THE CIVILIZATION OF CHINA

by Herbert A. Giles

Professor of Chinese in the University of Cambridge, And sometime H. B. M. Consul at Ningpo

PREFACE

The aim of this work is to suggest a rough outline of Chinesecivilization from the earliest times down to the present period of rapidand startling transition. 

It has been written, primarily, for readers who know little or nothingof China, in the hope that it may succeed in alluring them to a widerand more methodical survey. 

H. A. G. 

Cambridge, May 12, 1911. 

THE CIVILIZATION OF CHINA

CHAPTER I--THE FEUDAL AGE

It is a very common thing now-a-days to meet people who are going to"China, " which can be reached by the Siberian railway in fourteen orfifteen days. This brings us at once to the question--What is meant bythe term China?

Taken in its widest sense, the term includes Mongolia, Manchuria, Eastern Turkestan, Tibet, and the Eighteen Provinces, the whole beingequivalent to an area of some five million square miles, that is, considerably more than twice the size of the United States of America. But for a study of manners and customs and modes of thought of theChinese people, we must confine ourselves to that portion of the wholewhich is known to the Chinese as the "Eighteen Provinces, " and to us asChina Proper. This portion of the empire occupies not quite two-fifthsof the whole, covering an area of somewhat more than a million and ahalf square miles. Its chief landmarks may be roughly stated as Peking, the capital, in the north; Canton, the great commercial centre, in thesouth; Shanghai, on the east; and the Tibetan frontier on the west. 

Any one who will take the trouble to look up these four points on amap, representing as they do central points on the four sides of a roughsquare, will soon realize the absurdity of asking a returning travellerthe very much asked question, How do you like China? Fancy asking aChinaman, who had spent a year or two in England, how he liked Europe!Peking, for instance, stands on the same parallel of latitude as Madrid;whereas Canton coincides similarly with Calcutta. Within the squareindicated by the four points enumerated above will be found variationsof climate, flowers, fruit, vegetables and animals--not to mention humanbeings--distributed in very much the same way as in Europe. The climateof Peking is exceedingly dry and bracing; no rain, and hardly any snow, falling between October and April. The really hot weather lasts only forsix or eight weeks, about July and August--and even then the nights arealways cool; while for six or eight weeks between December and Februarythere may be a couple of feet of ice on the river. Canton, on the otherhand, has a tropical climate, with a long damp enervating summer and ashort bleak winter. The old story runs that snow has only been seenonce in Canton, and then it was thought by the people to be fallingcotton-wool. 

The northern provinces are remarkable for vast level plains, dottedwith villages, the houses of which are built of mud. In the southernprovinces will be found long stretches of mountain scenery, vying inloveliness with anything to be seen elsewhere. Monasteries are builthigh up on the hills, often on almost inaccessible crags; and therethe well-to-do Chinaman is wont to escape from the fierce heat of thesouthern summer. On one particular mountain near Canton, there aresaid to be no fewer than one hundred of such monasteries, all of whichreserve apartments for guests, and are glad to be able to add to theirfunds by so doing. 

In the north of China, Mongolian ponies, splendid mules, and donkeys areseen in large quantities; also the two-humped camel, which carries heavyloads across the plains of Mongolia. In the south, until the advent ofthe railway, travellers had to choose between the sedan-chair carriedon the shoulders of stalwart coolies, or the slower but more comfortablehouse-boat. Before steamers began to ply on the coast, a candidate forthe doctor's degree at the great triennial examination would take threemonths to travel from Canton to Peking. Urgent dispatches, however, wereoften forwarded by relays of riders at the rate of two hundred miles aday. 

The market in Peking is supplied, among other things, with excellentmutton from a fat-tailed breed of sheep, chiefly for the largelyMohammedan population; but the sheep will not live in southern China, where the goat takes its place. The pig is found everywhere, andrepresents beef in our market, the latter being extremely unpalatable tothe ordinary Chinaman, partly perhaps because Confucius forbade men toslaughter the animal which draws the plough and contributes so much tothe welfare of mankind. The staple food, the "bread" of the people inthe Chinese Empire, is nominally rice; but this is too costly for thepeasant of northern China to import, and he falls back on millet as itssubstitute. Apples, pears, grapes, melons, and walnuts grow abundantlyin the north; the southern fruits are the banana, the orange, thepineapple, the mango, the pomelo, the lichee, and similar fruits of amore tropical character. 

Cold storage has been practised by the Chinese for centuries. Blocks ofice are cut from the river for that purpose; and on a hot summer's day aPeking coolie can obtain an iced drink at an almost infinitesimal cost. Grapes are preserved from autumn until the following May and June bythe simple process of sticking the stalk of the bunch into a large hardpear, and putting it away carefully in the ice-house. Even at Ningpo, close to our central point on the eastern coast of China, thin layersof ice are collected from pools and ditches, and successfully stored foruse in the following summer. 

The inhabitants of the coast provinces are distinguished from thedwellers in the north and in the far interior by a marked alertness ofmind and general temperament. The Chinese themselves declare that virtueis associated with mountains, wisdom with water, cynically implying thatno one is both virtuous and wise. Between the inhabitants of thevarious provinces there is little love lost. Northerners fear andhate southerners, and the latter hold the former in infinite scorn andcontempt. Thus, when in 1860 the Franco-British force made for Peking, it was easy enough to secure the services of any number of Cantonese, who remained as faithful as though the attack had been directed againstsome third nationality. 

The population of China has never been exactly ascertained. It has beenvariously estimated by foreign travellers, Sacharoff, in 1842, placingthe figure at over four hundred millions. The latest census, taken in1902, is said to yield a total of four hundred and ten millions. Perhapsthree hundred millions would be a juster estimate; even that wouldabsorb no less than one-fifth of the human race. From this total it iseasy to calculate that if the Chinese people were to walk past a givenpoint in single file, the procession would never end; long before thelast of the three hundred millions had passed by, a new generation wouldhave sprung up to continue the neverending line. The census, however, isa very old institution with the Chinese; and we learn that in A. D. 156the total population of the China of those days was returned as a littleover fifty millions. In more modern times, the process of taking thecensus consists in serving out house-tickets to the head of everyhousehold, who is responsible for a proper return of all the inmates;but as there is no fixed day for which these tickets are returnable, theresults are approximate rather than exact. 

Again, it is not uncommon to hear people talking of the Chinese languageas if it were a single tongue spoken all over China after a more or lessuniform standard. But the fact is that the colloquial is broken up intoat least eight dialects, each so strongly marked as to constitute eightlanguages as different to the ear, one from another, as English, Dutchand German, or French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese. A Shanghai man, for instance, is unintelligible to a Cantonese, and so on. All officialsare obliged, and all of the better educated merchants and othersendeavour, if only for business purposes, to learn something of thedialect spoken at the court of Peking; and this is what is popularlyknown as "Mandarin. " The written language remains the same for the wholeempire; which merely means that ideas set down on paper after a uniformsystem are spoken with different sounds, just as the Arabic numerals arewritten uniformly in England, France and Germany, but are pronounced ina totally different manner. 

The only difficulty of the spoken language, of no matter what dialect, lies in the "tones, " which simply means the different intonations whichmay be given to one and the same sound, thus producing so many entirelydifferent meanings. But for these tones, the colloquial of China wouldbe absurdly easy, inasmuch as there is no such thing as grammar, in thesense of gender, number, case, mood, tense, or any of the variations weunderstand by that term. Many amusing examples are current of blunderscommitted by faulty speakers, such as that of the student who told hisservant to bring him a goose, when what he really wanted was some salt, both goose and salt having the same sound, _yen_, but quite differentintonations. The following specimen has the advantage of being true. A British official reported to the Foreign Office that the people ofTientsin were in the habit of shouting after foreigners, "Mao-tsu, mao-tsu" (pronounced _mowdza_, _ow_ as in _how_), from which he gatheredthat they were much struck by the head-gear of the barbarian. Now, it isa fact that _mao-tsu_, uttered with a certain intonation, means a hat;but with another intonation, it means "hairy one, " and the latter, referring to the big beards of foreigners, was the meaning intended tobe conveyed. This epithet is still to be heard, and is often preceded bythe adjective "red. "

The written characters, known to have been in use for the past threethousand years, were originally rude pictures, as of men, birds, horses, dogs, houses, the numerals (one, two, three, four), etc. , etc. , andit is still possible to trace in the modified modern forms of thesecharacters more or less striking resemblances to the objects intended. The next step was to put two or more characters together, to express bytheir combination an abstract idea, as, for instance, a _hand_ holdinga _rod_ = father; but of course this simple process did not carry theChinese very far, and they soon managed to hit on a joint picture andphonetic system, which enabled them to multiply characters indefinitely, new compounds being formed for use as required. It is thus that newcharacters can still be produced, if necessary, to express novel objectsor ideas. The usual plan, however, is to combine existing terms insuch a way as to suggest what is wanted. For instance, in preferenceto inventing a separate character for the piece of ordnance known asa "mortar, " the Chinese, with an eye to its peculiar pose, gave it theappropriate name of a "frog gun. "

Again, just as the natives and the dialects of the various parts ofChina differ one from another, although fundamentally the same peopleand the same language, so do the manners and customs differ to such anextent that habits of life and ceremonial regulations which prevail inone part of the empire do not necessarily prevail in another. Yet oncemore it will be found that the differences which appear irreconcilableat first, do not affect what is essential, but apply rather to mattersof detail. Many travellers and others have described as customs of theChinese customs which, as presented, refer to a part of China only, andnot to the whole. For instance, the ornamental ceremonies connected withmarriage vary in different provinces; but there is a certain ceremony, equivalent in one sense to signing the register, which is almostessential to every marriage contract. Bride and bridegroom must kneeldown and call God to witness; they also pledge each other in wine fromtwo cups joined together by a red string. Red is the colour for joy, as white is the colour for mourning. Chinese note-paper is always ruledwith red lines or stamped with a red picture. One Chinese official whogave a dinner-party in foreign style, even went so far as to paste apiece of red paper on to each dinner-napkin, in order to counteract theunpropitious influence of white. 

Reference has been made above to journeys performed by boat. In additionto the Yangtsze and the Yellow River or Hoang ho (pronounced _Hwonghaw_), two of the most important rivers in the world, China is coveredwith a network of minor streams, which in southern China form the chieflines of transport. The Yangtsze is nothing more than a huge navigableriver, crossing China Proper from west to east. The Yellow River, which, with the exception of a great loop to the north, runs on nearly parallellines of latitude, has long been known as "China's Sorrow, " and has beenresponsible for enormous loss of life and property. Its current is soswift that ordinary navigation is impossible, and to cross it in boatsis an undertaking of considerable difficulty and danger. It is so calledfrom the yellowness of its water, caused by the vast quantity of mudwhich is swept down by its rapid current to the sea; hence, the commonsaying, "When the Yellow River runs clear, " as an equivalent of theGreek Kalends. The huge embankments, built to confine it to a givencourse, are continually being forced by any unusual press of extrawater, with enormous damage to property and great loss of life, and fromtime to time this river has been known to change its route altogether, suddenly diverging, almost at a right angle. Up to the year 1851 themouth of the river was to the south of the Shantung promontory, aboutlat. 34 N. ; then, with hardly any warning, it began to flow to thenorth-east, finding an outlet to the north of the Shantung promontory, about lat. 38 N. 

A certain number of connecting links have been formed between the chieflines of water communication, in the shape of artificial cuttings; butthere is nothing worthy the name of canal except the rightly named GrandCanal, called by the Chinese the "river of locks, " or alternatively the"transport river, " because once used to convey rice from the south toPeking. This gigantic work, designed and executed in the thirteenthcentury by the Emperor Kublai Khan, extended to about six hundredand fifty miles in length, and completed an almost unbroken watercommunication between Peking and Canton. As a wonderful engineering featit is indeed more than matched by the famous Great Wall, which datesback to a couple of hundred years before Christ, and which has beenglorified as the last trace of man's handiwork on the globe to fade fromthe view of an imaginary person receding into space. Recent explorationshows that this wall is about eighteen hundred miles in length, stretching from a point on the seashore somewhat east of Peking, to thenorthern frontier of Tibet. Roughly speaking, it is twenty-two feet inheight by twenty feet in breadth; at intervals of a hundred yards aretowers forty feet high, the whole being built originally of brick, ofwhich in some parts but mere traces now remain. Nor is this the onlygreat wall; ruins of other walls on a considerable scale have latelybeen brought to light, the object of all being one and the same--to keepback the marauding Tartars. 

Over the length and breadth of their boundless empire, with all itsvarying climates and inhabitants, the Chinese people are free to travel, for business or pleasure, at their own sweet will, and to take up theirabode at any spot without let or hindrance. No passports are required;neither is any ordinary citizen obliged to possess other papers ofidentification. Chinese inns are not exposed to the annoyance ofdomicilary visits with reference to their clients for the time being;and so long as the latter pay their way, and refrain from molestingothers, they will usually be free from molestation themselves. TheChinese, however, are not fond of travelling; they love their homes toowell, and they further dread the inconveniences and dangers attachedto travel in many other parts of the world. Boatmen, carters, andinnkeepers have all of them bad reputations for extortionate charges;and the traveller may sometimes happen upon a "black inn, " which isanother name for a den of thieves. Still there have been many whotravelled for the sake of beautiful scenery, or in order to visit famousspots of historical interest; not to mention the large body of officialswho are constantly on the move, passing from post to post. 

Among those who believe that every nation must have reached its presentquarters from some other distant parts of the world, must be reckoned afew students of the ancient history of China. Coincidences in languageand in manners and customs, mostly of a shadowy character, have led someto suggest Babylonia as the region from which the Chinese migrated tothe land where they are now found. The Chinese possess authentic recordsof an indisputably early past, but throughout these records there isabsolutely no mention, not even a hint, of any migration of the kind. 

Tradition places the Golden Age of China so far back as three thousandyears before Christ; for a sober survey of China's early civilization, it is not necessary to push further back than the tenth century B. C. Weshall find evidence of such an advanced state of civilization at thatlater date as to leave no doubt of a very remote antiquity. 

The China of those days, known even then as the Middle Kingdom, wasa mere patch on the empire of to-day. It lay, almost lozenge-shaped, between the 34th and 40th parallels of latitude north, with the upperpoint of the lozenge resting on the modern Peking, and the lower onSi-an Fu in Shensi, whither the late Empress Dowager fled for safetyduring the Boxer rising in 1900. The ancient autocratic Imperial systemhad recently been disestablished, and a feudal system had taken itsplace. The country was divided up into a number of vassal states ofvarying size and importance, ruled each by its own baron, who sworeallegiance to the sovereign of the Royal State. The relations, however, which came to subsist, as time went on, between these states, sovereignand vassal alike, as described in contemporary annals, often remind thereader of the relations which prevailed between the various politicaldivisions of ancient Greece. The rivalries of Athens and Sparta, whosecapitals were only one hundred and fifty miles apart--though aperusal of Thucydides makes one feel that at least half the world wasinvolved--find their exact equivalent in the jealousies and animositieswhich stirred the feudal states of ancient China, and in the disastrouscampaigns and bloody battles which the states fought with one another. We read of chariots and horsemanship; of feats of arms and deeds ofindividual heroism; of forced marches, and of night attacks in which theChinese soldier was gagged with a kind of wooden bit, to prevent talkingin the ranks; of territory annexed and reconquered, and of the violentdeaths of rival rulers by poison or the dagger of the assassin. 

When the armies of these states went into battle they formed a line, with the bowmen on the left and the spearmen on the right flank. Thecentre was occupied by chariots, each drawn by either three or fourhorses harnessed abreast. Swords, daggers, shields, iron-headed clubssome five to six feet in length and weighing from twelve to fifteenpounds, huge iron hooks, drums, cymbals, gongs, horns, bannersand streamers innumerable, were also among the equipment of war. Beacon-fires of wolves' dung were lighted to announce the approach ofan enemy and summon the inhabitants to arms. Quarter was rarely ifever given, and it was customary to cut the ears from the bodies ofthe slain. Parleys were conducted and terms of peace arranged under theshelter of a banner of truce, upon which two words were inscribed--"Stopfighting. "

The beacon-fires above mentioned, very useful for summoning the feudalbarons to the rescue in case of need, cost one sovereign his throne. Hehad a beautiful concubine, for the sake of whose company he neglectedthe affairs of government. The lady was of a melancholy turn, neverbeing seen to smile. She said she loved the sound of rent silk, and togratify her whim many fine pieces of silk were torn to shreds. The kingoffered a thousand ounces of gold to any one who would make her laugh;whereupon his chief minister suggested that the beacon-fires should belighted to summon the feudal nobles with their armies, as though theroyal house were in danger. The trick succeeded; for in the hurry-skurrythat ensued the impassive girl positively laughed outright. Later on, when a real attack was made upon the capital by barbarian hordes, andthe beacon-fires were again lighted, this time in stern reality, therewas no response from the insulted nobles. The king was killed, and hisconcubine strangled herself. 

Meanwhile, a high state of civilization was enjoyed by these feudalpeoples, when not engaged in cutting each other's throats. They livedin thatched houses constructed of rammed earth and plaster, with beatenfloors on which dry grass was strewn as carpet. Originally accustomedto sit on mats, they introduced chairs and tables at an early date; theydrank an ardent spirit with their carefully cooked food, and wore robesof silk. Ballads were sung, and dances were performed, on ceremonial andfestive occasions; hunting and fishing and agriculture were occupationsfor the men, while the women employed themselves in spinning andweaving. There were casters of bronze vessels, and workers in gold, silver, and iron; jade and other stones were cut and polished forornaments. The written language was already highly developed, being muchthe same as we now find it. Indeed, the chief difference lies in theform of the characters, just as an old English text differs in form froma text of the present day. What we may call the syntax of the languagehas remained very much the same; and phrases from the old ballads ofthree thousand years ago, which have passed into the colloquial, arestill readily understood, though of course pronounced according to therequirements of modern speech. We can no more say how Confucius (551-479B. C. ) pronounced Chinese, than we can say how Miltiades pronounced Greekwhen addressing his soldiers before the battle of Marathon (490 B. C. ). The "books" which were read in ancient China consisted of thin slipsof wood or bamboo, on which the characters were written by means of apencil of wood or bamboo, slightly frayed at the end, so as to pick upa coloured liquid and transfer it to the tablets as required. Untilrecently, it was thought that the Chinese scratched their words ontablets of bamboo with a knife, but now we know that the knife was onlyused for scratching out, when a character was wrongly written. 

The art of healing was practised among the Chinese in their pre-historictimes, but the earliest efforts of a methodical character, of whichwe have any written record, belong to the period with which we are nowdealing. There is indeed a work, entitled "Plain Questions, " which isattributed to a legendary emperor of the Golden Age, who interrogatesone of his ministers on the cause and cure of all kinds of diseases;as might be expected, it is not of any real value, nor can its date becarried back beyond a few centuries B. C. 

Physicians of the feudal age classified diseases under the four seasonsof the year: headaches and neuralgic affections under _spring_, skindiseases of all kinds under _summer_, fevers and agues under _autumn_, and bronchial and pulmonary complaints under _winter_. They treated thevarious complaints that fell under these headings by suitable doses ofone or more ingredients taken from the five classes of drugs, derivedfrom herbs, trees, living creatures, minerals, and grains, each of whichclass contained medicines of five flavours, with special properties:_sour_ for nourishing the bones, _acid_ for nourishing the muscles, _salt_ for nourishing the blood-vessels, _bitter_ for nourishing generalvitality, and _sweet_ for nourishing the flesh. The pulse has alwaysbeen very much to the front in the treatment of disease; there are atleast twenty-four varieties of pulse with which every doctor is supposedto be familiar, and some eminent doctors have claimed to distinguishno fewer than seventy-two. In the "Plain Questions" there is a sentencewhich points towards the circulation of the blood, --"All the blood isunder the jurisdiction of the heart, " a point beyond which the Chinesenever seem to have pushed their investigations; but of this curiousfeature in their civilization, later on. 

It was under the feudal system, perhaps a thousand years before Christ, that the people of China began to possess family names. Previous to thattime there appear to have been tribal or clan names; these however werenot in ordinary use among the individual members of each clan, who wereknown by their personal names only, bestowed upon them in childhood bytheir parents. Gradually, it became customary to prefix to the personalname a surname, adopted generally from the name of the place wherethe family lived, sometimes from an appellation or official title ofa distinguished ancestor; places in China never take their names fromindividuals, as with us, and consequently there are no such names asFaringdon or Gislingham, the homes of the Fearings or Gislings of old. Thus, to use English terms, a boy who had been called "Welcome" by hisparents might prefix the name of the place, Cambridge, where he wasborn, and call himself Cambridge Welcome, the surname always comingfirst in Chinese, as, for instance, in Li Hung-Chang. The Manchus, itmust be remembered, have no surnames; that is to say, they do not usetheir clan or family names, but call themselves by their personal namesonly. 

Chinese surnames, other than place names, are derived from a varietyof sources: from nature, as River, Stone, Cave; from animals, as Bear, Sheep, Dragon; from birds, as Swallow, Pheasant; from the body, asLong-ears, Squint-eye; from colours, as Black, White; from trees andflowers, as Hawthorn, Leaf, Reed, Forest; and others, such as Rich, East, Sharp, Hope, Duke, Stern, Tepid, Money, etc. By the fifth centurybefore Christ, the use of surnames had definitely become established forall classes, whereas in Europe surnames were not known until about thetwelfth century after Christ, and even then were confined to personsof wealth and position. There is a small Chinese book, studied by everyschoolboy and entitled _The Hundred Surnames_, the word "hundred" beingcommonly used in a generally comprehensive sense. It actually containsabout four hundred of the names which occur most frequently. 

About two hundred and twenty years before Christ, the feudal system cameto an end. One aggressive state gradually swallowed up all the others;and under the rule of its sovereign, China became once more an empire, and such it has ever since remained. But although always an empire, thethrone, during the past two thousand years, has passed many times fromone house to another. 

The extraordinary man who led his state to victory over each rival inturn, and ultimately mounted the throne to rule over a united China, finds his best historical counterpart in Napoleon. He called himselfthe First Emperor, and began by sending an army of 300, 000 men to fightagainst an old and dreaded enemy to the north, recently identifiedbeyond question with the Huns. He dispatched a fleet to search for somemysterious islands off the coast, thought by some to be the islandswhich form Japan. He built the Great Wall, to a great extent by meansof convict labour, malefactors being condemned to long terms of penalservitude on the works. His copper coinage was so uniformly good thatthe cowry disappeared altogether from commerce during his reign. Aboveall things he desired to impart a fresh stimulus to literary effort, buthe adopted singularly unfortunate means to secure this desirable end;for, listening to the insidious flattery of courtiers, he determinedthat literature should begin anew with his reign. He thereforedetermined to destroy all existing books, finally deciding to sparethose connected with three important departments of human knowledge:namely, (1) works which taught the people to plough, sow, reap, andprovide food for the race; (2) works on the use of drugs and on thehealing art; and (3) works on the various methods of foretelling thefuture which might lead men to act in accordance with, and not inopposition to, the eternal fitness of things as seen in the operationsof Nature. Stringent orders were issued accordingly, and many scholarswere put to death for concealing books in the hope that the storm wouldblow over. Numbers of valuable works perished in a vast conflagrationof books, and the only wonder is that any were preserved, with theexception of the three classes specified above. 

In 210 B. C. The First Emperor died, and his youngest son was placedupon the throne with the title of Second Emperor. The latter began bycarrying out the funeral arrangements of his father, as described abouta century later by the first and greatest of China's historians:--

"On the 9th moon the First Emperor was buried in Mount Li, which in theearly days of his reign he had caused to be tunnelled and prepared withthat view. Then, when he had consolidated the empire, he employed hissoldiery, to the number of 700, 000, to bore down to the Three Springs(that is, until water was reached), and there a firm foundation was laidand the sarcophagus placed thereon. Rare objects and costly jewels werecollected from the palaces and from the various officials, and werecarried thither and stored in huge quantities. Artificers were orderedto construct mechanical crossbows, which, if any one were to enter, would immediately discharge their arrows. With the aid of quicksilver, rivers were made--the Yangtsze, the Yellow River, and the greatocean--the metal being made to flow from one into the other bymachinery. On the roof were delineated the constellations of the sky, on the floor the geographical divisions of the earth. Candles were madefrom the fat of the man-fish (walrus), calculated to last for avery long time. The Second Emperor said: 'It is not fitting that theconcubines of my late father who are without children should leave himnow;' and accordingly he ordered them to accompany the dead monarch intothe next world, those who thus perished being many in number. When theinternment was completed, some one suggested that the workmen who hadmade the machinery and concealed the treasure knew the great value ofthe latter, and that the secret would leak out. Therefore, so soon asthe ceremony was over, and the path giving access to the sarcophagus hadbeen blocked up at its innermost end, the outside gate at the entranceto this path was let fall, and the mausoleum was effectually closed, sothat not one of the workmen escaped. Trees and grass were then plantedaround, that the spot might look like the rest of the mountain. "

The career of the Second Emperor finds an apt parallel in that ofRichard Cromwell, except that the former was put to death, after ashort and inglorious reign. Then followed a dynasty which has left anindelible mark upon the civilization as well as on the recorded historyof China. A peasant, by mere force of character, succeeded after athree-years' struggle in establishing himself upon the throne, 206 B. C. , and his posterity, known as the House of Han, ruled over China for fourhundred years, accidentally divided into two nearly equal portionsby the Christian era, about which date there occurred a temporaryusurpation of the throne which for some time threatened the stabilityof the dynasty in the direct line of succession. To this date, the morenorthern Chinese have no prouder title than that of a "son of Han. "

During the whole period of four hundred years the empire cannot be saidto have enjoyed complete tranquillity either at home or abroad. Therewere constant wars with the Tartar tribes on the north, against whom theGreat Wall proved to be a somewhat ineffectual barrier. Also with theHuns, the forbears of the Turks, who once succeeded in shutting up thefounder of the dynasty in one of his own cities, from which he onlyescaped by a stratagem to be related in another connexion. There werein addition wars with Korea, the ultimate conquest of which led to thediscovery of Japan, then at a low level of civilization and unable toenter into official relations with China until A. D. 57, when an embassywas sent for the first time. Those who are accustomed to think of theChinese as an eminently unwarlike nation will perhaps be surprised tohear that before the end of the second century B. C. They had carriedtheir victorious arms far away into Central Asia, annexing even thePamirs and Kokand to the empire. The wild tribes of modern Yunnan werereduced to subjection, and their territory may further be considered asadded from about this period. 

At home, the eunuchs gave an immense deal of trouble by their restlessspirit of intrigue; besides which, for nearly twenty years the Imperialpower was in the hands of a famous usurper, named Wang Mang (pronounced_Wahng Mahng_), who had secured it by the usual means of treachery andpoison, to lose it on the battle-field and himself to perish shortlyafterwards in a revolt of his own soldiery. But the most remarkable ofall events connected with the Han dynasty was the extended revival oflearning and authorship. Texts of the Confucian Canon were rescued fromhiding-places in which they had been concealed at the risk of death;editing committees were appointed, and immense efforts were made torepair the mischief sustained by literature at the hands of the FirstEmperor. The scholars of the day expounded the teachings of Confucius asset forth in these texts; and although their explanations were set asidein the twelfth century, when an entirely new set of interpretationsbecame (and remain) the accepted standard for all students, it is mostlydue to those early efforts that the Confucian Canon has exercised sucha deep and lasting influence over the minds of the Chinese people. Unfortunately, it soon became the fashion to discover old texts, andmany works are now in circulation which have no claim whatever to theantiquity to which they pretend. 

During the four hundred years of Han supremacy the march of civilizationwent steadily forward. Paper and ink were invented, and also thecamel's-hair brush, both of which gave a great impetus to the arts ofwriting and painting, the latter being still in a very elementary stage. The custom of burying slaves with the dead was abolished early in thedynasty. The twenty-seven months of mourning for parents--nominallythree years, as is now again the rule--was reduced to a more manageableperiod of twenty-seven days. Literary degrees were first established, and perpetual hereditary rank was conferred upon the senior descendantof Confucius in the male line, which has continued in unbrokensuccession down to the present day. The head of the Confucian clan isnow a duke, and resides in a palace, taking rank with, if not before, the highest provincial authorities. 

The extended military campaigns in Central Asia during this periodbrought China into touch with Bactria, then an outlying province ofancient Greece. From this last source, the Chinese learnt many thingswhich are now often regarded as of purely native growth. They importedthe grape, and made from it a wine which was in use for many centuries, disappearing only about two or three hundred years ago. Formerlydependent on the sun-dial alone, the Chinese now found themselves inpossession of the water-clock, specimens of which are still to be seenin full working order, whereby the division of the day into twelvetwo-hour periods was accurately determined. The calendar was regulatedanew, and the science of music was reconstructed; in fact, modernChinese music may be said to approximate closely to the music of ancientGreece. Because of the difference of scale, Chinese music does not makeany appeal to Western ears; at any rate, not in the sense in which itappealed to Confucius, who has left it on record that after listening toa certain melody he was so affected as not to be able to taste meat forthree months. 

CHAPTER II--LAW AND GOVERNMENT

In the earliest ages of which history professes to take cognizance, persons who wished to dispose of their goods were obliged to haverecourse to barter. By and by shells were adopted as a medium ofexchange, and then pieces of stamped silk, linen, and deerskin. Thesewere followed by circular discs of copper, pierced with a round hole, the forerunners of the ordinary copper coins of a century or two later, which had square holes, and bore inscriptions, as they still do inthe present day. Money was also cast in the shape of "knives" and of"trouser, " by which names specimens of this early coinage (mostly fakes)are known to connoisseurs. Some of these were beautifully finished, andeven inlaid with gold. Early in the ninth century, bills of exchangecame into use; and from the middle of the twelve century paper moneybecame quite common, and is still in general use all over China, notesbeing issued in some places for amounts less even than a shilling. 

Measures of length and capacity were fixed by the Chinese after anexceedingly simple process. The grain of millet, which is fairly uniformin size, was taken as the unit of both. Ten of these grains, laidend-ways, formed the inch, ten of which made a foot, and ten feet a_chang_. The decimal system has always prevailed in China, with onecurious exception: sixteen ounces make a pound. How this came to be sodoes not appear to be known; but in this case it is the pound which isthe unit of weight, and not the lower denomination. The word whichfor more than twenty centuries signified "pound" to the Chinese, wasoriginally the rude picture of an axe-head; and there is no doubtthat axe-heads, being all of the same size, were used in weighingcommodities, and were subsequently split, for convenience's sake, intosixteen equal parts, each about one-third heavier than the Englishounce. For measures of capacity, we must revert to the millet-grain, afixed number of which set the standard for Chinese pints and quarts. The result of this rule-of-thumb calculation has been that weights andmeasures vary all over the empire, although there actually exist anofficial foot, pound and pint, as recognized by the Chinese government. In one and the same city a tailor's foot will differ from a carpenter'sfoot, an oilman's pint from a spirit-merchant's pint, and so on. Thefinal appeal is to local custom. 

With the definitive establishment of the monarchy, two hundred yearsbefore the Christian era, a system of government was inaugurated whichhas proceeded, so far as essentials are concerned, upon almost uniformlines down to the present day. 

It is an ancient and well-recognized principle in China, that everyinch of soil belongs to the sovereign; consequently, all land is held onconsideration of a land-tax payable to the emperor, and so long as thistax is forthcoming, the land in question is practically freehold, andcan be passed by sale from hand to hand for a small conveyancing fee tothe local authorities who stamp the deeds. Thus, the foreign concessionsor settlements in China were not sold or parted with in any way by theChinese; they were "leased in perpetuity" so long as the ground-rentis paid, and remain for all municipal and such purposes under theuncontrolled administration of the nation which leased them. Theland-tax may be regarded as the backbone of Chinese finance; butalthough nominally collected at a fixed rate, it is subject tofluctuations due to bad harvests and like visitations, in which casesthe tax is accepted at a lower rate, in fact at any rate the people canafford to pay. 

The salt and other monopolies, together with the customs, alsocontribute an important part of China's revenue. There is the old nativecustoms service, with its stations and barriers all over the empire, andthe foreign customs service, as established at the treaty ports only, inorder to deal with shipments on foreign vessels trading with China. Thetraditional and well-marked lines of taxation are freely accepted by thepeople; any attempt, however, to increase the amounts to be levied, or to introduce new charges of any kind, unless duly authorized by thepeople themselves, would be at once sternly resisted. As a matter offact, the authorities never run any such risks. It is customary, whenabsolutely necessary, and possibly desirable, to increase old or tointroduce new levies, for the local authorities to invite the leadingmerchants and others concerned to a private conference; and only whenthere is a general consent of all parties do the officials ventureto put forth proclamations saying that such and such a tax will beincreased or imposed, as the case may be. Any other method may lead todisastrous results. The people refuse to pay; and coercion is met atonce by a general closing of shops and stoppage of trade, or, in moreserious cases, by an attack on the official residence of the offendingmandarin, who soon sees his house looted and levelled with the ground. In other words, the Chinese people tax themselves. 

The nominal form of government, speaking without reference to the newconstitution which will be dealt with later on, is an irresponsibleautocracy; its institutions are likewise autocratic in form, butdemocratic in operation. The philosopher, Mencius (372-289 B. C. ), placedthe people first, the gods second, and the sovereign third, in the scaleof national importance; and this classification has sunk deep into theminds of the Chinese during more than two thousand years past. What thepeople in China will not stand is injustice; at the same time they willlive contentedly under harsh laws which they have at one time or anotherimposed upon themselves. 

Each of the great dynasties has always begun with a Penal Code of itsown, based upon that of the outgoing dynasty, but tending to be more andmore humane in character as time goes on. The punishments in old dayswere atrocious in their severity; the Penal Code of the present dynasty, which came into force some two hundred and fifty years ago, has beenpronounced by competent judges to take a very high rank indeed. It wasintroduced to replace a much harsher code which had been in operationunder the Ming dynasty, and contains the nominally immutable laws of theempire, with such modifications and restrictions as have been authorizedfrom time to time by Imperial edict. Still farther back in Chinesehistory, we come upon punishments of ruthless cruelty, such as mightbe expected to prevail in times of lesser culture and refinement. Twothousand years ago, the Five Punishments were--branding on the forehead, cutting off the nose, cutting off the feet, mutilation, and death; forthe past two hundred and fifty years, these have been--beating withthe light bamboo, beating with the heavy bamboo, transportation for acertain period, banishment to a certain distance, and death, the lastbeing subdivided into strangling and decapitation, according to thegravity of the offence. 

Two actual instruments of torture are mentioned, one for compressingthe ankle-bones, and the other for squeezing the fingers, to be usedif necessary to extort a confession in charges of robbery and homicide, confession being regarded as essential to the completion of the record. The application, however, of these tortures is fenced round in such away as to impose great responsibility upon the presiding magistrate;and in addition to the risk of official impeachment, there is the moredreaded certainty of loss of influence and of popular esteem. Mention ismade in the code of the so-called "lingering death, " according to whichfirst one arm is chopped off, then the other; the two legs follow in thesame way; two slits are made on the breast, and the heart is tornout; decapitation finishes the proceedings. It is worthy of note that, although many foreigners have been present from time to time at publicexecutions, occasionally when the "lingering death" has been announced, not one has established it as a fact beyond a doubt that such a processhas ever been carried out. Not only that; it is also well known thatcondemned criminals are allowed to purchase of themselves, or throughtheir friends, if they have any, spirits or opium with which to fortifytheir courage at the last moment. There is indeed a tradition thatstupefying drinks are served out by the officials to the batches ofmalefactors as they pass to the execution ground at Peking. It wouldstill remain to find executioners capable of performing in cold bloodsuch a disgusting operation as the "lingering death" is supposed to be. The ordinary Chinaman is not a fiend; he does not gloat in his peacefulmoments, when not under the influence of extreme excitement, overbloodshed and cruelty. 

The generally lenient spirit in which the Penal Code of China wasconceived is either widely unknown, or very often ignored. For instance, during the excessive summer heats certain punishments are mitigated, andothers remitted altogether. Prompt surrender and acknowledgment of anoffence, before it is otherwise discovered, entitles the offender, withsome exceptions, to a full and free pardon; as also does restitutionof stolen property to its owner by a repentant thief; while a criminalguilty of two or more offences can be punished only to the extent of theprincipal charge. Neither are the near relatives, nor even the servants, of a guilty man, punishable for concealing his crime and assisting himto escape. Immense allowances are made for the weakness of human nature, in all of which may be detected the tempering doctrines of the greatSage. A feudal baron was boasting to Confucius that in his part ofthe country the people were so upright that a son would give evidenceagainst a father who had stolen a sheep. "With us, " replied Confucius, "the father screens the son, and the son screens the father; that isreal uprightness. " To another questioner, a man in high authority, whocomplained of the number of thieves, the Master explained that this wasdue to the greed of the upper classes. "But for this greed, " he added, "even if you paid people to steal, they would not do so. " To the sameman, who inquired his views on capital punishment, Confucius replied:"What need is there for capital punishment at all? If your aims areworthy, the people also will be worthy. "

There are many other striking features of the Penal Code. No marriage, for instance, may be contracted during the period of mourning forparents, which in theory extends to three full years, but in practiceis reckoned at twenty-seven months; neither may musical instrumentsbe played by near relatives of the dead. During the same period, nomandarin may hold office, but must retire into private life; thoughthe observance of this rule is often dispensed with in the case ofhigh officials whose presence at their posts may be of considerableimportance. In such cases, by special grace of the emperor, the periodof retirement is cut down to three months, or even to one. 

The death of an emperor is followed by a long spell of nationaltribulation. For one hundred days no man may have his head shaved, andno woman may wear head ornaments. For twelve months there may be nomarrying or giving in marriage among the official classes, a term whichis reduced to one hundred days for the public at large. The theatres aresupposed to remain closed for a year, but in practice they shut onlyfor one hundred days. Even thus great hardships are entailed upon manyclasses of the community, especially upon actors and barbers, who mightbe in danger of actual starvation but for the common-sense of theirrulers coupled with the common rice-pot at home. 

The law forbidding marriage between persons of the same surname iswidely, but not universally, in operation. No Smith may marry a Smith;no Jones may marry a Jones; the reason of course being that all of thesame surname are regarded as members of the same family. However, thereare large districts in certain parts of China where the people are oneand all of the surname, and where it would be a great hardship--not tomention the impossibility of enforcing the law--if intermarriages of thekind were prohibited. Consequently, they are allowed, but only if thecontracting parties are so distantly related that, according to thelegal table of affinity, they would not wear mourning for one another incase of death--in other words, not related at all. The line of descentis now traced through the males, but there is reason to believe that inearly days, as is found to be often the case among uncivilized tribes, the important, because more easily recognizable, parent was the mother. Thus it is illegal for first cousins of the same surname to marry, and legal if the surnames are different; in the latter case, however, centuries of experience have taught the Chinese to frown upon suchunions as undesirable in the extreme. 

The Penal Code forbids water burial, and also cremation; but it ispermitted to the children of a man dying at a great distance to consumetheir father's corpse with fire if positively unable to bring it backfor ordinary burial in his native district. The idea is that with theaid of fire immediate communication is set up with the spirit-world, and that the spirit of the deceased is thus enabled to reach his nativeplace, which would be impossible were the corpse to remain intact. Hencethe horror of dying abroad, common to all Chinese, and only faced ifthere is a reasonable probability that their remains will be carriedback to the ancestral home. 

In spite of the above law, the cremation of Buddhist priests isuniversal, and the practice is tolerated without protest. Priests whoare getting on in years, or who are stricken with a mortal disease, arecompelled by rule to move into a certain part of their monastery, knownas the Abode of a Long Old Age, in which they are required--not to die, for death does not come to a good priest, but--to enter into Nirvana, which is a sublime state of conscious freedom from all mental andphysical disturbance, not to be adequately described in words. At death, the priest is placed in a chair, his chin supported by a crutch, andthen put into a wooden box, which on the appointed day is carried inprocession, with streaming banners, through the monastery, and out intothe cremation-ground attached, his brother priests chanting all thewhile that portion of the Buddhist liturgies set apart as the servicefor the dead, but which being in Pali, not a single one of them canunderstand. There have, of course, been many highly educated priests atone time and another during the long reign of Buddhism in China; butit is safe to say that they are no longer to be met with in the presentday. The Buddhist liturgies have been written out in Chinese characterswhich reproduce the sounds of the original Indian language, and thesethe priests learn by heart without understanding a word of theirmeaning. The box with the dead man in it is now hoisted to the top of afuneral pyre, which has been well drenched with oil, and set alight;and when the fire has burnt out, the ashes are reverently collected andplaced in an urn, which is finally deposited in a mausoleum kept forthat purpose. 

Life is remarkably safe in China. No man can be executed until hisname has been submitted to the emperor, which of course means to hisministers at the capital. The Chinese, however, being, as has been sooften stated, an eminently practical people, understand that certaincases admit of no delay; and to prevent the inevitable lynching of suchcriminals as kidnappers, rebels, and others, caught red-handed, highofficials are entrusted with the power of life and death, which theycan put into immediate operation, always taking upon themselves fullresponsibility for their acts. The essential is to allay any excitementof the populace, and to preserve the public peace. 

In the general administration of the law great latitude is allowed, andinjustice is rarely inflicted by a too literal interpretation of theCode. Stealing is of course a crime, yet no Chinese magistrate woulddream of punishing a hungry man for simple theft of food, even if sucha case were ever brought into court. Cake-sellers keep a sharp eye ontheir wares; farmers and market-gardeners form associates for mutualprotection, and woe to the thief who gets caught--his punishment isshort and sharp. Litigation is not encouraged, even by such facilitiesas ought to be given to persons suffering wrongs; there is no bar, orlegal profession, and persons who assist plaintiffs or defendants inthe conduct of cases, are treated with scant courtesy by the presidingmagistrate and are lucky if they get off with nothing worse. Themajority of commercial cases come before the guilds, and are settledwithout reference to the authorities. The ordinary Chinese dread a courtof justice, as a place in which both parties manage to lose something. "It is not the big devil, " according to the current saying, "but thelittle devils" who frighten the suitor away. This is because officialservants receive no salary, but depend for their livelihood onperquisites and tips; and the Chinese suitor, who is a party to thesystem, readily admits that it is necessary "to sprinkle a littlewater. "

Neither do any officials in China, high or low, receive salaries, although absurdly inadequate sums are allocated by the Government forthat purpose, for which it is considered prudent not to apply. TheChinese system is to some extent the reverse of our own. Our officialscollect money and pay it into the Treasury, from which source fixed sumsare returned to them as salaries. In China, the occupants of petty postscollect revenue in various ways, as taxes or fees, pay themselves asmuch as they dare, and hand up the balance to a superior officer, who inturn pays himself in the same sense, and again hands up the balance tohis superior officer. When the viceroy of a province is reached, he tookeeps what he dares, sending up to the Imperial exchequer in Peking justenough to satisfy the powers above him. There is thus a continual checkby the higher grade upon the lower, but no check on such extortionas might be practised upon the tax-payer. The tax-payer sees to thathimself. Speaking generally, it may be said that this system, in spiteof its unsatisfactory character, works fairly well. Few officialsoverstep the limits which custom has assigned to their posts, and thosewho do generally come to grief. So that when the dishonesty of theChinese officials is held up to reprobation, it should always beremembered that the financial side of their public service is notsurrounded with such formalities and safeguards as to make robbery ofpublic money difficult, if not almost impossible. It is, therefore, allthe more cheering when we find, as is frequently the case, retiring ortransferred mandarins followed by the good wishes and affection of thepeople over whom they have been set to rule. 

Until quite recently, there has been no such thing in China as municipaladministration and rating, and even now such methods are only beingtentatively introduced in large cities where there are a number offoreign residents. Occupants of houses are popularly supposed to "sweepthe snow from their own doorsteps, " but the repair of roads, bridges, drains, etc. , has always been left to the casual philanthropy of wealthyindividuals, who take these opportunities of satisfying public opinionin regard to the obligations of the rich towards the poor. Consequently, Chinese cities are left without efficient lighting, draining, orscavengering; and it is astonishing how good the health of the peopleliving under these conditions can be. There is no organized policeforce; but cities are divided into wards, and at certain points barriersare drawn across the streets at night, with perhaps one watchman toeach. It is not considered respectable to be out late at night, and itis not safe to move about without a lantern, which is carried, for thosewho can afford the luxury, by a servant preceding them. 

One difference between life in China and life in this country maybe illustrated to a certain extent in the following way. Supposing atraveller, passing through an English village, to be hit on the head bya stone. Unless he can point out his assailant, the matter is at anend. In China, all the injured party has to do is to point out thevillage--or, if a town, the ward--in which he was assaulted. Then theheadman of such town or ward is summoned before the authorities andfined, proportionately to the offence, for allowing rowdy behaviour inhis district. The headman takes good care that he does not pay the finehimself. In the same way, parents are held responsible for the acts oftheir children, and householders for those of their servants. 

CHAPTER III--RELIGION AND SUPERSTITION

The Chinese are emphatically not a religious people, though they arevery superstitious. Belief in a God has come down from the remotestages, but the old simple creed has been so overlaid by Buddhism asnot to be discernible at the present day. Buddhism is now the dominantreligion of China. It is closely bound up with the lives of the people, and is a never-failing refuge in sickness or worldly trouble. It is nolonger the subtle doctrine which was originally presented to the peopleof India, but something much more clearly defined and appreciable bythe plainest intellect. Buddha is the saviour of the people throughrighteousness alone, and Buddhist saints are popularly supposed topossess intercessory powers. Yet reverence is always wanting; and crowdswill laugh and talk, and buy and sell sweetmeats, in a Buddhist temple, before the very eyes of the most sacred images. So long as divineintervention is not required, an ordinary Chinaman is content to neglecthis divinities; but no sooner does sickness or financial trouble comeupon the family, than he will hurry off to propitiate the gods. 

He accomplishes this through the aid of the priests, who receive hisofferings of money, and light candles or incense at the shrine of thedeity to be invoked. Buddhist priests are not popular with the Chinese, who make fun of their shaven heads, and doubt the sincerity of theirconvictions as well as the purity of their lives. "No meat nor wine mayenter here" is a legend inscribed at the gate of most Buddhist temples, the ordinary diet as served in the refectory being strictly vegetarian. A tipsy priest, however, is not an altogether unheard-of combination, and has provided more than one eminent artist with a subject of aninteresting picture. 

Yet the ordeal through which a novice must pass before being admitted toholy orders is a severe tax upon nerve and endurance. In the process ofa long ritual, at least three, or even so many as nine, pastilles areplaced upon the bald scalp of the head. These are then lighted, andallowed to burn down into the skin until permanent scars have beenformed, the unfortunate novice being supported on both sides by priestswho encourage him all the time to bear what must be excruciating pain. The fully qualified priest receives a diploma, on the strength of whichhe may demand a day and a night's board and lodging from the priests ofany temple all over the empire. 

At a very early date Buddhism had already taken a firm hold on theimagination of Chinese poets and painters, the latter of whom loved toportray the World-honoured One in a dazzling hue of gold. A poet of theeighth century A. D. , who realized for the first time the inward meaningof the Law, as it is called, ended a panegyric on Buddhism with thefollowing lines:--

 O thou pure Faith, had I but known thy scope, The Golden God had long since been my hope!

Taoism is a term often met with in books about China. We are toldthat the three religions of the people are Confucianism, Buddhism, andTaoism, this being the order of precedence assigned to them in A. D. 568. Confucianism is of course not a religion at all, dealing as it does withduty towards one's neighbour and the affairs of this life only; and itwill be seen that Taoism, in its true sense, has scarcely a strongerclaim. At a very remote day, some say a thousand, and others sixhundred, years before the Christian era, there flourished a wise mannamed Lao Tzu, which may be approximately pronounced as _Loudza_ (_ou_as in _loud_), and understood to mean the Old Philosopher. He was a veryoriginal thinker, and a number of his sayings have been preserved to usby ancient authors, whom they had reached by tradition; that is to say, the Old Philosopher never put his doctrines into book form. There isindeed in existence a work which passes under his name, but it is nowknown to be a forgery, and is generally discarded by scholars. 

The great flaw in the teaching of the Old Philosopher was its extremelyimpractical character, its unsuitability to the needs of men and womenengaged in the ordinary avocations of life. In one sense he was anAnarchist, for he held that the empire would fare better if there wereno government at all, the fact being that violence and disorder hadalways been conspicuous even under the best rulers. Similarly, he arguedthat we should get along more profitably with less learning, becausethen there would be fewer thieves, successful thieving being the resultof mental training. It is not necessary to follow him to his most famousdoctrine, namely, that of doing nothing, by which means, he declared, everything could be done, the solution of which puzzle of left everybodyto find out for himself. Among his quaint sayings will be found severalmaxims of a very different class, as witness his injunction, "Requiteevil with kindness, " and "Mighty is he who conquers himself. " Of thelatter, the following illustration is given by a commentator. Two menmeeting in the street, one said to the other, "How fat you have grown!""Yes, " replied his friend, "I have lately won a battle. " "What do youmean?" inquired the former. "Why, you see, " said the latter, "so longas I was at home, reading about ancient kings, I admired nothing butvirtue; then, when I went out of doors, I was attracted by the charmsof wealth and power. These two feelings fought inside me, and I began tolose flesh; but now love of virtue has conquered, and I am fat. "

The teachings of the Old Philosopher were summed up in the word _Tao_, pronounced as _tou(t)_, which originally meant a road, a way; andas applied to doctrines means simply the right way or path of moralconduct, in which mankind should tread so as to lead correct andvirtuous lives. Later on, when Buddhism was introduced, this Taoism, with all its paradoxes and subtleties, to which alchemy and theconcoction of an elixir of life had been added, gradually began to loseits hold upon the people; and in order to stem the tide of opposition, temples and monasteries were built, a priesthood was established inimitation of the Buddhists, and all kinds of ceremonies and observanceswere taken from Buddhism, until, at the present day, only those who knowcan tell one from the other. 

Although alchemy, which was introduced from Greece, via Bactria, in thesecond century B. C. , has long ceased to interest the Chinese public, whohave found out that gold is more easily made from the sweat of thebrow than from copper or lead; and although only a few silly people nowbelieve that any mixture of drugs will produce an elixir of life, ableto confer immortality upon those who drink it; nevertheless, Taoismstill professes to teach the art of extending life, if not indefinitely, at any rate to a considerable length. This art would probably go someway towards extending life under any circumstances, for it consistschiefly in deep and regular breathing, preferably of morning air, in swallowing the saliva three times in every two hours, in adoptingcertain positions for the body and limbs, which are also strengthenedby gymnastic exercises, and finally, as borrowed from the Buddhists, inremaining motionless for some hours a day, the eyes shut, and the mindabstracted as much as possible from all surrounding influences. Theupshot of these and other practices is the development of "the pureman, " on which Chuang Tzu (_Chwongdza_), a Taoist philosopher of thethird and fourth centuries B. C. , to be mentioned again, writes asfollows: "But what is a pure man? The pure men of old acted withoutcalculation, not seeking to secure results. They laid no plans. Therefore, failing, they had no cause for regret; succeeding, no causefor congratulation. And thus they could scale heights without fear;enter water without becoming wet, and fire without feeling hot. The puremen of old slept without dreams, and waked without anxiety. They atewithout discrimination, breathing deep breaths. For pure men draw breathfrom their heels; the vulgar only from their throats. "

Coupled with what may be called intellectual Taoism, as opposed to thegrosser form under which this faith appeals to the people at large, isa curious theory that human life reaches the earth from someextraordinarily dazzling centre away in the depths of space, "beyondthe range of conceptions. " This centre appears to be the home of eternalprinciples, the abode of a First Cause, where perfectly spotless andpure beings "drink of the spiritual and feed on force, " and wherelikeness exists without form. To get back to that state should be theobject of all men, and this is only to be attained by a process ofmental and physical purification prolonged through all conditions ofexistence. Then, when body and soul are fitted for the change, therecomes what ordinary mortals call death; and the pure being closes hiseyes, to awake forthwith in his original glory from the sleep whichmortals call life. 

For many centuries Buddhism and Taoism were in bitter antagonism. Sometimes the court was Buddhist, sometimes Taoist; first one faith wassuppressed altogether, then the other; in A. D. 574 both were abolishedin deference to Confucianism, which, however, no emperor has ever daredto interfere with seriously. At present, all the "three religions"flourish happily side by side. 

The Chinese believe firmly in the existence of spirits, which theyclassify simply as good and evil. They do not trouble their heads muchabout the former, but they are terribly afraid of the latter. Hideousdevils infest dark corners, and lie in wait to injure unfortunatepassers-by, often for no cause whatever. The spirits of persons who havebeen wronged are especially dreaded by those who have done the wrong. A man who has been defrauded of money will commit suicide, usually bypoison, at the door of the wrongdoer, who will thereby first fall intothe hands of the authorities, and if he escapes in that quarter, will still have to count with the injured ghost of his victim. Adaughter-in-law will drown or hang herself to get free from, and also toavenge, the tyranny or cruelty of her husband's mother. These acts leadat once to family feuds, which sometimes end in bloodshed; more often inmoney compensation; and the known risk of such contingencies operates asa wholesome check upon aggressive treatment of the weak by the strong. 

Divination and fortune-telling have always played a conspicuous part inordinary Chinese life. Wise men, of the magician type, sit at stallsin street and market-place, ready for a small fee to advise thosewho consult them on any enterprise to be undertaken, even of the mosttrivial kind. The omens can be taken in various ways, as by calculationbased upon books, of which there is quite a literature, or bydrawing lots inscribed with mystic signs, to be interpreted by thefortune-teller. Even at Buddhist temples may be found two kidney-shapedpieces of wood, flat on one side and round on the other, which arethrown into the air before an altar, the results--two flats, two rounds, or one of each--being interpreted as unfavourable, medium, and veryfavourable, respectively. 

Of all Chinese superstitions, the one that has been most persistent, and has exerted the greatest influence upon national life, is thefamous Wind-and-Water system (_feng shui_) of geomancy. According tothe principles which govern this system, and of which quite a specialliterature exists, the good or evil fortunes of individuals andthe communities are determined by the various physical aspects andconditions which surround their everyday life. The shapes of hills, the presence or absence of water, the position of trees, the height ofbuildings, and so forth, are all matters of deep consideration tothe professors of the geomantic art, who thrive on the ignorance ofsuperstitious clients. They are called in to select propitious sites forhouses and graves; and it often happens that if the fortunes of a familyare failing, a geomancer will be invited to modify in some way thearrangement of the ancestral graveyard. Houses in a Chinese street arenever built up so as to form a line of uniform height; every now andagain one house must be a little higher or a little lower than itsneighbour, or calamity will certainly ensue. It is impossible to walkstraight into an ordinary middle-class dwelling-house. Just inside thefront door there will be a fixed screen, which forces the visitor toturn to the right or to the left; the avowed object being to excludeevil spirits, which can only move in straight lines. 

Mention of the ancestral graveyard brings to mind the universal worshipof ancestors, which has been from time immemorial such a marked featureof Chinese religious life. At death, the spirit of a man or woman isbelieved to remain watching over the material interests of the family towhich the deceased had belonged. Offerings of various kinds, includingmeat and drink, are from time to time made to such a spirit, supposed tobe particularly resident in an ancestral hall--or cupboard, as the casemay be. These offerings are made for the special purpose of conciliatingthe spirit, and of obtaining in return a liberal share of the blessingsand good things of this life. This is the essential feature of the rite, and this it is which makes the rite an act of worship pure and simple;so that only superficial observers could make the mistake of classifyingancestral worship, as practised in China, with such acts as layingwreaths upon the tombs of deceased friends and relatives. 

With reference to the spirit or soul, the Chinese have held forcenturies past that the soul of every man is twofold; in a popularacceptation it is sometimes regarded as threefold. One portion is thatwhich expresses the visible personality, and is permanently attached tothe body; the other has the power of leaving the body, carrying with itan appearance of physical form, which accounts for a person beingseen in two different places at once. Cases of catalepsy or trance areexplained by the Chinese as the absence from the body of this portionof the soul, which is also believed to be expelled from the body by anyviolent shock or fright. There is a story of a man who was so terrifiedat the prospect of immediate execution that his separable soul left hisbody, and he found himself sitting on the eaves of a house, from whichpoint he could see a man bound, and waiting for the executioner's sword. Just then, a reprieve arrived, and in a moment he was back again in hisbody. Mr. Edmund Gosse, who can hardly have been acquainted with theChinese view, told a similar story in his _Father and Son_: "Duringmorning and evening prayers, which were extremely lengthy and fatiguing, I fancied that one of my two selves could flit up, and sit clinging tothe cornice, and look down on my other self and the rest of us. "

In some parts of China, planchette is frequently resorted to as a meansof reading the future, and adapting one's actions accordingly. It is apurely professional performance, being carried through publicly beforesome altar in a temple, and payment made for the response. The questionis written down on a piece of paper, which is burnt at the altarapparently before any one could gather knowledge of its contents; andthe answer from the god is forthwith traced on a tray of sand, word byword, each word being obliterated to make room for the next, by two men, supposed to be ignorant of the question, who hold the ends of a V-shapedinstrument from the point of which a little wooden pencil projects atright angles. 

Another method of extracting information from the spirits of the unseenworld is nothing more or less than hypnotism, which has long been knownto the Chinese, and is mentioned in literature so far back as themiddle of the seventeenth century. With all the paraphernalia of altar, candles, incense, etc. , a medium is thrown into a hypnotic condition, during which his body is supposed to be possessed by a spirit, andevery word he may utter to be divinely inspired. An amusing instanceis recorded of a medium who, while under hypnotic influence, not onlyblurted out the pecuniary defalcations of certain men who had beencollecting in aid of temple restoration, but went so far as to admitthat he had had some of the money himself. 

This same influence is also used in cases of serious illness, butalways secretly, for such practices, as well as dark _seances_ forcommunicating with spirits, are strictly forbidden by the Chineseauthorities, who regard the employment of occult means as more likely tobe subversive of morality than to do any good whatever to a sick person, or to any one else. All secret societies of any sort or kind are equallyunder the ban of the law, the assumption--a very justifiable one--beingthat the aim of these societies is to upset the existing order ofpolitical and social life. The Heaven-and-Earth Society is among themost famous, and the most dreaded, partly perhaps because it has neverbeen entirely suppressed. The lodges of this fraternity, the oathof fidelity, and the ceremonial of admission, remind one forcibly ofMasonry in the West; but the points of conduct are merely coincidences, and there does not appear to be any real connexion. 

Among the most curious of all these institutions is the Golden OrchidSociety, the girl-members of which swear never to marry, and not onlythreaten, but positively commit suicide upon any attempt at coercion. Atone time this society became such a serious menace that the authoritieswere compelled to adopt severe measures of repression. 

Another old-established society is that of the Vegetarians, who eat nomeat and neither smoke nor drink. From their seemingly harmless ranks itis said that the Boxers of 1900 were largely recruited. 

For nearly twenty-five centuries the Chinese have looked to Confuciusfor their morals. Various religions have appealed to the spiritual sideof the Chinese mind, and Buddhism has obtained an ascendancy which willnot be easily displaced; but through all this long lapse of time themorality of China has been under the guidance of their great teacher, Confucius (551-479 B. C. ), affectionately known to them as the "uncrownedking, " and recently raised to the rank of a god. 

His doctrines, in the form sometimes of maxims, sometimes of answers toeager inquirers, were brought together after his death--we do notknow exactly how soon--and have influenced first and last an enormousproportion of the human race. Confucius taught man's duty to hisneighbour; he taught virtue for virtue's sake, and not for the hope ofreward or fear of punishment; he taught loyalty to the sovereign as thefoundation stone of national prosperity, and filial piety as the basisof all happiness in the life of the people. As a simple human moralisthe saw clearly the limitations of humanity, and refused to teach hisdisciples to return good for evil, as suggested by the Old Philosopher, declaring without hesitation that evil should be met by justice. Thefirst systematic writer of Chinese history, who died about 80 B. C. , expressed himself on the position and influence of Confucius interms which have been accepted as accurate for twenty centuries past:"Countless are the princes and prophets that the world has seen in itstime--glorious in life, forgotten in death. But Confucius, though onlya humble member of the cotton-clothed masses, remains with us afternumerous generations. He is the model for such as would be wise. By all, from the Son of Heaven down to the meanest student, the supremacy of hisprinciples is freely and fully admitted. He may indeed be pronounced thedivinest of men. "

The Son of Heaven is of course the Emperor, who is supposed to be God'schosen representative on earth, and responsible for the right conductand well-being of all committed to his care. Once every year heproceeds in state to the Temple of Heaven at Peking; and after the dueperformance of sacrificial worship he enters alone the central raisedbuilding with circular blue-tiled roof, and there places himselfin communication with the Supreme Being, submitting for approval orotherwise his stewardship during the preceding twelve months. Chineserecords go so far as to mention letters received from God. There is alegend of the sixth century A. D. , which claims that God revealed Himselfto a hermit in a retired valley, and bestowed on him a tablet of jadewith a mysterious inscription. But there is a much more circumstantialaccount of a written communication which in A. D. 1008 descended fromheaven upon mount T'ai, the famous mountain in Shantung, where a templehas been built to mark the very spot. The emperor and his courtiersregarded this letter with profound reverence and awe, which rousedthe ire of a learned statesman of the day. The latter pointed outthat Confucius, when asked to speak, so that his disciples might havesomething to record, had bluntly replied: "Does God speak? The fourseasons pursue their courses and all things are produced; but does Godsay anything?" Therefore, he argued, if God does not speak to us, stillless will He write a letter. 

The fact that the receipt of such a letter is mentioned in the dynastichistory of the period must not be allowed to discredit in any waythe general truth and accuracy of Chinese annals, which, as researchprogresses, are daily found to be far more trustworthy than was everexpected to be the case. We ourselves do not wholly reject the oldcontemporary chronicles of Hoveden and Roger of Wendover because theymention a letter from Christ on the neglect of the Sabbath. 

In Chinese life, social and political alike, filial piety maybe regarded as the keystone of the arch. Take that away, and thesuperstructure of centuries crumbles to the ground. When Confucius wasasked by one of his disciples to explain what constituted filial piety, he replied that it was a difficult obligation to define; while toanother disciple he was able to say without hesitation that the meresupport of parents would be insufficient, inasmuch as food is whatis supplied even to horses and dogs. According to the story-books forchildren, the obligation has been interpreted by the people at largein many different ways. The twenty-four standard examples of filialchildren include a son who allowed mosquitoes to feed upon him, and didnot drive them away lest they should go and annoy his parents; anotherson who wept so passionately because he could procure no bamboo shootsfor his mother that the gods were touched, and up out of the groundcame some shoots which he gathered and carried home; another who whencarrying buckets of water would slip and fall on purpose, in order tomake his parents laugh; and so on. No wonder that Confucius found filialpiety beyond his powers of definition. 

Now for a genuine example. There is a very wonderful novel in which avery affecting love-story is worked out to a terribly tragic conclusion. The heroine, a beautiful and fascinating girl, finally dies ofconsumption, and the hero, a wayward but none the less fascinatingyouth, enters the Buddhist priesthood. A lady, the mother of a cleveryoung official, was so distressed by the pathos of the tale that shebecame quite ill, and doctors prescribed medicines in vain. At length, when things were becoming serious, the son set to work and composed asequel to this novel, in which he resuscitated the heroine and madethe lovers happy by marriage; and in a short time he had the intensesatisfaction of seeing his mother restored to health. 

Other forms of filial piety, which bear no relation whatever to thefanciful fables given above, are commonly practised by all classes. Inconsequence of the serious or prolonged illness of parents, it is veryusual for sons and daughters to repair to the municipal temple and praythat a certain number of years may be cut off their own span of life andadded to that of the sick parents in question. 

Let us now pause to take stock of some of the results which have accruedfrom the operation and influence of Confucianism during such a longperiod, and over such swarming myriads of the human race. It isa commonplace in the present day to assert that the Chinese arehardworking, thrifty, and sober--the last-mentioned, by the way, in aland where drunkenness is not regarded as a crime. Shallow observersof the globe-trotter type, who have had their pockets picked byprofessional thieves in Hong-Kong, and even resident observers who havenot much cultivated their powers of observation and comparison, willassert that honesty is a virtue denied to the Chinese; but those whohave lived long in China and have more seriously devoted themselves todiscover the truth, may one and all be said to be arrayed upon the otherside. The amount of solid honesty to be met with in every class, exceptthe professionally criminal class, is simply astonishing. That the wordof the Chinese merchant is as good as his bond has long since become ahousehold word, and so it is in other walks of life. With servants fromrespectable families, the householder need have no fear for his goods. "Be loyal, " says the native maxim, "to the master whose rice you eat;"and this maxim is usually fulfilled to the letter. Hence, it is thatmany foreigners who have been successful in their business careers, takecare to see, on their final departure from the East, that the old andfaithful servant, often of twenty to thirty years' standing, shall havesome provision for himself and his family. In large establishments, especially banks, in which great interests are at stake, it is customaryfor the Chinese staff to be guaranteed by some wealthy man (or firm), who deposits securities for a considerable amount, thus placing theemployer in a very favourable position. The properly chosen Chineseservant who enters the household of a foreigner, is a being to whom, assuggested above, his master often becomes deeply attached, and whomhe parts with, often after many years of service, to his everlastingregret. Such a servant has many virtues. He is noiseless over his work, which he performs efficiently. He can stay up late, and yet rise early. He lives on the establishment, but in an out-building. He provides hisown food. He rarely wants to absent himself, and even then will alwaysprovide a reliable _locum tenens_. He studies his master's ways, andlearns to anticipate his slightest wishes. In return for these and otherservices he expects to get his wages punctually paid, and to be allowedto charge, without any notice being taken of the same, a commission onall purchases. This is the Chinese system, and even a servant absolutelyhonest in any other way cannot emancipate himself from its grip. But iftreated fairly, he will not abuse his chance. One curious feature ofthe system is that if one master is in a relatively higher position thananother, the former will be charged by his servants slightly more thanthe latter by his servants for precisely the same article. Many attemptshave been made by foreigners to break through this "old custom, "especially by offering higher wages; but signal failure has always beenthe result, and those masters have invariably succeeded best who havefallen in with the existing institution, and have tried to make the bestof it. 

There is one more, and in many ways the most important, side of aChinese servant's character. He will recognize frankly, and without apang, the superior position and the rights of his master; but at thesame time, if worth keeping, he will exact from his master the properrespect due from man to man. It is wholly beside the mark to say thathe will not put up for a moment with the cuffs and kicks so freelyadministered to his Indian colleague. A respectable Chinese servantwill often refuse to remain with a master who uses abusive or violentlanguage, or shows signs of uncontrollable temper. A lucrative place isas nothing compared with the "loss of face" which he would suffer in theeyes of his friends; in other words, with his loss of dignity as a man. If a servant will put up with a blow, the best course is to dismisshim at once, as worthless and unreliable, if not actually dangerous. Confucius said: "If you mistrust a man, do not employ him; if you employa man, do not mistrust him;" and this will still be found to be anexcellent working rule in dealings with Chinese servants. 

CHAPTER IV--A. D. 220-1200

The long-lived and glorious House of Han was brought to a close by theusual causes. There were palace intrigues and a temporary usurpation ofthe throne, eunuchs of course being in the thick of the mischief;added to which a very serious rebellion broke out, almost as a naturalconsequence. First and last there arose three aspirants to the Imperialyellow, which takes the place of purple in ancient Rome; the resultbeing that, after some years of hard fighting, China was divided intothree parts, each ruled by one of the three rivals. The period is knownin history as that of the Three Kingdoms, and lasted from A. D. 220 toA. D. 265. This short space of time was filled, especially the earlyyears, with stirring deeds of heroism and marvellous strategicaloperations, fortune favouring first one of the three commanders and thenanother. The whole story of these civil wars is most graphically told ina famous historical romance composed about a thousand years afterwards. As in the case of the Waverley novels, a considerable amount of fictionhas been interwoven with truth to make the narrative more palatableto the general reader; but its basis is history, and the work isuniversally regarded among the Chinese themselves as one of the mostvaluable productions in the lighter branches of their literature. 

The three to four centuries which follow on the above period were atime of political and social disorganisation, unfavourable, accordingto Chinese writers, to the development of both literature and art. TheHouse of Chin, which at first held sway over a once more united empire, was severely harassed by the Tartars on the north, who were in turnoverwhelmed by the House of Toba. The latter ruled for some two hundredyears over northern China, while the southern portions were governedby several short-lived native dynasties. A few points in connexion withthese times deserve perhaps brief mention. 

The old rule of twenty-seven months of mourning for parents wasre-established, and has continued in force down to the present day. TheJapanese sent occasional missions, with tribute; and the Chinese, whohad already in A. D. 240 dispatched an envoy to Japan, repeated thecompliment in 608. An attempt was made to conquer Korea, and envoyswere sent to countries as far off as Siam. Buddhism, which had beenintroduced many centuries previously--no one can exactly say when--beganto spread far and wide, and appeared to be firmly established. In A. D. 399 a Buddhist priest, named Fa Hsien, started from Central China andtravelled to India across the great desert and over the Hindu Kush, subsequently visiting Patna, Benares, Buddha-Gaya, and other well-knownspots, which he accurately described in the record of his journeypublished on his return and still in existence. His object was to obtaincopies of the sacred books, relics and images, illustrative of thefaith; and these he safely conveyed to China by sea from India, viaCeylon (where he spent three years), and Sumatra, arriving after anabsence of fifteen years. 

In the year A. D. 618 the House of T'ang entered upon its glorious courseof three centuries in duration. Under a strong but dissolute rulerimmediately preceding, China had once more become a united empire, undivided against itself; and although wars and rebellions were notwanting to disturb the even tenor of its way, the general picturepresented to us under the new dynasty of the T'angs is one of nationalpeace, prosperity, and progress. The name of this House has endured, like that of Han, to the present day in the popular language of thepeople; for just as the northerners still delight to style themselves"good sons of Han, " so are the southerners still proud to speak ofthemselves as "men of T'ang. "

One of the chief political events of this period was the usurpationof power by the Empress Wu--at first, as nominal regent on behalf of astep-child, the son and heir of her late husband by his first wife, andafterwards, when she had set aside the step-child, on her own account. There had been one previous instance of a woman wielding the Imperialsceptre, namely, the Empress Lu of the Han dynasty, to whom the Chinesehave accorded the title of legitimate ruler, which has not been allowedto the Empress Wu. The latter, however, was possessed of much actualability, mixed with a kind of midsummer madness; and so long as hergreat intellectual faculties remained unimpaired, she ruled, like hersuccessor of some twelve centuries afterwards, with a rod of iron. Inher old age she was deposed and dismissed to private life, the rightfulheir being replaced upon his father's throne. 

Among the more extravagant acts of her reign are some which are stillfamiliar to the people of to-day. Always, even while her husband wasalive, she was present, behind a curtain, at councils and audiences;after his death she was accustomed to take her place openly among theministers of state, wearing a false beard. In 694 she gave herself thetitle of Divine Empress, and in 696 she even went so far as to styleherself God Almighty. In her later years she became hopelessly arrogantand overbearing. No one was allowed to say that the Empress was fairas a lily or lovely as a rose, but that the lily was fair or the roselovely as Her Majesty. She tried to spread the belief that she wasreally the Supreme Being by forcing flowers artificially and then in thepresence of her courtiers ordering them to bloom. On one occasion shecommanded some peonies to bloom; and because they did not instantlyobey, she caused every peony in the capital to be pulled up and burnt, and prohibited the cultivation of peonies ever afterwards. She furtherdecided to place her sex once and for all on an equality with man. Forthat purpose women were admitted to the public examinations, officialposts being conferred upon those who were successful; and among otherthings they were excused from kneeling while giving evidence in courtsof justice. This innovation, however, did not fulfil its promise;and with the disappearance of its vigorous foundress, the system alsodisappeared. It was not actually the first time in Chinese history thatthe experiment had been tried. An emperor of the third century A. D. Hadalready opened public life to women, and it is said that many of themrose to high office; but here too the system was of short duration, andthe old order was soon restored. 

Another striking picture of the T'ang dynasty is presented by the careerof an emperor who is usually spoken of as Ming Huang, and who, afterdistinguishing himself at several critical junctures, mounted the thronein 712, in succession to his father, who had abdicated in his favour. Hebegan with economy, closing the silk factories and forbidding the palaceladies to wear jewels or embroideries, considerable quantities of whichwere actually burnt. He was a warm patron of literature, and schoolswere established in every village. Fond of music, he founded a collegefor training youth of both sexes in this art. His love of war andhis growing extravagance led to increased taxation, with the usualconsequences in China--discontent and rebellion. He surrounded himselfby a brilliant court, welcoming men of genius in literature and art;at first for their talents alone, but finally for their readinessto participate in scenes of revelry and dissipation provided for theamusement of a favourite concubine, the ever-famous Yang Kuei-fei(pronounced _Kway-fay_). Eunuchs were appointed to official posts, andthe grossest forms of religious superstition were encouraged. Womenceased to veil themselves, as of old. At length, in 755, a seriousrebellion broke out, and a year later the emperor, now an old man ofseventy-one, fled before the storm. He had not proceeded far before hissoldiery revolted and demanded vengeance upon the whole family of thefavourite, several unworthy members of which had been raised to highpositions and loaded with honours. The wretched emperor was forced toorder the head eunuch to strangle his idolized concubine, while therest of her family perished at the hands of the troops. He subsequentlyabdicated in favour of his son, and spent the last six years of his lifein seclusion. 

This tragic story has been exquisitely told in verse by one of China'sforemost poets, who was born only a few years later. He divides hispoem into eight parts, dealing with the _ennui_ of the monarch until hediscovers _beauty_, the _revelry_ of the pair together, followed by thehorrors of _flight_, to end in the misery of _exile_ without her, the_return_ when the emperor passes again by the fatal spot, _home_ whereeverything reminds him of her, and finally _spirit-land_. This last is afigment of the poet's imagination. He pictures the disconsolate emperorsending a magician to discover Yang Kuei-fei's whereabouts in the nextworld, and to bear to her a message of uninterrupted love. The magician, after a long search, finds her in one of the Isles of the Blest, andfulfils his commission accordingly. 

 Her features are fixed and calm, though myriad tears fall, Wetting a spray of pear-bloom, as it were with the raindrops of spring. Subduing her emotions, restraining her grief, she tenders thanks to His Majesty. Saying how since their parting she had missed his form and voice; And how, although their love on earth had so soon come to an end, The days and months among the Blest were still of long duration. And now she turns and gazes towards the above of mortals, But cannot discern the Imperial city, lost in the dust and haze. Then she takes out the old keepsake, tokens of undying love, A gold hairpin, an enamel brooch, and bids the magician carry these back. One half of the hairpin she keeps, and one half of the enamel brooch, Breaking with her hands the yellow gold, and dividing the enamel in two. "Tell him, " she said, "to be firm of heart, as this gold and enamel, And then in heaven or on earth below we two may meet once more. "

The magnificent House of T'ang was succeeded by five insignificantdynasties, the duration of all of which was crowded into about halfa century. Then, in A. D. 960, began the rule of the Sungs (pronounced_Soongs_), to last for three hundred years and rival in national peaceand prosperity any other period in the history of China. The nationhad already in a great measure settled down to that state of materialcivilization and mental culture in which it has remained to the presenttime. To the appliances of ordinary Chinese life it is probable that butfew additions have been made since a very early date. The dress of thepeople has indeed undergone several variations, but the ploughs andhoes, the water-wheels and well-sweeps, the tools of the artisans, mudhuts, carts, junks, chairs, tables, chopsticks, etc. , which we stillsee in China, are probably very much those of two thousand years ago. Mencius, of the third century B. C. , observed that written characters hadthe same form, and axle-trees the same breadth, all over the empire; andto this day an unaltering uniformity is one of the chief characteristicsof the Chinese people in every department of life. 

In spite, however, of the peaceful aspirations of the House of Sung, the Kitan Tartars were for ever encroaching upon Chinese territory, andfinally overran and occupied a large part of northern China, withtheir capital where Peking now stands. This resulted in an amicablearrangement to divide the empire, the Kitans retaining their conquestsin the north, from which, after about two hundred years, they were inturn expelled by the Golden Tartars, who had previously been subject tothem. 

Many volumes, rather than pages, would be required to do justice to thestatesmen, soldiers, philosophers, poets, historians, art critics, andother famous men of this dynasty. It has already been stated that theinterpretation of the Confucian Canon, accepted at the present day, dates from this period; and it may now be of interest to give a briefaccount of another remarkable movement connected with the dynasty, though in quite a different line. 

Wang An-shih (as _shi_ in _shirk_), popularly known as the Reformer, wasborn in 1021. In his youth a keen student, his pen seemed to fly overthe paper. He rose to high office; and by the time he was forty-eight hefound himself installed as confidential adviser to the emperor. He thenentered upon a series of startling political reforms, said to be basedupon new and more correct interpretations of portions of the ConfucianCanon, which still remained, so far as explanation was concerned, justas it had been left by the scholars of the Han dynasty. This appeal toauthority was, of course, a mere blind, cleverly introduced to satisfythe bulk of the population, who were always unwilling to move in anydirection where no precedent is forthcoming. One of his schemes, theexpress object of which was to decrease taxation and at the same timeto increase the revenue, was to secure a sure and certain market for allproducts, as follows. From the produce of a given district, enough wasto be set aside (1) for the payment of taxes, and (2) to supply thewants of the district; (3) the balance was then to be taken over by thestate at a low rate, and held for a rise or forwarded to some centrewhere there happened to be a demand. There would be thus a certaintyof market for the farmer, and an equal certainty for the state tomake profits as a middleman. Another part of this scheme consisted inobligatory advances by the state to cultivators of land, whether thesefarmers required the money or not, the security for the loans being ineach case the growing crops. 

There was also a system of tithing for military purposes, under whichevery family having more than two males was bound to supply one to serveas a soldier; and in order to keep up a breed of cavalry horses, everyfamily was compelled to take charge of one, which was provided, togetherwith its food, by the government. There was a system under which moneypayments were substituted for the old-fashioned and vexatious methodof carrying on public works by drafts of forced labourers; and againanother under which warehouses for bartering and hypothecating goodswere established all over the empire. 

Of all his innovations the most interesting was that all land was to beremeasured and an attempt made to secure a more equitable incidence oftaxation. The plan was to divide up the land into equal squares, and tolevy taxes in proportion to the fertility of each. This scheme provedfor various reasons to be unworkable; and the bitter opposition withwhich, like all his other measures of reform, it was received byhis opponents, did not conduce to success. Finally, he abolished allrestrictions upon the export of copper, the result being that even thecurrent copper "cash" were melted down and made into articles for saleand exportation. A panic ensued, which Wang met by the simple expedientof doubling the value of each cash. He attempted to reform theexamination system, requiring from the candidate not so much graces ofstyle as a wide acquaintance with practical subjects. "Accordingly, "says one Chinese author, "even the pupils at the village schoolsthrew away their text-books of rhetoric, and began to study primers ofhistory, geography, and political economy"--a striking anticipation ofthe movement in vogue to-day. "I have myself been, " he tells us, "anomnivorous reader of books of all kinds, even, for example, of ancientmedical and botanical works. I have, moreover, dipped into treatises onagriculture and on needlework, all of which I have found very profitablein aiding me to seize the great scheme of the Canon itself. " Butlike many other great men, he was in advance of his age. He fell intodisfavour at court, and was dismissed to a provincial post; and althoughhe was soon recalled, he retired into private life, shortly afterwardsto die, but not before he had seen the whole of his policy reversed. 

His career stands out in marked contrast with that of the greatstatesman and philosopher, Chu Hsi (pronounced _Choo Shee_), whoflourished A. D. 1130-1200. His literary output was enormous and hisofficial career successful; but his chief title to fame rests upon hismerits as a commentator on the Confucian Canon. As has been alreadystated, he introduced interpretations either wholly or partly atvariance with those which had been put forth by the scholars of theHan dynasty, and hitherto received as infallible, thus modifying to acertain extent the prevailing standard of political and social morality. His guiding principle was merely one of consistency. He refused tointerpret words in a given passage in one sense, and the same wordsoccurring elsewhere in another sense. The effect of this apparentlyobvious method was magical; and from that date the teachings ofConfucius have been universally understood in the way in which Chu Hsisaid they ought to be understood. 

To his influence also must be traced the spirit of materialism whichis so widely spread among educated Chinese. The God in whom Confuciusbelieved, but whom, as will be seen later on, he can scarcely be saidto have "taught, " was a passive rather than an active God, and may becompared with the God of the Psalms. He was a personal God, as we knowfrom the ancient character by which He was designated in the writtenlanguage of early ages, that character being a rude picture of aman. This view was entirely set aside by Chu Hsi, who declared in theplainest terms that the Chinese word for God meant nothing more than"abstract right;" in other words, God was a principle. It is impossibleto admit such a proposition, which was based on sentiment and noton sound reasoning. Chu Hsi was emphatically not a man of religioustemperament, and belief in the supernatural was distasteful to him;he was for a short time under the spell of Buddhism, but threw thatreligion over for the orthodoxy of Confucianism. He was, therefore, anxious to exclude the supernatural altogether from the revised schemeof moral conduct which he was deducing from the Confucian Canon, and hisinterpretation of the word "God" has been blindly accepted ever since. 

When Chu Hsi died, his coffin is said to have taken up a position, suspended in the air, about three feet from the ground. Whereupon hisson-in-law, falling on his knees beside the bier, reminded the departedspirit of the great principles of which he had been such a brilliantexponent in life--and the coffin descended gently to the ground. 

CHAPTER V--WOMEN AND CHILDREN

The Chinese are very fond of animals, and especially of birds; and onthe whole they may be said to be kind to their animals, though cases ofill-treatment occur. At the same time it must be carefully rememberedthat such quantum of humanity as they may exhibit is entirely of theirown making; there is no law to act persuasively on brutal natures, andthere is no Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals to see thatany such law is enforced. A very large number of beautiful birds, mostlysongless, are found in various parts of China, and a great variety offishes in the rivers and on the coast. Wild animals are represented bythe tiger (in both north and south), the panther and the bear, and eventhe elephant and the rhinoceros may be found in the extreme south-west. The wolf and the fox, the latter dreaded as an uncanny beast, are verywidely distributed. 

Still less would there be any ground for establishing a Society for thePrevention of Cruelty to Children, the very name of which would makean ordinary, unsophisticated Chinaman stare. Chinese parents are, ifanything, over-indulgent to their children. The father is, indeed, popularly known as the "Severe One, " and it is a Confucian traditionthat he should not spare the rod and so spoil the child, but he drawsthe line at a poker; and although as a father he possesses the power oflife and death over his offspring, such punishments as are inflicted areusually of the mildest description. The mother, the "Gentle One, " is, speaking broadly, a soft-hearted, sweet-natured specimen of humanity;one of those women to whom hundreds of Europeans owe deep debts ofgratitude for the care and affection lavished upon their alien children. In the absence of the Severe One, it falls to her to chastise whennecessary; and we even read of a son who wept, not because his motherhurt him, but because, owing to her advanced age, she was no longer ableto hit him hard enough!

Among other atrocious libels which have fastened upon the fair fameof the Chinese people, first and foremost stands the charge offemale infanticide, now happily, though still slowly, fading fromthe calculations of those who seek the truth. Fifty years ago it wasgenerally believed that the Chinese hated their female children, and gotrid of them in early infancy by wholesale murder. It may be admittedat once that boys are preferred to girls, inasmuch as they carry onthe family line, and see that the worship of ancestors is regularlyperformed in due season. Also, because girls require dowries, which theytake away with them for the benefit of other families than their own;hence the saying, "There is no thief like a family of five daughters, "and the term "lose-money goods, " as jestingly applied to girls, againstwhich may be set another term, "a thousand ounces of gold, " which iscommonly used of a daughter. Of course it is the boy who is speciallywanted in a family; and little boys are often dressed as little girls, in order to deceive the angels of disease and death, who, it is hoped, may thus pass them over as of less account. 

To return to the belief formerly held that female infanticide wasrampant all over China. The next step was for the honest observer toadmit that it was not known in his own particular district, but todeclare that it was largely practised elsewhere. This view, however, lost its validity when residents "elsewhere" had to allow that notraces of infanticide could be found in their neighbourhood; and soon. Luckily, still greater comfort is to be found in the followingargument, --a rare example of proving a negative--from which it willbe readily seen that female infanticide on any abnormal scale isquite beyond the bounds of the possible. Those who have even a bowingacquaintance with Chinese social life will grant that every boy, atabout the age of eighteen, is provided by his parents with a wife. Theymust also concede the notorious fact that many well-to-do Chinese takeone or more concubines. The Emperor, indeed, is allowed seventy; butthis number exists only on paper as a regulation maximum. Now, if everyChinaman has one wife, and many have two, over and above the host ofgirls said to be annually sacrificed as worthless babies, it must followthat the proportion of girls born in China enormously outnumbers theproportion of boys, whereas in the rest of the world boys are well knownto be always in the majority. After this, it is perhaps superfluous tostate that, apart from the natural love of the parent, a girl is really, even at a very early age, a marketable commodity. Girls are sometimessold into other families to be brought up as wives for the sons;more often, to be used as servants, under what is of course a form ofslavery, qualified by the important condition, which can be enforced bylaw, that when of a marriageable age, the girl's master shall find hera husband. Illegitimate children, the source of so much baby-farming andinfanticide elsewhere, are practically unknown in China; and the samemay be said of divorce. A woman cannot legally divorce her husband. Inrare cases she will leave him, and return to her family, in spite of thefact that he can legally insist upon her return; for she knows well thatif her case is good, the husband will not dare to risk the scandal of anexposure, not to mention the almost certain vengeance of heraffronted kinsmen. It is also the fear of such vengeance that preventsmothers-in-law from ill-treating the girls who pass into their new homesrather as servants than daughters to the husband's mother. Everywoman, as indeed every man, has one final appeal by which to punish anoppressor. She may commit suicide, there being no canon, legal or moral, against self-slaughter; and in China, where, contrary to widespreadnotions on the subject, human life is held in the highest degree sacred, this course is sure to entail trouble and expense, and possibly severepunishment, if the aggrieved parties are not promptly conciliated by aheavy money payment. 

A man may divorce his wife for one of the seven following reasons:--Wantof children, adultery, neglect of his parents, nagging, thieving (i. E. Supplying her own family with his goods, popularly known as "leakage"), jealous temper and leprosy. To the above, the humanity of the lawgiverhas affixed three qualifying conditions. He may not put her away onany of the above grounds if she has duly passed through the period ofmourning for his parents; if he has grown rich since their marriage; ifshe has no longer any home to which she can return. 

Altogether, the Chinese woman has by no means such a bad time as isgenerally supposed to be the case. Even in the eye of the law, she hasthis advantage over a man, that she cannot be imprisoned except for hightreason and adultery, and is to all intents and purposes exempt from thepunishment of the bamboo. Included in this exemption are the aged andthe young, the sick, the hungry and naked, and those who have alreadysuffered violence, as in a brawl. Further, in a well-known handbook, magistrates are advised to postpone, in certain circumstances, theinfliction of corporal punishment; as for instance, when either theprisoner or they themselves may be under the influence of excitement, anger or drink. 

The bamboo is the only instrument with which physical punishment maylegally be inflicted; and its infliction on a prisoner or recalcitrantwitness, in order to extort evidence, constitutes what has long beendignified as "torture;" but even that is now, under a changing system, about to disappear. This must not be taken to mean that torture, in oursense of the term, has never been applied in China. The real factsof the case are these. Torture, except as already described, beingconstitutionally illegal, no magistrate would venture to resort to itif there were any chance of his successful impeachment before the higherauthorities, upon which he would be cashiered and his official careerbrought abruptly to an end. Torture, therefore, would have noterrors for the ordinary citizen of good repute and with a backing ofsubstantial friends; but for the outcast, the rebel, the highway robber(against whom every man's hand would be), the disreputable native of adistant province, and also for the outer barbarian (e. G. The captives atthe Summer Palace in 1860), another tale must be told. No consequences, except perhaps promotion, would follow from too rigorous treatment insuch cases as these. 

Resort to the bamboo as a means of extorting the confession of aprisoner is regarded by the people rather as the magistrate's confessionof his own incapacity. The education of the official, too easily andtoo freely turned into ridicule, gives him an insight into humannature which, coupled with a little experience, renders him extremelyformidable to the shifty criminal or the crafty litigant. As a rule, he finds no need for the application of pain. There is a quaint storyillustrative of such judicial methods as would be sure to meet withfull approbation in China. A magistrate, who after several hearings hadfailed to discover, among a gang accused of murder, what was essentialto the completion of the case, namely, the actual hand which struckthe fatal blow, notified the prisoners that he was about to invoke theassistance of the spirits, with a view to elicit the truth. Accordingly, he caused the accused men, dressed in the black clothes of criminals, to be led into a large barn, and arranged around it, face to the wall. Having then told them that an accusing angel would shortly come amongthem, and mark the back of the guilty man, he went outside and had thedoor shut, and the place darkened. After a short interval, when the doorwas thrown open, and the men were summoned to come forth, it was seendirectly that one of the number had a white mark on his back. Thisman, in order to make all secure, had turned his back to the wall, notknowing, what the magistrate well knew, that the wall had been newlywhite-washed. 

As to the punishment of crime by flogging, a sentence of one or twohundred--even more--blows would seem to be cruel and disgusting;happily, it may be taken for granted that such ferocious sentencesare executed only in such cases as have been mentioned above. An acuteobserver, for many years a member of the municipal police force inShanghai, whose duty it was to see that floggings were administered toChinese criminals, stated plainly in a public report that the bamboo isnot necessarily a severe ordeal, and that one hundred blows are at timesinflicted so lightly as to leave scarcely a mark behind, though therecipient howls loudly all the time. Those criminals who have moneycan always manage to square the gaoler; and the gaoler has acquired acertain knack in laying on, the upshot being great cry and little wool, very satisfactory to the culprit. Even were we to accept the cruellestestimate in regard to punishment by the bamboo, it would only go to showthat humanitarian feelings in China are lagging somewhat behind ourown. In _The Times_ of March 1, 1811, we read that, for allowing Frenchprisoners to escape from Dartmoor, three men of the Nottingham militiawere sentenced to receive 900 lashes each, and that one of them actuallyreceived 450 lashes in the presence of pickets from every regiment inthe garrison. On New Year's Day, 1911, a eunuch attempted to assassinateone of the Imperial Princes. For this he was sentenced to be beaten todeath, some such ferocious punishment being necessary, in Chinese eyes, to vindicate the majesty of the law. That end having been attained, thesentence was commuted to eighty blows with the bamboo and deportation tonorthern Manchuria. 

The Chinese woman often, in mature life, wields enormous influence overthe family, males included, and is a kind of private Empress Dowager. A man knows, says the proverb, but a woman knows better. As a widowin early life, her lot is not quite so pleasant. It is not thoughtdesirable for widows to remarry; but if she remains single, she becomes"a rudderless boat;" round which gathers much calumny. Many young womenbrave public opinion, and enter into second nuptials. If they are bentupon remarrying, runs the saying, they can no more be prevented than thesky can be prevented from raining. 

The days of "golden lilies, " as the artificially small feet of Chinesewomen are called, are generally believed to date from the tenth centuryA. D. , though some writers have endeavoured to place the custom manycenturies earlier. It must always be carefully remembered that Manchuwomen--the women of the dynasty which has ruled since 1644--do notcompress their feet. Consequently, the empresses of modern times havefeet of the natural size; neither is the practice in force among theHakkas, a race said to have migrated from the north of China to thesouth in the thirteenth century; nor among the hill tribes; nor amongthe boating population of Canton and elsewhere. Small feet are thus inno way associated with aristocracy or gentleness of birth; neither isthere any foundation for the generally received opinion that theChinese lame their women in this way to keep them from gadding about. Small-footed women may be seen carrying quite heavy burdens, and evenworking in the fields; not to mention that many are employed as nursesfor small children. Another explanation is that women with bound feetbear finer children and stronger; but the real reason lies in anotherdirection, quite beyond the scope of this book. The question of charmmay be taken into consideration, for any Chinaman will bear witness tothe seductive effect of a gaily-dressed girl picking her way on tinyfeet some three inches in length, her swaying movements and delightfulappearance of instability conveying a general sense of delicate gracequite beyond expression in words. 

The lady of the tenth century, to whom the origin of small feet isascribed, wished to make her own feet like two new moons; but whethershe actually bound them, as at the present day, is purely a matter ofconjecture. The modern style of binding inflicts great pain for a longtime upon the little girls who have to endure it. They become very shyon the subject, and will on no account show their bare feet, thoughManchu women and others with full-sized feet frequently walk aboutunshod, and the boat-girls at Canton and elsewhere never seem to wearshoes or stockings at all. 

The "pigtail, " or long plait of hair worn by all Chinamen, for theabolition of which many advanced reformers are now earnestly pleading, is an institution of comparatively modern date. It was imposed by thevictorious Manchu-Tartars when they finally established their dynasty in1644, not so much as a badge of conquest, still less of servitude, but as a means of obliterating, so far as possible, the most patentdistinction between the two races, and of unifying the appearance, if not the aspirations, of the subjects of the Son of Heaven. Thisobligation was for some time strenuously resisted by the natives ofAmoy, Swatow, and elsewhere in that neighbourhood. At length, whencompelled to yield, it is said that they sullenly wound their queuesround their heads and covered them with turbans, which are still worn bynatives of those parts. 

The peculiar custom of shaving the head in front, and allowing the hairto grow long behind, is said to have been adopted by the Manchus outof affectionate gratitude to the horse, an animal which has played anall-important part in the history and achievements of the race. Thisview is greatly reinforced by the cut of the modern official sleeves, which hang down, concealing the hands, and are shaped exactly like apair of horse's hoofs. 

In many respects the Manchu conquerors left the Chinese to follow theirown customs. No attempt was made to coerce Chinese women, who dresstheir hair in styles totally different from that of the Manchu women;there are, too, some tolerated differences between the dress of theManchu and Chinese men, but these are such as readily escape notice. Neither was any attempt made in the opening years of the conquest tointerfere with foot-binding by Chinese women; but in 1664 an edict wasissued forbidding the practice. Readers may draw their own conclusions, when it is added that four years after the edict was withdrawn. Hopesare now widely and earnestly entertained that with the dawn of the newera, this cruel custom will become a thing of the past; it is, however, to be feared that those who have been urging on this desirable reformmay be, like all reformers, a little too sanguine of immediate success, and that a comparatively long period will have to go by before the lasttraces of foot-binding disappear altogether. Meanwhile, it seems thatthe Government has taken the important step of refusing admission to thepublic schools of all girls whose feet are bound. 

The disappearance of the queue is another thing altogether. It is not anative Chinese institution; there would be no violation of any cherishedtradition of antiquity if it were once and for ever discarded. On thecontrary, if the Chinese do not intend to follow the Japanese and taketo foreign clothes, there might be a return to the old style of doingthe hair. The former dress of the Japanese was one of the numerous itemsborrowed by them from China; it was indeed the national dress of theChinese for some three hundred years, between A. D. 600-900. One littledifficulty will vanish with the queue. A Chinese coolie will tie histail round his head when engaged on work in which he requires to keep itout of the way, and the habit has become of real importance with the useof modern machinery; but on the arrival of his master, he should at oncedrop it, out of respect, a piece of politeness not always exhibited inthe presence of a foreign employer. The agitation, now in progress, for the final abolition of the queue may be due to one or all of thefollowing reasons. Intelligent Chinese may have come to realize that thefashion is cumbrous and out of date. Sensitive Chinese may fear that itmakes them ridiculous in the eyes of foreigners. Political Chinese, whowould gladly see the re-establishment of a native dynasty, may lookto its disappearance as the first step towards throwing off the Manchuyoke. 

On the whole, the ruling Manchus have shown themselves very carefulnot to wound the susceptibilities of their Chinese subjects. Besidesallowing the women to retain their own costume, and the dead, men andwomen alike, to be buried in the costume of the previous dynasty, it wasagreed from the very first that no Chinese concubines should be takeninto the Palace. This last condition seems to be a concession pure andsimple to the conquered; there is little doubt, however, that the wilyManchus were only too ready to exclude a very dangerous possibility ofpolitical intrigue. 

CHAPTER VI--LITERATURE AND EDUCATION

The Chinese people reverence above all things literature and learning;they hate war, bearing in mind the saying of Mencius, "There is no suchthing as a _righteous_ war; we can only assert that some wars are betterthan others;" and they love trade and the finesse of the market-place. China can boast many great soldiers, in modern as well as in ancientdays; but anything like a proper appreciation of the military arm is ofquite recent growth. "Good iron is not used for nails, nor good men forsoldiers, " says the proverb; and again, "One stroke of the civilian'spen reduces the military official to abject submission. " On the otherhand, it is admitted that "Civilians give the empire peace, and soldiersgive it security. "

Chinese parents have never, until recent days, willingly trained theirsons for the army. They have always wished their boys to follow thestereotyped literary curriculum, and then, after passing successfullythrough the great competitive examinations, to rise to high civil officein the state. A good deal of ridicule has been heaped of late on theChinese competitive examination, the subjects of which were drawnexclusively from the Confucian Canon, and included a knowledge ofancient history, of a comprehensive scheme of morality, initiated byConfucius, and further elaborated by Mencius (372-289 B. C. ), of theballads and ceremonial rites of three thousand years ago, and of anaptitude for essay-writing and the composition of verse. The wholecurriculum may be fitly compared with such an education as was givento William Pitt and others among our own great statesmen, in which anability to read the Greek and Roman classics, coupled with an intimateknowledge of the Peloponnesian War, carried the student about as far asit was considered necessary for him to go. The Chinese course, too, hascertainly brought to the front in its time a great many eminent men, whohave held their own in diplomacy, if not in warfare, with the subtlestintellects of the West. 

Their system of competitive examinations has indeed served the Chinesewell. It is the brightest spot in the whole administration, beingabsolutely above suspicion, such as attaches to other departments of thestate. Attempts have been made from time to time to gain admission byimproper means to the list of successful candidates, and it would beabsurd to say that not one has ever succeeded; the risk, however, is toogreat, for the penalty on detection may be death. 

The ordeal itself is exceedingly severe, as well for the examiners asfor the candidates. At the provincial examinations, held once in everythird year, an Imperial Commissioner, popularly known as the GrandExaminer, is sent down from Peking. On arrival, his residence isformally sealed up, and extraordinary precautions are taken to preventfriends of intending candidates from approaching him in any way. Thereis no age limit, and men of quite mature years are to be foundcompeting against youths hardly out of their teens; indeed, there isan authenticated case of a man who successfully graduated at the age ofseventy-two. Many compete year after year, until at length they decideto give it up as a bad job. 

At an early hour on the appointed day the candidates begin to assemble, and by and by the great gates of the examination hall are thrown open, and heralds shriek out the names of those who are to enter. Each oneanswers in turn as his name is called, and receives from the attendantsa roll of paper marked with the number of the open cell he is to occupyin one of the long alleys into which the examination hall is divided. Other writing materials, as well as food, he carries with him in abasket, which is always carefully searched at the door, and in which"sleeve" editions of the classics have sometimes been found. When allhave taken their seats, the Grand Examiner burns incense, and closes theentrance gates, through which no one will be allowed to pass, either inor out, dead or alive, until the end of the third day, when the first ofthe three sessions is at an end, and the candidates are released forthe night. In case of death, not unusual where ten or twelve thousandpersons are cooped up day and night in a confined space, the corpse ishoisted over the wall; and this would be done even if it were that ofthe Grand Examiner himself, whose place would then be taken by thechief Assistant Examiner, who is also appointed by the Emperor, andaccompanies the Grand Examiner from Peking. 

The long strain of three bouts of three days each has often beenfound sufficient to unhinge the reason, with a variety of distressingconsequences, the least perhaps of which may be seen in a regularpercentage of blank papers handed in. On one occasion, a man handed in acopy of his last will and testament; on another, not very long ago, the mental balance of the Grand Examiner gave way, and a painful sceneensued. He tore up a number of the papers already handed in, and bitand kicked every one who came near him, until he was finally securedand bound hand and foot in his chair. A candidate once presented himselfdressed in woman's clothes, with his face highly rouged and powdered, as is the custom. He was arrested at the entrance gate, and quietly senthome to his friends. 

Overwork, in the feverish desire to get into the Government service, iscertainly responsible for the mental break-down of a large proportionof the comparatively few lunatics found in China. There being no lunaticasylums in the empire, it is difficult to form anything like an exactestimate of their number; it can only be said, what is equally true ofcripples or deformed persons, that it is very rare to meet them in thestreets or even to hear of their existence. 

As a further measure of precaution against corrupt practices atexaminations, the papers handed in by the candidates are all copied outin red ink, and only these copies are submitted to the examiners. Thedifficulty therefore of obtaining favourable treatment, on the score ofeither bribery or friendship, is very much increased. The Chinese, whomake no attempt to conceal or excuse, in fact rather exaggerate anycorruption in their public service generally, do not hesitate to declarewith striking unanimity that the conduct of their examination system isabove suspicion, and there appears to be no valid reason why we shouldnot accept this conclusion. 

The whole system is now undergoing certain modifications, which, if wisely introduced, should serve only to strengthen the nationalcharacter. The Confucian teachings, which are of the very highest orderof morality, and which have moulded the Chinese people for so manycenturies, helping perhaps to give them a cohesion and stabilityremarkable among the nations of the world, should not be lightly castaside. A scientific training, enabling us to annihilate time and space, to extend indefinitely the uses and advantages of matter in all itsforms, and to mitigate the burden of suffering which is laid upon thegreater portion of the human race, still requires to be effectivelysupplemented by a moral training, to teach man his duty towards hisneighbour. From the point of view of science, the Chinese are, ofcourse, wholly out of date, though it is only within the past hundredand fifty years that the West has so decisively outstripped the East. Ifwe go back to the fifteenth century, we shall find that the standard ofcivilization, as the term is usually understood, was still much higherin China than in Europe; while Marco Polo, the famous Venetian travellerof the thirteenth century, who actually lived twenty-four years inChina, and served as an official under Kublai Khan, has left it onrecord that the magnificence of Chinese cities, and the splendour of theChinese court, outrivalled anything he had ever seen or heard of. 

Pushing farther back into antiquity, we easily reach a time when theinhabitants of the Middle Kingdom "held learning in high esteem, whileour own painted forefathers were running naked and houseless in thewoods, and living on berries and raw meat. " In inventive, mechanical andengineering aptitudes the Chinese have always excelled; as witness--onlyto mention a few--the art of printing (_see below_); their water-wheelsand other clever appliances for irrigation; their wonderful bridges (notto mention the Great Wall); the "taxicab, " or carriage fitted with amachine for recording the distance traversed, the earliest noticeof which takes us back to the fourth century A. D. ; the system offingerprints for personal identification, recorded in the seventhcentury A. D. ; the carved ivory balls which contain even so many as nineor ten other balls, of diminishing size, one within another; a chariotcarrying a figure which always pointed south, recorded as in existenceat a very early date, though unfortunately the specifications which havecame down to us from later dates will not work out, as in the case ofthe "taxicab. " The story goes that this chariot was invented about 1100B. C. , by a wonderful hero of the day, in order to enable an ambassador, who had come to the court of China from a far distant country in thesouth, to find his way expeditiously home. The compass proper theChinese cannot claim; it was probably introduced into China by theArabs at a comparatively late date, and has been confused with thesouth-pointing chariot of earlier ages. As to gunpowder, somethingof that nature appears to have been used for fireworks in the seventhcentury; and something of the nature of a gun is first heard of duringthe Mongol campaigns of the thirteenth century; but firearms were notsystematically employed until the fifteenth century. Add to the abovethe art of casting bronze, brought to a high pitch of excellenceseven or eight centuries before the Christian era, if not earlier; theproduction of silk, mentioned by Mencius (372-289 B. C. ) as necessaryfor the comfort of old age; the cultivation of the tea-plant from timeimmemorial; also the discovery and manufacture of porcelain some sixteencenturies ago, subsequently brought to a perfection which leaves allEuropean attempts hopelessly out-classed. 

In many instances the Chinese seem to have been so near and yet so far. There is a distinct tradition of flying cars at a very remote date; andrough woodcuts have been handed down for many centuries, showing a carcontaining two passengers, flying through the clouds and apparentlypropelled by wheels of a screw pattern, set at right angles to thedirection in which the travellers are proceeding. But there is not ascrap of evidence to show what was the motive power which turned thewheels. Similarly, iron ships are mentioned in Chinese literature sofar back as the tenth century, only, however, to be ridiculed as animpossibility; the circulation of the blood is hinted at; added to whichis the marvellous anticipation of anaesthetics as applied to surgery, tobe mentioned later on, an idea which also remained barren of results forsomething like sixteen centuries, until Western science stepped in andsecured the prize. Here it may be fairly argued that, considering thenational repugnance to mutilation of the body in any form, it couldhardly be expected that the Chinese would seek to facilitate a processto which they so strongly object. 

In the domain of painting, we are only just beginning to awake to thefact that in this direction the Chinese have reached heights denied toall save artists of supreme power, and that their art was already ona lofty level many centuries before our own great representatives hadbegun to put brush to canvas. Without going so far back as the famouspicture in the British Museum, by an artist of the fourth and fifthcenturies A. D. , the point may perhaps be emphasized by quotation fromthe words of a leading art-critic, referring to painters of the tenthand eleventh centuries:--"To the Sung artists and poets, mountainswere a passion, as to Wordsworth. The landscape art thus founded, andcontinued by the Japanese in the fifteenth century, must rank asthe greatest school of landscape which the world has seen. It is theimaginative picturing of what is most elemental and most august inNature--liberating visions of storm or peace among abrupt peaks, plunging torrents, trembling reed-beds--and though having a fantasticside for its weakness, can never have the reproach of pretty tamenessand mere fidelity which form too often the only ideal of Westernlandscape. "

Great Chinese artists unite in dismissing fidelity to outline as oflittle importance compared with reproduction of the spirit of the objectpainted. To paint a tree successfully, it is necessary to produce notmerely shape and colour but the vitality and "soul" of the original. Until with the last two or three centuries, nature itself was alwaysappealed to as the one source of true inspiration; then came the artistof the studio, since which time Chinese art has languished, whileJapanese art, learned at the feet of Chinese artists from the fourteenthcentury onwards, has come into prominent notice, and is now, withextraordinary versatility, attempting to assimilate the ideals of theWest. 

The following words were written by a Chinese painter of the fifthcentury:--

"To gaze upon the clouds of autumn, a soaring exaltation in the soul; tofeel the spring breeze stirring wild exultant thoughts;--what is therein the possession of gold and gems to compare with delights like these?And then, to unroll the portfolio and spread the silk, and to transferto it the glories of flood and fell, the green forest, the blowingwinds, the white water of the rushing cascade, as with a turn of thehand a divine influence descends upon the scene. . . . These are thejoys of painting. "

Just as in poetry, so in pictorial art, the artist avoids giving fullexpression to his theme, and leaving nothing for the spectator to supplyby his own imaginative powers. "Suggestion" is the key-note to both theabove arts; and in both, "Impressionism" has been also at the commandof the gifted, centuries before the term had passed into the Englishlanguage. 

Literature and art are indeed very closely associated in China. Everyliterary man is supposed to be more or less a painter, or a musician ofsorts; failing personal skill, it would go without saying that he was acritic, or at the lowest a lover, of one or the other art, or of both. All Chinese men, women and children seem to love flowers; and the poetrywhich has gathered around the blossoms of plum and almond alone wouldform a not inconsiderable library of itself. Yet a European bouquetwould appear to a man of culture as little short of a monstrosity; forto enjoy flowers, a Chinaman must see only a single spray at a time. Thepoorly paid clerk will bring with him to his office in the morning sometrifling bud, which he will stick into a tiny vase of water, and placebeside him on his desk. The owner of what may be a whole gallery ofpictures will invite you to tea, followed by an inspection of histreasures; but on the same afternoon he will only produce perhaps asingle specimen, and scout the idea that any one could call for more. If a long landscape, it will be gradually unwound from its roller, anda portion at a time will be submitted for the enjoyment and criticismof his visitors; if a religious or historical picture, or a pictureof birds or flowers, of which the whole effort must be viewed in itscompleteness, it will be studied in various senses, during the intervalsbetween a chat and a cup of tea. Such concentration is absolutelyessential, in the eyes of the Chinese critic, to a true interpretationof the artist's meaning, and to a just appreciation of his success. 

The marvellous old stories of grapes painted by Zeuxis of ancientGreece, so naturally that birds came to peck at them; and of the curtainpainted by Parrhasius which Zeuxis himself tried to pull aside; andof the horse by Apelles at which another horse neighed--all these findtheir counterparts in the literature of Chinese art. One painter, inquite early days, painted a perch and hung it over a river bank, whenthere was immediately a rush of otters to secure it. Another painted thecreases on cotton clothes so exactly that the clothes looked as if theyhad just come from the wash. Another produced pictures of cats whichwould keep a place free from rats. All these efforts were capped bythose of another artist, whose picture of the North Wind made peoplefeel cold, while his picture of the South Wind made people feel hot. Such exaggerations are not altogether without their value; they suggestthat Chinese art must have reached a high level, and this has recentlybeen shown to be nothing more than the truth, by the splendid exhibitionof Chinese pictures recently on view in the British Museum. 

The literary activities of the Chinese, and their output of literature, have always been on a colossal scale; and of course it is entirely dueto the early invention of printing that, although a very large number ofworks have disappeared, still an enormous bulk has survived the ravagesof war, rebellion and fire. 

This art was rather developed than invented. There is no date, withina margin even of half a century either way, at which we can say thatprinting was invented. The germ is perhaps to be found in the engravingof seals, which have been used by the Chinese as far back as we can gowith anything like historical certainty, and also of stone tabletsfrom which rubbings were taken, the most important of these being theforty-six tablets on which five of the sacred books of Confucianism wereengraved about A. D. 170, and of which portions still remain. Howeverthis may be, it was during the sixth century A. D. That the idea oftaking impressions on paper from wooden blocks seems to have arisen, chiefly in connexion with religious pictures and tracts. It was notwidely applied to the production of books in general until A. D. 932, when the Confucian Canon was so printed for the first time; from whichpoint onwards the extension of the art moved with rapid strides. 

It is very noticeable that the Chinese, who are extraordinarily averseto novelties, and can hardly be induced to consider any innovations, when once convinced of their real utility, waste no further time insecuring to themselves all the advantages which may accrue. This wasforcibly illustrated in regard to the introduction of the telegraph, against which the Chinese had set their faces, partly because of thedisturbance of geomantic influences caused by the tall telegraph poles, and partly because they sincerely doubted that the wires could achievethe results claimed. But when it was discovered that some wily Cantonesehad learnt over the telegraph the names of the three highest graduatesat the Peking triennial examination, weeks before the names could beknown in Canton by the usual route, and had enriched himself by buyingup the tickets bearing those names in the great lotteries which arealways held in connexion with this event, Chinese opposition went downlike a house of cards; and the only question with many of the literatiwas whether, at some remote date, the Chinese had not inventedtelegraphy themselves. 

Moveable types of baked clay were invented about A. D. 1043, and somecenturies later they were made of wood and of copper or lead; but theyhave never gained the favour accorded to block-printing, by which mostof the great literary works have been produced. The newspapers of moderndays are all printed from moveable types, and also many translationsof foreign books, prepared to meet the increasing demand for Westernlearning. The Chinese have always been a great reading people, systematic education culminating in competitive examinations forstudents going back to the second century A. D. This is perhaps asuitable place for explaining that the famous _Peking Gazette_, oftensaid to be the oldest newspaper in the world, is not really a newspaperat all, in that it contains no news in our sense of the term. It is arecord only of court movements, list of promoted officials, with afew selected memorials and edicts. It is published daily, but was notprinted until the fifteenth century. 

Every Chinese boy may be said to have his chance. The slightest signof a capacity for book-learning is watched for, even among the poorest. Besides the opportunity of free schools, a clever boy will soon find apatron; and in many cases, the funds for carrying on a curriculum, andfor entering the first of the great competitions, will be subscribed inthe district, on which the candidate will confer a lasting honour by hissuccess. A promising young graduate, who has won his first degree withhonours, is at once an object of importance to wealthy fathers whodesire to secure him as a son-in-law, and who will see that money is notwanting to carry him triumphantly up the official ladder. Boys withoutany gifts of the kind required, remain to fill the humbler positions;those who advance to a certain point are drafted into trade; while hostsof others who just fall short of the highest, become tutors in privatefamilies, schoolmasters, doctors, fortune-tellers, geomancers, andbooksellers' hacks. 

Of high-class Chinese literature, it is not possible to give even thefaintest idea in the space at disposal. It must suffice to say that allbranches are adequately represented, histories, biographies, philosophy, poetry and essays on all manner of subjects, offering a wide field evento the most insatiate reader. 

And here a remark may be interjected, which is very necessary for theinformation of those who wish to form a true estimate of the Chinesepeople. Throughout the Confucian Canon, a collection of ancient works onwhich the moral code of the Chinese is based, there is not a single wordwhich could give offence, even to the most sensitive, on questions ofdelicacy and decency. That is surely saying a good deal, but it is notall; precisely the same may be affirmed of what is mentioned above ashigh-class Chinese literature, which is pure enough to satisfy the moststrait-laced. Chinese poetry, of which there is in existence a hugemass, will be searched in vain for suggestions of impropriety, for slyinnuendo, and for the other tricks of the unclean. This extraordinarypurity of language is all the more remarkable from the fact that, untilrecent years, the education of women has not been at all general, thoughmany particular instances are recorded of women who have themselvesachieved success in literary pursuits. It is only when we come to thenovel, to the short story, or to the anecdote, which are not usuallywritten in high-class style, and are therefore not recognized asliterature proper, that this exalted standard is no longer alwaysmaintained. 

There are, indeed, a great number of novels, chiefly historical andreligious, in which the aims of the writers are on a sufficiently highlevel to keep them clear of what is popularly known as pornography orpig-writing; still, when all is said and done, there remains a balanceof writing curiously in contrast with the great bulk of Chineseliterature proper. As to the novel, the long story with a worked-outplot, this is not really a local product. It seems to have come alongwith the Mongols from Central Asia, when they conquered China in thethirteenth century, and established their short-lived dynasty. Somenovels, in spite of their low moral tone, are exceedingly well writtenand clever, graphic in description, and dramatic in episode; but it iscurious that no writer of the first rank has ever attached his name toa novel, and that the authorship of all the cleverest is a matter ofentire uncertainty. 

The low-class novel is purposely pitched in a style that will beeasily understood; but even so, there is a great deal of word- andphrase-skipping to be done by many illiterate readers, who are quitesatisfied if they can extract the general sense as they go along. The book-language, as cultivated by the best writers, is to be freelyunderstood only by those who have stocked their minds well with theextensive phraseology which has been gradually created by eminentmen during the past twenty-five centuries, and with historical andbiographical allusions and references of all sorts and things. A word ortwo, suggesting some apposite allusion, will often greatly enhance thebeauty of a composition for the connoisseur, but will fall flat onthe ears of those to whom the quotation is unknown. Simple objects ineveryday life often receive quaint names, as handed down in literature, with which it is necessary to be familiar. For instance, a "fairyumbrella" means a mushroom; a "gentleman of the beam" is a burglar, because a burglar was once caught sitting on one of the open beamsinside a Chinese roof; a "slender waist" is a wasp; the "throat olive"is the "Adam's apple"--which, by the way, is an excellent illustrationfrom the opposite point of view; "eyebrow notes" means notes at thetop of a page; "cap words" is sometimes used for "preface;" the"sweeper-away of care" is wine; "golden balls" are oranges; the "goldentray" is the moon; a "two-haired man" is a grey-beard; the "hundredholes" is a beehive; "instead of the moon" is a lantern; "instead ofsteps" is a horse; "the man with the wooden skirt" is a shopman;to "scatter sleep" means to give hush-money; and so on, almost _adinfinitum_. 

Chinese medical literature is on a very voluminous scale, medicinehaving always occupied a high place in the estimation of the people, inspite of the fact that its practice has always been left to any one whomight choose to take it up. Surgery, even of an elementary kind, hasnever had a chance; for the Chinese are extremely loath to suffer anyinterference with their bodies, believing, in accordance with Confuciandogma, that as they received them from their parents, so they shouldcarry them into the presence of their ancestors in the next world. Medicine, as still practised in China, may be compared with the Europeanart of a couple of centuries ago, and its exceedingly doubtful resultsare fully appreciated by patients at large. "No medicine, " says oneproverb, "is better than a middling doctor;" while another points outthat "Many sons of clever doctors die of disease. "

Legend, however, tells us of an extraordinary physician of the fifthcentury B. C. Who was able to see into the viscera of his patients--anapparent anticipation of the X-rays--and who, by his intimate knowledgeof the human pulse, effected many astounding cures. We also read of aneminent physician of the second and third centuries A. D. Who did addsurgery to this other qualifications. He was skilled in the use ofacupuncture and cautery; but if these failed he would render his patientunconscious by a dose of hashish, and then operate surgically. He issaid to have diagnosed a case of diseased bowels by the pulse alone, andthen to have cured it by operation. He offered to cure the headachesof a famous military commander of the day by opening his skull underhashish; but the offer was rudely declined. This story serves to show, in spite of its marvellous setting, that the idea of administering ananaesthetic to carry out a surgical operation must be credited, so faras priority goes, to the Chinese, since the book in which the aboveaccount is given cannot have been composed later than the twelfthcentury A. D. 

CHAPTER VII--PHILOSOPHY AND SPORT

Chinese philosophy covers altogether too large a field to be dealt with, even in outline, on a scale suitable to this volume; only a few of itschief features can possibly be exhibited in the space at disposal. 

Beginning with moral philosophy, we are confronted at once with what wasin early days an extremely vexed question; not perhaps entirely setat rest even now, but allowed to remain in suspense amid the universalacceptance of Confucian teachings. Confucius himself taught in noindistinct terms that man is born good, and that he becomes evil only bycontact with evil surroundings. He does not enlarge upon this dogma, but states it baldly as a natural law, little anticipating that withina couple of centuries it was to be called seriously in question. Itremained for his great follower, Mencius, born a hundred years later, todefend the proposition against all comers, and especially against oneof no mean standing, the philosopher Kao (_Cow_). Kao declared thatrighteousness is only to be got out of man's nature in the same way thatgood cups and bowls are to be got out of a block of willow wood, namely, by care in fashioning them. Improper workmanship would produce badresults; good workmanship, on the other hand, would produce goodresults. In plain words, the nature of man at birth is neither goodnor bad; and what it becomes afterwards depends entirely upon whatinfluences have been brought to bear and in what surroundings it hascome to maturity. Mencius met this argument by showing that in theprocess of extracting cups and bowls from a block of wood, the wood asa block is destroyed, and he pointed out that, according to suchreasoning, man's nature would also be destroyed in the process ofgetting righteousness out of it. 

Again, Kao maintained that man's nature has as little concern withgood or evil as water has with east or west; for water will flowindifferently either one way or the other, according to the conditionsin each case. If there is freedom on the east, it will flow east; ifthere is freedom on the west, it will flow west; and so with humannature, which will move similarly in the direction of either good orevil. In reply, Mencius freely admitted that water would flow eithereast or west; but he asked if it would flow indifferently up or down. He then declared that the bent of human nature towards good is preciselylike the tendency of water to flow down and not up. You can force waterto jump up, he said, by striking it, and by mechanical appliances youcan make it flow to the top of a hill; but what you do in such cases isentirely contrary to the nature of water, and is merely the result ofviolence, such violence, in fact, as is brought into play when man'snature is bent towards evil. 

"That which men get at birth, " said Kao, "is their nature, " implyingthat all natures were the same, just as the whiteness of a white featheris the same as the whiteness of white snow; whereupon Mencius showedthat on this principle the nature of a dog would be the same as thatof a an ox, or the nature of an ox the same as that of a man. Finally, Mencius declared that for whatever evil men may commit, their naturescan in nowise be blamed. In prosperous times, he argued, men are mostlygood, whereas in times of scarcity the opposite is the case; these twoconditions, however, are not to be charged against the natures withwhich God sent them into the world, but against the circumstances inwhich the individuals in question have been situated. 

The question, however, of man's original nature was not set permanentlyat rest by the arguments of Mencius. A philosopher, named Hsun Tzu(_Sheundza_), who flourished not very much later than Mencius, cameforward with the theory that so far from being good according toConfucius, or even neutral according to Kao, the nature of man at birthis positively evil. He supports this view by the following arguments. From his earliest years, man is actuated by a love of gain for his ownpersonal enjoyment. His conduct is distinguished by selfishness andcombativeness. He becomes a slave to envy, hatred, and other passions. The restraint of law, and the influence and guidance of teachers, areabsolutely necessary to good government and the well-being of sociallife. Just as wood must be subjected to pressure in order to make itstraight, and metal must be subjected to the grindstone in order tomake it sharp, so must the nature of man be subjected to trainingand education in order to obtain from it the virtues of justice andself-sacrifice which characterize the best of the human race. It isimpossible to maintain that man's nature is good in the same sensethat his eyes see and his ears hear; for in the latter there is noalternative. An eye which does not see, is not an eye; an ear which doesnot hear, is not an ear. This proves that whereas seeing and hearing arenatural to man, goodness is artificial and acquired. Just as a potterproduces a dish or a carpenter a bench, working on some material beforethem, so do the sages and teachers of mankind produce righteousness byworking upon the nature of man, which they transform in the same waythat the potter transforms the clay or the carpenter the wood. We cannotbelieve that God has favourites, and deals unkindly with others. How, then, is it that some men are evil while others are good? The answeris, that the former follow their natural disposition, while the lattersubmit to restraints and follow the guidance of their teachers. Itis indeed true that any one may become a hero, but all men do notnecessarily become heroes, nor is there any method by which they can beforced to do so. If a man is endowed with a capacity for improvement, and is placed in the hands of good teachers, associating at the sametime with friends whose actions display such virtues as self-sacrifice, truth, kindness, and so forth, he will naturally imbibe principles whichwill raise him to the same standard; whereas, if he consorts with evillivers, he will be a daily witness of deceit, corruption, and generalimpurity of conduct, and will gradually lapse into the same courseof life. If you do not know your son, says the proverb, look at hisfriends. 

The next step was taken by the philosopher Yang Hsiung (_Sheeyoong_), 53 B. C. To A. D. 18. He started a theory which occupies a middle placebetween the last two theories discussed above, teaching that the natureof man at birth is neither wholly good nor wholly evil, but a mixtureof both, and that development in either direction depends altogetheron environment. A compromise in matters of faith is not nearly sopicturesque as an extreme, and Yang's attempted solution has attractedbut scant attention, though always mentioned with respect. The same mayalso be said of another attempt to smooth obvious difficulties inthe way of accepting either of the two extremes or the middle courseproposed by Yang Hsiung. The famous Han Yu, to be mentioned againshortly, was a pillar and prop of Confucianism. He flourished betweenA. D. 768 and 824, and performed such lasting services in what was tohim the cause of truth, that his tablet has been placed in the Confuciantemple, an honour reserved only for those whose orthodoxy is beyondsuspicion. Yet he ventured upon an attempt to modify this importantdogma, taking care all the time to appear as if he were criticizingMencius rather than Confucius, on whom, of course, the realresponsibility rests. He declared, solely upon his own authority, thatthe nature of man is not uniform but divided into three grades--namely, highest, middle, and lowest. Thus, natures of the highest grade aregood, wholly good, and nothing but good; natures of the lowest gradeare evil, wholly evil, and nothing but evil; while natures of the middlegrade may, under right direction, rise to the highest grade, or, underwrong direction, sink to the lowest. 

Another question, much debated in the age of Mencius, arose out of therival statements of two almost contemporary philosophers, Mo Ti (_MawTee_) and Yang Chu. The former taught a system of mutual and consequentlyuniversal love as a cure for all the ills arising from misgovernmentand want of social harmony. He pointed out, with much truth, that if thefeudal states would leave one another alone, families cease to quarrel, and thieves cease to steal, while sovereign and subject lived on termsof benevolence and loyalty, and fathers and sons on terms of kindnessand filial piety--then indeed the empire would be well governed. Butbeyond suggesting the influence of teachers in the prohibition of hatredand the encouragement of mutual love, our philosopher does little ornothing to aid us in reaching such a desirable consummation. 

The doctrine of Yang Chu is summed up as "every man for himself, " and istherefore diametrically opposed to that of Mo Ti. A questioner one dayasked him if he would consent to part with a single hair in order tobenefit the whole world. Yang Chu replied that a single hair could beof no possible benefit to the world; and on being further pressed tosay what he would do if a hair were really of such benefit, it is statedthat he gave no answer. On the strength of this story, Mencius said:"Yang's principle was, every man for himself. Though by plucking out asingle hair he might have benefited the whole world, he would not havedone so. Mo's system was universal love. If by taking off every hairfrom the crown of his head to the sole of his foot he could havebenefited the empire, he would have done so. Neither of these twodoctrines is sound; a middle course is the right one. "

The origin of the visible universe is a question on which Chinesephilosophers have very naturally been led to speculate. Legend providesus with a weird being named P'an Ku, who came into existence, no one canquite say how, endowed with perfect knowledge, his function being toset the gradually developing universe in order. He is often representedpictorially with a huge adze in his hand, and engaged in constructingthe world out of the matter which has just begun to take shape. Withhis death the detailed part of creation appeared. His breath became thewind; his voice, the thunder; his left eye, the sun; his right eye, themoon; his blood yielded rivers; his hair grew into trees and plants; hisflesh became the soil; his sweat descended as rain; and the parasiteswhich infested his body were the forerunners of the human race. Thissort of stuff, however, could only appeal to the illiterate; forintellectual and educated persons something more was required. And soit came about that a system, based originally upon the quiteincomprehensible Book of Changes, generally regarded as the oldestportion of the Confucian Canon, was gradually elaborated and broughtto a finite state during the eleventh and twelfth centuries of our era. According to this system, there was a time, almost beyond the reach ofexpression in figures, when nothing at all existed. In the period whichfollowed, there came into existence, spontaneously, a principle, whichafter another lapse of time resolved itself into two principles withentirely opposite characteristics. One of these principles representedlight, heat, masculinity, and similar phenomena classed as positive;the other represented darkness, cold, femininity, and other phenomenaclassed as negative. The interaction of these two principles in dulyadjusted proportions produced the five elements, earth, fire, water, wood, and metal; and with their assistance all Nature as we see itaround us was easily and rapidly developed. Such is the Confuciantheory, at any rate so called, for it cannot be shown that Confuciusever entertained these notions, and his alleged connexion with the Canonof Changes is itself of doubtful authenticity. 

Chuang Tzu (_Chwongdza_), a philosopher of the third and fourthcenturies B. C. , who was not only a mystic but also a moralist and asocial reformer, has something to say on the subject: "If there isexistence, there must have been non-existence. And if there was a timewhen nothing existed, then there must have been a time before that, wheneven nothing did not exist. Then when nothing came into existence, couldone really say whether it belonged to existence or non-existence?"

"Nothing" was rather a favourite term with Chuang Tzu for the exerciseof his wit. Light asked Nothing, saying: "Do you, sir, exist, or do younot exist?" But getting no answer to his question, Light set to work towatch for the appearance of Nothing. Hidden, vacuous--all day long helooked but could not see it, listened but could not hear it, grasped atbut could not seize it. "Bravo!" cried Light; "who can equal this? Ican get to be nothing [meaning darkness], but I can't get to be notnothing. "

Confucius would have nothing to say on the subject of death and a futurestate; his theme was consistently this life and its obligations, and heregarded speculation on the unknown as sheer waste of time. When oneof three friends died and Confucius sent a disciple to condole with theother two, the disciple found them sitting by the side of the corpse, merrily singing and playing on the lute. They professed the thencomparatively new faith which taught that life was a dream and death theawakening. They believed that at death the pure man "mounts to heaven, and roaming through the clouds, passes beyond the limits of space, oblivious of existence, for ever and ever without end. " When the shockeddisciple reported what he had seen, Confucius said, "These men travelbeyond the rule of life; I travel within it. Consequently, our paths donot meet; and I was wrong in sending you to mourn. They look on life asa huge tumour from which death sets them free. All the same they knownot where they were before birth, nor where they will be after death. They ignore their passions. They take no account of their ears andeyes. Backwards and forwards through all eternity, they do not admit abeginning or an end. They stroll beyond the dust and dirt of mortality, to wander in the realms of inaction. How should such men troublethemselves with the conventionalities of this world, or care what peoplemay think of them?"

Life comes, says Chuang Tzu, and cannot be declined; it goes, and cannotbe stopped. But alas, the world thinks that to nourish the physicalframe is enough to preserve life. Although not enough, it must still bedone; this cannot be neglected. For if one is to neglect the physicalframe, better far to retire at once from the world, since by renouncingthe world one gets rid of the cares of the world. There is, however, the vitality which informs the physical frame; that must be equally anobject of incessant care. Then he whose physical frame is perfect andwhose vitality remains in its original purity--he is one with God. Manpasses through this sublunary life as a sunbeam passes through a crack;here one moment, and gone the next. Neither are there any not equallysubject to the ingress and egress of mortality. One modification bringslife; then comes another, and there is death. Living creatures cry out;human beings feel sorrow. The bow-case is slipped off; the clothes'-bagis dropped; and in the confusion the soul wings its flight, and the bodyfollows, on the great journey home. 

Attention has already been drawn to this necessary cultivation of thephysical frame, and Chuan Tzu gives an instance of the extent to whichit was carried. There was a certain man whose nose was covered with avery hard scab, which was at the same time no thicker than a fly's wing. He sent for a stonemason to chip it off; and the latter plied his adzewith great dexterity while the patient sat absolutely rigid, withoutmoving a muscle, and let him chip. When the scab was all off, the nosewas found to be quite uninjured. Such skill was of course soon noisedabroad, and a feudal prince, who also had a scab on his nose, sent forthe mason to take it off. The mason, however, declined to try, allegingthat the success did not depend so much upon the skill of the operatoras upon the mental control of the patient by which the physical framebecame as it were a perfectly inanimate object. 

Contemporary with Chuang Tzu, but of a very different school of thought, was the philosopher Hui Tzu (_Hooeydza_). He was particularly fond ofthe quibbles which so delighted the sophists or unsound reasoners ofancient Greece. Chuang Tzu admits that he was a man of many ideas, and that his works would fill five carts--this, it must be remembered, because they were written on slips of wood tied together by a string runthrough eyelets. But he adds that Hui Tzu's doctrines are paradoxical, and his terms used ambiguously. Hui Tzu argued, for instance, that suchabstractions as hardness and whiteness were separate existences, ofwhich the mind could only be conscious separately, one at a time. He declared that there are feathers in a new-laid egg, because theyultimately appear on the chick. He maintained that fire is not hot; itis the man who feels hot. That the eye does not see; it is the man whosees. That compasses will not make a circle; it is the man. That a bayhorse and a dun cow are three; because taken separately they aretwo, and taken together they are one: two and one make three. That amotherless colt never had a mother; when it had a mother, it was notmotherless. That if you take a stick a foot long and every day cut it inhalf, you will never come to the end of it. 

Of what use, asked his great rival, is Hui Tzu to the world? His effortscan only be compared with those of a gadfly or a mosquito. He makes anoise to drown an echo. He is like a man running a race with his ownshadow. 

When Chuang Tzu was about to die, his disciples expressed a wish to givehim a splendid funeral. But Chuang Tzu said: "With heaven and earthfor my coffin and my shell; with the sun, moon and stars as my burialregalia; and with all creation to escort me to my grave, --are not myfuneral paraphernalia ready to hand?" "We fear, " argued the disciples, "lest the carrion kite should eat the body of our Master;" to whichChuang Tzu replied: "Above ground I shall be food for kites; belowground for mole-crickets and ants. Why rob one to feed the other?"

Life in China is not wholly made up of book-learning and commerce. Theearliest Chinese records exhibit the people as following the chasein the wake of the great nobles, more as a sport than as the seriousbusiness it must have been in still more remote ages; and the firstemperors of the present dynasty were also notable sportsmen, whoorganized periodical hunting-tours on a scale of considerablemagnificence. 

Hawking was practised at least so far back as a century before Christ;for we have a note on a man of that period who "loved to gallop afterwily animals with horse and dog, or follow up with falcon the pheasantand the hare. " The sport may be seen in northern China at the presentday. A hare is put up, and a couple of native greyhounds are dispatchedafter it; these animals, however, would soon be distanced by the hare, which can run straight away from them without doubling, but for thesudden descent of the falcon, and a blow from its claw, often stunningthe hare at the first attempt, and enabling the dogs to come up. 

Sportsmen who have to make their living by the business frequentlydescend to methods which are sometimes very ingenious, and moreremunerative than the gun, but can hardly be classified as sport. Thus, a man in search of wild duck will mark down a flock settled on someshallow sheet of water. He will then put a crate over his head andshoulders, and gradually approach the flock as though the crate weredrifting on the surface. Once among them, he puts out a hand underwater, seizes hold of a duck's legs, and rapidly pulls the bird down. The sudden disappearance of a colleague does not seem to troubleits companions, and in a short time a very considerable bag has beenobtained. Tradition says that Confucius was fond of sport, but wouldnever let fly at birds sitting; which, considering that his weapon was abow-and-arrow, must be set down as a marvel of self-restraint. 

Scores of Chinese poets have dwelt upon the joys of angling, and fishingis widely carried on over the inland waters; but the rod, except asa matter of pure sport, has given place to the businesslike net. Theaccount of the use of fishing cormorants was formerly regarded as atraveller's tale. It is quite true, however, that small rafts carryingseveral of these birds, with a fisherman gently sculling at the stern, may be seen on the rivers of southern China. The cormorant seizes apassing fish, and the fisherman takes the fish from its beak. The birdis trained with a ring round its neck, which prevents it from swallowingthe prey; while for each capture it is rewarded with a small pieceof fish. Well-trained cormorants can be trusted to fish without therestraint of the ring. Confucius, again, is said to have been fondof fishing, but he would not use a net; and there was another sage ofantiquity who would not even use a hook, but fished with a straightpiece of iron, apparently thinking that the advantage would be an unfairone as against the resources of the fish; and declaring openly thathe would only take such fish as wished to be caught. By such simplenarratives do the Chinese strive to convey great truths to childishears. 

Many sports were once common in China which have long since passed outof the national life, and exist only in the record of books. Among thesemay be mentioned "butting, " a very ancient pastime, mentioned in historytwo centuries before the Christian era. The sport consisted in puttingan ox-skin, horns and all, over the head, and then trying to knock one'sadversary out of time by butting at him after the fashion of bulls, the result being, as the history of a thousand years later tells us, "smashed heads, broken arms, and blood running in the Palace yard. "

The art of boxing, which included wrestling, had been practised bythe Chinese several centuries before butting was introduced. Its mostaccomplished exponents were subsequently found among the priests of aBuddhist monastery, built about A. D. 500; and it was undoubtedly fromtheir successors that the Japanese acquired a knowledge of the modern_jiu-jitsu_, which is simply the equivalent of the old Chinese termmeaning "gentle art. " A few words from a chapter on "boxing" in amilitary work of the sixteenth century will give some idea of the scopeof the Chinese sport. 

"The body must be quick to move, the hands quick to take advantage, and the legs lightly planted but firm, so as to advance or retire witheffect. In the flying leap of the leg lies the skill of the art; inturning the adversary upside down lies its ferocity; in planting astraight blow with the fist lies its rapidity; and in deftly holding theadversary face upwards lies its gentleness. "

Football was played in China at a very early date; originally, with aball stuffed full of hair; from the fifth century A. D. , with an inflatedbladder covered with leather. A picture of the goal, which is somethinglike a triumphal arch, has come down to us, and also the technical namesand positions of the players; even more than seventy kinds of kicksare enumerated, but the actual rules of the game are not known. It isrecorded by one writer that "the winners were rewarded with flowers, fruit and wine, and even with silver bowls and brocades, while thecaptain of the losing team was flogged, and suffered other indignities. "The game, which had disappeared for some centuries, is now being revivedin Chinese schools and colleges under the control of foreigners, andfinds great favour with the rising generation. 

Polo is first mentioned in Chinese literature under the year A. D. 710, the reference being to a game played before the Emperor and his court. The game was very much in vogue for a long period, and even women weretaught to play--on donkey-back. The Kitan Tartars were the most skilfulplayers; it is doubtful if the game originated with them, or if it wasintroduced from Persia, with which country China had relations at a veryearly date. A statesman of the tenth century, disgusted at the way inwhich the Emperor played polo to excess, presented a long memorial, urging his Majesty to discontinue the practice. The reasons given forthis advice were three in number. "(1) When sovereign and subject playtogether, there must be contention. If the sovereign wins, the subjectis ashamed; if the former loses, the latter exults. (2) To jump on ahorse and swing a mallet, galloping here and there, with no distinctionsof rank, but only eager to be first and win, is destructive of allceremony between sovereign and subject. (3) To make light of theresponsibilities of empire, and run even the remotest risk of anaccident, is to disregard obligations to the state and to her ImperialMajesty the Empress. "

It has always been recognized that the chief duty of a statesman isto advise his master without fear or favour, and to protest loudly andopenly against any course which is likely to be disadvantageous tothe commonwealth, or to bring discredit on the court. It has also beenalways understood that such protests are made entirely at the risk ofthe statesman in question, who must be prepared to pay with his head forcounsels which may be stigmatized as unpatriotic, though in reality theymay be nothing more than unpalatable at the moment. 

In the year A. D. 814 the Emperor, who had become a devout Buddhist, madearrangements for receiving with extravagant honours a bone of Buddha, which had been forwarded from India to be preserved as a relic. This wastoo much for Han Yu (already mentioned), the leading statesman of theday, who was a man of the people, raised by his own genius, and who, tomake things worse, had already been banished eleven years previously forpresenting an offensive Memorial on the subject of tax-collection, for which he had been forgiven and recalled. He promptly sent in arespectful but bitter denunciation of Buddha and all his works, andentreated his Majesty not to stain the Confucian purity of thought bytolerating such a degrading exhibition as that proposed. But for theintercession of friends, the answer to this bold memorial would havebeen death; as it was he was banished to the neighbourhood of the modernSwatow, then a wild and barbarous region, hardly incorporated into theEmpire. There he set himself to civilize the rude inhabitants, untilsoon recalled and once more reinstated in office; and to this daythere is a shrine dedicated to his memory, containing the followinginscription: "Wherever he passed, he purified. "

Another great statesman, who flourished over two hundred years later, and also several times suffered banishment, in an inscription to thehonour and glory of his predecessor, put down the following words:"Truth began to be obscured and literature to fade; supernaturalreligions sprang up on all sides, and many eminent scholars failedto oppose their advance, until Han Yu, the cotton-clothed, arose andblasted them with his derisive sneer. "

Since the fourteenth century there has existed a definite organization, known as the Censorate, the members of which, who are called the "earsand eyes" of the sovereign, make it their business to report adverselyupon any course adopted by the Government in the name of the Emperor, or by any individual statesman, which seems to call for disapproval. The reproving Censor is nominally entitled to complete immunity frompunishment; but in practice he knows that he cannot count too muchupon either justice or mercy. If he concludes that his words will beunforgivable, he hands in his memorial, and draws public attentionforthwith by committing suicide on the spot. 

To be allowed to commit suicide, and not to suffer the indignity of apublic execution, is a privilege sometimes extended to a high officialwhose life has become forfeit under circumstances which do not call forspecial degradation. A silken cord is forwarded from the Emperor to theofficial in question, who at once puts an end to his life, though notnecessarily by strangulation. He may take poison, as is usually thecase, and this is called "swallowing gold. " For a long time it wasbelieved that Chinese high officials really did swallow gold, which inview of its non-poisonous character gave rise to an idea that gold-leafwas employed, the leaf being inhaled and so causing suffocation. Somesimple folk, Chinese as well as foreigners, believe this now, althoughnative authorities have pointed out that workmen employed in theextraction of gold often steal pieces and swallow them, without anyserious consequences whatever. Another explanation, which has also theadvantage of being the true one, is that "swallowing gold" is one of theroundabout phrases in which the Chinese delight to express painfulor repulsive subjects. No emperor ever "dies, " he becomes "a guest onhigh. " No son will say that his parents are "dead;" but merely that"they are not. " The death of an official is expressed by "he is drawingno salary;" of an ordinary man it may be said that "he has become anancient, " very much in the same way that we say "he has joined themajority. " A corpse in a coffin is in its "long home;" when buried, it is in "the city of old age, " or on "the terrace of night. " To saygrossly, then, that a man took poison would be an offence to earspolite. 

CHAPTER VIII--RECREATION

To return, after a long digression. The age of manly sport, as abovedescribed, has long passed away; and the only hope is for a revivalunder the changing conditions of modern China. Some few athleticexercises have survived; and until recently, archery, in which theTartars have always excelled, was regarded almost as a semi-divineaccomplishment. Kite-flying has reached a high level of skill. Cleverlittle "messengers" have been devised, which run up the string, carryingfire-crackers which explode at a great height. There is a game ofshuttlecock, without the battledore, for which the feet are used asa substitute; and "diavolo, " recently introduced into Europe, is anancient Chinese pastime. A few Manchus, too, may be seen skating duringthe long northern winter, but the modern inhabitant of the Flowery Land, be he Manchu or Chinese, much prefers an indoor game to anythingelse, especially when, as is universally the case, a stake of money isinvolved. 

Gambling is indeed a very marked feature of Chinese life. A child buyinga cake will often go double or quits with the stall-keeper, to see if heis to have two cakes or nothing, the question being settled by a throwof dice in a bowl. Of the interval allowed for meals, a gang of coolieswill devote a portion to a game of cards. The cards used are smallerthan the European pack, and of course differently marked; they were theinvention of a lady of the Palace in the tenth century, who substitutedimitation leaves of gilt paper for real leaves, which had previouslybeen adopted for playing some kind of game. There are also various gamesplayed with chequers, some of great antiquity; and there is chess, thatis to say, a game so little differing from our chess as to leave nodoubt as to the common origin of both. In all of these the money elementcomes in; and it is not too much to say that more homes are brokenup, and more misery caused by this truly national vice than can beattributed to any other cause. 

For pleasure pure and simple, independent of gains and losses, thetheatre occupies the warmest place in every Chinaman's heart. Ifgambling is a national vice in China, the drama must be set off as thenational recreation. Life would be unthinkable to the vast majorityif its monotony were not broken by the periodical performance ofstage-plays. It is from this source that a certain familiarity with thegreat historical episodes of the past may be pleasantly picked up overa pipe and a cup of tea; while the farce, occasionally perhaps erring onthe side of breadth, affords plenty of merriment to the laughter-lovingcrowd. 

Ability to make Chinamen laugh is a great asset; and a foreigner whocarries this about with him will find it stand him in much better steadthan a revolver. When, many years ago, a vessel was wrecked on the coastof Formosa, the crew and passengers were at once seized, and confinedfor some time in a building, where traces of their inscriptions could beseen up to quite a recent date. At length, they were all taken out forexecution; but before the ghastly order was carried out, one of thenumber so amused everybody by cutting capers and turning head overheels, that the presiding mandarin said he was a funny fellow, andpositively allowed him to escape. 

With regard to the farce itself, it is not so much the actual wit ofthe dialogue which carries away the audience as the refined skill of theactor, who has to pass through many trials before he is considered to befit for the stage. Beginning as quite a boy, in addition to committingto memory a large number of plays--not merely his own part, but thewhole play--he has to undergo a severe physical training, part of whichconsists in standing for an hour every day with his mouth wide open, toinhale the morning air. He is taught to sing, to walk, to strut, and toperform a variety of gymnastic exercises, such as standing on his head, or turning somersaults. His first classification is as male or femaleactor, no women having been allowed to perform since the days of theEmperor Ch'ien Lung (A. D. 1736-1796), whose mother was an actress, justas in Shakespeare's time the parts for women were always taken by youngmen or boys. When once this is settled, it only remains to enrol him astragedian, comedian, low-comedy actor, walking gentleman or lady, andsimilar parts, according to his capabilities. 

It is not too much to say that women are very little missed on theChinese stage. The make-up of the actor is so perfect, and his imitationof the feminine voice and manner, down to the smallest detail, even tothe small feet, is so exact in every point, that he would be a cleverobserver who could positively detect impersonation by a man. 

Generally speaking, a Chinese actor has many more difficulties to facethan his colleague in the West. In addition to the expression of allshades of feeling, from mirth to melancholy, the former has to keep upa perpetual make-believe in another sense, which is further greatstrain upon his nerves. There being no scenery, no furniture, and noappointments of any except the slenderest kind upon the stage, he hasto create in the minds of his audience a belief that all these missingaccessories are nevertheless before their eyes. A general comes upon thescene, with a whip in his hand, and a studied movement not only suggeststhat he is dismounting from a horse, but outlines the animal itself. Inthe same manner, he remounts and rides off again; while some other actorspeaks from the top of a small table, which is forthwith transfigured, and becomes to all intents and purposes a castle. 

Many of those who might be apt to smile at the simple Chinese mind whichcan tolerate such absurdities in the way of make-believe, require tobe reminded that the stage in the days of Queen Elizabeth was worked onvery much the same lines. Sir Philip Sidney tells us that the scene ofan imagined garden with imagined flowers had to do duty at one time foran imagined shipwreck, and at another for an imagined battlefield, thespectator in the latter case being helped out by two opposing soldiersarmed with swords and bucklers. Even Shakespeare, in the Prologue tohis play of _Henry V_, speaks of imagining one man to be an army of athousand, and says:--

 Think, when we talk of horses that you see them Printing their proud hoofs i' the receiving earth; For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings. 

Here, then, is good authority for the quaint system that still prevailsin China. 

Hundreds of Chinese pilgrims annually went their weary way to the top ofMount Omi in the province of Ssuch'uan, and gaze downward from a sheerand lofty precipice to view a huge circular belt of light, which iscalled the Glory of Buddha. Some see it, some do not; the Chinese saythat the whole thing is a question of faith. In a somewhat similarsense, the dramatic enthusiast sees before him such beings of the mindas the genuine actor is able to call up. The Philistine cannot reachthis pitch; but he is sharp enough to see other things which to the eyeof the sympathetic spectator are absolutely non-existent. Some of thelatter will be enumerated below. 

The Chinese stage has no curtain; and the orchestra is on the stageitself, behind the actors. There is no prompter and no call-boy. Stagefootmen wait at the sides to carry in screens, small tables, and an oddchair or two, to represent houses, city walls, and so on, or hand cupsof tea to the actors when their throats become dry from vociferoussinging, which is always in falsetto. All this in the face of theaudience. Dead people get up and walk off the stage; or while lyingdead, contrive to alter their facial expression, and then get up andcarry themselves off. There is no interval between one play and thenext following, which probably gives rise to the erroneous beliefthat Chinese plays are long, the fact being that they are very short. According to the Penal Code, there may be no impersonation of emperorsand empresses of past ages, but this clause is now held to refer solelyto the present dynasty. 

For the man in the street and his children, there are to be seeneverywhere in China where a sufficient number of people gather together, Punch-and-Judy shows of quite a high class in point of skill and generalattractiveness. These shows are variously traced back to the eighth andsecond centuries B. C. , and to the seventh century A. D. , even thelatest of which periods would considerably antedate the appearance ofperforming marionettes in this country or on the Continent. Associatedwith the second century B. C. , the story runs that the Emperor of the daywas closely besieged by a terrible Hun chieftain, who was accompaniedby his wife. It occurred to one of his Majesty's staff to exhibit onthe walls of the town, in full view of the enemy, a number of manikins, dressed up to a deceptive resemblance to beautiful girls. The wife ofthe Hun chieftain then persuaded her husband to draw off his forces, andthe Emperor escaped. 

By the Chinese marionettes, little plays on familiar subjects areperformed; many are of a more serious turn than the loves of Mr. Punch, while others again are of the knock-about style so dear to the ordinaryboy and girl. Besides such entertainments as these, the streets of aChinese city offer other shows to those who desire to be amused. Anacrobat, a rope-dancer or a conjurer will take up a pitch right in themiddle of the roadway, and the traffic has to get on as best it can. A theatrical stage will sometimes completely block a street, and evenfoot-passengers will have to find their way round. There is also thepublic story-reader, who for his own sake will choose a convenient spotnear to some busy thoroughfare; and there, to an assembled crowd, hewill read out, not in the difficult book-language, but in the colloquialdialect of the place, stories of war and heroism, soldiers led tonight-attacks with wooden bits in their mouths to prevent them fromtalking in the ranks, the victory of the loyal and the rout andslaughter of the rebel. Or it may be a tale of giants, goblins andwizards; the bewitching of promising young men by lovely maidens whoturn out to be really foxes in disguise, ending as usual in the triumphof virtue and the discomfiture of vice. The fixed eyes and open mouthsof the crowd, listening with rapt attention, is a sight which, onceseen, is not easily forgotten. 

For the ordinary man, China is simply peopled with bogies and devils, the spirits of the wicked or of those unfortunate enough not to securedecent burial with all its accompanying worship and rites. Thesecreatures, whose bodies cast no shadow, lurk in dark corners, ready topounce on some unwary passer-by and possibly tear out his heart. Many aConfucianist, sturdy in his faith that "devils only exist for those whobelieve in them, " will hesitate to visit by night a lonely spot, or evento enter a disused tumbledown building by day. Some of the storiestold are certainly well fitted to make a deep impression upon youngand highly-strung nerves. For instance, one man who was too fond ofthe bottle placed some liquor alongside his bed, to be drunk during thenight. On stretching out his hand to reach the flask, he was seized by ademon, and dragged gradually into the earth. In response to his shrieks, his relatives and neighbours only arrived in time to see the groundclose over his head, just as though he had fallen into water. 

From this story it will be rightly gathered that the Chinese mostlysleep on the ground floor. In Peking, houses of more than one storeyare absolutely barred; the reason being that each house is built round acourtyard, which usually has trees in it, and in which the ladies ofthe establishment delight to sit and sew, and take the air and all theexercise they can manage to get. 

Another blood-curdling story is that of four travellers who arrived bynight at an inn, but could obtain no other accommodation than a room inwhich was lying the corpse of the landlord's daughter-in-law. Three ofthe four were soon snoring; the fourth, however, remained awake, andvery soon heard a creaking of the trestles on which was the dead bodydressed out in paper robes, ready for burial. To his horror he saw thegirl get up, and go and breathe on his companions; so by the time shecame to him he had his head tucked well under the bedclothes. After alittle while he kicked one of the others; but finding that his frienddid not move, he suddenly grabbed his own trousers and made a bolt forthe door. In a moment the corpse was up and after him, following himdown the street, and gaining gradually on him, no one coming to therescue in spite of his loud shrieks as he ran. So he slipped behinda tree, and dodged right and left, the infuriated corpse also dodgingright and left, and making violent efforts to get him. At length, thegirl made a rush forward with one arm on each side, in the hope of thusgrabbing her victim. The traveller, however, fell backwards and escapedher clutch, while she remained rigidly embracing the tree. By and by hewas found senseless on the ground; and the corpse was removed from thetree, but with great difficulty, as the fingers were buried in the barkso deep that the nails were not even visible. The other three travellerswere found dead in their beds. 

Periodical feasting may be regarded as another form of amusement bywhich the Chinese seek to relieve the monotony of life. They havenever reserved one day in seven for absolute rest, though of late yearsChinese merchants connected with foreign trade have to some extentfallen in with the observance of Sunday. Quite a number of days duringthe year are set apart as public holidays, but no one is obliged tokeep them as such, unless he likes, with one important exception. Thefestival of the New Year cannot be ignored by any one. For about tendays before this date, and twenty days after it, the public officesare closed and no business is transacted, the seal of each official ishanded over for safe keeping to the official's wife, a fact whichhelps to dispose of the libel that women in China are the down-troddencreatures they are often represented to be. All debts have to be paidand accounts squared by midnight on the last day of the old year. A fewnights previously, offerings of an excessively sticky sweetmeat aremade to the Spirit of the Hearth, one of whose functions is that ofan accusing angel. The Spirit is then on the point of starting for hisannual visit to heaven, and lest any of the disclosures he might makeshould entail unpleasant consequences, it is adjudged best that he shallbe rendered incapable of making any disclosures at all. The unwary godfinds his lips tightly glued together, and is unable to utter a singleword. Meanwhile, fire-crackers are being everywhere let off on acolossal scale, the object being to frighten away the evil spirits whichhave collected during the past twelve months, and to begin the yearafresh. The day itself is devoted to calling, in one's best clothes, on relatives, friends and official superiors, for all of whom it iscustomary to leave a present. The relatives and friends receive "wet"gifts, such as fruit or cakes; officials also receive wet gifts, butunderneath the top layer will be found something "dry, " in the shape ofsilver or bank-notes. Everybody salutes everybody with the conventionalsaying, "New joy, new joy; get rich, get rich!" Yet here again, as inall things Chinese, we find a striking exception to this good-naturedrule. No one says "Get rich, get rich!" to the undertaker. 

A high authority (on other matters) has recently stated that the Chinesecalendar "begins just when the Emperor chooses to say it shall. He islike the captain of a ship, who says of the hour, 'Make it so, ' andit is so. " The truth is that New Year's Day is determined by theAstronomical Board, according to fixed rules, just as Easter isdetermined; and it may fall on any day between the 21st of January andthe 20th of February, but neither before the former date nor afterthe latter date, in spite even of the most threatening orders from thePalace. This book will indeed have been written in vain if the readerlays it down without having realized that no such wanton interference onthe part of their rulers would be tolerated by the Chinese people. Butwe are wandering away from merry-making and festivity. 

In their daily life the Chinese are extremely moderate eaters and mostlytea-drinkers, even the wealthy confining themselves to few and simpledishes of pork, fowl, or fish, with the ever-present accompaniment ofrice. The puppy-dog, on which the people are popularly believed to live, as the French on frogs, is a stall-fed animal, and has always been, andstill is, an article of food; but the consumption of dog-flesh is reallyvery restricted, and many thousands of Chinamen have never tasted dog intheir lives. According to the popular classification of foods, thosewho live on vegetables get strong, those who live on meat become brave, those who live on grain acquire wisdom, and those who live on air becomedivine. 

At banquets the scene changes, and course after course of curiouslycompounded and highly spiced dishes, cooked as only Chinese cooks knowhow, are placed before the guests. The wine, too, goes merrily round;bumpers are drunk at short intervals, and the wine-cups are held upsidedown, to show that there are no heel-taps. Forfeits are exacted over thegame of "guess-fingers, " for failure to cap a verse, or for any otherequally sufficient (or insufficient) reason; and the penalty is an extrabumper for the loser. 

This lively picture requires, perhaps, a little further explanation. Chinese "wine" is an ardent spirit distilled from rice, and is modifiedin various ways so as to produce certain brands, some of which are ofquite moderate strength, and really may be classed as wine. It is alwaysdrunk hot, the heat being supplied by vessels of boiling water, in whichthe pewter wine-flasks are kept standing. The wine-cups are small, andit is possible to drink a good many of them without feeling in the leastovercome. Even so, many diners now refuse to touch wine at all, theexcuse always being that it flushes the face uncomfortably. Perhapsthey fear an undeserved imputation of drunkenness, remembering their owncynical saying: "A bottle-nosed man may be a tee-totaller, but no onewill believe it. " To judge from their histories and their poetry, theChinese seem once upon a time to have been a fairly tipsy nation:now-a-days, the truth lies the other way. An official who died A. D. 639, and was the originator of epitaphs in China, wrote his own, asfollows:--

 Fu I loved the green hills and white clouds . . . Alas! he died of drink!

There are exceptions, no doubt, as to every rule in every country;but such sights as drunken men tumbling about the streets, or lyingsenseless by the roadside, are not to be seen in China. "It is notwine, " says the proverb, "which makes a man drunk; it is the manhimself. "

Even at banquets, which are often very rich and costly, unnecessaryexpense is by no means encouraged. Dishes of fruit, of a kind which noone would wish to eat, and which are placed on the table for show orornament, are simply clever imitations in painted wood, and pass frombanquet to banquet as part of the ordinary paraphernalia of a feast; noone is deceived. The same form of open and above-board deception appearsin many other ways. There are societies organized for visiting ina comfortable style of pilgrimage some famous mountain of historicinterest. Names are put down, and money is collected; and then the partystarts off by boat or in sedan-chairs, as the case may be. On arrivingat the mountain, there is a grand feast, and after the picnic, for suchit is, every one goes home again. That is the real thing; now for theimitation. Names are put down, and money is collected, as before; butthe funds are spent over a feast at home, alongside of a paper mountain. 

Another of these deceptions, which deceive nobody, is one which might beusefully adapted to life in other countries. A Chinaman meeting in thestreet a friend, and having no leisure to stop and talk, or perhapsmeeting some one with whom he may be unwilling to talk, will promptlyput up his open fan to screen his face, and pass on. The suggestionis that, wishing to pass without notice, he fails to see the person inquestion, and it would be a serious breach of decorum on the part of thelatter to ignore the hint thus conveyed. 

Japan, who may be said to have borrowed the civilization of China, lock, stock and barrel--her literature, her moral code, her arts, hersciences, her manners and customs, her ceremonial, and even hernational dress--invented the folding fan, which in the early part of thefifteenth century formed part of the tribute sent from Korea to Peking, and even later was looked upon by the Chinese as quite a curiosity. Inthe early ages, fans were made of feathers, as still at the present day;but the more modern fan of native origin is a light frame of bamboo, wood or ivory, round or otherwise, over which silk is stretched, offering a convenient medium for the inscription of poems, or forpaintings, as exchanged between friend and friend. 

The same innocent form of deception, which deceives nobody, is carriedout when two officials, seated in sedan-chairs, have to pass oneanother. If they are of about equal rank, etiquette demands that theyshould alight from their chairs, and perform mutual salutations. Toobviate the extreme inconvenience of this rule, large wooden fans arecarried in all processions of the kind, and these are hastily thrustbetween the passing officials, so that neither becomes aware of theother's existence on the scene. The case is different when one of thetwo is of higher rank. The official of inferior grade is bound to stopand get out of his chair while his superior passes by, though even nowhe has a chance of escape; he hears the gong beaten to clear the wayfor the great man, whose rank he can tell from the number of consecutiveblows given; and hurriedly turns off down a side street. 

An historical instance of substituting the shadow for the reality isthat of the great general Ts'ao Ts'ao, third century A. D. , who for somebreach of the law sentenced himself to death, but satisfied his senseof justice by cutting off his hair. An emperor of the sixth century, who was a devout Buddhist, and therefore unable to countenance anydestruction of life, had all the sacrificial animals made of dough. 

The opium question, which will claim a few words later on, has beenexhaustively threshed out; and in view of the contradictory statementsfor and against the habit of opium smoking, it is recognized that anyconclusion, satisfactory to both parties, is a very remote possibility. The Chinese themselves, who are chiefly interested in the argument, havelately come to a very definite conclusion, which is that opium hasto go; and it seems that in spite of almost invincible obstacles, thesincerity and patriotism which are being infused into the movement willcertainly, sooner or later, achieve the desired end. It is perhaps worthnoting that in the Decree of 1906, which ordered the abolition of opiumsmoking, the old Empress Dowager, who was herself over sixty and amoderate smoker, inserted a clause excusing from the operation of thenew law all persons already more than sixty years of age. 

CHAPTER IX--THE MONGOLS, 1260-1368

Lack of patriotism is often hurled by foreigners as a reproach to theChinese. The charge cannot be substantiated, any more than it could beif directed against some nation in Europe. If willingness to sacrificeeverything, including life itself, may be taken as a fair test ofgenuine patriotism, then it will be found, if historical records be notignored, that China has furnished numberless brilliant examples of truepatriots who chose to die rather than suffer dishonour to themselves orto their country. A single instance must suffice. 

The time is the close of the thirteenth century, when the Mongols underKublai Khan were steadily dispossessing the once glorious and powerfulHouse of Sung, and placing the empire of China under alien rule. Disaster followed disaster, until almost the last army of the Sungswas cut to pieces, and the famous statesman and general in command, Wen(pronounced _One_) T'ien-hsian, fell into the hands of the Mongols. Hewas ordered, but refused, to write and advise capitulation, and everyeffort was subsequently made to induce him to own allegiance to theconquerors. He was kept in prison for three years. "My dungeon, " hewrote, "is lighted by the will-o'-the-wisp alone; no breath of springcheers the murky solitude in which I dwell. Exposed to mist and dew, I had many times thought to die; and yet, through the seasons of tworevolving years, disease hovered around me in vain. The dank, unhealthysoil to me became Paradise itself. For there was that within me whichmisfortune could not steal away; and so I remained firm, gazing at thewhite clouds floating over my head, and bearing in my heart a sorrowboundless as the sky. "

At length he was summoned into the presence of Kublai Khan, who saidto him, "What is it you want?" "By the grace of the Sung Emperor, " hereplied, "I became His Majesty's Minister. I cannot serve two masters. I only ask to die. " Accordingly, he was executed, meeting his death withcomposure, and making an obeisance in the direction of the old capital. His last words were, "My work is finished. " Compare this with the quietdeath-bed of another statesman, who flourished in the previous century. He had advised an enormous cession of territory to the Tartars, and hadbrought about the execution of a patriot soldier, who wished to recoverit at all costs. He was loaded with honours, and on the very night hedied he was raised to the rank of Prince. He was even canonized, afterthe usual custom, as Loyalty Manifested, on a mistaken estimate of hiscareer; but fifty years later his title was changed to False and Fouland his honours were cancelled, while the people at large took hisdegraded name for use as an alternative to spittoon. 

Two names of quite recent patriots deserve to be recorded here asa tribute to their earnest devotion to the real interests of theircountry, and incidentally for the far-reaching consequences of theirheroic act, which probably saved the lives of many foreigners in variousparts of China. It was during the Boxer troubles in Peking, at thebeginning of the siege of the legations, that Yuan Ch'ang and HsuChing-ch'eng, two high Chinese officials, ventured to memorialize theEmpress Dowager upon the fatal policy, and even criminality, of thewhole proceedings, imploring her Majesty at a meeting of the GrandCouncil to reconsider her intention of issuing orders for theextermination of all foreigners. In spite of their remonstrances, adecree was issued to that effect and forwarded to the high authoritiesof the various provinces; but it failed to accomplish what had beenintended, for these two heroes, taking their lives in their hands, hadaltered the words "slay all foreigners" into "protect all foreigners. "Some five to six weeks later, when the siege was drawing to a close, the alteration was discovered; and next day those two men were hurriedlybeheaded, meeting death with such firmness and fortitude as only truepatriotism could inspire. 

The Mongols found it no easy task to dispossess the House of Sung, whichhad many warm adherents to its cause. It was in 1206 that Genghis Khanbegan to make arrangements for a projected invasion of China, and by1214 he was master of all the enemy's territory north of the YellowRiver, except Peking. He then made peace with the Golden Tartar emperorof northern China; but his suspicions were soon aroused, and hostilitieswere renewed. In 1227 he died, while conducting a campaign in CentralAsia; and it remained for his vigorous grandson, Kublai Khan, tocomplete the conquest of China more than half a century afterwards. Soearly as 1260, Kublai was able to proclaim himself emperor at Xanadu, which means Imperial Capital, and lay about one hundred and eighty milesnorth of modern Peking, where, in those days known as Khan-baligh (MarcoPolo's Cambaluc), he established himself four years later; but twentyyears of severe fighting had still to pass away before the empire wasfinally subdued. The Sung troops were gradually driven south, contestingevery inch of ground with a dogged resistance born of patrioticendeavour. In 1278 Canton was taken, and the heroic Wen T'ien-hsiangwas captured through the treachery of a subordinate. In 1279 the laststronghold of the Sungs was beleaguered by land and sea. Shut up intheir ships which they formed into a compact mass and fortified withtowers and breastworks, the patriots, deprived of fresh water, harassedby attacks during the day and by fire-ships at night, maintained theunequal struggle for a month. But when, after a hard day's fighting, theSung commander found himself left with only sixteen vessels, he fled upa creek. His retreat was cut off; and then at length despairing of hiscountry, he bade his wife and children throw themselves overboard. Hehimself, taking the young emperor on his back, followed their example, and thus brought the great Sung dynasty to an end. 

The grandeur of Kublai Khan's reign may be gathered from the pagesof Marco Polo, in which, too, allusion is made to Bayan, the skilfulgeneral to whom so much of the military success of the Mongols was due. Korea, Burma, and Annam became dependencies of China, and continued tosend tribute as such even up to quite modern times. Hardly so successfulwas Kublai Khan's huge naval expedition against Japan, which, inpoint of number of ships and men, the insular character of the enemy'scountry, the chastisement intended, and the total loss of the fleet ina storm, aided by the stubborn resistance offered by the Japanesethemselves--suggests a very obvious comparison with the object and fateof the Spanish Armada. 

Among the more peaceful developments of Mongol rule at this epoch maybe mentioned the introduction of a written character for the Mongollanguage. It was the work of a Tibetan priest, named Baschpa, and wasbased upon the written language of a nation known as the Ouigours (akinto the Turks), which had in turn been based upon Syraic, and is writtenin vertical lines connected by ligatures. Similarly, until 1599 therewas no written Manchu language; a script, based upon the Mongol, wasthen devised, also in vertical lines or columns like Chinese, but readfrom left to right. 

Under Kublai Khan the calendar was revised, and the Imperial Academy wasopened; the Yellow River was explored to its source, and bank-notes weremade current. The Emperor himself was an ardent Buddhist, but he tookcare that proper honours were paid to Confucius; on the other hand, heissued orders that all Taoist literature of the baser kind was to bedestroyed. Behind all this there was extortionate taxation, a form ofoppression the Chinese have never learned to tolerate, and discontentled to disorder. Kublai's grandson was for a time an honest ruler andtried to stem the tide, but by 1368 the mandate of the Mongols wasexhausted. They were an alien race, and the Chinese were glad to get ridof them. 

Chinese soldiers are often stigmatized as arrant cowards, who run awayat the slightest provocation, their first thought being for the safetyof their own skins. No doubt Chinese soldiers do run away--sometimes; atother times they fight to the death, as has been amply proved over andover again. It is the old story of marking the hits and not the misses. A great deal depends upon sufficiency and regularity of pay. Soldierswith pay in arrear, half clad, hungry, and ill armed, as has frequentlybeen the case in Chinese campaigns, cannot be expected to do much forthe flag. Given the reverse of these conditions, things would be likelyto go badly with the enemy, whosoever he might be. 

Underneath a mask of complete facial stolidity, the Chinese conceal oneof the most exciteable temperaments to be found in any race, as willsoon be discovered by watching an ordinary street row between a coupleof men, or still better, women. A Chinese crowd of men--women keepaway--is a good-tempered and orderly mob, partly because not inflamedby drink, when out to enjoy the Feast of the Lanterns, or to watch thetwinkling lamps float down a river to light the wandering ghosts of thedrowned on the night of their All Souls' Day, sacred to the memory ofthe dead; but a rumour, a mere whisper, the more baseless often the morepotent, will transform these law-abiding people into a crowd of fiends. In times when popular feeling runs high, as when large numbers of menwere said to be deprived suddenly and mysteriously of their queues, orwhen the word went round, as it has done on more occasions than one, that foreigners were kidnapping children in order to use their eyes formedicine, --in such times the masses, incited by those who ought to knowbetter, get completely out of hand. 

A curious and tragic instance of this excitability occurred some yearsago. The viceroy of a province had succeeded in organizing a contingentof foreign-drilled troops, under the guidance and leadership of twoqualified foreign instructors. After some time had elapsed, and it wasthought that the troops were sufficiently trained to make a good show, it was arranged that a sham fight should be held in the presence ofthe viceroy himself. The men were divided into two bodies under thetwo foreign commanders, and in the course of operations one body had todefend a village, while the other had to attack it. When the time cameto capture the village at the point of the bayonet, both sides losttheir heads; there was a fierce hand-to-hand fight in stern reality, and before this could be effectively stopped four men had been killedoutright and sixteen badly wounded. 

Considering how squalid many Chinese homes are, it is all the moreastonishing to find such deep attachment to them. There exists in thelanguage a definite word for _home_, in its fullest English sense. As awritten character, it is supposed to picture the idea of a family, thecomponent parts being a "roof" with "three persons" underneath. Thereis, indeed, another and more fanciful explanation of this character, namely, that it is composed of a "roof" with a "pig" underneath, theforms for "three men" and "pig" being sufficiently alike at any rateto justify the suggestion. This analysis would not be altogether outof place in China any more than in Ireland; but as a matter of fact thebalance of evidence is in favour of the "three men, " which number, itmay be remarked, is that which technically constitutes a crowd. 

Whatever may be the literary view of the word "home, " it is quitecertain that to the ordinary Chinaman there is no place like it. "Onemile away from home is not so good as being in it, " says a proverb witha punning turn which cannot be brought out in English. Another says, "Every day is happy at home, every moment miserable abroad. " It maytherefore be profitable to look inside a Chinese home, if only todiscover wherein its attractiveness lies. 

All such homes are arranged more or less on the patriarchal system; thatis to say, at the head of the establishment are a father and mother, whorank equally so far as their juniors are concerned; the mother receivingprecisely the same share of deference in life, and of ancestral worshipafter death, as the father. The children grow up; wives are sought forthe boys, and husbands for the girls, at about the ages of eighteen andsixteen, respectively. The former bring their wives into the paternalhome; the latter belong, from the day of their marriage, to the paternalhomes of their husbands. Bachelors and old maids have no place in theChinese scheme of life. Theoretically, bride and bridegroom are notsupposed to see each other until the wedding-day, when the girl's veilis lifted on her arrival at her father-in-law's house; in practice, theyoung people usually manage to get at least a glimpse of one another, usually with the connivance of their elders. Thus the family expands, and one of the greatest happinesses which can befall a Chinaman is tohave "five generations in the hall. " Owing to early marriage, thisis not nearly so uncommon as it is in Western countries. There is anauthentic record of an old statesman who had so many descendants thatwhen they came to congratulate him on his birthdays, he was quite unableto remember all their names, and could only bow as they passed in linebefore him. 

As to income and expenditure, the earnings of the various members gointo a common purse, out of which expenses are paid. Every one has aright to food and shelter; and so it is that if some are out of work, the strain is not individually felt; they take their rations as usual. On the death of the father, it is not at all uncommon for the mother totake up the reins, though it is more usual for the eldest son to takehis place. Sometimes, after the death of the mother--and then it isaccounted a bad day for the family fortunes--the brothers cannot agree;the property is divided, and each son sets up for himself, a proceedingwhich is forbidden by the Penal Code during the parents' lifetime. Meanwhile, any member of the family who should disgrace himself in anyway, as by becoming an inveterate gambler and permanently neglecting hiswork, or by developing the opium vice to great excess, would be formallycast out, his name being struck off the ancestral register. Men of thisstamp generally sink lower and lower, until they swell the ranks ofprofessional beggars, to die perhaps in a ditch; but such cases arehappily of rare occurrence. 

In the ordinary peaceful family, regulated according to Confucianprinciples of filial piety, fraternal love, and loyalty to thesovereign, we find love of home exalted to a passion; and bitter is theday of leave-taking for a long absence, as when a successful son startsto take up his official appointment at a distant post. The latter, notbeing able to hold office in his native province, may have a long andsometimes dangerous journey to make, possibly to the other end ofthe empire. In any case, years must elapse before he can revisit "themulberry and the elm"--the garden he leaves behind. He may take his"old woman" and family with him, or they may follow later on; as anotheralternative, the "old woman" with the children may remain permanentlyin the ancestral home, while the husband carries on his official careeralone. Under such circumstances as the last-mentioned, no one, includinghis own wife, is shocked if he consoles himself with a "small oldwoman, " whom he picks up at his new place of abode. The "small oldwoman" is indeed often introduced into families where the "principal oldwoman" fails to contribute the first of "the three blessings of whichevery one desires to have plenty, " namely, sons, money, and life. Instances are not uncommon of the wife herself urging this course uponher husband; and but for this system the family line would often come toan end, failing recourse to another system, namely, adoption, whichis also brought into play when all hope of a lineal descendant isabandoned. 

Whether she has children or not, the principal wife--the only wife, infact--never loses her supremacy as the head of the household. The lateEmpress Dowager was originally a concubine; by virtue of motherhood shewas raised to the rank of Western Empress, but never legitimately tookprecedence of the wife, whose superiority was indicated by her titleof Eastern Empress, the east being more honourable than the west. Theemperor always sits with his face towards the south. 

The story of Sung Hung, a statesman who flourished about the time of theChristian era, pleasantly illustrates a chivalrous side of the Chinesecharacter. This man raised himself from a humble station in life to be aminister of state, and was subsequently ennobled as marquis. The emperorthen wished him to put away his wife, who was a woman of the people, andmarry a princess; to which he nobly replied: "Sire, the partner of myporridge days shall never go down from my hall. "

Of the miseries of exile from the ancestral home, lurid pictures havebeen drawn by many poets and others. One man, ordered from some softsouthern climate to a post in the colder north, will complain that thespring with its flowers is too late in arriving; another "cannot standthe water and earth, " by which is meant that the climate does not agreewith him; a third is satisfied with his surroundings, but is still aconstant sufferer from home-sickness. Such a one was the poet who wrotethe following lines:--

 Away to the east lie fair forests of trees, From the flowers on the west comes a scent-laden breeze, Yet my eyes daily turn to my far-away home, Beyond the broad river, its waves and its foam. 

And such, too, is the note of innumerable songs in exile, written forthe most part by officials stationed in distant parts of the empire;sometimes by exiles in a harsher sense, namely, those persons who havebeen banished to the frontier for disaffection, maladministrationof government, and like offences. A bright particular gem in Chineseliterature, referring to love of home, was the work of a young poet whoreceived an appointment as magistrate, but threw it up after a tenure ofonly eighty-three days, declaring that he could not "crook the hinges ofhis back for five pecks of rice a day, " that being the regulation payof his office. It was written to celebrate his own return, and runs asfollows:--

"Homewards I bend my steps. My fields, my gardens, are choked withweeds: should I not go? My soul has led a bondsman's life: why should Iremain to pine? But I will waste no grief upon the past: I will devotemy energies to the future. I have not wandered far astray. I feel that Iam on the right track once again. 

"Lightly, lightly, speeds my boat along, my garments fluttering to thegentle breeze. I inquire my route as I go. I grudge the slowness of thedawning day. From afar I descry by old home, and joyfully press onwardsin my haste. The servants rush forth to meet me: my children cluster atthe gate. The place is a wilderness; but there is the old pine-tree andmy chrysanthemums. I take the little ones by the hand, and pass in. Wineis brought in full bottles, and I pour out in brimming cups. I gazeout at my favourite branches. I loll against the window in my new-foundfreedom. I look at the sweet children on my knee. 

"And now I take my pleasure in my garden. There is a gate, but it israrely opened. I lean on my staff as I wander about or sit down torest. I raise my head and contemplate the lovely scene. Clouds rise, unwilling, from the bottom of the hills: the weary bird seeks its nestagain. Shadows vanish, but still I linger round my lonely pine. Homeonce more! I'll have no friendships to distract me hence. The timesare out of joint for me; and what have I to seek from men? In the pureenjoyment of the family circle I will pass my days, cheering my idlehours with lute and book. My husbandmen will tell me when spring-timeis nigh, and when there will be work in the furrowed fields. Thither Ishall repair by cart or by boat, through the deep gorge, over the dizzycliff, trees bursting merrily into leaf, the streamlet swelling from itstiny source. Glad is this renewal of life in due season: but for me, Irejoice that my journey is over. Ah, how short a time it is that we arehere! Why, then, not set our hearts at rest, ceasing to trouble whetherwe remain or go? What boots it to wear out the soul with anxiousthoughts? I want not wealth: I want not power: heaven is beyond myhopes. Then let me stroll through the bright hours, as they pass, in mygarden among my flowers; or I will mount the hill and sing my song, orweave my verse beside the limpid brook. Thus will I work out my allottedspan, content with the appointments of Fate, my spirit free from care. "

Besides contributing a large amount of beautiful poetry, this authorprovided his own funeral oration, the earliest which has come down tous, written just before his death in A. D. 427. Funeral orations are notonly pronounced by some friend at the grave, but are further solemnlyconsumed by fire, in the belief that they will thus reach the world ofspirits, and be a joy and an honour to the deceased, in the same sensethat paper houses, horses, sedan-chairs, and similar articles, are burntfor the use of the dead. 

CHAPTER X--MINGS AND CH'INGS, 1368-1911

The first half of the fourteenth century, which witnessed the gradualdecline of Mongol influence and power, was further marked by the birthof a humble individual destined to achieve a new departure in thehistory of the empire. At the age of seventeen, Chu Yuan-chang lost bothhis parents and an elder brother. It was a year of famine, and they diedfrom want of food. He had no money to buy coffins, and was forced tobury them in straw. He then, as a last resource, decided to enter theBuddhist priesthood, and accordingly enrolled himself as a novice; buttogether with the other novices, he was soon dismissed, the priestsbeing unable to provide even for their own wants. After this he wanderedabout, and finally joined a party of rebels commanded by one of his ownuncles. Rapidly rising to the highest military rank, he gradually foundhimself at the head of a huge army, and by 1368 was master of so manyprovinces that he proclaimed himself first emperor of the Great Mingdynasty, under the title of Hung (_Hoong_) Wu, and fixed his capitalat Nanking. In addition to his military genius, he showed almost equalskill in the administration of the empire, and also became a liberalpatron of literature and education. He organized the present system ofexaminations, now in a transition state; restored the native Chinesestyle of dress as worn under the T'ang dynasty, which is still thecostume seen on the stage; published a Penal Code of mitigated severity;drew up a kind of Domesday Book under which taxation was regulated;and fixed the coinage upon a proper basis, government notes and copper_cash_ being equally current. Eunuchs were prohibited from holdingofficial posts, and Buddhism and Taoism were both made state religions. 

This truly great monarch died in 1398, and was succeeded by a grandson, whose very receding forehead had been a source of much annoyance to hisgrandfather, though the boy grew up clever and could make good verses. The first act of this new emperor was to dispossess his uncles ofvarious important posts held by them; but this was not tolerated by oneof them, who had already made himself conspicuous by his talents, andhe promptly threw off his allegiance. In the war which ensued, victoryattended his arms throughout, and at length he entered Nanking, thecapital, in triumph. And now begins one of those romantic episodes whichfrom time to time lend an unusual interest to the dry bones of Chinesehistory. In the confusion which followed upon the entry of troops intohis palace, the young and defeated emperor vanished, and was never seenagain; although in after years pretenders started up on more than oneoccasion, and obtained the support of many in their efforts to recoverthe throne. It is supposed that the fugitive made his way to the distantprovince of Yunnan in the garb of a Buddhist priest, left to him, so thestory runs, by his grandfather. After nearly forty years of wandering, he is said to have gone to Peking and to have lived in seclusion in thepalace there until his death. He was recognized by a eunuch from a moleon his left foot, but the eunuch was afraid to reveal his identity. 

The victorious uncle mounted the throne in the year 1403, under the nowfamous title of Yung Lo (_Yoong Law_), and soon showed that he couldgovern as well as he could fight. He brought immigrants from populousprovinces to repeople the districts which had been laid waste by war. Peking was built, and in 1421 the seat of government was transferredthither, where it has remained ever since. A new Penal Code was drawnup. Various military expeditions were despatched against the Tartars, and missions under the charge of eunuchs were sent to Java, Sumatra, Siam, and even reached Ceylon and the Red Sea. The day of doubt inregard to the general accuracy of Chinese annals has gone by; were itotherwise, a recent (1911) discovery in Ceylon would tend to dispelsuspicion on one point. A tablet has just been unearthed at Galle, bearing an inscription in Arabic, Chinese and Tamil. The Arabic isbeyond decipherment, but enough is left of the Chinese to show that thetablet was erected in 1409 to commemorate a visit by the eunuch ChengHo, who passed several times backwards and forwards over that route. In1411 the same eunuch was sent as envoy to Japan, and narrowly escapedwith his life. 

The emperor was a warm patron of literature, and succeeded in bringingabout the achievement of the most gigantic literary task that theworld has ever seen. He employed a huge staff of scholars to compile anencyclopaedia which should contain within the compass of a singlework all that had ever been written in the four departments of (1)the Confucian Canon, (2) history, (3) philosophy, and (4) generalliterature, including astronomy, geography, cosmogony, medicine, divination, Buddhism, Taoism, handicrafts and arts. The completed work, over which a small army of scholars--more than two thousand in all--hadspent five years, ran to no fewer than 22, 877 sections, to which mustbe added an index occupying 60 sections. The whole was bound up (Chinesestyle) in 11, 000 volumes, averaging over half-an-inch in thickness, andmeasuring one foot eight inches in length by one foot in breadth. Thus, if all these were laid flat one upon another, the column so formed wouldrise considerably higher than the very top of St. Paul's. Further, eachsection contains about twenty leaves, making a total of 917, 480 pagesfor the whole work, with a grand total of 366, 000, 000 words. Taking100 Chinese words as the equivalent of 130 English, due to the greatercondensation of Chinese literary style, it will be found that even themighty river of the _Encyclopedia Britannica_ "shrinks to a rill" whencompared with this overwhelming specimen of Chinese industry. 

It was never printed; even a Chinese emperor, and enthusiastic patron ofliterature to boot, recoiled before the enormous cost of cutting sucha work on blocks. It was however transcribed for printing, and thereappear to have been at one time three copies in existence. Two of theseperished at Nanking with the downfall of the dynasty in 1644, and thethird was in great part destroyed in Peking during the siege of theLegations in 1900. Odd volumes have been preserved, and bear amplewitness to the extraordinary character of the achievement. 

This emperor was an ardent Buddhist, and the priests of that religionwere raised to high positions and exerted considerable influence atcourt. In times of famine there were loud complaints that some tenthousand priests were living comfortably at Peking, while the people ofseveral provinces were reduced to eating bark and grass. 

The porcelain of the Ming dynasty is famous all over the world. Early inthe sixteenth century a great impetus was given to the art, owing tothe extravagant patronage of the court, which was not allowed to passwithout openly expressed remonstrance. The practice of the pictorialart was very widely extended, and the list of Ming painters is endless, containing as it does over twelve hundred names, some few of which standfor a high level of success. 

Towards the close of the sixteenth century the Portuguese appeared uponthe scene, and settled themselves at Macao, the ownership of which hasbeen a bone of contention between China and Portugal ever since. It isa delightful spot, with an excellent climate, not very far from Canton, and was for some time the residence of the renowned poet Camoens. Notfar from Macao lies the island of Sancian, where St. Francois Xavierdied. He was the first Roman Catholic missionary of more modern timesto China, but he never set foot on the mainland. Native maps mark theexistence of "Saint's Grave" upon the island, though he was actuallyburied at Goa. There had previously been a Roman Catholic bishop inPeking so far back as the thirteenth century, from which date it seemslikely that Catholic converts have had a continuous footing in theempire. 

In 1583, Matteo Ricci, the most famous of all missionaries who haveever reached China, came upon the scene at Canton, and finally, in1601, after years of strenuous effort succeeded in installing himselfat Peking, with the warm support of the emperor himself, dying there in1610. Besides reforming the calendar and teaching geography and sciencein general, he made a fierce attack upon Buddhism, at the same timewisely leaving Confucianism alone. He was the first to become awareof the presence in China of a Jewish colony, which had been foundedin 1163. It was from his writings that truer notions of Chinesecivilization than had hitherto prevailed, began to spread in the West. "Mat. Riccius the Jesuite, " says Burton in his _Anatomy of Melancholy_(1651), "and some others, relate of the industry of the Chinaes mostpopulous countreys, not a beggar, or an idle person to be seen, and howby that means they prosper and flourish. "

In 1625 an important find was made. A large tablet, with a longinscription in Chinese and a shorter one in Syraic, was discovered incentral China. The inscription, in an excellent state of preservation, showed that the tablet had been set up in A. D. 781 by Nestorianmissionaries, and gave a general idea of the object and scope of theChristian religion. The genuineness of this tablet was for many years indispute--Voltaire, Renan, and others of lesser fame, regarding it asa pious fraud--but has now been established beyond any possibilityof doubt; its value indeed is so great that an attempt was made quiterecently to carry it off to America. Nestorian Christianity is mentionedby Marco Polo, but disappears altogether after the thirteenth century, without leaving any trace in Chinese literature of its once flourishingcondition. 

The last emperor of the Ming dynasty meant well, but succumbed to thestress of circumstances. Eunuchs and over-taxation brought about thestereotyped consequence--rebellion; rebellion, too, headed by an ablecommander, whose successive victories soon enabled him to assume theImperial title. In the capital all was confusion. The treasury wasempty; the garrison were too few to man the walls; and the ministerswere anxious to secure each his own safety. On April 9, 1644, Pekingfell. During the previous night the emperor, who had refused to flee, slew the eldest princess, commanded the empress to commit suicide, andsent his three sons into hiding. At dawn the bell was struck for thecourt to assemble; but no one came. His Majesty then ascended the CoalHill in the palace grounds, and wrote a last decree on the lapel of hisrobe: "WE, poor in virtue and of contemptible personality, have incurredthe wrath of God on high. My ministers have deceived me. I am ashamed tomeet my ancestors; and therefore I myself take off my crown, and with myhair covering my face await dismemberment at the hands of the rebels. Donot hurt a single one of my people. " He then hanged himself, as also didone faithful eunuch; and his body, together with that of the empress, was reverently encoffined by the rebels. 

So ended the Ming dynasty, of glorious memory, but not in favour of therebel commander, who was driven out of Peking by the Manchus and wasultimately slain by local militia in a distant province. 

The subjugation of the empire by the victors, who had the disadvantageof being an alien race, was effected with comparative ease and rapidity. It was carried out by a military occupation of the country, which hassurvived the original necessity, and is part of the system of governmentat the present day. Garrisons of Tartar troops were stationed at variousimportant centres of population, each under the command of an officer ofthe highest military grade, whose duty it was to co-operate with, andat the same time watch and act as a check upon, the high authoritiesemployed in the civil administration. Those Tartar garrisons stilloccupy the same positions; and the descendants of the first battalions, with occasional reinforcements from Peking, live side by side and inperfect harmony with the strictly Chinese populations, though the tworaces do not intermarry except in very rare cases. These Bannermen, asthey are called, in reference to eight banners or corps under which theyare marshalled, may be known by their square heavy faces, which contraststrongly with the sharper and more astute-looking physiognomies of theChinese. They speak the dialect of Peking, now regarded as the officialor "mandarin" language, just as the dialect of Nanking was, so long asthat city remained the capital of the empire. 

In many respects the conquering Tartars have been themselves conqueredby the people over whom they set themselves to rule. They have adoptedthe language, written and colloquial, of China; and they are fully asproud as the purest-blooded Chinese of the vast literature and glorioustraditions of those past dynasties of which they have made themselvesjoint heirs. Manchu, the language of the conquerors, is still keptalive at Peking. By a fiction, it is supposed to be the language of thesovereign; but the emperors of China have now in their youth to make astudy of Manchu, and so do the official interpreters and others whoseduty it is to translate from Chinese into Manchu all documents submittedto what is called the "sacred glance" of His Majesty. In a similarsense, until quite a recent date, skill in archery was required of everyBannerman; and it was undoubtedly a great wrench when the once fatallyeffective weapon was consigned to an unmerited oblivion. But thoughBannermen can no longer shoot with the bow and arrow, they stillcontinue to draw monthly allowances from state funds, as an hereditaryright obtained by conquest. 

Of the nine emperors of the Manchu, or Great Ch'ing dynasty, who havealready occupied the dragon throne and have become "guests on high, " twoare deserving of special mention as fit to be ranked among the wisestand best rulers the world has ever known. The Emperor K'ang Hsi (_KhahngShee_) began his reign in 1662 and continued it for sixty-one years, a division of time which has been in vogue for many centuries past. Hetreated the Jesuit Fathers with kindness and distinction, andavailed himself in many ways of their scientific knowledge. He was anextraordinarily generous and successful patron of literature. His nameis inseparably connected with the standard dictionary of the Chineselanguage, which was produced under his immediate supervision. Itcontains over forty thousand words, not a great number as compared withEuropean languages which have coined innumerable scientific terms, but even so, far more than are necessary either for daily life orfor literary purposes. These words are accompanied in each case byappropriate quotations from the works of every age and of everystyle, arranged chronologically, thus anticipating to some extent the"historical principles" in the still more wonderful English dictionaryby Sir James Murray and others, now going through the press. But thegreatest of all the literary achievements planned by this emperor was ageneral encyclopaedia, not indeed on quite such a colossal scale as thatone produced under the Ming dynasty and already described, though stillof respectable dimensions, running as it does in a small-sizededition to 1, 628 octavo volumes of about 200 pages to each. The termencyclopaedia must not be understood in precisely the same sense as inWestern countries. A Chinese encyclopaedia deals with a given subjectnot by providing an up-to-date article written by some livingauthority, but by exhibiting extracts from authors of all ages, arrangedchronologically, in which the subject in question is discussed. Therange of topics, however, is such that the above does not alwaysapply--as, for instance, in the biographical section, which consistsmerely of lives of eminent men taken from various sources. In the greatencyclopaedia under consideration, in addition to an enormous number oflives of men, covering a period of three thousand years, there are alsolives of over twenty-four thousand eminent women, or nearly as many asall the lives in our own _National Dictionary of Biography_. Anoriginal copy of this marvellous production, which by the way is fullyillustrated, may be seen at the British Museum; a small-sized edition, more suitable for practical purposes and printed from movable type, wasissued about twenty years ago. 

Skipping an emperor under whose reign was initiated that violentpersecution of Roman Catholics which has continued more or less openlydown to the present day, we come to the second of the two monarchsbefore mentioned, whose long and beneficent reigns are among the realglories of the present dynasty. 

The Emperor Ch'ien Lung (_Loong_) ascended the throne in 1735, whentwenty-five years of age; and though less than two hundred years ago, legend has been busy with his person. According to some native accounts, his hands are said to have reached below his knees; his ears touched hisshoulders; and his eyes could see round behind his head. This sort ofstuff, is should be understood, is not taken from reliable authorities. It cannot be taken from the dynastic history for the simple reason thatthe official history of a dynasty is not published until the dynastyhas come to an end. There is, indeed, a faithful record kept of all theactions of each reigning emperor in turn; good and evil are set downalike, without fear or favour, for no emperor is ever allowed to get aglimpse of the document by which posterity will judge him. Ch'ien Lunghad no cause for anxiety on this score; whatever record might leapto light, he never could be shamed. An able ruler, with an insatiablethirst for knowledge, and an indefatigable administrator, he rivalshis grandfather's fame as a sovereign and a patron of letters. His oneamiable weakness was a fondness for poetry; unfortunately, for his own. His output was enormous so far as number of pieces go; these were alwaysshort, and proportionately trivial. No one ever better illustrated onehalf of the cynical Chinese saying: "We love our own compositions, but other men's wives. " He disliked missionaries, and forbade thepropagation of the Christian religion. 

After ten years of internal reorganization, his reign became asuccession of wars, almost all of which were brought to a successfulconclusion. His generals led a large army into Nepaul and conquered theGoorkhas, reaching a point only some sixty miles distant from Britishterritory. Burma was forced to pay tribute; Chinese supremacy wasestablished in Tibet; Kuldja and Kashgaria were added to the empire; andrebellions in Formosa and elsewhere were suppressed. In fifty years thepopulation was nearly doubled, and the empire on the whole enjoyed peaceand prosperity. In 1750 a Portuguese embassy reached Peking; and wasfollowed by Lord Macartney's famous mission and a Dutch mission in 1793. Two years after the venerable emperor had completed a reign of sixtyyears, the full Chinese cycle; whereupon he abdicated in favour of hisson, and died in 1799. 

CHAPTER XI--CHINESE AND FOREIGNERS

A virtue which the Chinese possess in an eminent degree is the ratherrare one of gratitude. A Chinaman never forgets a kind act; and whatis still more important, he never loses the sense of obligation to hisbenefactor. Witness to this striking fact has been borne times withoutnumber by European writers, and especially by doctors, who havenaturally enjoyed the best opportunities for conferring favours likelyto make a deep impression. It is unusual for a native to benefit by acure at the hands of a foreign doctor, and then to go away and make noeffort to express his gratitude, either by a subscription to a hospital, a present of silk or tea, or perhaps an elaborate banner with a goldeninscription, in which his benefactor's skill is likened to that of thegreat Chinese doctors of antiquity. With all this, the patientwill still think of the doctor, and even speak of him, not alwaysirreverently, as a foreign devil. A Chinaman once appeared at a BritishConsulate, with a present of some kind, which he had brought from hishome a hundred miles away, in obedience to the command of his dyingfather, who had formerly been cured of ophthalmia by a foreign doctor, and who had told him, on his deathbed, "never to forget the English. "Yet this present was addressed in Chinese: "To His Excellency the GreatEnglish Devil, Consul X. "

The Chinaman may love you, but you are a devil all the same. It is mostnatural that he should think so. For generation upon generation Chinawas almost completely isolated from the rest of the world. The people ofher vast empire grew up under influences unchanged by contact with otherpeoples. Their ideals became stereotyped from want of other ideals tocompare with, and possibly modify, their own. Dignity of deportmentand impassivity of demeanour were especially cultivated by the rulingclasses. Then the foreign devil burst upon the scene--a being asantagonistic to themselves in every way as it is possible to conceive. We can easily see, from pictures, not intended to be caricatures, whatwere the chief features of the foreigner as viewed by the Chinaman. Redhair and blue eyes, almost without exception; short and extremely tightclothes; a quick walk and a mobility of body, involving ungracefulpositions either sitting or standing; and with an additional featurewhich the artist could not portray--an unintelligible languageresembling the twittering of birds. Small wonder that little childrenare terrified at these strange beings, and rush shrieking into theircottages as the foreigner passes by. It is perhaps not quite so easy tounderstand why the Mongolian pony has such a dread of the foreigner andusually takes time to get accustomed to the presence of a barbarian;some ponies, indeed, will never allow themselves to be mounted unlessblindfolded. Then there are the dogs, who rush out and bark, apparentlywithout rhyme or reason, at every passing foreigner. The Chinese have asaying that one dog barks at nothing and the rest bark at him; but thatwill hardly explain the unfailing attack so familiar to every one whohas rambled through country villages. The solution of this puzzle wasextracted with difficulty from an amiable Chinaman who explained thatwhat the animals, and indeed his fellow-countrymen as well, couldnot help noticing, was the frowzy and very objectionable smell ofall foreigners, which, strangely enough, is the very accusation whichforeigners unanimously bring against the Chinese themselves. 

Compare these characteristics with the universal black hair and blackeyes of men and women throughout China, exclusive of a rare occasionalalbino; with the long, flowing, loose robes of officials and of thewell-to-do; with their slow and stately walk and their rigid formalityof position, either sitting or standing. To the Chinese, their ownlanguage seems to be the language of the gods; they know they havepossessed it for several thousand years, and they know nothing at allof the barbarian. Where does he come from? Where can he come from exceptfrom the small islands which fringe the Middle Kingdom, the world, infact, bounded by the Four Seas? The books tell us that "Heaven is round, Earth is square;" and it is impossible to believe that those books, upon the wisdom of which the Middle Kingdom was founded, can possibly bewrong. Such was a very natural view for the Chinaman to take when firstbrought really face to face with the West; and such is the view thatin spite of modern educational progress is still very widely held. Thepeople of a country do not unlearn in a day the long lessons of thepast. He was quite a friendly mandarin, taking a practical view ofnational dress, who said in conversation: "I can't think why youforeigners wear your clothes so tight; it must be very difficult tocatch the fleas. "

As an offset against the virtue of gratitude must be placed thedeep-seated spirit of revenge which animates all classes. Though notenumerated among their own list of the Seven passions--joy, anger, sorrow, fear, love, hatred and desire--it is perhaps the mostover-mastering passion to which the Chinese mind is subject. It isrevenge which prompts the unhappy daughter-in-law to throw herself downa well, consoled by the thought of the trouble, if not ruin, she isbringing on her persecutors. Revenge, too, leads a man to commit suicideon the doorstep of some one who has done him an injury, for he wellknows what it means to be entangled in the net which the law throws overany one on whose premises a dead body may thus be found. There was oncean absurd case of a Chinese woman, who deliberately walked into a ponduntil the water reached up to her knees, and remained there, alternatelyputting her lips below the surface, and threatening in a loud voiceto drown herself on the spot, as life had been made unbearable by thepresence of foreign barbarians. In this instance, had the suicidebeen carried out, vengeance would have been wreaked in some way on theforeigner by the injured ghost of the dead woman. 

The germ of this spirit of revenge, this desire to get on level termswith an enemy, as when a life is extracted for a life, can be traced, strangely enough, to the practice of filial piety and fraternal love, the very cornerstone of good government and national prosperity. In theBook of Rites, which forms a part of the Confucian Canon, and containsrules not only for the performance of ceremonies but also for theguidance of individual conduct, the following passage occurs: "With theslayer of his father, a man may not live under the same sky; againstthe slayer of his brother, a man must never have to go home to fetch aweapon; with the slayer of his friend, a man may not live in the samestate. " Being now duly admitted among the works which constitute theConfucian Canon, the above-mentioned Book of Rites enjoys an authorityto which it can hardly lay claim on the ground of antiquity. It is acompilation made during the first century B. C. , and is based, no doubt, on older existing documents; but as it never passed under the editorshipof either Confucius or Mencius, it would be unfair to jump to theconclusion that either of these two sages is in any way responsiblefor, or would even acquiesce in, a system of revenge, the only result ofwhich would be an endless chain of bloodshed and murder. The Chinese arecertainly as constant in their hates as in their friendships. To use aphrase from their own language, if they love a man, they love him to thelife; if they hate a man they hate him to the death. As we have alreadynoted, the Old Philosopher urged men to requite evil with good; butConfucius, who was only a mortal himself, and knew the limitationsof mortality, substituted for an ideal doctrine the more practicalinjunction to requite evil with justice. It is to be feared that theChinese people fall short in practice even of this lower standard. "Bejust to your enemy" is a common enough maxim; but one for which only amoderate application can be claimed. 

It has often been urged against the Chinese that they have very littleidea of time. A friendly Chinaman will call, and stay on so persistentlythat he often outstays his welcome. This infliction is recognized andfelt by the Chinese themselves, who have certain set forms of words bywhich they politely escape from a tiresome visitor; among their vaststores of proverbs they have also provided one which is much to thepoint: "Long visits bring short compliments. " Also, in contradiction ofthe view that time is no value to the Chinaman, there are many familiarmaxims which say, "Make every inch of time your own!" "Half-an-hour isworth a thousand ounces of silver, " etc. An "inch of time" refers to thesundial, which was known to the Chinese in the earliest ages, andwas the only means they had for measuring time until the inventionor introduction--it is not certain which--of the more serviceable_clepsydra_, or water-clock, already mentioned. 

This consists of several large jars of water, with a tube at the bottomof each, placed one above another on steps, so that the tube of an upperjar overhangs the top of a lower jar. The water from the top jar is madeto drip through its tube into the second jar, and so into a vessel atthe bottom, which contains either the floating figure of a man, or someother kind of index to mark the rise of the water on a scale dividedinto periods of two hours each. The day and night were originallydivided by the Chinese into twelve such periods; but now-a-dayswatches and clocks are in universal use, and the European division intotwenty-four hours prevails everywhere. Formerly, too, sticks of incense, to burn for a certain number of hours, as well as graduated candles, made with the assistance of the water-clock, were in great demand; thesehave now quite disappeared as time-recorders. 

The Chinese year is a lunar year. When the moon has travelled twelvetimes round the earth, the year is completed. This makes it about tendays short of our solar year; and to bring things right again, an extramonth, that is a thirteenth month, is inserted in every three years. When foreigners first began to employ servants extensively, the latterobjected to being paid their wages according to the European system, forthey complained that they were thus cheated out of a month's wages inevery third year. An elaborate official almanack is published annuallyin Peking, and circulated all over the empire; and in addition to suchinformation as would naturally be looked for in a work of the kind, thepublic are informed what days are lucky, and what days are unlucky, theright and the wrong days for doing or abstaining from doing this, that, or the other. The anniversaries of the death-days of the sovereignsof the ruling dynasty are carefully noted; for on such days all thegovernment offices are supposed to be shut. Any foreign official whowishes to see a mandarin for urgent business will find it possible to doso, but the visitor can only be admitted through a side-door; thelarge entrance-gate cannot possibly be opened under any circumstanceswhatever. 

No notice of the Chinese people, however slight or general in character, could very well attain its object unless accompanied by some moredetailed account of their etiquette than is to be gathered from thefew references scattered over the preceding pages. Correct behaviour, whether at court, in the market-place, or in the seclusion of privatelife, is regarded as of such extreme importance--and breaches ofpropriety in this sense are always so severely frowned upon--that itbehoves the foreigner who would live comfortably and at peace withhis Chinese neighbours, to pick up at least a casual knowledge of anetiquette which in outward form is so different from his own, and yet inspirit is so identically the same. A little judicious attention to thesematters will prevent much unnecessary friction, leading often to arow, and sometimes to a catastrophe. Chinese philosophers have fullyrecognized in their writings that ceremonies and salutations and bowingsand scrapings and rules of precedence and rules of the road are not ofany real value when considered apart from the conditions with which theyare usually associated; at the same time they argue that withoutsuch conventional restraints, nothing but confusion would result. Consequently, a regular code of etiquette has been produced; but as thisdeals largely with court and official ceremonial, and a great part ofthe remainder has long since been quietly ignored, it is more to thepoint to turn to the unwritten code which governs the masses in theireveryday life. 

For the foreigner who would mix easily with the Chinese people, it isabove all necessary to understand not only that the street regulationsof Europe do not apply in China; but also that he will there find a setof regulations which are tacitly agreed upon by the natives, and which, if examined without prejudice, can only be regarded as based on commonsense. An ordinary foot-passenger, meeting perhaps a coolie with twobuckets of water suspended one at each end of a bamboo pole, or carryinga bag of rice, weighing one, two, or even three hundredweight, isbound to move out of the burden-carrier's path, leaving to him whateveradvantages the road may offer. This same coolie, meeting a sedan chairborne by two or more coolies like himself, must at once make a similarconcession, which is in turn repeated by the chair-bearers in favour ofany one riding a horse. On similar grounds, an empty sedan-chair mustgive way to one in which there is a passenger; and though not exactlyon such rational grounds, it is understood that horse, chair, coolie andfoot-passenger all clear the road for a wedding or other procession, aswell as for the retinue of a mandarin. A servant, too, should standat the side of the road to let his master pass. As an exception to thegeneral rule of common sense which is so very noticeable in all Chineseinstitutions, if only one takes the trouble to look for it, it seems tobe an understood thing that a man may not only stand still whereverhe pleases in a Chinese thoroughfare, but may even place his burden orbarrow, as the fancy seizes him, sometimes right in the fairway, fromwhich point he will coolly look on at the streams of foot-passengerscoming and going, who have to make the best of their way round suchobstructions. It is partly perhaps on this account that friends whogo for a stroll together never walk abreast but always in single file, shouting out their conversation for all the world to hear; this, too, even in the country, where a more convenient formation would often, butnot always, be possible. Shopkeepers may occupy the path with tablesexposing their wares, and itinerant stall-keepers do not hesitate toappropriate a "pitch" wherever trade seems likely to be brisk. Thefamous saying that to have freedom we must have order has not entereddeeply into Chinese calculations. Freedom is indeed a marked feature ofChinese social life; some small sacrifices in the cause of order wouldprobably enhance rather than diminish the great privileges now enjoyed. 

A few points are of importance in the social etiquette of indoor life, and should not be lightly ignored by the foreigner, who, on the otherhand, would be wise not to attempt to substitute altogether Chineseforms and ceremonies for his own. Thus, no Chinaman, and, it may beadded, no European who knows how to behave, fails to rise from his chairon the entrance of a visitor; and it is further the duty of a host tosee that his visitor is actually seated before he sits down himself. It is extremely impolite to precede a visitor, as in passing through adoor; and on parting, it is usual to escort him to the front entrance. He must be placed on the left of the host, this having been the post ofhonour for several centuries, previous to which it was the seat to theright of the host, as with us, to which the visitor was assigned. Atsuch interviews it would not be correct to allude to wives, who are nomore to be mentioned than were the queen of Spain's legs. 

One singular custom in connection with visits, official and otherwise, ignorance of which has led on many occasions to an awkward moment, isthe service of what is called "guest-tea. " At his reception by the hostevery visitor is at once supplied with a cup of tea. The servant bringstwo cups, one in each hand, and so manages that the cup in his left handis set down before the guest, who faces him on his right hand, whilethat for his master is carried across and set down in an exactlyopposite sense. The tea-cups are so handed, as it were with crossedhands, even when the host, as an extra mark of politeness, receives thatintended for his visitor, and himself places it on the table, in thiscase being careful to use _both_ hands, it being considered extremelyimpolite to offer anything with one hand only employed. Now comes thepoint of the "guest-tea, " which, as will be seen, it is quite worthwhile to remember. Shortly after the beginning of the interview, anunwary foreigner, as indeed has often been the case, perhaps becausehe is thirsty, or because he may think it polite to take a sip of thefragrant drink which has been so kindly provided for him, will raisethe cup to his lips. Almost instantaneously he will hear a loud shoutoutside, and become aware that the scene is changing rapidly for no veryevident reason--only too evident, however, to the surrounding Chineseservants, who know it to be their own custom that so soon as a visitortastes his "guest-tea, " it is a signal that he wishes to leave, and thatthe interview is at an end. The noise is simply a bawling summons to getready his sedan-chair, and the scurrying of his coolies to be in theirplaces when wanted. There is another side to this quaint custom, whichis often of inestimable advantage to a busy man. A host, who feels thateverything necessary has been said, and wishes to free himself fromfurther attendance, may grasp his own cup and invite his guest to drink. The same results follow, and the guest has no alternative but to riseand take his leave. In ancient days visitors left their shoes outsidethe front door, a custom which is still practised by the Japanese, thewhole of whose civilization--this cannot be too strongly emphasized--wasborrowed originally from China. 

It is considered polite to remove spectacles during an interview, oreven when meeting in the street; though as this rather unreasonablerule has been steadily ignored by foreigners, chiefly, no doubt, fromunacquaintance with it, the Chinese themselves make no attempt toobserve it so far as foreigners are concerned. In like manner, it ismost unbecoming for any "read-book man, " no matter how miserably poor heis, to receive a stranger, or be seen himself abroad, in short clothes;but this rule, too, is often relaxed in the presence of foreigners, whowear short clothes themselves. Honest poverty is no crime in China, nor is it in any way regarded as cause for shame; it is even more amplyredeemed by scholarship than is the case in Western countries. A manwho has gained a degree moves on a different level from the crowd aroundhim, so profound is the respect shown to learning. If a foreigner canspeak Chinese intelligibly, his character as a barbarian begins to beperceptibly modified; and if to the knack of speech he adds a tolerableacquaintance with the sacred characters which form the written language, he becomes transfigured, as one in whom the influence of the holy men ofold is beginning to prevail over savagery and ignorance. 

It is not without reason that the term "sacred" is applied above to thewritten words or characters. The Chinese, recognizing the extraordinaryresults which have been brought about, silently and invisibly, bythe operation of written symbols, have gradually come to invest thesesymbols with a spirituality arousing a feeling somewhat akin to worship. A piece of paper on which a single word has once been written orprinted, becomes something other than paper with a black mark on it. It may not be lightly tossed about, still less trampled underfoot; itshould be reverently destroyed by fire, here again used as a medium oftransmission to the great Beyond; and thus its spiritual essence willreturn to those from whom it originally came. In the streets of aChinese city, and occasionally along a frequented highroad, may be seensmall ornamental structures into which odd bits of paper may be thrownand burnt, thus preventing a desecration so painful to the Chinese mind;and it has often been urged against foreigners that because they areso careless as to what becomes of their written and printed paper, thematter contained in foreign documents and books must obviously be of nogreat value. It is even considered criminal to use printed matter forstiffening the covers or strengthening the folded leaves of books; stillmore so, to employ it in the manufacture of soles for boots and shoes, though in such cases as these the weakness of human nature usuallycarries the day. Still, from the point of view of the Taoist faith, therisk is too serious to be overlooked. In the sixth of the ten Courts ofPurgatory, through one or more of which sinners must pass after death inorder to expiate their crimes on earth, provision is made for those who"scrape the gilding from the outside of images, take holy names in vain, show no respect for written paper, throw down dirt and rubbish nearpagodas and temples, have in their possession blasphemous or obscenebooks and do not destroy them, obliterate or tear books which teach manto be good, " etc. , etc. 

In this, the sixth Court, presided over, like all the others, by ajudge, and furnished with all the necessary means and appliances forcarrying out the sentences, there are sixteen different wards wheredifferent punishments are applied according to the gravity of theoffence. The wicked shade may be sentenced to kneel for long periods oniron shot, or to be placed up to the neck in filth, or pounded till theblood runs out, or to have the mouth forced open with iron pincers andfilled with needles, or to be bitten by rats, or nipped by locusts whilein a net of thorns, or have the heart scratched, or be chopped in twoat the waist, or have the skin of the body torn off and rolled up intospills for lighting pipes, etc. Similar punishments are awarded forother crimes; and these are to be seen depicted on the walls of themunicipal temple, to be found in every large city, and appropriatelynamed the Chamber of Horrors. It is doubtful if such ghastlyrepresentations of what is to be expected in the next world have reallyany deterrent effect upon even the most illiterate of the masses;certainly not so long as health is present and things are generallygoing well. "The devil a monk" will any Chinaman be when the conditionsof life are satisfactory to him. 

As has already been stated, his temperament is not a religious one; andeven the seductions and threats of Buddhism leave him to a great extentunmoved. He is perhaps chiefly influenced by the Buddhist menace ofrebirth, possibly as a woman, or worse still as an animal. Beliefin such a contingency may act as a mild deterrent under a variety ofcircumstances; it certainly tends to soften his treatment of domesticanimals. Not only because he may some day become one himself, but alsobecause among the mules or donkeys which he has to coerce through longspells of exhausting toil, he may be unwittingly belabouring some friendor acquaintance, or even a member of his own particular family. Thisbelief in rebirth is greatly strengthened by a large number of recordedinstances of persons who could recall events which had happened in theirown previous state of existence, and whose statements were capable ofverification. Occasionally, people would accurately describe places andbuildings which they could not have visited, while many would entertaina dim consciousness of scenes, sights and sounds, which seemed to belongto some other than the present life. There is a record of one man whocould remember having been a horse, and who vividly recalled the pain hehad suffered when riders dug their knees hard into his sides. This, too, in spite of the administration in Purgatory of a cup of forgetfulness, specially designed to prevent in those about to reborn any remembranceof life during a previous birth. 

After all, the most awful punishment inflicted in Purgatory upon sinnersis one which, being purely mental, may not appeal so powerfully to themasses as the coarse tortures mentioned above. In the fifth Court, thesouls of the wicked are taken to a terrace from which they can hear andsee what goes on in their old homes after their own deaths. "They seetheir last wishes disregarded, and their instructions disobeyed. Theproperty they scraped together with so much trouble is dissipated andgone. The husband thinks of taking another wife; the widow meditatessecond nuptials. Strangers are in possession of the old estate; thereis nothing to divide amongst the children. Debts long since paid arebrought again for settlement, and the survivors are called upon toacknowledge false claims upon the departed. Debts owed are lost for wantof evidence, with endless recriminations, abuse, and general confusion, all of which falls upon the three families--father's, mother's, andwife's--connected with the deceased. These in their anger speak ill ofhim that is gone. He sees his children become corrupt, and friendsfall away. Some, perhaps, may stroke the coffin and let fall a tear, departing quickly with a cold smile. Worse than that, the wife sees herhusband tortured in gaol; the husband sees his wife a victim to somehorrible disease, lands gone, houses destroyed by flood or fire, andeverything in an unutterable plight--the reward of former sins. "

Confucius declined absolutely to discuss the supernatural in any formor shape, his one object being to improve human conduct in this life, without attempting to probe that state from which man is divided bydeath. At the same time, he was no scoffer; for although he declaredthat "the study of the supernatural is injurious indeed, " and somewhatcynically bade his followers "show respect to spiritual beings, but keepthem at a distance, " yet in another passage we read: "He who offendsagainst God has no one to whom he can pray. " Again, when he wasseriously ill, a disciple asked if he might offer up prayer. Confuciusdemurred to this, pointing out that he himself had been praying for aconsiderable period; meaning thereby that his life had been one longprayer. 

CHAPTER XII--THE OUTLOOK

There is a very common statement made by persons who have lived inChina--among the people, but not of them--and the more superficial theacquaintance, the more emphatically is the statement made, that theordinary Chinaman, be he prince or peasant, offers to the Westernobserver an insoluble puzzle in every department of his life. He is, infact, a standing enigma; a human being, it may be granted, but one whocan no more be classed than his unique monosyllabic language, whichstill stands isolated and alone. 

This estimate is largely based upon some exceedingly false inferences. It seems to be argued that because, in a great many matters, theChinaman takes a diametrically opposite view to our own, he mustnecessarily be a very eccentric fellow; but as these are mostly mattersof convention, the argument is just as valid against us as against him. "Strange people, those foreigners, " he may say, and actually does say;"they make their compass point north instead of south. They take offtheir hats in company instead of keeping them on. They mount a horseon its left instead of on its right side. They begin dinner with soupinstead of dessert, and end it with dessert instead of soup. They drinktheir wine cold instead of hot. Their books all open at the wrong end, and the lines in a page are horizontal instead of vertical. They puttheir guests on the right instead of on the left, though it is true thatwe did that until several hundred years ago. Their music, too, is sofunny, it is more like noise; and as for their singing, it is onlyvery loud talking. Then their women are so immodest; striding about inball-rooms with very little on, and embracing strange men in a whirligigwhich they call dancing, but very unlike the dignified movements whichour male dancers exhibit in the Confucian temple. Their men and womenshake hands, though know from our sacred Book of Rites that men andwomen should not even pass things from one to another, for fear theirhands should touch. Then, again, all foreigners, sometimes the womenalso, carry sticks, which can only be for beating innocent people; andtheir so-called mandarins and others ride races and row boats, insteadof having coolies to do these things for them. They are strange peopleindeed; very clever at cunning, mechanical devices, such as fire-ships, fire-carriages, and air-cars; but extremely ferocious and almostentirely uncivilized. "

Such would be a not exaggerated picture of the mental attitude ofthe Chinaman towards his enigma, the foreigner. From the Chinaman'simperturbable countenance the foreigner seeks in vain for someindications of a common humanity within; and simply because he has notthe wit to see it, argues that it is not there. But there it is all thetime. The principles of general morality, and especially of duty towardsone's neighbour, the restrictions of law, and even the conventionalitiesof social life, upon all of which the Chinaman is more or less nourishedfrom his youth upwards, remain, when accidental differences have beenbrushed away, upon a bed-rock of ground common to both East and West;and it is difficult to see how such teachings could possibly turn out arace of men so utterly in contrast with the foreigner as the Chineseare usually supposed to be. It is certain that anything like a fulland sincere observance of the Chinese rules of life would result in acommunity of human beings far ahead of the "pure men" dreamt of in thephilosophy of the Taoists. 

As has already been either stated or suggested, the Chinese seem to beactuated by precisely the same motives which actuate other peoples. Theydelight in the possession of wealth and fame, while fully alive to thetransitory nature of both. They long even more for posterity, thatthe ancestral line may be carried on unbroken. They find their chiefpleasures in family life, and in the society of friends, of books, ofmountains, of flowers, of pictures, and of objects dear to the collectorand the connoisseur. Though a nation of what the Scotch would call"sober eaters, " they love the banquet hour, and to a certain extentverify their own saying that "Man's heart is next door to his stomach. "In centuries past a drunken nation, some two to three hundred yearsago they began to come under the influence of opium, and the abuse ofalcohol dropped to a minimum. Opium smoking, less harmful a great dealthan opium eating, took the place of drink, and became the nationalvice; but the extent of its injury to the people has been muchexaggerated, and is not to be compared with that of alcohol in the West. It is now, in consequence of recent legislation, likely to disappear, onwhich result there could be nothing but the warmest congratulations tooffer, but for the fact that something else, more insidious and deadlystill, is rapidly taking its place. For a time, it was thought thatalcohol might recover its sway, and it is still quite probable thathuman cravings for stimulant of some kind will find a partial relief inthat direction. The present enemy, however, and one that demands seriousand immediate attention, is morphia, which is being largely importedinto China in the shape of a variety of preparations suitable to thepublic demand. A passage from opium to morphia would be worse, ifpossible, than from the frying-pan into the fire. 

The question has often been asked, but has never found a satisfactoryanswer, why and how it is that Chinese civilization has persistedthrough so many centuries, while other civilizations, with equal if notsuperior claims to permanency, have been broken up and have disappearedfrom the sites on which they formerly flourished. Egypt may be able toboast of a high level of culture at a remoter date than we can reachthrough the medium of Chinese records, for all we can honestly claimis that the Chinese were a remarkably civilized nation a thousand yearsbefore Christ. That was some time before Greek civilization can be saidto have begun; yet the Chinese nation is with us still, and but forcontact with the Western barbarian, would be leading very much the samelife that it led so many centuries ago. 

Some would have us believe that the bond which has held the peopletogether is the written language, which is common to the whole Empire, and which all can read in the same sense, though the pronunciation ofwords varies in different provinces as much as that of words in English, French, or German. Others have suggested that to the teachings ofConfucius, which have outlived the competition of Taoism, Buddhism andother faiths, China is indebted for the tie which has knitted men'shearts together, and enabled them to defy any process of disintegration. There is possibly some truth in all such theories; but these areincomplete unless a considerable share of the credit is allowed to thespirit of personal freedom which seems to breathe through all Chineseinstitutions, and to unite the people in resistance to every form ofoppression. The Chinese have always believed in the divine right ofkings; on the other hand, their kings must bear themselves as kings, andlive up to their responsibilities as well as to the rights they claim. Otherwise, the obligation is at an end, and their subjects will havenone of them. Good government exists in Chinese eyes only whenthe country is prosperous, free from war, pestilence and famine. Misgovernment is a sure sign that God has withdrawn His mandate from theemperor, who is no longer fit to rule. It then remains to replace theemperor by one who is more worthy of Divine favour, and this usuallymeans the final overthrow of the dynasty. 

The Chinese assert their right to put an evil ruler to death, and it isnot high treason, or criminal in any way, to proclaim this principle inpublic. It is plainly stated by the philosopher Mencius, whose writingsform a portion of the Confucian Canon, and are taught in the ordinarycourse to every Chinese youth. One of the feudal rulers was speaking toMencius about a wicked emperor of eight hundred years back, who had beenattacked by a patriot hero, and who had perished in the flames of hispalace. "May then a subject, " he asked, "put his sovereign to death?"To which Mencius replied that any one who did violence to man'snatural charity of heart, or failed altogether in his duty towardshis neighbour, was nothing more than an unprincipled ruffian; and heinsinuated that it had been such a ruffian, in fact, not an emperorin the true sense of the term, who had perished in the case they werediscussing. Another and most important point to be remembered in anyattempt to discover the real secret of China's prolonged existence asa nation, also points in the direction of democracy and freedom. Thehighest positions in the state have always been open, through the mediumof competitive examinations, to the humblest peasant in the empire. Itis solely a question of natural ability coupled with an intellectualtraining; and of the latter, it has already been shown that there is nolack at the disposal of even the poorest. China, then, according to ahigh authority, has always been at the highest rung of the democraticladder; for it was no less a person than Napoleon who said: "Reasonabledemocracy will never aspire to anything more than obtaining an equalpower of elevation for all. "

In order to enforce their rights by the simplest and most bloodlessmeans, the Chinese have steadily cultivated the art of combiningtogether, and have thus armed themselves with an immaterial, invisibleweapon which simply paralyses the aggressor, and ultimately leaves themmasters of the field. The extraordinary part of a Chinese boycott orstrike is the absolute fidelity by which it is observed. If the boatmenor chair-coolies at any place strike, they all strike; there are noblacklegs. If the butchers refuse to sell, they all refuse, entirelyconfident in each other's loyalty. Foreign merchants who have offendedthe Chinese guilds by some course of action not approved by thosepowerful bodies, have often found to their cost that such conductwill not be tolerated for a moment, and that their only course is towithdraw, sometimes at considerable loss, from the untenable positionthey had taken up. The other side of the medal is equally instructive. Some years ago, the foreign tea-merchants at a large port, in order tocurb excessive charges, decided to hoist the Chinese tea-men, or sellersof tea, with their own petard. They organized a strict combinationagainst the tea-men, whose tea no colleague was to buy until, by whatseemed to be a natural order of events, the tea-men had been broughtto their knees. The tea-men, however, remained firm, their countenancesimpassive as ever. Before long, the tea-merchants discovered that someof their number had broken faith, and were doing a roaring business fortheir own account, on the terms originally insisted on by the tea-men. 

There is no longer any doubt that China is now in the early stagesof serious and important changes. Her old systems of education andexamination are to be greatly modified, if not entirely remodelled. The distinctive Chinese dress is to be shorn of two of its mostdistinguishing features--the _queue_ of the man and the small feet ofthe woman. The coinage is to be brought more into line with commercialrequirements. The administration of the law is to be so improved thatan honest demand may be made--as Japan made it some years back--for theabolition of extra-territoriality, a treaty obligation under which Chinagives up all jurisdiction over resident foreigners, and agrees thatthey shall be subject, civilly and criminally alike, only to their ownauthorities. The old patriarchal form of government, autocratic in namebut democratic in reality, which has stood the Chinese people in suchgood stead for an unbroken period of nearly twenty-two centuries, isalso to change with the changes of the hour, in the hope that a new erawill be inaugurated, worthy to rank with the best days of a gloriouspast. 

And here perhaps it may be convenient if a slight outline is given ofthe course marked out for the future. China is to have a "constitution"after the fashion of most foreign nations; and her people, whose soleweapon of defence and resistance, albeit one of deadly efficiency, hashitherto been combination of the masses against the officials set overthem, are soon to enjoy the rights of representative government. By anImperial decree, issued late in 1907, this principle was established;and by a further decree, issued in 1908, it was ordered that at theend of a year provincial assemblies, to deliberate on matters of localgovernment, were to be convened in all the provinces and certainother portions of the empire, as a first step towards the end in view. Membership of these assemblies was to be gained by election, coupledwith a small property qualification; and the number of members in eachassembly was to be in proportion to the number of electors in eacharea, which works out roughly at about one thousand electors toeach representative. In the following year a census was to be taken, provincial budgets were to be drawn up, and a new criminal code was tobe promulgated, on the strength of which new courts of justice wereto be opened by the end of the third year. By 1917, there was to be aNational Assembly or Parliament, consisting of an Upper and Lower House, and a prime minister was to be appointed. 

On the 14th of October 1909 these provincial assemblies met for thefirst time. The National Assembly was actually opened on the 3rd ofOctober 1910; and in response to public feeling, an edict was issued amonth later ordering the full constitution to be granted within threeyears from date. It is really a single chamber, which contains theelements of two. It is composed of about one hundred members, appointedby the Throne and drawn from certain privileged classes, includingthirty-two high officials and ten distinguished scholars, together withthe same number of delegates from the provinces. Those who obtain seatsare to serve for three years, and to have their expenses defrayed by thestate. It is a consultative and not an executive body; its function isto discuss such subjects as taxation, the issue of an annual budget, theamendment of the law, etc. , all of which subjects are to be approved bythe emperor before being submitted to this assembly, and also to dealwith questions sent up for decision from the provincial assemblies. Similarly, any resolution to be proposed must be backed by at leastthirty members, and on being duly passed by a majority, must thenbe embodied in a memorial to the Throne. For passing and submittingresolutions which may be classed under various headings asobjectionable, the assembly can at once be dissolved by Imperial edict. 

There are, so far, no distinct parties in the National Assembly, thatis, as regards the places occupied in the House. Men of various shadesof opinion, Radicals, Liberals and Conservatives, are all mixed uptogether. The first two benches are set aside for representatives of thenobility, with precedence from the left of the president round to hisright. Then come officials, scholars and leading merchants on thenext two benches. Behind them, again, on four rows of benches, are thedelegates from the provincial assemblies. There is thus a kind of Houseof Lords in front, with a House of Commons, the representatives ofthe nation, at the back. The leanings of the former class, as might besupposed, are mostly of a conservative tendency, while the sympathiesof the latter are rather with progressive ideas; at the same time, therewill be found among the Lords a certain sprinkling of Radicals, andamong the Commons not a few whose views are of an antiquated, not to sayreactionary, type. 

With the above scheme the Chinese people are given to understand quiteclearly that while their advice in matters concerning the administrationof government will be warmly welcomed, all legislative power willremain, as heretofore, confined to the emperor alone. At the firstblush, this seems like giving with one hand and taking away with theother; and so perhaps it would work out in more than one nation of theWest. But those who know the Chinese at home know that when they offerpolitical advice they mean it to be taken. The great democracy of China, living in the greatest republic the world has ever seen, would nevertolerate any paltering with national liberties in the present or in thefuture, any more than has been the case in the past. Those who sit inthe seats of authority at the capital are far too well acquainted withthe temper of their countrymen to believe for a moment that, where suchvital interests are concerned, there can be anything contemplated savesteady and satisfactory progress towards the goal proposed. If theruling Manchus seize the opportunity now offered them, then, in spite ofsimmering sedition here and there over the empire, they may succeedin continuing a line which in its early days had a glorious record ofachievement, to the great advantage of the Chinese nation. If, on theother hand, they neglect this chance, there may result one of thosefrightful upheavals from which the empire has so often suffered. Chinawill pass again through the melting-pot, to emerge once more, as on allprevious occasions, purified and strengthened by the process. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. _The Chinese Classics_, by James Legge, D. D. , late Professor ofChinese at Oxford. 

A translation of the whole of the Confucian Canon, comprising the FourBooks in which are given the discourses of Confucius and Mencius, theBook of History, the Odes, the Annals of Confucius' native State, theBook of Rites, and the Book of Changes. 

2. _The Ancient History of China_, by F. Hirth, Ph. D. , Professor ofChinese at Columbia University, New York. 

A sketch of Chinese history from fabulous ages down to 221 B. C. , containing a good deal of information of an antiquarian character, andaltogether placing in its most attractive light what must necessarily berather a dull period for the general reader. 

3. _China_, by E. H. Parker, Professor of Chinese at VictoriaUniversity, Manchester. 

A general account of China, chiefly valuable for commercial andstatistical information, sketch-maps of ancient trade-routes, etc. 

4. _A Chinese Biographical Dictionary_, by H. A. Giles, LL. D. , Professorof Chinese at the University of Cambridge. 

This work contains 2579 short lives of Chinese Emperors, statesmen, generals, scholars, priests, and other classes, including somewomen, from the earliest times down to the present day, arrangedalphabetically. 

5. _A Comprehensive Geography of the Chinese Empire_, by L. Richard. 

This work is rightly named "comprehensive, " for it contains a great dealof information which cannot be strictly classed as geographical, all ofwhich, however, is of considerable value to the student. 

6. _Descriptive Sociology (Chinese)_, by E. T. C. Werner, H. B. M. Consulat Foochow. 

A volume of the series initiated by Herbert Spenger. It consists of alarge number of sociological facts grouped and arranged in chronologicalorder, and is of course purely a work of reference. 

7. _A History of Chinese Literature_, by H. A. Giles. 

Notes on two or three hundred writers of history, philosophy, biography, travel, poetry, plays, fiction, etc. , with a large number of translatedextracts grouped under the above headings and arranged in chronologicalorder. 

8. _Chinese Poetry in English Verse_, by H. A. Giles. 

Rhymed translations of nearly two hundred short poems from the earliestages down to the present times. 

9. _An Introduction to the History of Chinese Pictorial Art_, by H. A. Giles. 

Notes on the lives and works of over three hundred painters of allages, chiefly translated from the writings of Chinese art-critics, withsixteen reproductions of famous Chinese pictures. 

10. _Scraps from a Collector's Note-book_, by F. Hirth. 

Chiefly devoted to notes on painters of the present dynasty, 1644-1905, with twenty-one reproductions of famous pictures, forming acomplementary supplement to No. 9. 

11. _Religions of Ancient China_, by H. A. Giles. 

A short account of the early worship of one God, followed by briefnotices of Taoism, Buddhism, Nestorian Christianity, Mahommedanism, andother less well-known faiths which have been introduced at various datesinto China. 

12. _Chinese Characteristics_, by the Rev. Arthur Smith, D. D. 

A humorous but at the same time serious examination into the modes ofthought and springs of action which peculiarly distinguish the Chinesepeople. 

13. _Village Life in China_, by the Rev. Arthur Smith. 

The scope of this work is sufficiently indicated by its title. 

14. _China under the Empress Dowager_, by J. O. Bland, and E. Backhouse. 

An interesting account of Chinese Court Life between 1860 and 1908, with important sidelights on the Boxer troubles and the Siege of theLegations in 1900. 

15. _The Imperial History of China_, by Rev. J. Macgowan. 

A short and compact work on a subject which has not been successfullyhandled. 

16. _Indiscreet Letters from Peking_, by B. Putnam Weale. 

Though too outspoken to meet with general approbation, this work isconsidered by many to give the most faithful account of the Siege of theLegations, as seen by an independent witness. 

17. _Buddhism as a Religion_, by H. Hackmann, Lic. Theol. 

A very useful volume, translated from the German, showing the variousdevelopments of Buddhism in different parts of the world. 

18. _Chuang Tzu_, by H. A. Giles. 

A complete translation of the writings of the leading Taoistphilosopher, who flourished in the fourth and third centuries B. C.