KIEN Lung was the fourth Emperor of the Tartar dynasty, which now
possesses the throne of China. When the annexed Sketch was taken he was
eighty-three years of age, but had all the appearance of a hale,
vigorous man of sixty. Indeed his whole life had been spent in the
active discharge of public business, and in the violent exercise of
hunting and shooting in the wild regions of Tartary, which he continued
with unabated zeal almost to the period of life above mentioned. He
always commenced public business at two or three in the morning, and
gave audience to foreign ambassadors at that early hour, whether in
winter or summer, and he generally retired to rest at sunset; and to
this invariable habit of rising and retiring at an early hour, he
attributed much of his healthy and vigorous constitution.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration:
CHINA—PLATE 3
]
Plate III.