IT is a peculiar feature in all the Oriental nations, that the most
beautiful specimens of workmanship in the various arts are made with the
most simple and at the same time most clumsy tools. The artificers
moreover are rarely fixed, or settled in a workshop convenient for their
purposes, but generally travel about the country carrying their shop and
apparatus with them. The annexed figure represents an itinerant smith,
who has more tools than almost any other artificer of China, and yet
performs his work the worst. Their cast iron is light and good, but
their manufactures of wrought iron are very indifferent: they can
neither make a hinge, nor a lock, nor even a nail that can be called
good. The bellows of the smith is a box with a valvular piston, which,
when not in use, serves as a seat, and also to contain his tools. The
barber also makes a seat of his basket; the joiner uses his rule as a
walking-stick, and the same chest that holds his tools serves him as a
bench to work upon: such are the expedients which thousands resort to,
both in India and China.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration:
CHINA—PLATE 28
]
Plate XXVIII.