and all classes
have found an utterance to them. Ribald and impure ditties are sung
by street-singers to their own low classes, but such subjects do not
characterize the best poets, as they did in old Rome. A piece called
‘Chang Liang’s Flute’ is a fair instance of the better style of songs:

  ’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;

  When a low 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 aërial 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 which 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 were wetted with tears.

  Bright visions of home through their mem’ries came thronging,
    Panorama-like passing in front of their view;
  They were _home-sick_--no power could withstand that strange yearning;
    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 one little minute,
    Had stolen the courage of eight thousand men![340]

~SPECIMEN OF AN EXTEMPORE SONNET.~

The following verses were presented to Dr. Parker at Canton by a
Chinese gentleman of some literary attainments, upon the occasion of a
successful operation for cataract. The original may be considered as a
very creditable example of extempore sonnet:

  A fluid, darksome and opaque, long time had dimmed my sight,
  For seven revolving, weary years one eye was lost to light;
  The other, darkened by a film, during three years saw no day,
  High heaven’s bright and gladd’ning light could not pierce it with its ray.

  Long, long I sought the hoped relief, but still I sought in vain,
  My treasures lavished in the search, brought no relief from pain;
  Till, at length, I thought my garments I must either pawn or sell,
  And plenty in my house, I feared, was never more to dwell.

  Then loudly did I ask, for what cause such pain I bore--
  For transgressions in a former life unatoned for before?
  But again came the reflection how, of yore, oft men of worth,
  For slight errors, had borne suff’ring great as drew my sorrow forth.

  “And shall not one,” said I then, “whose worth is but as naught,
  Bear patiently, as heaven’s gift, what it ordains?” The thought
  Was scarce completely formed, when of a friend the footstep fell
  On my threshold, and I breathed a hope he had words of joy to tell.

  “I’ve heard,” the friend who enter’d said, “there’s come to us of late
  A native of the ‘Flowery Flag’s’ far-off and foreign State;
  O’er tens of thousand miles of sea to the Inner Land he’s come--
  His hope and aim to heal men’s pain, he leaves his native home.”

  I quick went forth, this man I sought, this gen’rous doctor found;
  He gained my heart, he’s kind and good; for, high up from the ground,
  He gave a room, to which he came, at morn, at eve, at night--
  Words were but vain were I to try his kindness to recite.

  With needle argentine he pierced the cradle of the tear.
  What fears I felt! Su Tung-po’s words rung threat’ning in my ear:
  “Glass hung in mist,” the poet says, “take heed you do not shake;”
  (The words of fear rung in my ear), “how if it chance to break!”

  The fragile lens his needle pierced: the dread, the sting, the pain,
  I thought on these, and that the cup of sorrow I must drain;
  But then my mem’ry faithful showed the work of fell disease,
  How long the orbs of sight were dark, and I deprived of ease.

  And thus I thought: “If now, indeed, I were to find relief,
  ’Twere not too much to bear the pain, to bear the present grief.”
  Then the words of kindness which I heard sunk deep into my soul,
  And free from fear I gave myself to the foreigner’s control.

  His silver needle sought the lens, and quickly from it drew
  The opaque and darksome fluid, whose effect so well I knew;
  His golden probe soon clear’d the lens, and then my eyes he bound,
  And laved with water sweet as is the dew to thirsty ground.

  Three days thus lay I, prostrate, still; no food then could I eat;
  My limbs relax’d were stretched as though th’ approach of death to meet
  With thoughts astray--mind ill at ease--away from home and wife,
  I often thought that by a thread was hung my precious life.

  Three days I lay, no food had I, and nothing did I feel;
  Nor hunger, sorrow, pain, nor hope, nor thought of woe or weal;
  My vigor fled, my life seemed gone, when, sudden, in my pain,
  There came one ray--one glimm’ring ray,--I see,--I live again!

  As starts from visions of the night he who dreams a fearful dream,
  As from the tomb uprushing comes one restored to day’s bright beam,
  Thus I, with gladness and surprise, with joy, with keen delight,
  See friends and kindred crowd around; I hail the blessed light.

  With grateful heart, with heaving breast, with feelings flowing o’er,
  I cried, “O lead me quick to him who can the sight restore!”
  To kneel I tried, but he forbade; and, forcing me to rise,
  “To mortal man bend not the knee;” then pointing to the skies:--

  “I’m but,” said he, “the workman’s tool; another’s is the hand;
  Before _his_ might, and in _his_ sight, men, feeble, helpless, stand:
  Go, virtue learn to cultivate, and never thou forget
  That for some work of future good thy life is spared thee yet!”

  The off’ring, token of my thanks, he refused; nor would he take
  Silver or gold--they seemed as dust; ’tis but for virtue’s sake
  His works are done. His skill divine I ever must adore,
  Nor lose remembrance of his name till life’s last day is o’er.

  Thus have I told, in these brief words, this learned doctor’s praise:
  Well does his worth deserve that I should tablets to him raise.

~LAMENT OF THE POETESS SU-HWUI.~

In this facility of versification lies one of the reasons for the
mediocrity of common Chinese poetry, but that does not prevent its
power over the popular mind being very great. Men and women of all
classes take great delight in recitation and singing, hearing street
musicians or strolling play-actors; and these results, whatever we may
judge by our standards, prove its power and suitableness to influence
them. One or two additional specimens on different subjects may be
quoted, inasmuch as they also illustrate some of the better shades of
feeling and sentiment. A more finished piece of poetry is one written
about A.D. 370, by Su-Hwui, whose husband was banished. Its talented
authoress is said to have written more than five thousand lines, and
among them a curious anagram of about eight hundred characters, which
was so disposed that it would make sense equally well when read up
or down, cross-wise, backward, or forward.[341] Nothing from her pen
remains except this ode, interesting for its antiquity as well as
sentiment.

ODE OF SU-HWUI.

  When thou receiv’dst the king’s command to quiet the frontier,
  Together to the bridge we went, striving our hearts to cheer--
  Hiding our grief. These words I gasped upon that mournful day:
  “Forget not, love, my fond embrace, nor tarry long away!”
  Ah! Is it true that since that time no message glads my sight?
  Think you that _now_ your lone wife’s heart even in bright spring delights?
  Our pearly stairs and pleasant yard the foul weeds have o’ergrown;
  Our nuptial room--and couch--and walls--are now with dust o’erstrown.
  Whene’er I think of our farewell, my soul with fear grows cold;
  My mind resolves what shape I’d take to see thee as of old.
  Now as I watch the deep-sea moon, I long her form to be;
  Again, the mountain cloud has filled my dull heart with envy.
  For deep-sea moon shines year by year upon the land abroad;
  And ye, O mountain clouds, may meet the form of my adored!
  Aye, flying here and flying there, seek my beloved’s place,
  And at ten thousand thousand miles--speed!--gaze on his fair face.
  Alas! for _me_ the road is long, steep mountain peaks now sever
  Our loving souls. I can but weep--O! may’t not be forever!
  The long reed’s leaves had yellow grown when we our farewell said;
  Who then had thought the plum-tree’s bough so oft would turn to red?
  The fairy flowers spreading their leaves have met the early spring--
  Ah, genial months, what time for love!--But who can ease _my_ sting?
  The pendant willows strew the court, for thee I pull them down;
  The falling flowers enrich the earth, none pick these from the ground
  And scatter vernal growth, as once, before the ancestral tomb!
  Taking the lute of Tsun I strive to chase away the gloom
  By thrumming, as I muse of thee, songs of departed friends.
  Sending my inmost thoughts away, they reach the northern ends--
  Those northern bounds!--how far they seem, o’erpassed the hills and streams.
  No news, no word from those confines to lighten e’en my dreams!
  My dress, my pillow, once so white, are deeply stained with tears;
  My broidered coat with gilded flowers, all spotted now appears.
  The very geese and storks to me, when in their passage north,
  Seemed by their cries, my distant love, to tear my heartstrings forth.
  No more my lute--though thou wert strong, with passion was I wrung;
  My grief was its utmost bent--my song was still unsung.
  Ah! husband, lord, thy love I feel is stable as the hills;
  ’Tis joy to think each hour of this--a balm for countless ills!

  I had but woven half my task--I gave it to his Grace:
  O grant my husband quick release, I pine for his embrace!

~THE TEA-PICKER’S BALLAD.~

Among the best of Chinese ballads, if regard be had to the character of
the sentiment and metaphors, is one on Picking Tea, which the girls and
women sing as they collect the leaves.

BALLAD OF THE TEA-PICKER.

  I.

  Where thousand hills the vale enclose, our little hut is there,
  And on the sloping sides around the tea grows everywhere;
  And I must rise at early dawn, as busy as can be,
  To get my daily labor done, and pluck the leafy tea.

  II.

  At early dawn I seize my crate, and sighing, Oh, for rest!
  Thro’ the thick mist I pass the door, with sloven hair half drest;
  The dames and maidens call to me, as hand in hand they go,
  “What steep do you, miss, climb to-day--what steep of high Sunglo?”

  III.

  Dark is the sky, the twilight dim still on the hills is set;
  The dewy leaves and cloudy buds may not be gathered yet:
  Oh, who are they, the thirsty ones, for whom this work we do,
  For whom we spend our daily toil in bands of two and two?

  IV.

  Like fellows we each other aid, and to each other say,
  As down we pull the yielding twigs, “Sweet sister, don’t delay;
  E’en now the buds are growing old, all on the boughs atop,
  And then to-morrow--who can tell?--the drizzling rain may drop.”

  V.

  We’ve picked enow; the topmost bough is bare of leaves; and so
  We lift our brimming loads, and by the homeward path we go;
  In merry laughter by the pool, the lotus pool, we hie,
  When hark! uprise a mallard pair, and hence affrighted fly.

  VI.

  Limpid and clear the pool, and there how rich the lotus grows,
  And only half its opening leaves, round as the coins, it shows--
  I bend me o’er the jutting brink, and to myself I say,
  “I marvel in the glassy stream, how looks my face to-day?”

  VII.

  My face is dirty; out of trim my hair is, and awry;
  Oh, tell me, where’s the little girl so ugly now as I?
  ’Tis all because whole weary hours I’m forced to pick the tea,
  And driving winds and soaking showers have made me what you see!

  VIII.

  With morn again come wind and rain, and though so fierce and strong,
  With basket big, and little hat, I wend my way along;
  At home again, when all is picked, and everybody sees
  How muddy all our dresses are, and drabbled to the knees.

  IX.

  I saw this morning through the door a pleasant day set in;
  Be sure I quickly dressed my hair and neatly fixed my pin,
  And fleetly sped I down the path to gain the wonted spot,
  But, never thinking of the mire, my working shoes forgot!

  X.

  The garden reached, my bow-shaped shoes are soaking through and through;
  The sky is changed--the thunder rolls--and I don’t know what to do;
  I’ll call my comrades on the hill to pass the word with speed
  And fetch my green umbrella-hat to help me in my need.

  XI.

  But my little hat does little good; my plight is very sad!
  I stand with clothes all dripping wet, like some poor fisher-lad;
  Like him I have a basket, too, of meshes woven fine--
  A fisher-lad, if I only had his fishing-rod and line.

  XII.

  The rain is o’er; the outer leaves their branching fibres show;
  Shake down the branch, the fragrant scent about us ’gins to blow;
  Gather the yellow golden threads that high and low are found--
  Oh, what a precious odor now is wafted all around!

  XIII.

  No sweeter perfume does the wild and fair Aglaia shed,
  Throughout Wu-yuen’s bounds my tea the choicest will be said;
  When all are picked we’ll leave the shoots to bud again in spring,
  But for this morning we have done the third, last gathering.

  XIV.

  Oh, weary is our picking, yet do I my toil withhold?
  My maiden locks are all askew, my pearly fingers cold;
  I only wish our tea to be superior over all,
  O’er this one’s “sparrow-tongue,” and o’er the other’s “dragon-ball.”

  XV.

  Oh, for a month I weary strive to find a leisure day;
  I go to pick at early dawn, and until dusk I stay;
  Till midnight at the firing-pan I hold my irksome place:
  But will not labor hard as this impair my pretty face?

  XVI.

  But if my face be somewhat lank, more firm shall be my mind;
  I’ll fire my tea that all else shall be my golden buds behind;
  But yet the thought arises who the pretty maid shall be
  To put the leaves in jewelled cup, from thence to sip my tea.

  XVII.

  Her griefs all flee as she makes her tea, and she is glad; but oh,
  Where shall she learn the toils of us who labor for her so?
  And shall she know of the winds that blow, and the rains that pour
        their wrath,
  And drench and soak us thro’ and thro’, as plunged into a bath?

  XVIII.

  In driving rains and howling winds the birds forsake the nest,
  Yet many a loving pair are seen still on the boughs to rest;
  Oh, wherefore, loved one, with light look, didst thou send me away?
  I cannot, grieving as I grieve, go through my work to-day.

  XIX.

  But though my bosom rise and fall, like bucket in a well,
  Patient and toiling as I am, ’gainst work I’ll ne’er rebel;
  My care shall be to have my tea fired to a tender brown,
  And let the _flag_ and _awl_, well rolled, display their whitish down.[342]

  XX.

  Ho! for my toil! Ho! for my steps! Aweary though I be,
  In our poor house, for working folk, there’s lots of work, I see;
  When the firing and the drying’s done, off at the call I go,
  And once again, this very morn, I climb the high Sunglo.

  XXI.

  My wicker basket slung on arm, and hair entwined with flowers,
  To the slopes I go of high Sunglo, and pick the tea for hours;
  How laugh we, sisters, on the road; what a merry turn we’ve got;
  I giggle and say, as I point down the way, There, look, there lies our cot!

  XXII.

  Your handmaid ’neath the sweet green shade in sheltered cot abides,
  Where the pendant willow’s sweeping bough the thatchy dwelling hides;
  To-morrow, if you wish it so, my guests I pray you’ll be!
  The door you’ll know by the fragrant scent, the scent of the firing tea.

  XXIII.

  Awhile ’tis cold, and then ’tis warm, when I want to fire my tea,
  The sky is sure to shift and change--and all to worry me;
  When the sun goes down on the western hills, on the eastern there is rain!
  And however fair he promises, he promises in vain.

  XXIV.

  To-day the tint of the western hills is looking bright and fair,
  And I bear my crate to the stile,[343] and wait my fellow toiler there;
  A little tender lass is she--she leans upon the rail
  And sleeps, and though I hail her she answers not my hail.

  XXV.

  And when at length to my loudest call she murmurs a reply,
  ’Tis as if hard to conquer sleep, and with half-opened eye;
  Up starts she, and with straggling steps along the path she’s gone;
  She brings her basket, but forgets to put the cover on!

  XXVI.

  Together trudge we, and we pass the lodge of the southern bowers,
  Where the beautiful sea-pomegranate waves all its yellow flowers;
  Fain would we stop and pluck a few to deck our tresses gay,
  But the tree is high, and ’tis vain to try and reach the tempting spray.

  XXVII.

  The pretty birds upon the boughs sing songs so sweet to hear,
  And the sky is so delicious now, half cloudy and half clear;
  While bending o’er her work, each maid will prattle of her woe,
  And we talk till our hearts are sorely hurt, and tears unstinted flow.

  XXVIII.

  Our time is up, and yet not full our baskets to the mouth--
  The twigs anorth are fully searched, let’s seek them in the south;
  Just then by chance I snapped a twig whose leaves were all apair;
  See, with my taper fingers now I fix it in my hair.

  XXIX.

  Of all the various kinds of tea, the bitter beats the sweet,
  But for whomever either seeks, for him I’ll find a treat;
  Though who it is shall drink them, as bitter or sweet they be,
  I know not, my friend--but the pearly end of my finger only see!

  XXX.

  Ye twittering swallows, rise and fall in your flight around the hill,
  But when next I go to the high Sunglo, I’ll change my gown--I will;
  And I’ll roll up the cuff and show arm enough, for my arm is fair to see:
  Oh, if ever there were a fair round arm, that arm belongs to me!

~CHINESE DRAMAS AND BURLETTAS.~

In the department of plays and dramas, Chinese literature shows a
long list of names, few or none of which have ever been heard of away
from their native soil. Some of their pieces have been translated by
Julien, Bazin, Davis, and others, most of which were selected from the
_Hundred Plays of Yuen_. The origin of the present Chinese drama does
not date back, according to M. Bazin, beyond the Tang dynasty, though
many performances designed to be played and sung in pantomime had been
written before that epoch. He cites the names of eighty-one persons,
besides mentioning other plays of unknown authors, whose combined
writings amount to five hundred and sixty-four separate plays; all of
whom flourished during the Mongol dynasty. The plays that have been
translated from this collection give a tolerably good idea of Chinese
talent in this difficult department; and, generally speaking, whatever
strictures may be made upon the management of the plot, exhibition of
character, unity of action, or illustration of manners, the tendency
of the play is on the side of justice and morality. Père Prémare
first translated a play in 1731, under the title of the _Orphan of
Chau_,[344] which was taken by Voltaire as the groundwork of one of
his plays. _The Heir in Old Age_ and the _Sorrows of Han_ are the
names of two translated by Sir J. F. Davis. The _Circle of Chalk_ was
translated and published in 1832 by Julien, and a volume of Bazin,
ainé, containing the _Intrigues of an Abigail_, the _Compared Tunic_,
the _Songstress_, and _Resentment of Tau Ngo_, appeared in 1838, at
Paris. None of these pieces exhibit much intricacy of plot, nor would
the simple arrangements of Chinese theatres allow much increase to the
_dramatis personæ_ without confusion. M. Bazin, moreover, translated
the _Pí-pa Kí_, or _History of a Lute_, a drama in twenty-four acts,
of more pretensions, partaking of the novel as well as the drama; the
play is said to have been represented at Peking in 1404, under the Ming
dynasty.[345]

~THE MENDER OF CHINAWARE--A FARCE.~

Besides plays in the higher walks of the drama, which form the
principal part of the performances at theatres, there are by-plays or
farces, which, being confined to two or three interlocutors, depend for
their attractiveness upon the droll gesticulations, impromptu allusions
to passing occurrences, and excellent pantomimic action of the
performers. They are usually brought on at the conclusion of the bill,
and from the freedom given in them to an exhibition of the humor or wit
of the players, are much liked by the people. A single illustration
will exhibit the simple range and character of these burlettas.

THE MENDER OF CRACKED CHINAWARE.

  DRAMATIS PERSONÆ. { _Niu Chau_        A wandering tinker.
                    { _Wang Niang_      A young girl.

_Scene--A Street._

  NIU CHAU _enters--across his shoulder is a bamboo, to each end of
  which are suspended boxes containing the various tools and implements
  of his trade, and a small stool. He is dressed meanly; his face and
  head are painted and decorated in a fantastic manner._

  (_Sings_) Seeking a livelihood by the work of my hands,
  Daily do I traverse the streets of the city.
  (_Speaks_) Well, here I am, a mender of broken jars,
  An unfortunate victim of ever changing plans.
  To repair old fractured jars
  Is my sole occupation and support.
  ’Tis even so. I have no other employment.

  (_Takes his boxes from his shoulder, places them on the ground, sits
  beside them, and drawing out his fan, continues speaking_)--

  A disconsolate old man--I am a slave to inconveniences.
  For several days past I have been unable to go abroad,
  But, observing this morning a clear sky and fine air,
  I was induced to recommence my street wanderings.
  (_Sings_) At dawn I left my home,
  But as yet have had no job.
  Hither and yon, and on all sides,
  From the east gate to the west,
  From the south gate to the north,
  And all over within the walls,
  Have I been, but no one has called
  For the mender of cracked jars. Unfortunate man!
  But this being my first visit to the city of Nanking,
  Some extra exertion is necessary;
  Time is lost sitting idle here, and so to roam again I go.

        (_Shoulders his boxes and stool, and walks about, crying_)--

  Plates mended! Bowls mended!
  Jars and pots neatly repair’d!

  _Lady Wang_ (_heard within_). Did I not hear the cry of the
        mender of cracked jars?

  I’ll open the door and look.      (_She enters, looking around._)
  Yes, there comes the repairer of jars.

  _Niu Chau._ Pray, have you a jar to mend?
  I have long been seeking a job.
  Did you not call?

  _Lady W._ What is your charge for a large jar--
  And how much for a small one?

  _Niu Chau._ For large jars, one mace five.

  _Lady W._ And for small ones?

  _Niu Chau._ Fifty pair of cash.

  _Lady W._ To one mace five, and fifty pair of cash,
  Add nine candareens, and a new jar may be had.

  _Niu Chau._ What, then, will you give?

  _Lady W._ I will give one candareen for either size.

  _Niu Chau._ Well, lady, how many cash can I get for this candareen?

  _Lady W._ Why, if the price be high, you will get eight cash.

  _Niu Chau._ And if low?

  _Lady W._ You will get but seven cash and a half.

  _Niu Chau._ Oh, you wicked, tantalizing thing!
  (_Sings_) Since leaving home this morning,
  I have met but with a trifler,
  Who, in the shape of an old wife,
  Tortures and gives me no job;
  I’ll shoulder again my boxes, and continue my walk,
  And never again will I return to the house of Wang.

        (_He moves off slowly._)

  _Lady W._ Jar-mender! return, quickly return; with a loud voice, I
        entreat you; for I have something on which I wish to consult
        with you.

  _Niu Chau._ What is it on which you wish to consult me?

  _Lady W._ I will give you a hundred cash to mend a large jar.

  _Niu Chau._ And for mending a small one?

  _Lady W._ And for mending a small one, thirty pair of cash.

  _Niu Chau._ One hundred, and thirty pair!--truly, lady, this is worth
        consulting about.
  Lady Wang, where shall I mend them?

  _Lady W._ Follow me.      (_They move toward the door of the house._)

  (_Sings_) Before walks the Lady Wang.

  _Niu Chau._ And behind comes the _pu-kang_ (or jar-mender).

  _Lady W._ Here, then, is the place.

  _Niu Chau._ Lady Wang, permit me to pay my respects.

        (_Bows repeatedly in a ridiculous manner._)

  We can exchange civilities.
  I congratulate you; may you prosper--before and behind.

  _Lady W._ Here is the jar; now go to work and mend it.

        (_Takes the jar in his hand and tosses it about, examining it._)

  _Niu Chau._ This jar has certainly a very appalling fracture.

  _Lady W._ Therefore, it requires the more care in mending.

  _Niu Chau._ That is self-evident.

  _Lady W._ Now, Lady Wang will retire again to her dressing room,
  And, after closing the door, will resume her toilet.
  Her appearance she will beautify;
  On the left, her hair she will comb into a dragon’s head tuft,
  On the right, she will arrange it tastefully with flowers;
  Her lips she will color with blood-red vermilion,
  And a gem of chrysoprase will she place in the dragon’s head tuft.
  Then, having completed her toilet, she will return to the door,
  And sit down to look at the jar-mender.      (_Exit._)

        (_Niu Chau sits down, straps the jar on his knee, and arranges
        his tools before him, and as he drills holes for the clamps,
        sings_)--

  Every hole drilled requires a pin,
  And every two holes drilled require pins a pair.
  As I raise my head and look around,

        (_At this moment Lady Wang re-enters, beautifully dressed,
        and sits down by the door._)

  There sits, I see, a delicate young lady;
  Before she had the appearance of an old wife,
  Now she is transformed into a handsome young girl.
  On the left, her hair is comb’d into a dragon’s head tuft;
  On the right it is adorn’d tastefully with flowers.
  Her lips are like plums, her mouth is all smiles,
  Her eyes are as brilliant as the phœnix’s; and
  She stands on golden lilies, but two inches long.
  I look again, another look,--down drops the jar.

        (_The jar at this moment falls, and is broken to pieces._)

  (_Speaks_) Heigh-ya! Here then is a dreadful smash!

  _Lady W._ You have but to replace it with another, and do so quickly.

  _Niu Chau._ For one that was broken, a good one must be given.
  Had two been broken, then were a pair to be supplied;
  An old one being smashed, a new one must replace it.

  _Lady W._ You have destroyed the jar, and return me nothing but words.
  Give me a new one, then you may return home,--not before.

  _Niu Chau._ Here upon my knees upon the hard ground, I beg Lady Wang,
  while she sits above, to listen to a few words. Let me receive pardon
  for the accident her beauty has occasioned, and I will at once make
  her my wife.

  _Lady W._ Impudent old man! How presume to think
  That I ever can become your wife!

  _Niu Chau._ Yes, it is true, I am somewhat older than Lady Wang,
  Yet would I make her my wife.

  _Lady W._ No matter then for the accident, but leave me now at once.

  _Niu Chau._ Since you have forgiven me, I again shoulder my boxes,
  And I will go elsewhere in search of a wife.
  And here, before high heaven, I swear never again to come near the
        house of Wang.
  You a great lady! You are but a vile ragged girl,
  And will yet be glad to take up with a much worse companion.

        (_Going away, he suddenly throws off his upper dress, and
        appears as a handsome young man._)

  _Lady W._ Henceforth, give up your wandering profession,
  And marrying me, quit the trade of a jar-mender.
  With the Lady Wang pass happily the remainder of your life.

        (_They embrace, and exeunt._)

~DEFICIENCIES AND LIMITS OF CHINESE LITERATURE.~

Such is the general range and survey of Chinese literature, according
to the Catalogue of the Imperial Libraries. It is, take it in a mass,
a stupendous monument of human toil, fitly compared, so far as it is
calculated to instruct its readers in useful knowledge, to their Great
Wall, which can neither protect from its enemies, nor be of any real
use to its makers. Its deficiencies are glaring. No treatises on the
geography of foreign countries nor truthful narratives of travels
abroad are contained in it, nor any account of the languages of their
inhabitants, their history, or their governments. Philological works in
other languages than those spoken within the Empire are unknown, and
must, owing to the nature of the language, remain so until foreigners
prepare them. Works on natural history, medicine, and physiology are
few and useless, while those on mathematics and the exact sciences
are much less popular and useful than they might be; and in the great
range of theology, founded on the true basis of the Bible, there is
almost nothing. The character of the people has been mostly formed
by their ancient books, and this correlate influence has tended to
repress independent investigation in the pursuit of truth, though not
to destroy it. A new infusion of science, religion, and descriptive
geography and history will lead to comparison with other countries, and
bring out whatever in it is good.

A survey of this body of literature shows the effect of governmental
patronage, in maintaining its character for what appears to us to be
a wearisome uniformity. New ideas, facts, and motives must now come
from the outer world, which will gradually elevate the minds of the
people above the same unvarying channel. If the scholar knows that the
goal he strives for is to be attained by proficiency in the single
channel of classical knowledge, he cannot be expected to attend to
other studies until he has secured the prize. A knowledge of medicine,
mathematics, geography, or foreign languages, might, indeed, do the
candidate much more good than all he gets out of the classics, but
knowledge is not his object; and where all run the same race, all must
study the same works. But let there be a different programme of themes
and essays, and a wider range of subjects required of the students, and
the present system of governmental examinations in China, with all its
imperfections, can be made of great benefit to the people, if it is not
put to a strain too great for the end in view.

~CHINESE PROVERBS.~

The Chinese are fond of proverbs and aphorisms. They employ them in
their writings and conversation as much as any people, and adorn
their houses by copying them upon elegant scrolls, carving them upon
pillars, and embroidering them upon banners. A complete collection of
the proverbs of the Chinese has never been made, even among the people
themselves any more than among those of other lands. Davis published,
in 1828, a volume called _Moral Maxims_, containing two hundred
aphorisms; P. Perny issued an assortment of four hundred and forty-one
in 1869; and J. Doolittle collected several hundred proverbs, signs,
couplets, and scrolls in his _Vocabulary_. Besides these, a collection
of two thousand seven hundred and twenty proverbs was published in 1875
by W. Scarborough, furnished with a good index, and, like the others
noted here, with the original text. Davis mentions the _Ming Sin Pao
Kien_, or ‘Jewelled Mirror for Illumining the Mind,’ as containing a
large number of proverbs. The _Ku Sz’ Kiung Lin_, or ‘Coral Forest of
Ancient Matters,’ is a similar collection; but if that be compared
to a dictionary of quotations, this is better likened to a classical
dictionary, the notes which follow the sentences leaving the reader in
no doubt as to their meaning.

Manuscript lists of sentences suitable for hanging upon doors or in
parlors are collected by persons who write them at New Year’s, and
whose success depends upon their facility in quoting elegant couplets.
The following selection will exhibit to some extent this branch of
Chinese wisdom and wit:

  Not to distinguish properly between the beautiful and ugly, is like
  attaching a dog’s tail to a squirrel’s body.

  An avaricious man, who can never have enough, is as a serpent wishing
  to swallow an elephant.

  While one misfortune is going, to have another coming, is like
  driving a tiger out of the front door, while a wolf is entering the
  back.

  The tiger’s cub cannot be caught without going into his den.

  To paint a snake and add legs. (Exaggeration.)

  To sketch a tiger and make it a dog, is to imitate a work of genius
  and spoil it.

  To ride a fierce dog to catch a lame rabbit. (Useless power over a
  contemptible enemy.)

  To attack a thousand tigers with ten men. (To attempt a difficulty
  with incommensurate means.)

  To cut off a hen’s head with a battle-axe. (Unnecessary valor.)

  To cherish a bad man is like nourishing a tiger; if not well fed he
  will devour you: or like rearing a hawk; if hungry he will stay by
  you, but fly away when fed.

  To instigate a villain to do wrong is like teaching a monkey to climb
  trees.

  To catch a fish and throw away the net;--not to requite benefits.

  To take a locust’s shank for the shaft of a carriage;--an inefficient
  person doing important work.

  A pigeon sneering at a roc;--a mean man despising a prince.

  To climb a tree to catch a fish, is to talk much and get nothing.

  To test one good horse by judging the portrait of another.

  A fish sports in the kettle, but his life will not be long.

  Like a swallow building her nest on a hut is an anxious statesman.

  Like a crane among hens is a man of parts among fools.

  Like a sheep dressed in a tiger’s skin is a superficial scholar.

  Like a cuckoo in a magpie’s nest is one who enjoys another’s labor.

  To hang on the tail of a beautiful horse. (To seek promotion.)

  Do not pull up your stockings in a melon field, or arrange your hat
  under a peach tree, lest people think you are stealing.

  An old man marrying a young wife is like a withered willow sprouting.

  Let us get drunk to-day while we have wine; the sorrows of to-morrow
  may be borne to-morrow.

  If the blind lead the blind, they will both go to the pit.

  Good iron is not used for nails, nor are soldiers made of good men.

  A fair wind raises no storm.

  A little impatience subverts great undertakings.

  Vast chasms can be filled, but the heart of man is never satisfied.

  The body may be healed, but the mind is incurable.

  When the tree falls the monkeys flee.

  Trouble neglected becomes still more troublesome.

  Wood is not sold in the forest, nor fish at the pool.

  He who looks at the sun is dazzled, he who hears the thunder is
  deafened. (Do not come too near the powerful.)

  He desires to hide his tracks, and walks on the snow.

  He seeks the ass, and lo! he sits upon him.

  Speak not of others, but convict yourself.

  A man is not always known by his looks, nor the sea measured by a
  bushel.

  Ivory does not come from a rat’s mouth.

  If a chattering bird be not placed in the mouth, vexation will not
  sit between the eyebrows.

  Prevention is better than cure.

  For the Emperor to break the laws is one with the people’s doing so.

  Doubt and distraction are on earth, the brightness of truth in heaven.

  Punishment can oppose a barrier to open crime, laws cannot reach to
  secret offences.

  Wine and good dinners make abundance of friends, but in time of
  adversity not one is to be found.

  Let every man sweep the snow from before his own doors, and not
  trouble himself about the hoarfrost on his neighbor’s tiles.

  Better be upright with poverty than depraved with abundance. He whose
  virtue exceeds his talents is the good man; he whose talents exceed
  his virtues is the fool.

  Though a man may be utterly stupid, he is very perspicuous when
  reprehending the bad actions of others; though he may be very
  intelligent, he is dull enough when excusing his own faults:
  do you only correct yourselves on the same principle that you
  correct others, and excuse others on the same principles you excuse
  yourselves.[346]

  If I do not debauch other men’s wives, my own will not be polluted.

  Better not be than be nothing.

  The egg fights with the rock--hopeless resistance.

  One thread does not make a rope; one swallow does not make a summer.

  To be fully fed and warmly clothed, and dwell at ease without
  learning, is little better than a bestial state.

  A woman in one house cannot eat the rice of two. (A wise woman does
  not marry again.)

  Though the sword be sharp, it will not wound the innocent.

  Sensuality is the chief of sins, filial duty the best of acts.

  Prosperity is a blessing to the good, but to the evil it is a curse.

  Instruction pervades the heart of the wise, but cannot penetrate the
  ears of a fool.

  The straightest trees are first felled; the cleanest wells first
  drunk up.

  The yielding tongue endures; the stubborn teeth perish.

  The life of the aged is like a candle placed between two
  doors--easily blown out.

  The blind have the best ears, and the deaf the sharpest eyes.

  The horse’s back is not so safe as the buffalo’s. (The politician is
  not so secure as the husbandman.)

  A wife should excel in four things: virtue, speech, deportment, and
  needle-work.

  He who is willing to inquire will excel, but the self-sufficient man
  will fail.

  Anger is like a little fire, which if not timely checked may burn
  down a lofty pile.

  Every day cannot be a feast of lanterns.

  Too much lenity multiplies crime.

  If you love your son, give him plenty of the cudgel; if you hate him,
  cram him with dainties.

  When the mirror is highly polished, the dust will not defile it; when
  the heart is enlightened with wisdom, impure thoughts will not arise
  in it.

  A stubborn wife and stiffnecked son no laws can govern.

  He is my teacher who tells me my faults, my enemy who speaks my
  virtues.

  He has little courage who knows the right and does it not.

  To sue a flea, and catch a bite--the results of litigation.

  Would you understand the character of a prince, look at his
  ministers; or the disposition of a man, observe his companions; or
  that of a father, first mark his son.

  The fame of good deeds does not leave a man’s door, but his evil acts
  are known a thousand miles off.

  A virtuous woman is a source of honor to her husband, a vicious one
  disgraces him.

  The original tendency of man’s heart is to do right, and if well
  ordered will not of itself be mistaken.

  They who respect themselves will be honored, but disesteeming
  ourselves we shall be despised.

  The load a beggar cannot carry he himself begged.

  The happy-hearted man carries joy for all the household.

  The more mouths to eat so much the more meat.

  The higher the rat creeps up the cow’s horn the narrower he finds it.

FOOTNOTES:

[329] Compare Rémusat, _Nouveaux Mélanges_, Tome II., pp. 130 ff.,
where there are excellent biographical notices of Sz’ma Tsien and other
native historians.

[330] _Chinese Repository_, Vol. IX., pp. 210, 274.

[331] Legge’s _Chinese Classics_, Vol. III.; _Prolegomena_, Chap. IV.
E. Biot in the _Journal Asiatique_, 2e Series, Tomes XII., p. 537, and
XIII., pp. 203, 381.

[332] Compare Rémusat, _Mélanges Asiatiques_, Tome II., p. 166;
_Chinese Repository_, Vol. IX., p. 143; Wylie’s _Notes_, p. 55; Mayer’s
_Chinese Reader’s Manual_, p. 149.

[333] Translated by Rev. W. H. Medhurst, in the _Chinese Repository_,
Vol. XIII., pp. 552, 609 et seq.

[334] _The Sacred Edict_, London, 1817; a second edition of this
translation appeared in Shanghai in 1870, and another in 1878. Compare
Wylie’s _Notes_, p. 71; Sir G. T. Staunton’s _Miscellaneous Notices_,
etc., pp. 1-56 (1812); _Le Saint Edit, Étude de Littérature chinoise_,
préparée par A. Théophile Piry, Shanghai, 1879.

[335] _Sacred Edict_, pp. 254-259.

[336] _Sacred Edict_, p. 146.

[337] The second of these, Tu Fu, is a poet of some distinction noticed
by Rémusat (_Nouveaux Mélanges_, Tome II., p. 174). He lived in the
eighth century A.D., dying of hunger in the year 768. His writings are
usually edited with those of Lí Tai-peh.

[338] Davis, _Poetry of the Chinese_, London, 1870; G. C. Stent, _The
Jade Chaplet_, London, 1874; _Entombed Alive, and other Verses_, 1878;
Le Marquis D’Hervey-Saint-Denys, _Poésies de l’Epoque des Thang_,
Paris, 1862. A number of extracts of classical and modern literature
will be found in _Confucius and the Chinese Classics_, compiled by Rev.
A. W. Loomis, San Francisco, 1867. _China Review_, Vols. I., p. 248,
IV., p. 46, and passim.

[339] _Chinese Courtship. In Verse. To which is added an Appendix
treating of the Revenue of China_, etc., etc., by Peter Perring Thoms,
London, 1824. Compare the _Quarterly Review_ for 1827, pp. 496 ff. _Le
Li-Sao, Poème du III^e Siècle avant notre ère. Traduit du Chinois_, par
le Marquis d’Hervey de Saint-Denys, Paris, 1870.

[340] Stent’s _Jade Chaplet_.

[341] A translation is given in the _Chinese Repository_ (Vol. IX.,
p. 508) of a supposed complaint made by a cow of her sad lot in being
obliged to work hard and fare poorly during life, and then be cut up
and eaten when dead; the ballad is arranged in the form of the animal
herself, and a herdboy leading her, who in his own form praises the
happiness of a rural life. This ballad is a Buddhist tractate, and that
fraternity print many such on broad-sheets; one common collection of
prayers is arranged like a pagoda, with images of Buddha sitting in the
windows of each story.

[342] The _kí_, or ‘flag,’ is the term by which the leaflets are called
when they just begin to unroll; the _tsiang_, or ‘awl,’ designates
those leaves which are still wrapped up and which are somewhat sharp.

[343] The _ting_ is not exactly a stile, being a kind of shed, or four
posts supporting a roof, which is often erected by villagers for the
convenience of wayfarers, who can stop there and rest. It sometimes
contains a bench or seat, and is usually over or near a spring of water.

[344] _Tchao-chi-cou-eulh, ou l’Orphelin de la Maison de Tchao,
tragédie chinoise_, _traduite_ par le R. P. de Prémare, Miss. de la
Chine, 1755. Julien published a translation of the same, Paris, 1834.

[345] Since the appearance of M. Bazin’s _Théâtre Chinois_ (Paris,
1838) and Davis’ _Sorrows of Han_ (London, 1829), there has been
astonishingly little done in the study of Chinese plays. Compare, for
the rest, an article on this subject by J. J. Ampère, in the _Revue des
Deux Mondes_, September, 1838; _The Far East_, Vol. I. (1876), pp. 57
and 90; _Chinese Repository_, Vol. VI., p. 575; _China Review_, Vol.
I., p. 26; also Lay’s _Chinese as They Are_, and Dr. Gray’s _China_,
passim. Lieut. Kreitner gives an interesting picture of the Chinese
theatre in a country town, together with a few pages upon the drama, of
which his party were spectators. _Im fernen Osten_, pp. 595-599.

[346] The commendation by Lord Brougham of this “admirable precept,” as
he called it, is cited by Sir J. Davis.

CHAPTER XIII.

ARCHITECTURE, DRESS, AND DIET OF THE CHINESE.

It is a sensible remark of De Guignes,[347] that “the habit we fall
into of conceiving things according to the words which express them,
often leads us into error when reading the relations of travellers.
Such writers have seen objects altogether new, but they are compelled,
when describing them, to employ equivalent terms in their own language
in order to be understood; while these same terms tend to deceive the
reader, who imagines that he sees such palaces, colonnades, peristyles,
etc., under these designations as he has been used to, when, in fact,
they are quite another thing.” The same observation is true of other
things than architecture, and of other nations than the Chinese, and
this confusion of terms and meanings proves a fruitful source of
error in regard to an accurate knowledge of foreign nations, and a
just perception of their condition. For instance, the terms _a court
of justice_, _a common school_, _politeness_, _learning_, _navy_,
_houses_, etc., as well as the names of things, like _razor_, _shoe_,
_cap_, _bed_, _pencil_, _paper_, etc., are inapplicable to the same
things in England and China; while it is plainly impossible to coin
a new word in English to describe the Chinese article, and equally
inexpedient to introduce the native term. If, for example, the utensil
used by the Chinese to shave with were picked up in Portsmouth by some
English navvy who had never seen or heard of it, he would be more
likely to call it an oyster-knife, or a wedge, than a razor; while
the use to which it is applied must of course give it that name, and
would, if it were still more unlike the western article. So with other
things. The ideas a Chinese gives to the terms _hwangtí_, _kwanfu_,
_pao_, _pih_, and _shu_, are very different from those conveyed to an
American by the words _emperor_, _magistrate_, _cannon_, _pencil_, and
_book_. Since a person can only judge of what he hears or reads by
what he knows, it is desirable that when he meets with western names
applied to their equivalents in eastern countries, the function of a
different civilization, habits, and notions should not be overlooked in
the opinion he forms. These remarks are peculiarly applicable to the
domestic life of the Chinese, to their houses, diet, dress, and social
customs; although careful descriptions may go a good way in conveying
just ideas, it cannot be hoped that they will do what the most cursory
examination of the object or trait would instantly accomplish.

~POPULAR ERRORS REGARDING FOREIGN COUNTRIES.~

The notions entertained abroad on these particulars are, it need
hardly be remarked, rather more accurate than those the Chinese have
of distant countries, and it is scarcely possible that they can
lose their conceit in their own civilization and position among the
nations so long as such ideas are entertained as the following extract
exhibits. Tien Kí-shih, a popular essayist of the last century, thus
congratulates himself and his readers: “I felicitate myself that I was
born in China, and constantly think how very different it would have
been with me if I had been born beyond the seas in some remote part of
the earth, where the people, far removed from the converting maxims
of the ancient kings, and ignorant of the domestic relations, are
clothed with the leaves of plants, eat wood, dwell in the wilderness,
and live in the holes of the earth; though born in the world, in such
a condition I should not have been different from the beasts of the
field. But now, happily, I have been born in the Middle Kingdom. I have
a house to live in; have food and drink, and elegant furniture; have
clothing and caps, and infinite blessings: truly, the highest felicity
is mine.” This extract well indicates the isolation of the writer and
his race from their fellow-men; among the neighboring nations even the
Japanese would have shown him his erroneous view. The seclusion which
had been forced upon both these peoples, who closed their doors as
the surest possible defence against aggression from foreign traders
and sought in this fashion to remove all cause of quarrel, brought
with it in time the almost equal dangers of ignorance and inability to
understand their true position among the nations of the world.

[Illustration: Diagram of Chinese Roof Construction. (From Fergusson.)]

~ABSENCE OF GREAT ARCHITECTURAL MONUMENTS.~

The architecture of the Chinese suggests, in its general outline and
the peculiar concave roof, a canvas tent as its primary _motive_,
though there is no further proof than this likeness of its origin.
From the palace to the hovel, in temples and in private dwellings,
this type everywhere stands confessed,[348] and almost nothing like a
dome or cupola, a spire or a turret, is anywhere found. Few instances
occur of an attempt to develop even this simple model into a grand
or imposing building. While the Mogul princes in India reared costly
mausolea and palaces to perpetuate their memory and the splendor of
their reigns, the monarchs of China, with equal or greater resources at
command, seldom indulged in this princely pastime, or even attempted
the erection of any enduring monument to commemorate their taste or
their splendor. Whether it was owing to the absence of the beautiful
and majestic models seen in western countries, or to ignorance of the
mechanical principles of the art, the fact is not the less observable,
and the inference as to the advance made by them in knowledge and taste
not less just.

Fergusson has no doubt assigned one good reason for this fact, in that
“the Chinese never had either a dominant priesthood or a hereditary
nobility. The absence of the former class is important, because it is
to sacred art that architecture has owed its highest inspiration, and
sacred art is never so strongly developed as under the influence of
a powerful and splendid hierarchy. In the same manner the want of a
hereditary nobility is equally unfavorable to domestic architecture of
a durable description. Private feuds and private wars were till lately
unknown, and hence there are no fortalices or fortified mansions, which
by their mass and solidity give such a marked character to a certain
class of domestic edifices in the west.”[349] These reasons have their
weight, but they hardly cover the whole question, whose solution
reaches into the well-known inertness of the imaginative faculty in
the Chinese mind. It is nevertheless true that there is nothing in the
whole Empire worthy to be called an architectural ruin, nothing which
can inform us whether previous generations constructed edifices more
splendid or more mean than the present.[350]

~CONSTRUCTION OF CHINESE BUILDINGS.~

Dwelling-houses are generally of one story, having neither cellars
nor basements, and lighted by lattices opening into a court; they
must not equal adjacent temples in height, nor possess the ornaments
appropriated to palaces and religious establishments. The common
building materials are bricks, adobie or matting for the walls, stone
for the foundation, brick tiling for the roof, and wood only for the
inner work; stone and wooden houses are not unknown, but are so rare
as to attract attention. The high prices of timber and the very
partial use of window-glass have both tended to modify and restrict
the construction of dwellings. The _ní chuen_, or sifted earth, is a
compound of decomposed granite or gravel and lime mixed with water, and
sometimes a little oil, of which durable walls are made by pounding it
into a solid mass between planks secured at the sides and elevated as
the wall rises, or by beating it into large blocks; when stuccoed and
protected from the rain this material gradually hardens into stone. In
houses of the better sort the stone work of the foundation rises three
or four feet above the ground, and sometimes the finished surfaces,
great size of the stones and the regularity of their arrangement
make one regret that the same skill had not been expended on large
edifices. In towns their fronts present no opening except the door,
and when the outer walls of several houses join those of gardens and
enclosures, the street presents an uninteresting sameness, unrelieved
by steps, windows, balconies, porticoes, or front yards. The walls
are twenty-five or thirty feet high, usually hollow, or too thin to
safely support the roof unaided. In the common buildings a framework of
wood is erected on the foundation, which has large stones so arranged
as to receive the posts, and on these rests the entire weight of the
roof. The brick nogging fills up the intervals, but supports nothing;
it is sometimes solid, more frequently merely a face-work, and if the
roof becomes leaky or broken a heavy rain will destroy the wall, as
it soaks through the courses and washes out the mud within. In the
central provinces common walls are often made of small bricks four
inches square and one thick, which are laid on their edges in a series
of hollows; between the courses a plank sometimes adds greater strength
to the wall. These cellular constructions are more durable than would
be imagined provided the stucco remains uninjured.

The bricks are the same size as our own, and usually burned to a
grayish slate color; they are made by hand, and sell at a price varying
from three dollars to eight dollars a thousand. In the sea-coast
districts lime is cheaply obtained from shells, but in the interior
from limestone calcined by anthracite coal; the people use it pure,
only occasionally mixing sand with it for either mortar or stucco.
The walls are often stuccoed, and when not thus covered the bricks are
occasionally rubbed smooth and pointed with fine cement. In place of a
broad cornice the top is frequently relieved by a pretty ornament of
moulded work of painted clay figures in _alto relievo_, representing a
battle scene, a landscape, clusters of flowers, or some other design,
defended from the weather by the projecting eaves. A black painted
band, relieved by corners and designs of flowers and scrolls, is a
cheap substitute for the carved figures.

The roofs are hipped in some provinces, but rarely in the north. They
are steep, and if kept tight will last several years; the grass which
is apt to spring up on them is a source of injury, and its growth or
removal alike endangers the soundness of the construction. The yellow
and green glazed tiles of public buildings add to their beauty, as do
the dragon’s heads and globes on their ridge-poles; these features,
together with the earthen dogs at the corners of temples or official
houses, make the structures exceedingly picturesque. In Peking the
framework under the wide eaves of palaces is tastefully painted in
green and gold, and protected by a netting of copper wire. Roofs are
made of earthen tiles laid on coarse clapboarding that rests on the
purlines in alternate ridges and furrows. The under layer consists of
square thin pieces, laid side by side in ascending rows with the lower
edges overlapping; the sides are covered by the semi-cylindrical tiles,
which are further protected by a covering of mortar. In the northern
provinces the tiles are laid in a course of mud resting on straw over
the clapboarding. The workmen begin the tiling at the ridge-pole and
finish as they come down to the eaves, so as not to walk over the
tiles and crack them; but such roofs easily leak in driving storms.
No chimneys are seen; the slope is steep, for quick discharge of rain
and snow. Terraces are erected on shops, but balustrades or flat roofs
are seldom seen. Occasionally the gable walls rise above the roof in
degrees, imparting a singular, bow-like aspect to the edifice. The
purlines and ridge-pole extend from wall to wall, and the rafters are
slender strips. In all roofs the principal weight rests on the two rows
of pillars at the sides, that uphold the plates, and the antefixæ
which support the broad eaves far beyond the wall. A series of beams
and posts above the plates and tie-beams make the roof very heavy but
also secure; curb and mansard roofs are unknown.

The pillars of stone or timber in Chinese temples are often noticeable,
owing to their size or length as single pieces. They are, however,
unadorned with either capital or carved base, though the shaft may
be finely carved and painted, the color decoration being often upon
a thick coating of _papier-maché_, laid on to protect the wood. In
two-story houses the sleepers of the floor are supported on tie-beams
attached to the main posts if they do not rest on the wall. Posts form
an element of all Chinese buildings, either to support the roof or the
veranda. The entrance is on the sides, and the wall is set back from
the outer line of the eaves so as to afford a shelter or porch. Hipped
roofs enable the architect to encompass the entire building with a
veranda, this being a common arrangement in the southern provinces. A
slight ceiling usually conceals the tiling, but the apartment appears
lofty owing to the cavity of the roof.

~ORNAMENTAL EDIFICES AND DWELLINGS.~

The pavilion is a prominent feature of Chinese architecture, and its
ornamentation calls out the best talent of the builder in making
his edifice acceptable. One charming specimen of this style at the
Emperor’s summer palace of Yuen-ming Yuen is already famous, its
material being of pure copper; it is about fourteen feet square and
twenty high.

Another beautiful structure which well exhibits the pavilion is shown
in the adjoining cut. It is the _Pih-yung Kung_, or ‘Classic Hall,’
built by Kienlung adjacent to the Confucian Temple at Peking (page 74),
and devoted to expounding the classics. This lofty building, which may
be here seen through an ornamental arch across the court, is perfectly
square, covered with a four-sided double roof, whose bright yellow
tiles and gilded ball at the apex produce a most brilliant effect in
the sunlight. The deep veranda, completely encircling the structure
and supported by a score of colored wooden pillars, very ably relieves
the dead mass and heavy upper roof of the pavilion proper. Around
flow the waters of a circular tank, edged with marble balustrades and
spanned by four bridges which form the approaches to each of the sides.

[Illustration: PIH-YUNG KUNG, OR ‘CLASSIC HALL,’ PEKING.]

The general disposition of a Chinese dwelling of the better sort is
that of a series of rooms separated and lighted by intervening courts,
and accessible along a covered corridor communicating with each, or
by side passages leading through the courts. In cities, where the
houses are cramped and the lots irregular in shape, there is more
diversity in the arrangement and size of rooms; and in the country
establishments of wealthy families, where the gradual increase of
the members calls for additional space, the succession of courts and
buildings, interspersed with gardens and pools, sometimes renders the
whole not a little complicated. The great expense of timber for floors,
posts, and sleepers has been the chief reason for retaining the single
story, rather than the awkwardness caused by cramping women’s feet. No
contrivance for warming the rooms by means of chimneys or flues exists,
except that found in the _kang_, or brick bed, on which the inmates lie
and sit.

The entrance into large mansions in the country is by a triple gate
leading through a lawn or garden up to the hall; in towns, a single
door, usually elevated a step or two above the street, introduces the
visitor into a porch or court. A wall or movable screen is placed
inside of the doorway, and the intervening space is occupied by the
porter; upon the wall on the left is often seen a shrine dedicated to
the gods of the threshold. In the houses of officials, upon this wall
is inscribed a list of dignities and offices which the master has held
during his life. The door is solidly constructed, and moves upon pivots
turning in sockets. Under the projecting eaves hang paper lanterns
informing the passer-by of the name and title of the householder, and
when lighted at night serving to illumine the street and designate
his habitation; for door-plates and numbers are unknown. The
roughness of the gate is somewhat concealed by the names or grotesque
representations of two tutelar gods, Shintu and Yuhlui, to whom the
guardianship of the house is entrusted; while the sides and lintel are
embellished with felicitous quotations written upon red paper, or with
sign-boards of official rank. The doorkeeper and other servants lodge
in small rooms within the gateway, and above the porch is an attic
containing one or two apartments, to be reached by a rude stairway.

On passing behind the screen a court, occasionally adorned with flowers
or a fancy fish-pool, is crossed before reaching the principal hall.
The upper end of the hall is furnished with a high table, on which
incense vases, idolatrous utensils, and offerings are placed in honor
of the divinities and lares worshipped there, whose tablets and names
are on the wall. Sometimes the table merely contains flowers in jars,
fancy pieces of white quartz, limestone or jade, or ornaments of
various kinds. Before the table is a large couch, with a low stand in
its centre, and a pillow for reclining upon. In front of it the chairs
are arranged down the room in two rows facing each other, each pair
having a small table between them. The floors are made of thick, large
tiles of brick or marble, or of hard cement. Even in a bright day the
room is dim, and the absence of carpets and fireplaces, and of windows
to afford a prospect abroad, renders it cheerless to a foreigner
accustomed to his own glazed and loftier houses.

A rear door near the side wall opens either into a kitchen or court,
across which are the female apartments, or directly into the latter
and the rooms for domestics. Instead of being always rectangular the
doors are sometimes made round, leaf-shaped, or semi-circular, and it
is thought desirable that they should not open opposite each other,
lest evil spirits find their way in from the street. The rear rooms are
lighted by skylights when other modes are unavailable, and along the
southern sea-coasts the thin laminæ of a species of oyster (_Placuna_)
cut into small squares supply the place of window-glass. Commerce is
gradually bringing this material into greater use all over the land,
though the fear of thieves still limits it. Corean paper is the chief
substitute for glass in the north. The kitchen is a small affair, for
the universal use of portable furnaces enables the inmates to cook
wherever the smoke will be least troublesome. Warming the house, even
as far north as Ningpo, is not frequent, as the inmates rely on their
quilted and fur garments for protection. The flue of the tiled-brick
divan, or _kang_, is connected with a pit lined with brick dug in the
floor in front; when the pot of coal is well lighted and placed near
the opening, the draft carries the heat into the passages running under
the surface, and soon warms the room without much smoke. The pot of
burning coal furnishes all the cooking-fire the poor have, and at night
the inmates sleep on the warm bricks.

~ARRANGEMENT OF COUNTRY HOUSES.~

The country establishments of wealthy men furnish the best expression
of Chinese ideas of elegance and comfort. In these enclosures the hall
of ancestors, library, school-room, and summer-houses are detached
and erected upon low plinths, surrounded by a veranda, and frequently
decorated with tracery and ornamental carving. Near the rear court
are the female apartments and offices, many of the former and the
sleeping apartments being in attics. Considerable space is occupied
by the quadrangles, which are paved and embellished by fish-pools,
flowering shrubs, and other plants. Mr. Fortune describes[351] the
house and garden of a gentleman at Ningpo as being connected by
rude-looking caverns of rock-work, “and what at first sight appears to
be a subterranean passage leading from room to room, through which the
visitor passes to the garden. The small courts, of which a glimpse is
caught in passing along, are fitted up with rock-work; dwarf trees are
planted here and there in various places, and graceful creepers hang
down into the pools in front. These being passed, another cavernous
passage leads into the garden, with its dwarf trees, vases, ornamented
lattices, and beautiful shrubs suddenly opening to the view. By
windings and glimpses along the rocky passages into other courts, and
hiding the real boundary by masses of shrubs and trees, the grounds are
made to appear much larger than they really are.”

The houses of the poor are dark, dirty, low, and narrow tenements,
where the floor is of earth covered with mats or tiled, and the doorway
the only opening, on which a swinging mat conceals the interior.
The whole family often sleep, eat, and live in a single room. Pigs,
dogs, and hens dispute the space with children and furniture--if a
table and a few trestles and stools, pots and plates, deserve that
name. The filthy street without is a counterpart to the gloomy, smoky
abode within, and a single walk through the streets and lanes of such
a neighborhood is sufficient to reconcile a person to any ordinary
condition of life. On the outskirts of the town a still poorer class
take up with huts made of mats and thatch upon the ground, through
which the rain and wind find free course. It is surprising that people
can live and enjoy health, and even be cheerful, as the Chinese are,
in such circumstances. Between these hovels and the abodes of the rich
is a class of middle houses, consisting of three or four small rooms
surrounding a court, each one lodging a family, which uses its portion
of the quadrangle.

The best furniture is made of a heavy wood stained to resemble ebony;
camphor, elm, pine, aspen, and melia woods furnish cheaper material.
Ornamental articles, porcelain vases, copper tripods or pots, stone
screens, book-shelves, flowers in pots, etc., show the national taste.
Ink sketches of landscapes, gay scrolls inscribed with sentences
suspended from the walls, and pretty lanterns relieve the baldness
of the room; their combined effect is not destitute of variety and
elegance, though there is a lack of _comfort_. Partitions are sometimes
fancifully made of lattice-work, with openings neatly arranged for the
reception of boxes containing books. The bedrooms are small, poorly
ventilated, and seldom visited except at night. A massive bedstead
of costly woods, elaborately carved, and supporting a tester for the
silk curtains and mosquito-bars, is often shown as the family pride
and heirloom; a scroll of fine writing adorns its fringe or valance.
Mattresses or feather beds are not used, and the pillow is a hollow
square frame of rattan or bamboo. The bed, wardrobe, and toilet usually
complete the furniture of the sleeping apartments of the Chinese; but
if this is also the sitting room, the bed is rolled up so as often to
furnish seats on its boards.

~STYLE OF GARDENS.~

The grounds of the rich are laid out in good style, and were not the
tasteful arrangements and diversified shrubbery which would render them
charming resorts almost always spoiled by general bad keeping--neglect
and ruin, if not nastiness and offals, being often visible--they would
please the most fastidious. The necessity of having a place for the
women and children to recreate themselves is one reason for having
an open enclosure, even if it be only a plat of flowers or a bed of
vegetables. In the imperial gardens the attempt to make an epitome of
nature has been highly successful. De Guignes describes their art of
gardening as “imitating the beauties and producing the inequalities of
nature. Instead of alleys planted symmetrically or uniform grounds,
there are winding footpaths, trees here and there as if by chance,
woody or sterile hillocks, and deep gulleys with narrow passages,
whose sides are steep or rough with rocks, and presenting only a few
miserable shrubs. They like to bring together in gardening, in the same
view, cultivated grounds and arid plains; to make the field uneven
and cover it with artificial rock-work; to dig caverns in mountains,
on whose tops are arbors half overthrown, and around which tortuous
footpaths run and return into themselves, prolonging, as it were, the
extent of the grounds and increasing the pleasure of the walk.”

A fish-pond, supplied by a rivulet running wildly through the grounds,
forms a pretty feature of such gardens, in which, if there be room, a
summer-house is erected on a rocky islet, or on piles over the water,
accessible by a rugged causey of rock-work. The nelumbium lily, with
its plate-like leaves and magnificent flowers, is a general favorite
in such places; carp and other fish are reared in their waters, and
gold-fish in small tanks. Whenever it is possible a gallery runs
along the sides of the pond for the pleasure and use of the females
in the household. A tasteful device in some gardens, which beguiles
the visitor’s ramble, is a rude kind of shell or pebble mosaic inlaid
in the gravelly paths, representing birds, animals, or other figures;
the time required to decipher them prolongs the walk, and apparently
increases the size of the grounds. The pieces of rock-work are cemented
and bound with wire; and in fish-pools, grottos, or causeways this
unique ornament has a charming effect, the moss and plants which grow
upon it adding rather to its appropriateness.

The wood and mason work is unsubstantial, requiring constant repairs;
when new they present a pretty appearance, but both gardens and
houses, when neglected, soon fall into a ruinous condition. Some of
the principal merchants at Canton, in the former days of the hong
monopoly, had cultivated grounds of greater or less extent attached to
their establishments. One of them, by way of variety, constructed a
summer-house entirely of glass, this wonderful structure being made so
that it could be closed and protected with shutters.

The arrangement of shops and warehouses is modified by the uses to
which they are applied, but they still resemble dwelling-houses more
than is the case with stores in western cities. The rear room of
the shop is a small apartment, used for a dormitory, store-room, or
workshop, and sometimes for all these purposes together; it is in most
cases on an upper floor. Small ones are lighted from the street, but
the largest by a skylight, in which cases there is a latticed screen
reaching across the room, to secure the inside from the street. The
whole shop-front is thrown open by day and closed at night by shutters
running in grooves, and secured by heavy cross-bars to a row of posts
which fit in sockets in the threshold and lintel. The doorway recedes
a foot or two, and the projecting roof serves to protect customers,
and such goods as are exposed, from the rain and sun. In small shops
there are two counters, a long one running back from the door, and
another at right angles to it, reaching partly across the front. The
shopman sits within the angle formed by these, and as they are low he
can easily serve a customer in the street as well as in the shop. At
night the smaller one often forms a lodging place for homeless beggars.
The facing of the outer counter is of granite, and in Canton a niche
containing a tablet inscribed to the god of wealth is cut in the end,
where incense is burned. Another shrine is placed on high within the
apartment, dedicated to the deity of the place, whoever he may be.

The loft is much contracted; and that it may not intercept the
skylight, it is usually a small chamber reached by a gallery, and
lighted in front. Chinese tradesmen do not make much display in
exhibiting their goods, and the partial use of glass renders it
somewhat unsafe for them to do so. The want of a yard compels them
to cook and wash either behind or on top of the building; clerks and
workmen usually eat and sleep under the shop roof. In the densest
parts of Canton the roofs are covered with a loose framework, on which
firewood is piled, clothes washed and dried, and meals cooked; it also
affords a sleeping place in summer. In case of fire, however, these
lumbered roofs become like so many tinder-boxes, and aid not a little
to spread the flames.

~SHOP AND THOROUGHFARES.~

The narrowness of the streets in Chinese cities is a source of many
inconveniences; few exceed ten or twelve feet in width, and most of
those in Canton are less than eight. No large squares having fountains
and shrubbery, nor any open spaces except the areas in front of
temples relieve the closeness of these lanes. The absence of horses
and carriages in southern cities, and a custom of huddling together,
a desire to screen the thoroughfare from the sun, and ignorance of
the advantages of another mode, are among the leading reasons for
making them so contracted; while the difficulty of collecting a mob
in them should be mentioned as one point in their favor. In case of
fire it is difficult to get access to the burning buildings, and
dangerous for the inmates to move or save their property. At all times
porters carrying burdens are impeded by the crowd of passengers, who
likewise must pass Indian file lest they tilt against the porters.
Ventilation is imperfect where the buildings are packed so closely,
and the public necessaries and their offal carried through the streets
by the scavengers pollute the air. Drainage is very superficial and
incomplete; the sewers easily choke up or get broken and exude their
contents over the pathway. The ammoniacal and other gases which are
generated aggravate the ophthalmic diseases so prevalent; and it is a
matter of surprise that the cholera, plague, or yellow fever does not
visit the inhabitants of such confined abodes, who breathe so tainted
an atmosphere. The peculiar government of cities by means of wards and
neighborhoods, each responsible to the officials, combined with the
ignorance among all ranks of the principles of hygiene, will account
for the evils so patent to one accustomed to the energetic sway of
a mayor and board of health in most European cities, who can bring
knowledge and power to coöperate for the well-being of all.

The streets are usually paved with slabs of stone laid cross-wise, and
except near markets and wells are comparatively clean. They are not
laid out straight, and some present a singularly irregular appearance
from the slight angle which each house makes with its neighbors; it
being considered rather unlucky to have them exactly even. The names of
the streets are written on the gateways crossing them, whenever they
are marked at all; occasionally, as at Canton, each division makes
a separate neighborhood and has its own name; a single long street
will thus have five, six, or more names. The general arrangement of
a Chinese city presents a labyrinth of streets, alleys, and byways
very perplexing to a stranger who has neither plan nor directory to
guide him, nor numbers upon the houses and shops to direct him. The
sign-boards are hung each side of the door, or securely inserted in
stone sockets; some of them are ten or fifteen feet high, and being
gaily painted and gilded on both sides with picturesque characters, a
succession of them as seen down a street produces a gay effect. The
inscriptions simply mention the kind of goods sold, and without half
the puffing seen in western cities; accounts sometimes given of the
inscriptions on sign-boards in Chinese cities, as “No cheating here,”
and others, describe the exception and not the rule. The edicts of
government, handbills of medicines and the famous doctors who make
them, notices offering rewards for children who are lost or slaves
escaped, new shops opened, houses to let, or other events, cover blank
walls in great variety, printed on red, black, white, or yellow paper;
the absence of newspapers leads shopmen to depend more for patronage
upon a circle of customers and the distribution of cards than to spend
much money in handbills. The shrines of the street gods occur in
southern cities, located in niches in the wall, with altars before them.

The temples and assembly-halls are the only public buildings in Chinese
cities belonging to the people. Their courts and cloisters, with such
gardens, tea-houses, and pools as may be accessible, attract constant
crowds, and furnish the only places of common resort. The priests
derive no small portion of their income from travellers, and their
establishments are consequently made more commodious and extensive than
the number of priests or the throng of worshippers require.

~CLUB-HOUSES AND TAVERNS.~

The assembly-halls or club-houses form a peculiar feature of Chinese
society. There are more than a hundred in Canton and many hundreds
in Peking. They are built sometimes by a particular craft as its
guildhall, or more commonly erected by persons resorting to the place
for trade, study, or amusement, who subscribe to fit up a commodious
establishment to accommodate persons coming from the same town. In this
way their convenience, assistance, oversight, and general safety are
all increased.[352] 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 kí_, or ‘red deed,’ in testimony of his right to occupancy, which
puts him in possession as long as he pays the taxes. There is a record
office in the local magistracy of such documents.

Houses are rented on short leases, and the rent collected quarterly in
advance; the annual income from real estate is between nine and twelve
per cent. The yearly rent of the best shops in Canton is from $150 to
$400; there is no system of insuring against fire, which, with the
municipal taxes and the difficulty of collecting bad rents, enhances
their price. Such kind of property in China is liable to many risks.

The taverns are numerous and adapted for every calling. Though they
will not bear comparison with western hotels, they are far in advance
of the cheerless khans and caravansaries found in Western Asia. The
traveller brings his own bedding, sometimes also his own provision,
and when night comes spreads his mat upon the floor or divan and lies
down in his clothes. The better sort of travellers order a room for
themselves, but officials or rich men go to temples, or hire a boat
in which to travel and sleep; this usage takes off the best class of
customers. One considerable source of income to innkeepers is the
preparation of dinners for parties of men, who either come to the
house or send to it for so many covers; for when a gentleman invites
his friends to an entertainment it is common to serve it up at his
warehouse, or at an inn. In towns and cities thousands of men eat in
the streets; the number of eating and cooking-stalls produces a most
lively impression upon a stranger. This custom has had a good effect in
promoting the general courtesy so conspicuous among the people, and is
increased by great numbers of street story-tellers. The noisy hilarity
of the customers, as they ply their “nimble lads,” or chopsticks,
and the vociferous cries of the cooks recommending their cakes and
dishes, with the steaming savor from the frying-pan and kettles, form
only one of the many objects to attract the notice of the foreign
observer. Their appearance and the variety of bustling scenes and
picturesque novelties presented to him afford constant instruction
and entertainment. Those at Canton have been thus described by an
eye-witness.

~STREET SCENES IN CANTON AND PEKING.~

  The number of itinerant workmen of one kind or another which line
  the sides of the streets or occupy the areas before public buildings
  in Chinese towns is a remarkable feature. Fruiterers, pastrymen,
  cooks, venders of gimcracks, and wayside shopmen are found in other
  countries as well as China; but to see a travelling blacksmith
  or tinker, an itinerant glass-mender, a peripatetic repairer of
  umbrellas, a locomotive seal-cutter, an ambulatory barber, a
  migratory banker, a peregrinatory apothecary or druggist, or a
  walking shoe-maker and cobbler, one must travel hitherward. These
  movable establishments, together with fortune-tellers, herb and
  booksellers, chiromancers, etc., pretty well fill up the space, so
  that one often sees both sides of the streets literally lined with
  the stalls, wares, or tools of persons selling or making something to
  eat or to wear. The money-changer sits behind a small table, on which
  his strings of cash are chained, and where he weighs the silver he is
  to change; his neighbor, the seal-cutter, sits next him near a like
  fashioned table. The barber has his chest of drawers made to serve
  for a seat, and if he has not a furnace of his own he heats his water
  at the cook’s or the blacksmith’s fire near by, perhaps shaving his
  friend gratis by way of recompense.

  The herbseller chooses an open place where he will not be trampled
  on, and there displays his simples and his plasters, while the
  dentist, with a ghastly string of fangs and grinders around his neck,
  testimonials of his skill, sits over against him, each with his
  infallible remedy. The book-peddler and chooser of lucky days, and
  he who searches for stolen goods by divination, arrange themselves
  on either side, with their tables and stalls, and array of sticks,
  pencils, signs, and pictures, all trying to “catch a little pigeon.”
  The spectacle-mender and razor-grinder, the cutler and seller of
  bangles and bracelets, and the maker of clay puppets or mender of
  old shoes, are not far off, all plying their callings as busily
  as if they were in their own shops. Then, besides the hundreds of
  stalls for selling articles of food, dress, or ornament, there are
  innumerable hucksters going up and down with baskets and trays slung
  on their shoulders, each bawling or making his own peculiar note,
  which, with coolies transporting burdens, chair-bearers carrying
  sedans, and passengers following one another like a stream, with
  here and there a woman among them, so fill up the streets that it
  is no easy matter to navigate one’s way. Notwithstanding all these
  obstructions, it is worthy of note and highly praiseworthy to see
  these crowds pass and repass with the greatest rapidity in the
  narrow streets without altercation or disturbance, and seldom with
  accident.[353]

Streets at the north present a somewhat different, and on the whole
a less inviting because less entertaining and picturesque aspect.
Their greater width allows carts to pass, and it also offers more room
for the garbage, the rubbish, and the noisome sights that are most
disgusting, all of which are made worse in rainy weather by the mud
through which one flounders. Barrow thus delineates those in Peking:
“The multitude of movable workshops of tinkers and barbers, cobblers
and blacksmiths, the tents and booths where tea and fruit, rice and
other eatables were exposed for sale, with the wares and merchandise
arrayed before the doors, had contracted this spacious street to a
narrow road in the middle, just wide enough for two little vehicles to
pass each other. The processions of men in office attended by their
numerous retinues, bearing umbrellas and flags, painted lanterns and
a variety of strange insignia of their rank and station, different
trains that were accompanying, with lamentable cries, corpses to their
graves, and with squalling music, brides to their husbands; the troops
of dromedaries laden with coals from Tartary; the wheel-barrows and
hand-carts stuffed with vegetables, occupied nearly the whole of this
middle space in one continued line. All was in motion. The sides of
the streets were filled with an immense concourse of people, buying
and selling and bartering their different commodities. The buzz and
confused noises of this mixed multitude, proceeding from the loud
bawling of those who were crying their wares, the wrangling of others,
with every now and then a strange twanging sound like the jarring of a
cracked jewsharp (the barber’s signal), the mirth and laughter that
prevailed in every group, could scarcely be exceeded. Peddlers with
their packs, jugglers and conjurers, fortune-tellers, mountebanks and
quack doctors, comedians and musicians, left no space unoccupied.”[354]

~CONTROL OF BEGGARS AND FIRES IN CITIES.~

Shops are closed at nightfall, and persons going abroad carry a lantern
or torch. Over the thoroughfares slender towers are erected, where
notice of a fire is given and the watches of the night announced by
striking a gong. Few persons are met in the streets at night, and the
private watch kept by all who are able greatly assists the regular
police in preserving order and apprehending thieves. These watchers go
up and down their wards beating large bamboos, to let “thieves know
they are on the lookout.” Considering all things, large Chinese cities
are remarkably quiet at night. Beggars find their lodgings in the
porches and squares of temples, or sides of the streets, and nestle
together for mutual warmth. This class is under the care of a headman,
who, in order to collect the poor-tax allowed by law, apportions them
in the neighborhoods with the advice of the elders and constables.
During the day they go from one door to another and receive their
allotted stipend, which cannot be less than one cash to each person.
They sit in the doorway and sing a ditty or beat their clap-dishes and
sticks to attract attention, and if the shopkeeper has no customers
he lets them keep up their cries, for he knows that the longer they
are detained so much the more time will elapse before they come again
to his shop. Many are blind and all present a sickly appearance,
their countenances begrimed with dirt and furrowed by sorrow and
suffering. The very difficult question how to assist, restrain, and
employ the poor has been usually left to the mercy and wisdom of the
municipal officers in the cities; and the results are not on the whole
discreditable to their humanity and benevolence. Many persons give the
headman a dollar or more per month to purchase exemption from the daily
importunity of the beggars, and families about to have a house-warming,
marriage, or funeral, as also newly arrived junks, are obliged to fee
him to get rid of the clamorous and loathsome crowd.

When fires occur the officers of government are held responsible;
the law being that if ten houses are burned _within the walls_, the
highest officer in it shall be fined nine months’ pay; if more than
thirty, a year’s salary; and if three hundred are consumed, he shall
be degraded one degree. The governor and other high officers, attended
by a few troops, are frequently seen at fires in Canton, as much to
prevent thievery as to direct in extinguishing the flames. The engines
are hurried through the narrow streets at a fearful rate; those who
carry away property are armed with swords to defend it, and usually
add to the crash of the burning houses by loud cries. The police do
not hesitate to pull down houses if the fire can thereby be sooner
extinguished, but there is no organized body of firemen, nor any
well-arranged system of operations in such cases, though conflagrations
are ordinarily soon under control. Cruel men often take the opportunity
at such times to steal and carry off defenceless persons, especially
young girls.

At Canton the usage is general of levying a bonus on the owners of
the houses adjacent to the burnt district, whose dwellings were
saved by the exertions of the firemen, the appraisement decreasing
as the distance increases; the sum is divided among the firemen. The
householders thus saved also employ priests to erect an altar near by,
whereon to perform a service, and “return thanks for Heaven’s mercy.”
On the whole, the fire control in China is superior to that in Turkey,
where the firemen pay themselves for their efforts by extortions
practised upon house-owners.

~PAGODAS, THEIR PURPOSE AND CONSTRUCTION.~

The pagoda is a building considered as so peculiar to the Chinese that
a landscape or painting relating to China without a pagoda perched on
a hill--like one of Egyptian scenery destitute of a pyramid--would be
considered deficient. The term _pagoda_ is used in its proper sense
by most of the French and Portuguese writers to denote a temple for
idols, but in English books it has always been appropriated to the
polygonal towers seen throughout the country. Some confusion has
arisen in consequence of applying the account of an immense temple
full of idols to these towers. The English use is the most definite in
China, although its misapplication is indefensible if we regard its
derivation.

The form of the Chinese _tah_ is probably derived from the spire on
the top of the Hindu dagoba, as its name is doubtless taken from the
first syllable; but their purpose has so long been identified with
the geomantic influences which determine the luck of a place that the
people do not associate them with Buddhism. Mr. Milne explains this
in his remark that “the presence of such an edifice not only secures
to the site the protection of heaven, if it already bears evidence
of enjoying it, but represses any evil influences that may be native
to the spot, and imparts to it the most salutary and felicitous
omens.”[355] Those in the southern and central provinces seldom contain
idols of any pretensions. They are ascended by stairways built in the
thick walls on alternate sides of the stories. In the north there is
another kind, designed to contain a _shé-lí_, or relic of Buddha,
having a large room near the base for worshipping the idol placed in
it, but otherwise entirely solid and nearly uniform in size to the
top; the stories are merely numerous narrow projections, like eaves or
string courses, on which hundreds of small images are sometimes placed.
These structures more nearly resemble the Indian _dagoba_ than the
other kind, and are always connected with a monastery, while those are
not uniformly so placed, though under a priestly oversight.

No town is considered complete without a pagoda, and many large
cities have several; there must be nearly two thousand in the Empire,
some of which are quite celebrated. It is rare to see a new one, and
the ruinous condition of most of them indicates the weakness of the
faith which erected them. They vary in height from five to thirteen
stories, and are mostly built in so solid a manner that they are
likely to remain for centuries. One at Hangchau is octagonal, each
face twenty-eight feet wide and the wall at the base eighteen feet
thick; the top is reached by a spiral stairway between the walls; a
covered gallery on the outside of each story affords resting-places and
ever-changing views to the visitor; it is one hundred and seventy feet
high, and was built during the Sung dynasty, in the twelfth century.
The prospect from its summit is superb; the picturesque combination of
sea and shore, land and water, city and country, wilderness, gardens,
and hills, with many historical and religious associations interesting
to a native, make it one of the most charming landscapes in China.

Sir John Davis visited one near Lintsing chau in Shantung, in very
good repair, inhabited by Buddhist priests, and containing two idols;
each of its nine stories was inscribed with _Ometo Fuh_, in large
characters. It was erected since the completion of the Grand Canal.
A winding stairway of near two hundred steps conducted to the top,
about one hundred and fifty feet from the ground, from whence an
extensive view was obtained of the surrounding country. The basement
was excellently built of granite, and all the rest of glazed brick,
beautifully joined and cemented.

The objects in building these structures being of a mixed nature,
sometimes geomantic and sometimes religious, their materials, size,
and structure vary considerably. There are two inside of Canton, and
three near the Pearl River, below the city; fifteen others occur in the
prefecture. Suchau has two, Ningpo one, Fuhchau two, and Peking six in
and out of the walls. One of those at Canton was built by the Moslems
about a thousand years ago, a plain brick tower nearly two hundred feet
high, from which the faithful were probably called to prayers in the
adjacent mosque. Fergusson’s remarks upon Chinese architecture would
probably have been modified had the writer enjoyed a wider range of
observation and a fuller knowledge of the designs of native builders.
They are, however, the conclusions of a competent observer, and the
position he gives to the pagoda among the tower-like buildings of the
world, arising from its peculiar form, its divisions, and its apparent
uselessness, will be generally accepted as just.

Mr. Milne, in his interesting work, has a good account of pagodas; he
shows that while their model is of Hindu origin, and has been carefully
followed since the first one was erected (about A.D. 250) at Nanking,
the popular geomantic ideas connected with their octagonal form and
great height have gradually increased and influenced their location.
The Buddhists seem themselves to have lost their ancient confidence in
the protection of the _shé-lí_ (or _saina_) supposed to be built in
them. The number of Indian words transliterated in Chinese accounts of
these edifices further proves their foreign origin. For convenience
and accuracy in describing them, it would be best to restrict the term
_pagoda_ to the hollow octagonal towers, the word _dagoba_ to the solid
ones covering the relics, and _tope_ to the erections over priests when
buried.

Pagodas are sometimes made of cast iron; those hitherto observed are
in the central provinces. One exists in Chehkiang province, nearly
fifty feet high and of nine stories. The octagonal pieces forming the
walls are each single castings, as are also the plates forming the
roof. The whole structure, including the base and spire, was made of
twenty pieces of iron. Its interior is filled with brick, probably
with the design to strengthen it against storms. The ignorance of the
Chinese of later days of the Hindu origin of pagodas has led to their
regarding those now in existence as of native design, and appropriated
by the Buddhists for their own ends. Most of them are falling to
ruins; and the assurances held out by the geomancers that the pagoda
will act like an electric tractor to draw down every felicitous omen
from above, so that fire, water, wood, earth, and metal will be at the
service of the people, the soil productive, trade prosperous, and the
natives submissive and happy, all fail to call out funds for repairing
them.[356]

The dull appearance of a Chinese city when seen from a distance is
unlike that of European cities, in which spires, domes, and towers of
churches and cathedrals, halls, palaces, and other public buildings
relieve the uniformity of rows of dwellings. In China, temples, houses,
and palaces are nearly of one height; their sameness being only
partially relieved by trees mingled with pairs of tall flag-staffs
with frames near their tops, which at a distance rather suggest the
idea of dismantled gallows. Nature, however, charms and delights, and
few countries present more beautiful landscapes; even the tameness of
the works of man serves as a foil for the diversified beauties of the
cultivated landscape.

[Illustration: Wheelbarrows Used for Travelling.]

~MODES OF TRAVELLING.~

A Chinese usually prefers to travel by water, and in the southeastern
provinces it may be said that vehicles solely designed for carrying
travellers or goods do not exist, for the carts and wheelbarrows which
are met with are few and miserably made. But north of the Yangtsz’
River, all over the Great Plain carts and wheelbarrows form the chief
means of travel and transportation. The high cost of timber and the
bad roads compel the people to make these vehicles very rude and
strong, having axles and wheels able to bear the strains or upsets
which befall them. Carts for goods are drawn by three or four horses
usually driven tandem, and fastened by long traces to the axle-tree,
one remaining within the thills. The common carts, drawn by one or two
mules, are oblong boxes fastened to an axle, covered with cotton cloth,
and cushioned to alleviate the jolting; the passengers get in and out
at the front, where the driver sits close to the horse. In Peking the
members of the imperial clan and family are allowed to use carts having
the wheel behind the body; their ranks are further indicated by a red
or yellow covering, and a greater or less number of outriders to escort
them. The wheelbarrow is in great use for short distances throughout
the same region. The position of the wheel in the centre enables the
man to propel a heavy load readily. When on a good road, and aided by
a donkey, the larger varieties of barrow carry easily a burden of a
ton’s weight; two men are necessary to maintain the balance and guide
the rather top-heavy vehicle.

~SEDAN CHAIRS AND RIVER CRAFT.~

Where travelling by water is impossible, sedan chairs are used to carry
passengers, and coolies with poles and slings transport their luggage
and goods. There are two kinds of sedan, neither of them designed for
reclining like the Indian _palky_. The light one is made of bamboo,
and so narrow that the sitter is obliged to lean forward as he is
carried; the large one, called _kiao_, is, whether viewed in regard to
lightness, comfort, or any other quality associated with such a mode
of carriage, one of the most convenient articles found in any country.
Its use is subject to sumptuary laws, and forbidden to the common
people unless possessing some kind of rank. In Peking only the highest
officials ride in them, with four bearers. In other cities two chairmen
manage easily enough to maintain a gait of four miles an hour with a
sedan upon their shoulders. Goods are carried upon poles, and however
large or heavy the package may be, the porters contrive to subdivide
its weight between them by means of their sticks and slings. The
number of persons who thus gain a livelihood is great, and in cities
they are employed by headmen, who contract for work just as carmen do
elsewhere; when unengaged by overseers, parties station themselves at
corners and other public places, ready to start at a beck, after the
manner of _Dienstmänner_ in German cities. In the streets of Canton
groups of brawny fellows are often seen idling away their time in
smoking, gambling, sleeping, or jeering at the wayfarers; and, like the
husbandmen mentioned in the parable, if one ask them why they stand
there all the day idle? the answer will be, “Because no man hath hired
us.”

The chair-bearers form a distinct guild in cities, and the
establishments where sedans and their bearers are to be hired suggest
a comparison with the livery stables of western cities; the men, in
fact, are nicknamed at Canton _mo mí ma_, ‘tailless horses.’ A vehicle
used sometimes by the Emperor and high officers consists of an open
chair set upon poles, so made that the incumbent can be seen as well
as see around him. It undergoes many changes in different parts of the
country, as it is both cheap and light and well fitted for traversing
mountainous regions.

In the construction and management of their river craft the Chinese
excel. As boats are intended to be the residences of those who navigate
them, regard is had to this in their arrangement. Only a part of
the fleets of boats seen on the river at Canton are intended for
transportation, a large number being designed for fixed residences,
and perhaps half of them are permanently moored. They are not obliged
to remain where they station themselves, but the boats and their
inmates are both under the supervision of a water police, who register
them and point out the position they may occupy. Barges for families,
those in which oil, salt, fuel, or other articles are sold, lighters,
passage-boats, flower-boats, and other kinds, are by this means grouped
together, and more easily found. It was once ascertained that there
were eighty-four thousand boats registered as belonging to the city
of Canton, but whether all remained near the city and did not go to
other parts of the district, or whether old ones were erased from the
register when broken up, was not determined. It is not likely, however,
that at one time this number of boats ever lay opposite the city. No
one who has been at Canton can forget the noisy, animating sight the
river offers, nor failed to have noticed the good-humored carefulness
with which boats of every size pass each other without collision.

It is difficult to describe the many kinds of craft found on Chinese
waters without the assistance of drawings. They are furnished with
stern sculls moving upon a pivot, and easily propelling the boat.
Large boats are furnished with two or three of these, which, when not
in use, are conveniently hauled in upon the side. They are provided
with oars, the loom and blade of which are fastened by withs, and work
through a band attached to a stake; the rower stands up and pushes his
oar with the same motion as that employed by the Venetian gondolier.
Occasionally an oarsman is seen rowing with his feet. The mast in some
large cargo boats consists of two sticks, resting on the gunwales,
joined at top, and so arranged as to be hoisted from the bow; in those
designed for residences no provision is made for a mast. Fishing boats,
lighters, and sea-going craft have one or two permanent masts. In all,
except the smallest, a wale or frame projects from the side, on which
the boatmen walk when poling the vessel. The sails in the south are
woven of strips of matting, sewed into a single sheet, and provided
with yards at the top and bottom; the bamboo ribs crossing it serve to
retain the hoops that run on the mast, and enable the boatmen to haul
them close on the wind. A driver is sometimes placed on the taffrail,
and a small foresail near the bow, but the mainsail is the chief
dependence. No Chinese boat has a bowsprit, and very few are coppered,
or have two decks, further than an orlop in the stern quarter in
which to stow provisions; no dead-lights give even a glimmer to these
recesses, which are necessarily small.

The internal arrangement of dwelling-boats is simple. The better sort
are from sixty to eighty feet long, and about fifteen wide, divided
into three rooms; the stem is sharp, and upholds a platform on which,
when they are moored alongside, it is easy to pass from one boat to
another. Each one is secured by ropes to large hawsers which run along
the whole line at the bow and stern. The room nearest the bow serves
for a lobby to the principal apartment, which occupies about half the
body of the boat; the two are separated by trellis bulkheads, but
the sternmost room, or sleeping apartment, is carefully screened.
Cooking and washing are performed on a high stern framework, which is
admirably contrived, by means of furnaces and other conveniences above
and hatches and partitions below deck, to serve all these purposes,
contain all the fuel and water necessary, and answer for a sleeping
place as well. By means of awnings and frameworks the top of the boat
also subserves many objects of work or pleasure. The window-shutters
are movable, fitted for all kinds of weather and for flexibility of
arrangement, meeting all the demands of a family and the particular
service of a vessel; nothing can be more ingenious.

The handsomest of these craft are called _hwa ting_, or flower-boats,
and are let to parties for pleasure excursions on the river; a large
proportion of them are also the abodes of public women. The smaller
sorts at Canton are generally known as _tankia_ boats; they are about
twenty-five feet long, contain only one room, and are fitted with
moveable mats to cover the whole vessel; they are usually rowed by
women. In these “egg-houses” whole families are reared, live, and die;
the room which serves for passengers by day is a bedroom by night; a
kitchen at one time, a washroom at another, and a nursery always.

~DWELLERS ON THE WATER.~

As to this custom of living upon the water, we have an interesting
testimony of its practice so far back as the fourteenth century, from
the letter of a Dominican Friar in 1330. “The realm of Cathay,” writes
the missionary, “is peopled passing well.... And there be many great
rivers and great sheets of water throughout the Empire; insomuch that a
good half of the realm and its territory is under water. And on these
waters dwell great multitudes of people because of the vast population
that there is in the said realm. They build wooden houses upon boats,
and so their houses go up and down upon the waters; and the people go