Part 2
IN so arbitrary a government as that of China, it would scarcely be supposed that the press should be free; that is to say, that every one who chooses it may follow the profession of a printer or a bookseller without any previous licence, or without submitting the works he may print or expose for sale to any censor appointed by government; but then he must take his chance to suffer in his person all the consequences that may result from the impression that may be made on the minds of the civil officers as to the tendency of the work. A libel against the government, an immoral or indecent book, would subject both printer and publisher to certain punishment both in his person and purse. The Chinese have not made any great progress in literature, and still less in the sciences: they most excel in the history of their own country, in morality, and in practical jurisprudence. Their dramatic works are constructed on the same model as those of the Greeks, to which it is hardly necessary to add they are infinitely inferior. Their novels and moral tales are better; but the works in most esteem are the four classical books supposed to be written or compiled by Confucius. Their printing is not performed by moveable types, like ours, but by wooden blocks the size of the page; and this mode appears to have been in use long before the Christian æra.
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[Illustration:
CHINA—PLATE 24 ]
Plate XXIV.
A SOLDIER OF INFANTRY.
THE annexed figure, either from the striped dress, or the furious looking head painted on the shield, has been called a tiger of war; but he is not so fierce as he appears to be, or as the name would imply; indeed the Chinese admit that the monstrous face, on the basket-work shield, is intended to frighten the enemy, and make him run away; like another Gorgon’s head to petrify those who look upon it. This corps of infantry, in its exercise, assumes all kinds of whimsical attitudes, jumping about and tumbling over each other, like so many mountebanks. Indeed the whole of the Chinese military tactics are as absurd as they are ridiculous. When an army is drawn out, it must represent the heavens, or the earth, or the moon, or the five planets, or the five-clawed dragon, or mystical tortoise. Père Amiot, a French missionary, has been at the trouble of collecting or composing the military tactics of China, which fill a large quarto volume.
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[Illustration:
CHINA—PLATE 25 ]
Plate XXV.
A RAREE SHOW.
THERE is every reason to believe, that Punch and his wife were originally natives of China; and that all our puppet-shows were brought from that country. The little theatre, above the head of a man concealed behind a curtain, is precisely Chinese. _Les ombres Chinoises_ still bear the name of their inventors; but the annexed representation of a puppet-showman is somewhat different from both, and is the simple origin of the _Fantoccini_, which consists in giving motion to the puppets, by means of springs attached to particular parts of the figures. These little dancing puppets are not merely exhibited for the amusement of children; they furnish entertainment for the Emperor and his court, and more especially for the ladies who, from their recluse mode of life, are easily diverted with any kind of amusement, however childish. We find from Mr. Barrow, that a puppet-show was one species of entertainment given to Lord Macartney and his suite at the Emperor’s palace of Gehol in Tartary.
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[Illustration:
CHINA—PLATE 26 ]
Plate XXVI.
A MANDARIN’S PAGE.
WE have not much to observe with respect to the annexed figure. He is the page or body servant of a mandarin, to carry his papers, his writing apparatus, the cushion on which he sits, or lays his head; he takes care of his areca-box and his tobacco pipe, attends him on all occasions, fans him while asleep; and, if report speaks truth, serves him for other unworthy purposes. Every mandarin has one or more of these kind of boys whom, even in public, they treat with a familiarity which is not quite decorous. The upper vest, worn by the person in the annexed figure, is of fur, which in all the northern provinces is found to be absolutely necessary in the severe cold of the winter months.
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[Illustration:
CHINA—PLATE 27 ]
Plate XXVII.
A TRAVELLING SMITH.
IT is a peculiar feature in all the Oriental nations, that the most beautiful specimens of workmanship in the various arts are made with the most simple and at the same time most clumsy tools. The artificers moreover are rarely fixed, or settled in a workshop convenient for their purposes, but generally travel about the country carrying their shop and apparatus with them. The annexed figure represents an itinerant smith, who has more tools than almost any other artificer of China, and yet performs his work the worst. Their cast iron is light and good, but their manufactures of wrought iron are very indifferent: they can neither make a hinge, nor a lock, nor even a nail that can be called good. The bellows of the smith is a box with a valvular piston, which, when not in use, serves as a seat, and also to contain his tools. The barber also makes a seat of his basket; the joiner uses his rule as a walking-stick, and the same chest that holds his tools serves him as a bench to work upon: such are the expedients which thousands resort to, both in India and China.
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[Illustration:
CHINA—PLATE 28 ]
Plate XXVIII.
VISIT TO THE GRAVE OF A RELATION.
FILIAL piety in China extends beyond the grave. Every year at certain periods dutiful children assemble at the tomb of their parents or ancestors, to make oblations of flowers, or fruit, or pieces of gilt paper, or whatever else they consider as likely to be acceptable to the manes of the departed. Their mourning dress consists of a garment of Nanquin cotton, or canvas, of the coarsest kind. Some of the monuments erected over the dead are by no means inelegant; like their bridges and triumphal arches, they are very much varied, and made apparently without any fixed design or proportion. The semicircular or the horse-shoe form, like that in the print before which the mourner is kneeling, appeared to be the most common.
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[Illustration:
CHINA—PLATE 29 ]
Plate XXIX.
A SELLER OF RICE.
ALMOST every necessary of life, and many articles that are not of that description, are carried about the streets for sale, and the invariable mode of bearing burthens of this kind is in baskets or boxes suspended from the two extremities of a bamboo lath, swung across the back part of the shoulder. If a Chinese should only have one basket to carry, he is sure to get a log of wood, or a large stone to counterpoise it at the opposite end, thus preferring to carry a double weight rather than place it on the head, or the shoulder, or across the arm. The Chinese are in appearance far from exhibiting any signs of great muscular powers, but in lifting, or carrying a load, they are probably not excelled by the porters even of Ireland.
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[Illustration:
CHINA—PLATE 30 ]
Plate XXX.
A FEMALE COMEDIAN.
IT is, perhaps, more proper to call the annexed figure, the representation of a person in the character of a female comedian, than “a female comedian,” as women have been prohibited from appearing publicly on the stage since the late Emperor, Kien Lung, took an actress for one of his inferior wives. Female characters are now therefore performed either by boys or eunuchs. The whole dress is supposed to be that of the ancient Chinese, and indeed is not very different from that of the present day. The young ladies of China display considerable taste and fancy in their head-dresses which are much decorated with feathers, flowers, and beads as well as metallic ornaments in great variety of form. Their outer garments are richly embroidered, and are generally the work of their own hands, a great part of their time being employed in this way. If it was not a rigid custom of the country, to confine to their apartments the better class of females, the unnatural cramping of their feet, while infants, is quite sufficient to prevent them from stirring much abroad, as it is with some difficulty they are able to hobble along; yet such is the force of fashion, that a lady with her feet of the natural size would be despised, and at once classed among the vulgar.
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[Illustration:
CHINA—PLATE 31 ]
Plate XXXI.
A SEDAN BEARER.
WHENEVER the Emperor of China goes in state to transact public business, to receive ambassadors, or to hold a court, he is carried in the same kind of a sedan chair as are commonly used in Europe, and which, as well as umbrellas, have obviously been first introduced from China. The soft luxury of an Indian palanquin is unknown to the Chinese. By means of poles attached to each other the Emperor’s chair, on grand occasions, is carried by eight pair of bearers, sometimes by four pair, but on ordinary occasions he has no more than two pair. They are generally the stoutest and tallest men that can be found, and are dressed in a long yellow vest, which is the colour assumed by the imperial family.
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[Illustration:
CHINA—PLATE 32 ]
Plate XXXII.
A MAN SELLING BETEL, _&c._
THE practice of smoking tobacco is not more common, at least in the southern provinces of China, than that of chewing the areca nut, mixed with chunam, or lime made of shells, and wrapped up in a leaf of the betel pepper. Indeed this compound masticatory is in universal use throughout all India, the Oriental Islands, Cochin-china, and Tonquin. In addition to the little purse which every Chinese wears suspended from his belt as an appendage to his tobacco pipe and to hold the ingredients for smoking, whether tobacco, or opium, or both, he generally carries another to contain areca nuts broken into small fragments: the other materials, the betel leaf, and chunam are to be met with in every little eating shop, and on almost every stall in the bazar, or market, and are among the most common articles carried about the streets for sale. The areca tree is one of the palm tribe, with a tuft of leaves surmounting a stem as straight and beautifully shaped as the shaft of a Corinthian pillar. It requires a warm climate, and grows freely in the southern provinces of China, but is common in every part of India and the Oriental Islands.
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[Illustration:
CHINA—PLATE 33 ]
Plate XXXIII.
A CHINESE CARRIAGE.
THIS machine, like a baker’s cart, is the kind of wheel carriage which is most common in the country, and such as even the high officers of state ride in, when performing land journies in bad weather, and the driver invariably sits on the shaft in the aukward manner here represented. They have no springs, nor any seat in the inside, the persons using them always sitting cross-legged on a cushion at the bottom. In these carts the gentlemen of Lord Macartney’s embassy who had not horses, were _accommodated_, over a stone pavement full of rutts and holes. When ladies use them, a bamboo screen is let down in front to prevent their being stared at by passengers, and on each side, the light is admitted through a square hole just large enough for a person’s head.
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[Illustration:
CHINA—PLATE 34 ]
Plate XXXIV.
A MAN WITH PIPES FOR SALE.
THE very general use of tobacco throughout the whole extensive empire of China, and the still more extensive regions of Tartary, would seem to contradict the commonly received opinion, that this herb is indigenous only in America. One can hardly suppose that the Chinese, who are so remarkably averse from the introduction of any thing novel, would, in the course of three centuries, have brought the custom of smoking into universal use; yet so it is; men of all ranks and all ages; women, whatever their condition in life may be, and children even of both sexes of eight or ten years of age, are furnished with the necessary apparatus for smoking tobacco. In walking the streets, in almost all the occupations of life, the tobacco pipe is seldom out of the mouth. When not in use it is placed in a small pouch suspended from the girdle; and another appendage is a small silken purse generally attached to the pipe for containing opium, areca nut, or some other masticatory. The tube of the pipe is generally made of bamboo, and the cap or bowl of the metal called tutanague or porcelain. The shape and structure of this machine are strongly marked with originality, being unlike those in use among any other people; but the plant itself is, we understand, of a different species to any of those found in America, which is perhaps the strongest proof of all, that the custom of smoking has existed in China from time immemorial.
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[Illustration:
CHINA—PLATE 35 ]
Plate XXXV.
A WATERMAN IN HIS BARGE.
SOME millions of Chinese live entirely on the water, in boats and barges of various kinds, some occupied in carrying articles of provisions and merchandize, others in conveying passengers, some in feeding and rearing ducks, and others in fishing. Some of these vessels have masts and sails, others are forced forwards with large sculls or pushed on with poles, some are dragged along by men, and others, but very rarely, by horses. Near the head of each vessel is suspended in some convenient place, one of those noisy instruments well known in this country by the name of gong, which is used to regulate the motions of the trackers, and to give notice to other vessels of the approach and intentions of the one that beats the signal. Where a large fleet is about to come to anchor or make fast for the night, there is a tremendous crash of gongs from all quarters; the meaning of each of which is distinctly understood by the Chinese, from the peculiar mode in which each is struck.
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[Illustration:
CHINA—PLATE 36 ]
Plate XXXVI.
A TRADESMAN WITH HIS SWAN-PAN.
THE Chinese merchants and tradesmen are most expert and ready reckoners; but they perform all arithmetical operations mechanically, by means of a table divided into two compartments, through which pass iron wires; and on these wires are strung in one compartment five, and in the other two, moveable balls. The principle is something of the same kind as that of the _abacus_ of the Romans, and is with some little variation still made use of in Russia. It has been observed, that in weighing several thousand chests of tea, or bales of goods, at Canton, the Chinese accountant can invariably name the sum total long before the European can cast up his account.
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[Illustration:
CHINA—PLATE 37 ]
Plate XXXVII.
FEMALE PEASANT.
BLUE or brown cotton frocks with green or yellow trowsers are the ordinary dresses of the female peasantry, all of whom, except such as labour in the field or the fisheries, have the vanity to cramp their feet, in imitation of their superiors. Those in the print are employed in winding cotton yarn. They are, in general, ill featured, and their countenance void of expression.
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[Illustration:
CHINA—PLATE 38 ]
Plate XXXVIII.
A TARTAR DRAGOON.
OF the Tartar horse another specimen has been given in this work. This represents a Tartar dragoon armed with the common instruments, the bow, and a short sabre. This corps is probably of little use beyond that of carrying dispatches, and assisting in the imperial hunts in the forests of Tartary. All the cavalry that were seen by the British Embassy had a mean, irregular, and most unsoldierlike appearance.
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[Illustration:
CHINA—PLATE 39 ]
Plate XXXIX.
PUNISHMENT OF THE _TCHA_, OR CANGUE.
THE punishment of the cangue may be compared to that of our pillory, with this difference, that in China a person convicted of petty crimes or misdemeanours is sometimes sentenced to carry the wooden clog about his neck for weeks, or even months; sometimes one hand, or even both hands, are inserted through holes, as well as the neck. The annexed representation is not a common one, and far less painful than the plain heavy tablet of wood, the whole weight of which must be supported on the shoulders; whereas in this it is mere confinement, without the person being compelled to carry a heavy load. The nature of the offence is always described in large characters, either on the edge of the cangue, or, as in the present instance, on a piece of board attached to it.
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[Illustration:
CHINA—PLATE 40 ]
Plate XL.
CHILDREN EATING THEIR MEAL.
AMONG the peasantry and labouring people of China, all are cooks. A little earthen-ware stove and an iron pan is all that is required. Rice is their principal food, which is simply boiled, and then a little fat of pork or a salt fish put into the pan to mix with it and give it a relish; they drink little else besides water, which is usually carried about in a gourd slung on the back; and they require no table nor chairs. Each person has his bowl and his chop-sticks, and squatting down on his haunches before the pan, he makes a hearty and contented meal. It is quite gratifying to see a party of youngsters making their dinner in this way in the open air.
[Illustration:
CHINA—PLATE 41 ]
Plate XLI.
A SEDAN CHAIR.
THE vehicles of this description are nearly as various in the different provinces of China, and among the different ranks of inhabitants, as their boats and barges are. The one here engraved belongs to a person in a certain rank of life, probably an inferior mandarin. It will be observed that, instead of carrying the poles in the hands, as we do, the Chinese carry the chairs on the shoulders by means of a cross-bar fixed to the poles by straps: but different kinds of chairs are carried in different ways.
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[Illustration:
CHINA—PLATE 42 ]
Plate XLII.
VIEW ON THE GREAT CANAL.
THE grand canal of China, or rather the water communication between the northern and southern extremities of the empire by a succession of canals and rivers, is certainly the first inland navigation in the world. The multitude of vessels, of every size and shape, is not to be estimated. The large one in the print is one of those which carried the British embassador and his suite up the Pei-ho to the neighbourhood of Pekin, which were in every respect comfortable and commodious. On passing bridges, which are very frequent in the neighbourhood of all towns and villages, the masts are usually lowered down; but many of the bridges are lofty enough to admit the smaller kind of barges to pass underneath with their masts standing. The bridges are almost as various in their shape and construction as the barges, and some of them by no means destitute of taste.
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[Illustration:
CHINA—PLATE 43 ]
Plate XLIII.
A CHINESE LADY OF RANK.
IF we except the unnatural custom of maiming the feet, which swells and distorts the ankles, and wrapping the latter up in bandages, the dress of Chinese ladies in the upper ranks of life is by no means unbecoming. In the head dress, in particular, they sometimes exhibit great taste, and great variety; and the materials of which their garments are made, and especially those parts of them which consist of their own embroidering, are exceedingly beautiful. Confined by education in their mental acquirements, a great part of their time is employed in works of this kind, in looking after and cultivating plants growing in pots which decorate their apartments and inner courtyards, and in attending to birds, which are either kept for singing, or some particular beauty of form or plumage. The buildings in the back ground form part of a view of Pekin, near one of the western gates.
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[Illustration:
CHINA—PLATE 44 ]
Plate XLIV.
A NURSERY MAID AND TWO CHILDREN.
THE annexed are portraits of a female servant, and of a male and female child, which will give a tolerably correct idea of the dresses worn by them respectively. That of the maid servant differs in nothing from her mistress, but in the materials; the latter generally wearing silk, and the one in question cotton. A Chinese woman of the meanest condition would feel herself degraded if not allowed to mutilate her feet.
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[Illustration:
CHINA—PLATE 45 ]
Plate XLV.
A STAGE PLAYER.
BY the military emblem on the breast-plate, the annexed figure of a stage player must be intended to represent a great general or some military hero famous in the annals of China. Noisy music and extravagant gestures are the characteristic features of the Chinese stage, of which it would lead us into too long a detail to convey any intelligible account; and we prefer, therefore, to refer to the curious and interesting descriptions which have been furnished on this subject by Lord Macartney, Sir George Staunton and Mr. Barrow. We have only to add, that the figure was sketched from the life.
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[Illustration:
CHINA—PLATE 46 ]
Plate XLVI.
TRACKERS REGALING.
THERE is little to observe on the annexed engraving. It represents a groupe of the common peasantry of the country eating their rice. The
## particular employment of these, here designated, is that of tracking
barges on the canals; the pieces of wood lying by them being those which they place across the chest to drag forward the vessels. It will be seen from the other prints, that the common mode of carrying burthens is that of swinging baskets from the two extremities of a bamboo, which is laid by the middle across the shoulders.
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[Illustration:
CHINA—PLATE 47 ]
Plate XLVII.
A MANDARIN’S OFFICER.
THIS gentleman is a sort of appendage to a man in power. Some half-dozen of them generally precede a mandarin of rank when he goes in procession, but more especially when he attends a tribunal of justice. Their peculiar province seems to be that of keeping off the crowd. The feathers they wear in their tall conical hats are from three to six feet in length, and are apparently the tail feathers of a peculiar species of pheasant, which is represented as very scarce. Some of them wear the tail feathers of the argus pheasant.
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[Illustration:
CHINA—PLATE 48 ]
Plate XLVIII.
PUNISHMENT FOR INSOLENCE TO A SUPERIOR.
PIERCING the ear with various sharp instruments is among the punishments of the Chinese. A man who had been insolent to one of the suite of Lord Macartney’s embassy, was sentenced to receive fifty strokes from the pant-zee or bamboo, in addition to having his hand pinned to his ear by an iron wire, which was said to have been inflicted immediately after the bastinade.
The middle figure is an inferior officer of the police, who holds a painted board on which the crime is exhibited to spectators; the other personage is a mandarin reproving the culprit.
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[Illustration:
CHINA—PLATE 49 ]
Plate XLIX.
WOMAN SELLING CHOW-CHOW.