The use of the magnetic needle, and improvements in navigation, made a

new era in intercourse with the Orient. It is supposed that the first

voyage from Europe to China was made by a Portuguese vessel in 1516.

From this period commercial intercourse with China became more frequent,

and various embassies were sent to the Chinese court by different

nations of Europe. Unfortunately the growing familiarity of the Chinese

with western nations did not increase their respect and confidence in

them. This was due partly to the servility of most of the embassies to

Peking, but principally, no doubt, to the want of honesty and the

general lawlessness of most of the traders from the west. The

consequence was that the Chinese became desirous of restricting foreign

intercourse, and exercising as strict surveillance over their

troublesome visitors as possible.

Immediately after connection was established between Europe and the far

east by sea, another and a more successful effort was made by the Roman

church to propagate its faith in the Chinese empire, this being

coincident with the growth of the exchange of business. Francis Xavier,

in his attempt to gain an entrance into the country, died on one of the

islands of the coast in 1552. Toward the close of the Sixteenth century

the Portuguese appeared upon the scene, and from their “concession” at

Macao, at one time the residence of Camoens, opened commercial relations

between China and the west. They brought the Chinese, among other

things, opium, which had previously been imported overland from India.

They possibly taught them how to make gunpowder, to the invention of

which the Chinese do not seem, upon striking a balance of evidence, to

possess an independent claim. About the same time Rome contributed the

first installment of those wonderful Jesuit fathers whose names yet echo

in the empire, the memory of their scientific labors and the benefits

they thus conferred upon China having long survived the wreck and

discredit of the faith to which they devoted their lives. At this

distance of time it does not appear to be a wild statement, to assert

that had the Jesuits, the Franciscans, and the Dominicans been able to

resist quarreling among themselves, and had they rather united to

persuade papal infallibility to permit the incorporation of

ancestor-worship with the rites and ceremonies of the Romish church,

China would at this moment be a Catholic country and Buddhism, Taoism,

and Confucianism would long since have receded into the past.

[Illustration: CHINESE PRIEST.]

Of all these Jesuit missionaries, the name of Matteo Ricci stands by

common consent upon the long list. He established himself in Canton in

the garb of a Buddhist priest in 1581. He was a man of varied

intellectual gifts and extensive learning, united with indomitable

energy, zeal and perseverance, and great prudence. In 1601 he reached

Peking in the dress of a literary gentleman. He spent many years in

China. He associated with the highest personages in the land. He

acquired an unrivalled knowledge of the book language, and left behind

him several valuable treatises of a metaphysical and theological

character, written in such a polished style as to command the

recognition and even the admiration of the Chinese. One of his most

intimate friends and fellow workers was the well-known scholar and

statesman, Hsu Kuang-chi, the author of a voluminous compendium of

agriculture, and joint author of the large work which introduced

European astronomy to the Chinese. He was appointed by the emperor to

co-operate with other Jesuit missionaries in reforming the national

calendar, which had gradually reached a stage of hopeless inaccuracy. He

wrote independently several small scientific works; also a severe

criticism of the Buddhist religion, and finally, not least in

importance, a defense of the Jesuits, addressed to the throne, when

their influence at court had begun to excite envy and distrust. Hsu

Kuang-chi forms the sole exception in the history of China of a scholar

and a man of means and position on the side of Christianity.

[Illustration: MAN OF SWATOW.]

The age of the Chings is the age in which we live, but it is not so

familiar to some persons as it ought to be that a Tartar and not a

Chinese sovereign is now seated on the throne in China. For some time

after the accession of the first Manchoo emperor, there was considerable

friction between the two races. The subjugation of the empire by the

Manchoos was followed by a military occupation of the country, which

survived the original necessity, and has remained part of the system of

government until the present day. The dynasty thus founded, partly by

accident as it seems, as was related in the last chapter, has remained

in power through the entire period of intercourse with western nations.

The title adopted by the first emperor of the line was Shun-che. It was

during the reign of this sovereign that Adam Schaal, a German Jesuit,

took up his residence at Peking and that the first Russian embassy,

1656, visited the capital. But in those days the Chinese had not learned

to tolerate the idea that a foreigner should enter the presence of the

Son of Heaven unless he were willing to perform the prostration known as

the Ko-t’ow, and the Russians not being inclined to humor any such

presumptuous folly left the capital without opening negotiations.

Of the nine emperors of this line, from the first to the present, the

second in every way fills the largest space in Chinese history. Kang Hi,

the son of Shun-che, reigned for sixty-one years. This sovereign is

renowned in modern Chinese history as a model ruler, a skillful general

and an able author. During his reign Thibet was added to the empire, and

the Eleuths were successfully subdued. But it is as a just and

considerate ruler that he is best remembered among the people. He

treated the early Catholic priests with kindness and distinction, and

availed himself in many ways of their scientific knowledge. He

promulgated sixteen moral maxims collectively known as the “Sacred

Edict,” forming a complete code of rules for the guidance of every day

life, and presented in such terse, yet intelligible terms, that they at

once took firm hold of the public mind and have retained their position

ever since. Kang Hi was the most successful patron of literature the

world has ever seen. He caused to be published under his own personal

supervision the four following compilations, known as the four great

works of the present dynasty: A huge thesaurus of extracts in one

hundred and ten thick volumes; an encyclopedia in four hundred and fifty

books, usually bound in one hundred and sixty volumes; an enlarged and

improved edition of a herbarium in one hundred books; and a complete

collection of the important philosophical writings of Chu Hsi in

sixty-six books. In addition to these the emperor designed and gave his

name to the great modern lexicon of the Chinese language, which contains

over forty thousand characters under separate entries, accompanied in

each case by appropriate citations from the works of authors of every

age and every style. The monumental encyclopedia contains articles on

every known subject, and extracts from all works of authority dating

from the twelfth century B.C. to that time. As only one hundred copies

of the first imperial edition were printed, all of which were presented

to princes of the blood and high officials, it is rapidly becoming

extremely rare, and it is not unlikely that before long the copy in the

possession of the British museum will be the only complete copy

existing. A cold caught on a hunting excursion in Mongolia brought his

memorable reign of sixty-one years to a close, and he was succeeded on

the throne by his son Yung Ching.

The labors of the missionaries during the years of this last reign have

been effective in establishing many churches and bishoprics, and in

making many thousands of converts. But the suspicions in the minds of

the Chinese rulers that the Christians were leagued with rebels, as well

as the controversies between the different sects, antagonized the

authorities. Under the third Manchoo emperor, Yung Ching, began that

violent persecution of the Catholics which continued almost to the

present day, and in the year 1723 an edict was promulgated prohibiting

the further propagation of this religion in the empire. From this time

the Roman Catholics were subjected to this persecution except for a few

alternate periods of comparative toleration. They have retained their

position in the face of great difficulties and trials, and since the

late treaties with China the number of their converts has rapidly

increased.

After a reign of twelve years, Yung Ching was gathered to his fathers,

having bequeathed the throne to his son Kien Lung. This fourth emperor

of the dynasty enjoyed a long and glorious reign. He possessed many of

the great qualities of his grandfather, but he lacked his wisdom and

moderation. His generals led a large army into Nepaul and conquered the

Goorkhas, reaching a point only some sixty miles distant from British

territory. He carried his armies north, south, and west, and converted

Kuldja into a Chinese province. But in Burmah, Cochin China, and Formosa

his troops suffered discomfiture. During his reign, which extended over

sixty years, a full Chinese cycle, the relations of his government with

the East India Company were extremely unsatisfactory. The English

merchants were compelled to submit to many indignities and wrongs; and

for the purpose of establishing a better international understanding

Lord Macartney was sent by George III. on a special mission to the court

of Peking. The ambassador was received graciously by the emperor, who

accepted the presents sent him by the English king, but owing to his

ignorance of his own relative position, and of even the rudiments of

international law, he declined to give those assurances of a more

equitable policy which were demanded of him.

[Illustration: CHINESE PAPER-MAKING.]

Like his illustrious ancestor, Kien Lung was a generous patron of

literature, though only two instead of five great literary monuments

remain to mark his sixty years of power. These are a magnificent

bibliographical work in two hundred parts, consisting of a catalogue of

the books in the imperial library, with valuable historical and critical

notices attached to the entries of each; and a huge topography of the

whole empire in five hundred books, beyond doubt one of the most

comprehensive and exhaustive works of the kind ever published. Kang Hi

had been a voluminous poet; but the productions of Kien Lung far

outnumber those of any previous or subsequent bard. For more than fifty

years this emperor was an industrious poet, finding time in the

intervals of state duties to put together no fewer than thirty-three

thousand nine hundred and fifty separate pieces. In the estimation

however of this apparently impossible contribution to poetic literature,

it must always be borne in mind that the stanza of four lines is a

favorite length for a poem and that the couplet is not uncommon. Even

thus a large balance stands to the credit of a Chinese emperor, whose

time is rarely his own, and whose day is divided with wearisome

regularity, beginning with councils and audiences long before daylight

has appeared. We gain a glimpse into Kien Lung’s court from the account

of Lord Macartney’s embassy in 1795, which was so favorably received by

the venerable monarch a short time previous to his abdication, and three

years before his death, and forms such a contrast with that of Lord

Amherst to his successor in 1816. In 1795, at the age of eighty-five

years, Kien Lung abdicated in favor of his fifteenth son who ascended

the throne with the title of Kea King.

During the reign of Kea King, a second English embassy was sent to

Peking, in 1816, to represent to the emperor the unsatisfactory position

of the English merchants in China. The envoy, Lord Amherst, was met at

the mouth of the Peiho and conducted to Yuen-ming-yuen or summer palace,

where the emperor was residing. On his arrival he was officially warned

that only on condition of his performing the Ko-t’ow would he be

permitted to behold “the dragon countenance.” This of course was

impossible, and he consequently left the palace without having slept a

night under its roof.

[Illustration: CHINESE PEASANT, PEIHO DISTRICT.]

Meanwhile the internal affairs of the country were even more disturbed

than the foreign relations. A succession of rebellions broke out in the

western and northern provinces and the sea-boards were ravaged by

pirates. While these disturbing causes were in full play the emperor

died, in 1820, and the throne devolved upon Tao Kuang, his second son.

It was during the reign of Kea King that Protestant missionaries

initiated a systematic attempt to convert the Chinese to Christianity;

but the religious toleration of these people, which on the whole has

been a marked feature in their civilization of all ages, had been sorely

tried by the Catholics and but little progress was made. In another

direction some of the early Protestant missionaries did great service to

the world at large. They spent much of their time in grappling with the

difficulties of the written language; and the publication of Dr.

Morrison’s famous dictionary and the achievements of Dr. Legge were the

culmination of these labors.

Under Tao Kuang both home and foreign affairs went from bad to worse. A

secret league known as the Triad Society, which was first formed during

the reign of Kang Hi, now assumed a formidable bearing, and in many

parts of the country, notably in Honan, Kwang-hsi, and Formosa,

insurrections broke out at its instigation. At the same time the

mandarins continued to persecute the English merchants, and on the

expiration of the East India Company’s monopoly in 1834 the English

government sent Lord Napier to Canton to superintend the foreign trade

at that port. Thwarted at every turn by the presumptuous obstinacy of

the mandarins, Lord Napier’s health gave way under the constant

vexations connected with his post, and he died at Macao after but a few

months’ residence in China.

The opium trade was now the question of the hour, and at the urgent

demand of Commissioner Lin, Captain Elliot, the superintendent of trade,

agreed that all opium in the hands of English merchants should be given

up to the authorities. On the 3rd of April, 1839, twenty thousand two

hundred and eighty-three chests of opium were, in accordance with this

agreement, handed over to the mandarins, who burnt them to ashes. This

demand of Lin’s, though agreed to by the superintendent of trade, was

considered so unreasonable by the English government that in the

following year war was declared against China. The island of Chusan and

the Bogue forts on the Canton river soon fell into the English hands,

and Commissioner Lin’s successor sought to purchase peace by the cession

of Hong Kong and the payment of an indemnity of $6,000,000. This

convention was, however, repudiated by the Peking government, and it was

not until Canton, Amoy, Ningpo, Shanghai, Chapoo and Chin-keang Foo had

been taken by the British troops, that the emperor at last consented to

come to terms, now of course far more onerous. By a treaty made by Sir

Henry Pottinger in 1842 the cession of Hong Kong was supplemented by the

opening of the four ports of Amoy, Foochow Foo, Ningpo, and Shanghai to

foreign trade, and the indemnity of $6,000,000 was increased to

$21,000,000.

Without noticing the other points at issue and the merits of the dispute

concerning them, it is considered by the world at large that one of the

blackest pages in the records of the history of civilization is that

which tells of the forcing of the opium traffic upon the Chinese by

Great Britain. The Chinese people were making most strenuous efforts to

abolish the traffic in opium and the habit of its use, which had been

introduced from India, and which was rapidly becoming the curse of the

nation. But for commercial motives, in this Victorian age of

civilization, England sent to force compliance with the demand of her

merchants in China that the sale of the drug be legalized. The rapid

spread of the use of opium among the hundreds of millions of Chinese,

dating from this time, may be charged against England, in the long

account which records the oppression and the shame of her dealings with

whatever eastern nation she has played the game of war and colonization

and annexation.

[Illustration: BATTLE OF CRICKETS.]

Death put an end to Tao Kuang’s reign in 1850, and his fourth son, Hien

Feng, assumed rule over the distracted empire which was bequeathed him

by his father. There is a popular belief among the Chinese that two

hundred years is the natural life of a dynasty. This is one of those

traditions which are apt to bring about their own fulfilment, and in the

beginning of the reign of Hien Feng the air was rife with rumors that an

effort was to be made to restore the Ming dynasty to the throne. On such

occasions there are always real or pretended scions of the required

family forthcoming. And when the flames of rebellion broke out in

Kwang-hsi a claimant suddenly appeared under the title of Teen-tih,

“heavenly virtue,” to head the movement. But he had not the capacity

required to play the necessary part, and the affair languished and would

have died out altogether had not a leader named Hung Sew-tseuen arose,

who combined all the qualities required in a leader of men, energy,

enthusiasm, and religious bigotry.

[Illustration: CHINESE MANDARIN.]

As soon as he was sufficiently powerful he advanced northward into Honan

and Hoopih, and captured Woo-chang Foo, the capital of the last named

province, and a city of great commercial and strategical importance,

situated as it is at the junction of the Han river with the Chiang.

Having made this place secure he advanced down the river and made

himself master of Gan-ting and the old capital of the empire, Nanking.

Here in 1852 he established his throne, and proclaimed the commencement

of Taiping dynasty. For himself he adopted the title of Teen-wang, or

“heavenly king.” For a time all went well with the new dynasty. The

Tai-ping standard was carried northward to the walls of Tien-tsin and

floated over the towns of Chin-keang Foo and Soochow Foo.

Meanwhile the imperial authorities had by their stupidity raised another

enemy against themselves. The outrage on the English flag perpetrated on

board the Chinese lorcha “Arrow,” at Canton in 1857, having been left

unredressed by the mandarins, led to the proclamation of war by England.

Canton fell to the arms of General Straubenzee, and Sir Michael Seymour

in December of the same year, and in the following spring the Taku forts

at the mouth of the Peiho having been taken, Lord Elgin, who had in the

meantime arrived as plenipotentiary minister, advanced up the river to

Tien-tsin on his way to the capital. At that city, however, he was met

by imperial commissioners, and yielding to their entreaties he concluded

a treaty with them which it was arranged should be ratified at Peking in

the following year.

But the evil genius of the Chinese still pursuing them, they

treacherously fired on the fleet accompanying Sir Frederic Bruce, Lord

Elgin’s brother, proceeding in 1860 to Peking, in fulfillment of this

agreement. This outrage rendered another military expedition necessary,

and in conjunction with the French government, the English cabinet sent

out a force under the command of Sir Hope Grant, with orders to march to

Peking. In the summer of 1861 the allied forces landed at Peh-tang, a

village twelve miles north of the Taku forts, and taking these

intrenchments in the rear captured them with but a trifling loss. This

success was so utterly unexpected by the Chinese, that leaving Tien-tsin

unprotected they retreated rapidly to the neighborhood of the capital.

The allies pushed on after them, and in reply to an invitation sent from

the imperial commissioners at Tung-chow, a town twelve miles from

Peking, Sir Harry Parkes and Mr. Loch, accompanied by an escort and some

few friends, went in advance of the army to make a preliminary

convention. While so engaged they were treacherously taken prisoners and

carried to Peking.

This act precipitated an engagement in which the Chinese were completely

routed, and the allies marched on to Peking. After the usual display of

obstinacy the Chinese yielded to the demand for the surrender of the

An-ting gate of the city. From this vantage point Lord Elgin opened

negotiations, and having secured the release of Sir Harry Parkes and the

other prisoners who had survived the tortures to which they had been

subjected, and having burnt the summer palace of the emperor as a

punishment for their treacherous capture and for the cruelties

perpetrated on them, he concluded a treaty with Prince Kung, the

representative of the emperor. By this instrument the Chinese agreed to

pay a war indemnity of $8,000,000 and to open six other ports in China,

one in Formosa, and one in the island of Hainan to foreign trade, and to

permit the representatives of the foreign governments to reside at

Peking.

[Illustration: GATE AT PEKING.]

Having thus relieved themselves from the presence of a foreign foe, the

authorities were able to devote their attention to the suppression of

the Tai-ping rebellion. Fortunately for themselves, the apparent

friendliness with which they greeted the arrival of the British legation

at Peking enlisted for them the sympathies of Sir Frederic Bruce, the

British minister, and inclined him to listen to their request for the

services of an English officer in their campaign against the rebels. At

the request of Bruce, General Staveley selected Major Gordon, since

generally known as Chinese Gordon, who was killed a few years ago at

Khartoom, for this duty. A better man or one more peculiarly fit for the

work could have been found. A numerous force known as “the ever

victorious army,” partly officered by foreigners, had for some time been

commanded by an American named Ward and after his death by Burgevine,

another American. Over this force Gordon was placed, and at the head of

it he marched in conjunction with the Chinese generals against the

Tai-pings. With masterly strategy he struck a succession of rapid and

telling blows against the fortunes of the rebels. City after city fell

into his hands, and at length the leaders at Soochow opened the gates of

the city to him on condition that he would spare their lives. With cruel

treachery, when these men presented themselves before Li Hung Chang to

offer their submission to the emperor, they were seized and beheaded. On

learning how lightly his word had been treated by the Chinese general,

Gordon armed himself, for the first time during the campaign with a

revolver, and sought out the Chinese headquarters intending to avenge

with his own hand this murder of the Tai-ping leaders. But Li Hung Chang

having received timely notice of the righteous anger he had aroused took

to flight, and Gordon, thus thwarted in his immediate object, threw up

his command feeling that it was impossible to continue to act with so

orientally-minded a colleague.

After considerable negotiation however, he was persuaded to return to

his command and soon succeeded in so completely crippling the power of

the rebels that in July 1864, Nanking, their last stronghold, fell into

the hands of the imperialists. Teen-wang was then already dead, and his

body was found within the walls wrapped in imperial yellow. Thus was

crushed out a rebellion which had paralyzed the imperial power in the

central provinces of the empire and which had for twelve years seriously

threatened the existence of the reigning dynasty.

[Illustration: OPIUM SMOKERS.]

Meanwhile in the summer following the conclusion of the treaty of

Peking, 1861, the emperor, Hien Feng, breathed his last at Jehol, an

event which was in popular belief foretold by the appearance of a comet

in the early part of the summer. He was succeeded to the throne by his

only son, a mere child, and the offspring of one of the imperial

concubines. He adopted the name of Tung Chih. On account of his youth

the administration of affairs was placed in the hands of the two dowager

empresses, the wife of the last emperor and the mother of the new one.

These regents were aided by the counsels of the boy emperor’s uncle,

Prince Kung.

Under the direction of these regents, though the internal affairs of the

empire prospered, the foreign relations were disturbed by the display of

an increasingly hostile spirit towards the Christian missionaries and

their converts, which culminated in 1870 in the Tien-tsin massacre. In

some of the central provinces reports had been industriously circulated

that the Roman Catholic missionaries were in the habit of kidnapping and

murdering children, in order to make medicine from their eyeballs.

Ridiculous as the rumor was, it found ready credence among the ignorant

people, and several outrages were perpetrated on the missionaries and

their converts in Kwang-hsi and Sze-chwan. Through the active

interference, however, of the French minister on the spot, the agitation

was locally suppressed only to be renewed at Tien-tsin. Here also the

same absurd rumors were set afloat, and were especially directed against

some sisters of charity who had opened an orphanage in the city.

For some days previous to the massacre on the 21st of June, reports

increasing in alarm reached the foreign residents that an outbreak was

to be apprehended, and three times the English consul wrote to Chung

How, the superintendent of the three northern ports, calling upon him to

take measures to subdue the gathering passions of the people which had

been further dangerously exasperated by an infamous proclamation issued

by the prefects. To these communications the consul did not receive any

reply, and on the morning of the 21st, a day which had apparently been

deliberately fixed for the massacre, the attack was made. The mob first

broke into the French consulate and while the consul, M. Fontanier, was

with Chung How endeavoring to persuade him to interfere, two Frenchmen

and their wives, and Father Chevrien were there murdered. While

returning the consul suffered the same fate. Having thus whetted their

taste for blood, the rioters then set fire to the French cathedral, and

afterward moved on to the orphanage of the sisters of mercy. In spite of

the appeals of these defenseless women for mercy, if not for themselves

at least for the orphans under their charge, the mob broke into the

hospital, killed and mutilated most shockingly all the sisters,

smothered from thirty to forty children in the vault, and carried off a

still larger number of older persons to prisons in the city, where they

were subjected to tortures of which they bore terrible evidence when

their release was at length affected. In addition to these victims, a

Russian gentleman with his bride, and a friend, who were unfortunate

enough to meet the rioters on their way to the cathedral, were also

murdered. No other foreigners were injured, a circumstance due to the

fact that the fury of the mob was primarily directed against the French

Roman Catholics, and also that the foreign settlement where all but

those engaged in missionary work resided, was at a distance of a couple

of miles from the city.

When the evil was done, the Chinese authorities professed themselves

anxious to make reparation, and Chung How was eventually sent to Paris

to offer the apologies of the Peking cabinet to the French government.

These were ultimately accepted; and it was further arranged that the

Tien-tsin prefect and district magistrate should be removed from their

posts and degraded, and that twenty of the active murderers should be

executed. By these retributive measures the emperor’s government made

its peace with the European powers, and the foreign relations again

assumed their former friendly footing.

The Chinese had now leisure to devote their efforts to the subjugation

of the Panthay rebels. This was a great Mohammedan uprising which dated

back as far as 1856 and which had for its object the separation of the

province of Yun-nan into an independent state. The visit of the adopted

son of the rebel leader, the sultan Suleiman, to England, for the

purpose of attempting to enlist the sympathies of the English government

in the Panthay cause, no doubt added zest to the action of the

mandarins, who after a short but vigorous campaign, marked by scenes of

bloodshed and wholesale carnage, suppressed the rebellion and restored

the province to the imperial sway.

Peace was thus brought about, and when the empresses handed over the

reigns of power to the emperor, on the occasion of his marriage in 1872,

tranquility reigned throughout the eighteen provinces. The formal

assumption of power proclaimed by this marriage was considered by the

foreign ministers a fitting opportunity to insist on the fulfillment of

the article in the treaties which provided for their reception by the

emperor, and after much negotiation it was finally arranged that the

emperor should receive them on the 29th of June, 1873.

Very early therefore on the morning of that day, the ministers were

astir and were conducted in their sedan chairs to the park on the west

side of the palace, where they were met by some of the ministers of

state, who led them to the “Temple of Prayer for Seasonable Weather.”

Here they were kept waiting for some time while tea and confectionery

from the imperial kitchen, by favor of the emperor, were served to them.

They were then conducted to an oblong tent made of matting on the west

side of the Tsze-kwang pavilion, where they were met by Prince Kung and

other ministers. As soon as the emperor reached the pavilion, the

Japanese ambassador was introduced into his presence and when he had

retired the other foreign ministers entered the audience chamber in a

body. The emperor was seated facing southward. On either side of his

majesty stood, with Prince Kung, several princes and high officers. When

the foreign ministers reached the center aisle they halted and bowed one

and all together; they then advanced in line a little further and made a

second bow; and when they had nearly reached the yellow table on which

their credentials were to be deposited they bowed a third time; after

which they remained erect. M. Vlangaly, the Russian minister, then read

a congratulatory address in French, which was translated by an

interpreter into Chinese, and the ministers making another reverence

respectfully laid their letters of credence upon the yellow table. The

emperor was pleased to make a slight inclination of the head towards

them, and Prince Kung advancing to the left of the throne and falling

upon his knees, had the honor to be informed in Manchoo that his majesty

acknowledged the receipt of the letters presented. Prince Kung, with his

arms raised according to precedent set by Confucius when in the presence

of his sovereign, came down by the steps on the left of the desk, to the

foreign ministers, and respectfully repeated this in Chinese. After this

he again prostrated himself, and in like manner received and conveyed a

message to the effect that his majesty hoped that all foreign questions

would be satisfactorily disposed of. The ministers then withdrew, bowing

repeatedly, until they reached the entrance.

Thus ended the first instance during the present century of Europeans

being received in imperial audience. Whether under more fortunate

circumstances the ceremony might have been repeated it is difficult to

say, but in the following year the young emperor was stricken down with

the small-pox, or “enjoyed the felicity of the heavenly flowers,” and

finally succumbed to the disease on the twelfth of January, 1875. With

great ceremony the funeral obsequies were performed over the body of him

who had been Tung Chih, and the coffin was finally laid in the imperial

mausoleum among the eastern hills beside the remains of his

predecessors. His demise was shortly afterwards followed by the death of

the girl empress he had just previously raised to the throne.

For the first time in the annals of the Ching dynasty, the throne was

now left without a direct heir. As it is the office of the son and heir

to perform regularly the ancestral worship, it is necessary that if

there should be no son, the heir should be, if possible, of a later

generation than the deceased. In the present instance this was

impossible, and it was necessary therefore that the lot should fall on

one of the cousins of the late emperor. Tsai-teen, the son of the Prince

of Chun, a child not quite four years old, was chosen to fill the vacant

throne, and the title conferred upon him was Kuang Su or “an inheritance

of glory.”

Scarcely had the proclamation gone forth of the assumption of the

imperial title by Kuang Su, when news reached the English legation at

Peking of the murder at Manwyne, in the province of Yun-nan, of Mr.

Margary, an officer in the consular service who had been dispatched to

meet an expedition sent by the Indian government, under the command of

Colonel Horace Browne, to discover a route from Birmah into the

south-western provinces of China. In accordance with conventional

practice, the Chinese government, on being called to account for this

outrage, attempted to lay it to the charge of brigands. But the evidence

which Sir Thomas Wade was able to adduce proved too strong to be ignored

even by the Peking mandarins, and eventually they signed a convention in

which they practically acknowledged their blood guiltiness, under the

terms of which some fresh commercial privileges were granted, and an

indemnity was paid.

At the same time a Chinese nobleman was sent to England to make apology,

and to establish an embassy on a permanent footing at the court of St.

James. Since that time the Chinese empire has been at peace with all

foreign powers until the eruptions of the recent months. There have been

some narrow escapes from war with the European countries holding

possessions on the southern Chinese border, but serious results have not

followed. Ministers have been maintained in China by the western

nations, and by China in the western capitals.

Under the child Kuang Su, who came to the throne in 1875, we have seen

the completion of Chinese re-conquests in Central Asia and the

restoration of Kuldja by the Russians. For many years the progressive

party in the nation’s councils, under the leadership of Li Hung Chang,

Viceroy of Chihli, gradually appeared to gain ground, amply posted as

the court of Peking was in the affairs of western countries. Even the

old conservative party, of which the successful and the aged general Tso

Tsung-tang was the representative, has vastly modified its tone in the

last twenty years.

It is true that the short experimental line of railway which had been

laid down between Shanghai and Wusung was objected to, and finally got

rid of by the Chinese government; but the reason for this apparently

retrograde step arose out of the not very scrupulous means employed by

the promoters of the scheme, and out of the very natural dislike of an

independent state to be forced into innovations for which it may not be

altogether prepared. Since that time several telegraph lines have been

constructed, beginning with the first one between Peking and Shanghai,

which formed the final connecting link between the capital of the

Chinese empire and the western civilized world. The freedom of residence

has been greatly extended to foreigners living in China. Travel has

become safer, and popular hatred towards foreigners not as apparent.

Slow as it has been to take effect, nevertheless the influence of closer

association with western civilization has made its impress on the

Chinese nation, and the extreme conservatism in many details has been

compelled to waver. The stories of the war which are to follow will

indicate much of the characteristics of the later day history of the

empire.

THE CHINESE EMPIRE.

--------------

Origin of the Name of China, and What the Chinese Call their Own

Country—Dependencies of the Empire—China and the United States in

Comparison—Their Many Physical Similarities—Mountains and Plains—The

Fertile Soil—Provinces of China—Rivers and Lakes—Climate—Fauna and

Flora—Industries of the People—Commerce with Foreign Nations—The Cities

of China—Forms of Government and Administration.

Until recent years the word China was unknown in the empire which we

call by that name, but of late it has become more familiar to the

Chinese, and in certain regions they are in fact adopting it for their

own use, owing to the frequency with which they hear it from the

foreigners with whom they are doing business. The name was no doubt

introduced in Europe and America from the nations of Central Asia who

speak of the Chinese by various names derived from that of the powerful

Ching family, who held sway many centuries ago. The names which the

Chinese use in speaking of themselves are various. The most common one

is Chung Kwo, the “Middle Kingdom.” This term grew up in the feudal

period as a name for the royal domain in the midst of the other states,

or for those states as a whole in the midst of the uncivilized countries

around them. The assumption of universal sovereignty, of being the

geographical center of the world, and also the center of light and

civilization that have been so injurious to the nation, appear in

several of the most ancient names. In the oldest classical writings the

country is called the Flowery Kingdom, flowery presenting the idea of

beautiful, cultivated, and refined. The terms Heavenly Flowery Kingdom,

and Heavenly Dynasty are sometimes used, the word heavenly presenting

the Chinese idea that the empire is established by the authority of

heaven, and that the emperor rules by divine right. This title has given

rise to the contemptuous epithet applied to the race by the Europeans,

“The Celestials.”

The Chinese empire, consisting of China proper and Manchooria, with its

dependencies of Mongolia, I-li and Thibet, embraces a vast territory in

eastern and central Asia, only inferior in extent to the dominions of

Great Britain and Russia. The dependencies are not colonies but subject

territories; and China proper itself indeed, has been a subject

territory of Manchooria since 1644.

China proper was divided nearly two hundred years ago into eighteen

provinces; and since the recent separation of the island of Formosa from

Fu-chien, and its constitution into an independent province, we may say

that it now consists of nineteen. These form one of the corners of the

Asiatic continent, having the Pacific ocean on the south and east. They

are somewhat in the shape of an irregular rectangle, and including the

island of Hainan lie between 18 and 49 degrees north latitude and 98 and

124 degrees east longitude. Their area is about two million square

miles, while the whole empire has an area more than twice that large.

In giving a correct general idea of China one cannot perhaps do better

than to institute a comparison between it and the United States, to

which it bears a striking resemblance. It occupies the same position in

the eastern hemisphere that the United States does in the western. Its

line of sea coast on the Pacific resembles that of the United States on

the Atlantic, not only in length but also in contour. Being found within

almost the same parallels of latitude, it embraces almost the same

variety of climate and production. A river as grand as the Mississippi,

flowing east, divides the empire into nearly two equal parts, which are

often designated as “north of the river” and “south of the river.” It

passes through an immense and fertile valley, and is supplied by

numerous tributaries having rise in mountain ranges on either side and

also in the Himalayas on the west. The area of China proper is about

two-thirds that of the states of the American union.

[Illustration: CHINESE MINERS.]

The resemblance holds also in the artificial divisions. While our

country is divided into more than forty states, China is divided into

nineteen provinces. As our states are divided into counties, so each

province has divisions called fu and each fu is again divided into about

an equal number of hien. These divisions and subdivisions of the

provinces are generally spoken of in English as departments or

prefectures, and districts, but they are much larger than our

corresponding counties and townships. And similarly to our own system of

government, each of these divisions and subdivisions has its own capital

or seat of civil power, in which the officers exercising jurisdiction

over it reside. The outer dependencies of the Chinese empire are

comparatively sparsely populated, and in this work, when China, without

specification, is mentioned, it is intended to refer to the eighteen

provinces exclusively, which include the vast proportion of the

population, intelligence and wealth of the empire.

As to the physical features of China proper, the whole territory may be

described as sloping from the mountainous regions of Thibet and Nepaul

towards the shores of the Pacific on the east and south. A far extending

spur of the Himalayas called the Nanling, or southern range, is the most

extensive mountain system. It commences in Yun-nan, and passing

completely through the country enters the sea at Ningpo. Except for a

few steep passes, it thus forms a continuous barrier that separates the

coast regions of south-eastern China from the rest of the country.

Numerous spurs are cast off to the south and east of it, which appear in

the sea as a belt of rugged islands. On the borders of Thibet to the

north and west of this range, the country is mountainous, while to the

east and from the great wall on the north to the Po-yang Lake in the

south, there is the great plain comprising an area of more than two

hundred thousand square miles and supporting in the five provinces

contained in it more than one hundred and seventy-five million people.

In the north-western provinces the soil is a brownish colored earth,

extremely porous, crumbling easily between the fingers, and carried far

and wide in clouds of dust. It covers the sub-soil to an enormous depth

and is apt to split perpendicularly in clefts which render traveling

difficult. Nevertheless by this cleavage it affords homes to thousands

of the people, who live in caves excavated near the bottom of the

cliffs. Sometimes whole villages are so formed in terraces of the earth

that rise one above another. The most valuable quality of this peculiar

soil is its marvelous fertility, as the fields composed of it require

scarcely any other dressing than a sprinkling of its own fresh loam. The

farmer in this way obtains an assured harvest two and even three times a

year. This fertility, provided there be a sufficient rainfall, seems

inexhaustible. The province of Shan-hsi has borne the name for thousands

of years of the “granary of the nation,” and it is, no doubt, due to the

distribution of this earth over its surface, that the great plain owes

its fruitfulness.

Geographically speaking the arrangement of the provinces of China is as

follows: On the north there are four provinces, Chihli, Shan-hsi,

Shen-hsi, and Kan-su; on the west two, Szechwan, the largest of all, and

Yun-nan; on the south two, Kwang-hsi and Kwang-tung; on the east four,

Fu-chien, Cheh-chiang, Chiang-su, and Shan-tung. The central area

enclosed by these twelve provinces is occupied by Honan, An-hui, Hoopih,

Hunan, Chiang-hsi, and Kwei-chau. The latter is a poor province, with

parts of it largely occupied by clans or tribes supposed to be the

aborigines. The island of Formosa, lying off the coast of Fu-chien,

ninety miles west of Amoy, is about two hundred and thirty-five miles in

length, fertile and rich in coal, petroleum, and camphor wood. The first

settlement of a Chinese population took place only in 1683, and the

greater part of it is still occupied by aboriginal tribes of a more than

ordinary high type. The population of these provinces is immense, but

the various estimates and alleged censuses fluctuate and vary so much

that it is impossible to give a definite number as the total. It is a

safe estimate however to say that the population of the Chinese empire

approximates four hundred million, or considerably more than one-fourth

the population of the world, and nearly as much as the total of all

Europe and America.

One of the most distinguishing features of China is found in the great

rivers. These are called for the most part “ho” in the north and

“chiang” (kiang) in the south. Two of these are famous and conspicuous

among the great rivers of the world, the Ho, Hoang-ho, or Yellow River,

and the Chiang, generally misnamed the Yang-tsze. The sources of these

two rivers are not far from one another. The Ho rises in the plain of

Odontala, which is a region of springs and small lakes, and the Chiang

from the mountains of Thibet only a few miles distant. The Ho pursues a

tortuous course first to the east and north until it crosses the great

wall into Mongolia. After flowing a long distance northward of the

Mongolian desert, to the northern limit of Shen-hsi, it then turns

directly south for a distance of five hundred miles. A right angle turns

its course again to the eastward and finally north-eastward, when it

flows into the Gulf of Pechili in the province of Shan-tung. The Chiang

on the contrary turns south where the Ho turns north, and then after a

general course to the eastward and northward, roughly parallel with its

fellow, flows into the Eastern Sea, not far from Shanghai.

Both rivers are exceedingly tortuous and their courses are only roughly

outlined here. Almost the very opening of Chinese history is an account

of one of the inundations of the Ho River, which has often in course of

time changed its channel. The terrible calamities caused by it so often

have procured for it the name of “China’s sorrow.” As recently as 1887

it burst its southern bank near Chang Chau, and poured its mighty flood

with hideous devastation, and the destruction of millions of lives, into

the populous province of Honan. Each of these rivers has a course of

more than three thousand miles. They are incomparably the greatest in

China, but there are many others which would be accounted great

elsewhere. In connection with inland navigation must be mentioned the

Grand Canal, intended to connect the northern and southern parts of the

empire by an easy water communication; and this it did when it was in

good order, extending from Peking to Hankow, a distance of more than six

hundred miles. Kublai Khan, the first sovereign of the Yuan dynasty,

must be credited with the glory of making this canal. Marco Polo

described it, and compliments the great ruler for the success of his

work. Steam communication all along the eastern seaboard from Canton to

Tien-tsin has very much superseded the use of the canal and portions of

it are now in bad condition, but as a truly imperial achievement it

continues to be a grand memorial of Kublai.

The Great Wall was another vast achievement of human labor, constructed

more than two thousand years ago. It has been alleged a myth at some

times, but its existence has not been denied since explorations have

been made to the north of China Proper. It was not as useful as the

canal, and it failed to answer the purpose for which it was intended, a

defense against the incursions of the northern tribes. In 214 B.C. the

Emperor Che Hwang Ti determined to erect a grand barrier all along the

northern limit of his vast empire. The wall commences at the Shan-hsi

pass on the north coast of the Gulf of Pechili. From this point it is

carried westward till it terminates at the Chia-yu barrier gate, the

road through which leads to the “western regions.” It is twice

interrupted in its course by the Ho River, and has several branch and

loop walls to defend certain cities and districts. Its length in a

straight line would be one thousand two hundred and fifty-five miles,

but if measured along its sinuosities this distance must be increased to

one thousand five hundred. It is not built so grandly in its western

portions after passing the Ho River, nor should it be supposed that to

the east of this point it is all solid masonry. It is formed by two

strong retaining walls of brick rising from granite foundations, the

space between being filled with stones and earth. The breadth of it at

the base is about twenty-five feet, at the top fifteen feet, and the

height varies from fifteen to thirty feet. The surface at the top was

once covered with bricks but is now overgrown with grass. What travelers

go to visit from Peking is merely a loop wall of later formation,

enclosing portions of Chihli and Shan-hsi.

China includes many lakes, but they are not so commanding in size as the

rivers. There are but three which are essential to mention. These are

the Tung-ting Hu, the largest, having a circumference of two hundred and

twenty miles, about in the center of the empire; the Po-yang Hu, half

way between the former and the sea; and the Tai Hu, not far from

Shanghai and the Yang-tsze River. The latter lake is famous for its

romantic scenery and numerous islets.

The peculiarities of climate along the Chinese coast are due in great

measure to the northern and southern monsoons, the former prevailing

with more or less uniformity during the winter, and the latter during

the summer months. These winds give a greater degree of heat in summer

and of cold in winter than is experienced in the United States in

corresponding latitudes. At Ningpo, situated in latitude 30, about that

of New Orleans, large quantities of ice are secured in the winter for

summer use. It is, however, very thin measured by what we think proper

ice for preservation. In this part of China snow not infrequently falls

to the depth of six or eight inches, and the hills are sometimes covered

with it for weeks in succession. In the northern provinces the winters

are very severe. In the vicinity of Peking, not only are the canals and

rivers closed during the winter, but all commerce by sea is suspended

during two or three months, while in the summer that part of China is

very warm. The period of the change of the monsoon, when the two

opposite currents are struggling with each other is marked by a great

fall of rain and by the cyclones which are so much dreaded by mariners

on the Chinese coast. The southern monsoon gradually loses its force in

passing northward, and is not very marked above latitude 32, though its

influence is decidedly felt in July and August. With the exception of

the summer months the climate of the northern coast of China is

remarkably dry; that of the southern coast is damp most of the year,

especially during the months of May, June, and July.

In different parts of the country almost every variety of climate can be

found, hot or cold, moist or dry, salubrious or malarial. The ports

which were at first opened as places of residence for foreigners were

unfortunately among the most unhealthful of the empire, not so much from

the enervating effects of their southerly latitude as from their local

miasmatic influences, being situated in the rice-producing districts and

surrounded more or less by stagnant water during the summer months.

Under the later treaties which opened new ports in the north, as well as

interior cities, foreigners have been permitted to live in regions whose

climates will compare favorably with most parts of our own country. The

Chinese themselves consider Kwang-tung, Kwang-hsi, and Yun-nan to be

less healthful than the other provinces; but foreigners using proper

precautions may enjoy their lives in every province.

The Chinese are essentially an agricultural people, and from time

immemorial they have held agriculture in the highest esteem as being the

means by which the soil has been induced to supply the primary wants of

the empire, food. Of course the climate and the nature of a district

determine the kind of farming appropriate to it. Agriculturally China

may be said to be divided into two parts by the Chiang. South of that

river, speaking generally, the soil and climate point to rice as the

appropriate crop, while to the north lie vast plains which as clearly

are best designed for growing wheat, barley, oats, Indian corn and other

cereals. Culinary or kitchen herbs, mushrooms, and aquatic vegetables,

with ginger and a variety of other condiments, are everywhere produced

and widely used. From Formosa there comes sugar, and the cane thrives

also in the southern provinces. Oranges, pomegranates, peaches,

plantains, pineapples, mangoes, grapes, and many other fruits and nuts

are supplied in most markets. The cultivation of opium is constantly on

the increase.

[Illustration: CHINESE FARM SCENE.]

Of course the use of tea as a beverage is a national characteristic. The

plant does not grow in the north, but is cultivated extensively in the

western provinces and in the southern. The infusion of the leaves was

little if at all drunk in ancient times, but now its use is universal.

Fu-chien, Hoopih, and Hu-nan produce the greater part of the black teas;

the green comes chiefly from Cheh-chiang and An-hui; both kinds comes

from Kwang-tung and Sze-chwan. Next to silk, if not equally with it, tea

is China’s most valuable export. From rice and millet the Chinese

distill alcoholic liquors, but they are very sparingly used and it is a

compliment to the temperate inclinations of the people, that immediately

upon the opening of tea houses many years ago, the places for selling

liquor found themselves empty of business and were soon compelled to

close.

[Illustration: CHINESE TEA FARM.]

Birds and animals are found in great variety, though the country is too

thickly peopled and well cultivated to harbor many wild and dangerous

beasts. One occasionally hears of a tiger that has ventured from the

forest and been killed or captured, but the lion was never a denizen of

China and is only to be seen rampant in stone in front of temples. The

rhinoceros, elephant, and tapir are said still to exist in the forests

and swamps of Yun-nan; but the supply of elephants at Peking for the

carriage of the emperor when he proceeds to the great sacrificial altars

has been decreasing for several reigns. Both the brown and the black

bear are found, and several varieties of the deer family, of which the

musk deer is highly valued. Among the domestic animals the breed of

horses and cattle is dwarfish and no attempts seem to be made to improve

them. The ass is a more lively animal in the north than it is in

European countries or America, and receives much attention. About Peking

one is struck by many beautiful specimens of the mule. Princes are seen

riding on mules, or drawn by them in handsome litters, while their

attendants accompany them on horseback. The camel is seen only in the

north. Many birds of prey abound, including minos, crows, and magpies.

The people are fond of songbirds, especially the thrush, the canary, and

the lark. The lovely gold and silver pheasants are well known, and also

the mandarin duck, the emblem to the Chinese of conjugal fidelity. Many

geese too are reared and eaten, while the ducks are artificially

hatched. The number of pigs is enormous and fish are a plentiful supply

of food.

[Illustration: CHINESE STREET SCENE.]

The people are very fond of flowers and are excellent gardeners, but

their favorites are mostly cultivated in pots instead of in beds.

Silk, linen, and cotton furnish abundant provision for the clothing of

the race. China was no doubt the original home of silk. The mulberry

tree grows everywhere and silk worms flourish as widely. In all

provinces some silk is produced, but the best is furnished from

Kwang-tung, Sze-chwan, and Cheh-chiang. From the twenty-third century

B.C. and earlier, the care of the silk worm and the spinning and weaving

of its produce have been the special work of women. As it is the duty of

the sovereign to turn over a few furrows in the spring to stimulate the

people to their agricultural tasks, so his consort should perform an

analogous ceremony with her silk worms and mulberry trees. The

manufactures of silk are not inferior to or less brilliant than any that

are produced in Europe, and nothing can exceed the embroidery of the

Chinese. The cotton plant appears to have been introduced some eight

hundred years ago from Eastern Turkestan and is now cultivated most

extensively in the basin of the Chiang River. The well known nankeen is

named for Nanking, a center for its manufacture. Of woolen fabrics the

production is not large, but there are felt caps, rugs of camels hair

and furs of various kinds.

[Illustration: CHINESE FARMER.]

While the Chinese have done justice to most of the natural capabilities

of their country, they have greatly failed in developing its mineral

resources. The skill which their lapidaries display in cutting the

minerals and jewels is well known, but in the development of the

utilitarian minerals they have been very negligent. The coal fields of

China are enormous, but the majority of them can hardly be said to be

more than scratched. Immense deposits of iron ore are still untouched.

Copper, lead, tin, silver, and gold are known to exist in many places,

but little has been done to make the stores of them available. More

attention has been directed to their mines since their government and

companies began to have steamers of their own and a scheme has been

approved by the government for working the gold mines in the valley of

the Amoor River. With the government once conscious of its mineral

wealth, there is no limit to the results which it may bring about.

The commerce of China with the western nations has been constantly on

the increase for many years. The number of vessels entering and clearing

at the various treaty ports is now between thirty thousand and

thirty-five thousand annually, and the value of the whole trade, import

and export, approximates $300,000,000 annually. Of course the two

principal exports are tea and silk. About half of the trade is done by

means of vessels under the British flag, and nearly half of the

remainder are vessels of foreign type, but owned by Chinese and sailing

under the Chinese flag.

The capitals of the different divisions of the empire are all walled

cities, and these form a striking feature of the country. There are

important distinctions between the cities of the third class, most of

which are designated as hien, a few as cheo and others as ting. Though

varying considerably in size, these different cities present nearly the

uniform appearance. They are surrounded by walls from twenty to

thirty-five feet in height, and are entered by large arched gateways

which open into the principal streets and are shut and barred at night.

These walls are from twenty to twenty-five feet thick at the base and

somewhat narrower at the top. The outside is of solid masonry from two

to four feet thick, built of hewn stone, or bricks backed with earth,

broken tiles, etc. There is generally a lighter stone facing on the

inside. The outside is surmounted by a parapet with embrasures generally

built of brick.

The circumferences of the provincial cities vary from eight to fifteen

miles; those of the fu cities from four to ten miles, and those of the

hien cities from two or three to five miles. Some of the larger and more

important cities contain a smaller one, with its separate walls,

enclosed within the larger outside walls. This is the Tartar or military

city. It is occupied exclusively by Tartars with their families, forming

a colony or garrison, and numbering generally several thousand soldiers.

In times of insurrection and rebellion the emperor depends principally

upon these Tartar colonies to hold possession of the cities where they

are stationed. In such emergencies the inhabitants of these enclosed

Tartar cities, knowing that their lives and the lives of their families

are at stake, defend themselves with great desperation.

The provincial capitals contain an average population of nearly one

million inhabitants; the fu cities from one hundred thousand to six

hundred thousand or even more, while the cities of the third class,

which are much more numerous, generally contain several tens of

thousands. The most of these towns of different classes have outgrown

their walls, and frequently one-fourth or even one-third of the

inhabitants live in the suburbs, which in some cases extend three or

four miles outside the walls in different directions. Property is less

valuable in these suburbs, not only because it is removed from the

business parts of the city, but also because it is more liable to be

destroyed in times of rebellion. All the names to be found on even our

largest maps of China, are the names of walled cities, and many of those

of the third class are not down for want of space. The total number of

these cities is more than one thousand seven hundred. From the number

and size of the cities of China it might be inferred that they contain

the greater portion of the inhabitants of the empire. This is however by

no means the case. The Chinese are mainly an agricultural people and

live for the most part in the almost innumerable villages which

everywhere dot its fertile plains. A detached or isolated farm house is

seldom seen. The country people live in towns or hamlets for the sake of

society and mutual protection. Most of the cities, even the smaller

ones, have thousands of these villages under their jurisdiction. In the

more populous parts of China will frequently be found, within a radius

of three or four miles, from one hundred and fifty to two hundred of

these villages.

The estimate of population made on a previous page gives an average

population of about three hundred persons to the square mile, while that

of Belgium and some other European countries is greater. Perhaps no

country in the world is more fertile and capable of supporting a dense

population than China. Every available spot of ground is brought under

cultivation, and nearly all the land is made use of to provide food for

man, pasture fields being almost unknown. The masses of China eat very

little animal food, and what they do eat is mostly pork and fowls, the

raising of which requires little or no waste of ground. The

comparatively few horses and cattle and sheep which are found in the

country are kept in stables, or graze upon the hill tops, or are

tethered by the sides of canals. Taking these facts into consideration,

that an extended and exceedingly fertile country under the highest state

of cultivation, is taxed to its utmost capacity to supply the wants of a

frugal and industrious people, the estimate of population need not

excite incredulity.

Nearly all of the cities marked on our maps of the coast of China, are

now open ports for traffic and residence of foreigners. The most

northerly of these is Niuchwang and the most southern Pak-hoi, while

between these familiar names are those of Canton, Swatow, Amoy, Foochow,

Ningpo, Shanghai, Tien-tsin and several others. Interior cities that

have been opened to foreigners include a number on the Chiang River, the

one farthest inland being I-chang. Peking is also accessible to

foreigners; and several ports on the islands of Hainan and Formosa are

opened by treaty. The population of these cities cannot be told with

much exactness, as the Chinese census can scarcely claim accuracy. But

the largest cities, such as Canton and Peking, are generally credited,

in common with several others even smaller, with passing the million

mark.

[Illustration: AN IMPERIAL AUDIENCE.]

The Chinese government is one of the great wonders of history. It

presents to-day the same character which it possessed more than three

thousand years ago, and which it has retained ever since, during a

period which covers the authentic history of the world. The government

may be described as being in theory a patriarchal despotism. The emperor

is the father of his people, and just as in a family the father’s law is

supreme, so the emperor exercises complete control over his subjects,

even to the extent of holding, under certain recognized conditions,

their lives in his hands. But from time immemorial it has been held by

the highest constitutional authorities that the duties existing between

the emperor and his people are reciprocal, and that though it is the

duty of the people to render a loyal and willing obedience to the

emperor, so long as his rule is just and beneficent, it is equally

incumbent upon them to resist his authority, to depose him, and even to

put him to death, in case he should desert the paths of rectitude and

virtue.

As a matter of fact however, it is very difficult to say what extent of

power the emperor actually wields. The outside world sees only the

imperial bolts, but how they are forged or whose is the hand that shoots

them none can tell. The most common titles of the emperor are

Hwang-Shang, “The August Lofty One,” and Tien-Tsz, “The Son of Heaven.”

He lives in unapproachable grandeur, and is never seen except by members

of his own family and high state officers, save once a year when he

gives audience to few foreign diplomats. Nothing is omitted which can

add to the dignity and sacredness of his person or character. Almost

everything used by him or in his service is tabooed from the common

people, and distinguished by some peculiar mark or color so as to keep

up the impression of awe with which he is regarded, and which is so

powerful an auxiliary to his throne. The outward gate of the palace must

always be passed on foot, and the paved entrance walk leading up to it

can be used only by him. The vacant throne, or even a screen of yellow

silk thrown over a chair, is worshipped equally with his actual

presence, and an imperial dispatch is received in the provinces with

incense and prostration.

[Illustration: PREPARATION OF VERMICELLI.]

The throne is not strictly and necessarily hereditary, though the son of

the emperor generally succeeds to it. The emperor appoints his

successor, but it is supposed that in doing so he will have supreme

regard for the best good of his subjects, and will be governed by the

will of heaven, indicated by the conferring of regal gifts, and by

providential circumstances pointing out the individual whom heaven has

chosen. Of course in the case of unusually able men, such as the second

and fourth rulers of the present dynasty, their influence is more felt

than that of less energetic rulers; but the throne of China is so hedged

in with ceremonials and so padded with official etiquette that unless

its occupant be a man of supreme ability he cannot fail to fall under

the guidance of his ministers and favorites. In governing so large a

realm, of course it is necessary for the emperor to delegate his

authority to numerous officers who are regarded as his agents and

representatives in carrying out the imperial will. What they do the

emperor does through them. The recognized patriarchal character of the

government is seen in the familiar expressions of the people,

particularly at times when they consider themselves injured or aggrieved

by their officers, when they are apt to say, “A strange way for parents

to treat their children.”

The government of the empire, omitting the regulation of the imperial

court and family, or the special Manchoo department, is conducted from

the capital, supervising, directing, controlling the different

provincial administrations, and exercising the power of removing from

his post any official whose conduct may be irregular or dangerous to the

state.

There is the Grand Cabinet, the privy council of the emperor, in whose

presence it meets daily to transact the business of the state, between

the hours of 4:00 and 6:00 A.M. Its members are few and hold other

offices. There is also the Grand Secretariat, formerly the supreme

council, but under the present dynasty very much superseded by the

Cabinet. It consists of four grand and two assistant grand secretaries,

half of them Manchoos and half Chinese. The business on which the

Cabinet deliberates comes before it from the six boards or Luh-pu. These

are departments of long standing in the government, having been modeled

on much the same plan during the ancient dynasties. At the head of each

board are two presidents, called Shang-shu, and four vice-presidents

called Shi-lang, alternately a Manchoo and a Chinese. There are three

subordinate grades of officers in each board, with a great number of

minor clerks, and their appropriate departments for conducting the

details of the general and peculiar business coming under the cognizance

of the board, the whole being arranged in the most business-like style.

[Illustration: NEWLY MARRIED.]

[Illustration: YOUNG LADY OF QUALITY.]

[CHINESE LADIES.]

The six boards are respectively of Civil Office, of Revenue, of

Ceremonies, of War, of Punishments, and of Works. In 1861 the changed

relations between the empire and foreign nations led to the formation of

what may be called a seventh board styled the Tsung-li Yamen, or Court

of Foreign Affairs. There is also another important department which

must be mentioned, the censorate, members of which exercise a

supervision over the board, and are entrusted with the duty of exposing

errors and crimes in every department of government. Distributed through

the provinces they memorialize the emperor on all subjects connected

with the welfare of the people and the conduct of the government.

Sometimes they do not shrink even from the dangerous task of criticising

the conduct of the emperor himself.

The different boards are all charged with the superintendence of the

affairs of the eighteen provinces into which the empire is divided.

Fifteen of these provinces are grouped into eight vice-royalties, and

the remaining three are administered by a governor. Each province is

autonomous, or nearly so, and the supreme authorities, whether viceroys

or governors, are practically independent so long as they act in

accordance with the very minute regulations laid down for their

guidance. The principal function of the Peking government is to see that

these regulations are carried out, and in case they should not be to

call the offending viceroy or governor to account. Below the

governor-general or governor of a province, are the lieutenant-governor,

commonly called the treasurer, the provincial judge, the

salt-comptroller, and the grain-intendant. The provinces are further

divided for the purposes of administration into prefectures,

departments, and districts. Each has its officers, magistrates, and a

whole host of petty underlings. The rank of the different officials in

these provinces is indicated by a knob or button on the top of their

caps. In the two highest it is made of red coral; in the third it is

clear blue; in the fourth it is lapis lazuli; in the fifth of crystal;

in the sixth of an opaque white stone; and in the three lowest it is

yellow, of gold or gilt. They also wear insignia or badges embroidered

on a square patch in the front or back of their robes, representing

birds on the civilians and animals on the military officers.

Each viceroy raises his own army and navy, which he pays, or sometimes

unfortunately does not pay, out of the revenues of the government. He

levies his own taxes, and except in particular cases is the final court

of appeal in all judicial matters within the limits of his rule. But in

return for this latitude allowed him, he is held personally responsible

for the good government of his territory. If by any chance serious

disturbances break out and continue unsuppressed, he is called to

account, as having by his misconduct contributed to them, and he in his

turn looks to his subordinates to maintain order and execute justice

within their jurisdiction. Of himself he has no power to remove or

punish subordinate officials, but has to refer all complaints against

them to Peking. The personal responsibility resting upon him of

maintaining order makes him a severe critic on those who serve under

him, and very frequently junior officials are impeached and punished at

the instigation of their chief. Incapable and unworthy officials,

constant opium smokers, those who misappropriate public money, and those

who fail to arrest criminals, are those who meet swift punishment. On

the whole the conduct of junior officials is carefully watched.

[Illustration: PALANQUIN OF A HIGH OFFICIAL.]

As has been already said, the affairs of each province are administered

by the viceroy, or governor, and his subordinates, and speaking

generally their rule is as enlightened and as just as could be expected

in an oriental country where public opinion finds only a very imperfect

utterance. Official purity and justice must be treated as comparative

terms in China. The constitution of the civil service renders it next to

impossible that any office holder can be clean-handed. The salaries

awarded are low, out of all proportion to the necessary expenses

pertaining to the offices to which they are apportioned, and the

consequence is that in some way or other the officials are compelled to

make up the deficiency from the pockets of those subject to them. As a

rule, mandarins seldom enter office with private fortunes, and the

wealth therefore, which soothes the declining years of veteran

officials, may be fairly assumed to be ill-gotten gain. There are laws

against these exactions, and very often some magistrate is degraded or

executed for levying illegal assessments. The immunity which some

mandarins enjoy from the just consequences of their crimes, and the

severity with which the law is vindicated in the cases of others for

much lighter offenses, has a sinister aspect. But in a system of which

bribery and corruption practically form a part, one need not expect to

find purity in any direction. And it is not too much to say that the

whole civil service is, judged by an American standard, corrupt to the

core. The people however are lightly taxed and they readily submit to

limited extortion so long as the rule of the mandarin is otherwise just

and beneficent.

[Illustration: THE GOVERNOR OF A PROVINCE.]

How rarely does a mandarin earn the respect and affection of the people

is obvious from the great parade which is made on the departure from

their posts of the very occasional officials who are fortunate enough to

have done so. Archdeacon Gray relates that during his residence of a

quarter of a century at Canton he only met one man who had entitled

himself to the regret of the people at his departure. When the time came

for this man to leave the city, the people rose in multitudes to do him

honor and begged for him to return if he could. A somewhat similar scene

occurred at Tien-tsin in 1861, on the departure of the most benevolent

prefect that the city had ever seen. The people accompanied him beyond

the gate on his road to Peking with every token of honor and finally

begged from him his boots, which they carried back in triumph and hung

up as a memento in the temple of the city god. Going to the opposite

extreme, it sometimes happens that the people, goaded into rebellion by

a sense of wrong, rise in arms against some particularly obnoxious

mandarin and drive him from the district. But the Chinese are

essentially unwarlike, and it must be some act of gross oppression to

stir their blood to fever heat.

A potent means of protection against oppression is granted to the people

by the appointment of imperial censors throughout the empire, whose duty

it is to report to the throne all cases of misrule, injustice, or

neglect on the part of the mandarins which come to their knowledge. The

same tolerance which is shown by the people towards the shortcomings and

ill deeds of the officials, is displayed by these men in the discharge

of their duties. Only aggravated cases make them take their pens in

hand, but when they do, it must be confessed that they show little

mercy. Neither are they respectors of persons; their lash falls alike on

all from the emperor on his throne to the police-runners in magisterial

courts. Nor is their plain speaking more amazing than the candor with

which their memorials affecting the characters of great and small alike

are published in the Peking Gazette. The gravest charges, such as of

peculation, neglect of duty, injustice, or incompetence, are brought

against mandarins of all ranks and are openly published in the official

paper.

[Illustration: PUNISHMENT BY THE GANGUE.]

In the administration of justice the same lax morality as in other

branches of government exists, and bribery is largely resorted to by

litigants, more especially in civil cases. As a rule money in excess of

the legal fees has in the first instance to be paid to clerks and

secretaries before a case can be put down for hearing, and a decision of

the presiding mandarin is too often influenced by the sums of money

which find their way into his purse from the pockets of either suitor.

But the greatest blot on Chinese administration is the inhumanity shown

to both culprits and witnesses in criminal procedure. Tortures of the

most painful and revolting kind are used to extort evidence, and

punishments scarcely more severely cruel are inflicted on the guilty

parties. Flogging with bamboos, beating the jaws with thick pieces of

leather, or the ankles with a stick, are some of the preliminary

tortures applied to witnesses or culprits who refuse to give the

evidence expected of them. Further refinements of cruelty are reserved

for hardened offenders by means of which infinite pain and often

permanent injury are inflicted.

[Illustration: FLOGGING A CULPRIT.]

It follows as a natural consequence that in a country where torture is

thus resorted to the punishments inflicted on criminals must be

proportionately cruel. Death, the final punishment, can unfortunately be

inflicted in various ways, and a sliding scale of capital punishments is

used by the Chinese to mark their sense of the varying heinousness of

murderous crimes. For parricide, matricide and wholesale murders, the

usual sentence is that of Ling-che, or “ignominious and slow death.” In

the carrying out of this sentence the culprit is fastened to a cross,

and cuts varying in number, at the discretion of the judge, from eight

to one hundred and twenty are made first on the face and fleshy parts of

the body, next the heart is pierced, and finally when death has been

thus caused, the limbs are separated from the body and divided. During a

recent year ten cases in which this punishment was inflicted were

reported in the official Peking Gazette. In ordinary cases of capital

punishment execution by beheading is the common mode. This is a speedy

and merciful death, the skill gained by frequent experience enabling the

executioner in almost every case to perform his task with one blow.

Another death which is less horrible to Chinamen, who view any

mutilation of the body as an extreme disgrace, is by strangulation. The

privilege of so passing out of the world is accorded at times to

influential criminals, whose crimes are not of so heinous a nature as to

demand their decapitation; and occasionally they are even allowed to be

their own executioners.

Asiatics are almost invariably careless about the sufferings of others,

and the men of China are no exception to the rule. It is almost

impossible to exaggerate the horrors of a Chinese prison. The filth and

dirt of the rooms, the brutality of the jailers, the miserable diet, and

the entire absence of the commonest sanitary arrangements make a picture

which is too horrible to draw in detail.

Chinese law-givers have distinguished very markedly between crimes

accompanied and unaccompanied with violence. For offenses of the latter

description, punishments of a comparatively light nature are inflicted,

such as wearing a wooden collar, and piercing the ears with arrows, to

the ends of which are attached slips of paper on which are inscribed the

crime of which the culprit has been guilty. Frequently the criminals

bearing these signs of their disgrace are paraded up and down the street

where their offense was committed, and sometimes in more serious cases

they are flogged through the leading thoroughfares of the city, preceded

by a herald who announces the nature of their misdemeanors. But to give

a list of Chinese punishments will be to exhaust the ingenuity of man to

torture his fellow creatures. The subject is a horrible one and it is a

relief to turn from the dingy prison gates and the halls of so-called

justice.

After this review of the impersonal, and the material, and the official

character of the Chinese empire as a nation, let us now turn to the more

personal consideration of the people themselves, their characteristics,

and their manner of life and thought.

[Illustration:

OUTSIDE PEKING.

From a Sketch.

]

THE CHINESE PEOPLE.

--------------

Severity of the Judgment of Americans and Chinese Against One

Another—Each Sees the Worst Side of the Other—Characteristics of the

Chinese, Their Physique, Temperament, and Morals—Tests of

Intellectuality—Marriage Customs of the Chinese—The Engagement—The

Wedding Ceremony—The Position of Women—Concubinage—Divorce—Family

Relationships—Dress of Men and Women—Distorted Feet versus

Queues—Chinese Houses and Home Life—Children—Education and

Schools—National Festivities—Music and Art—Chinese Religions—Language

and Literature.

In treating of the personal characteristics and customs of the Chinese

people it is the desire of the writer to get away from the hackneyed

descriptions of pigtails, shaven heads, thick soled shoes, assumption of

dignity and superiority, and great ignorance concerning many subjects

with which we are familiar, which usually mark the pages of articles and

books concerning this race. The Chinaman is believed by many to be the

personification of stupidity, and many writers who wish to make readable

matter gladly seize upon and exaggerate anything which can be made to

appear grotesque and ridiculous. It would be but a poor answer to these

views to say that they correspond remarkably with those which the

Chinese entertain of us. They also enjoy a great deal of pleasantry at

our expense, finding it almost impossible to regard otherwise than as

ludicrous our short cropped hair, tight fitting, ungraceful, and

uncomfortable looking clothes, men’s thin soled leather shoes, tall

stiff hats, gloves in summer time, the wasp-like appearance of ladies

with their small waists, our remarkable ignorance of the general rules

of propriety, and the strange custom of a man and his wife walking

together in public! These views we can afford to laugh at as relating to

comparatively trivial matters, but they think they have the evidence

that we are also inferior to them in intellectuality, in refinement, in

civilization, and especially morals. It is evident that one party or the

other has made a serious mistake, and it would be but a natural and

reasonable presumption that both may have erred to some extent. We

should look at this matter from an impartial standpoint, and take into

view not simply facts which are comparatively unimportant and

exceptional, but those which are fundamental and of widespread

influence, and should construe these facts justly and generously. We

should take pains not to form the judgment that because a people or a

custom is different from our own it is therefore necessarily worse.

There are many reasons why unfair judgments have been formed by us

against the Chinese and by the Chinese against Europeans and Americans.

Each nation is apt to see the worst side of the other. It so happens

that the Chinese who have come to America are almost all from the

southern provinces and from the lower classes of the worst part of the

empire. We have formed many of our impressions from our observation of

these low class adventurers. They on the other hand have not received

the treatment here which would cause them to carry back to China kindly

opinions of Americans.

In China the same or similar conditions have existed. In the open ports,

where a large foreign commerce has sprung up, an immense number of

Chinese congregate from the interior. Many of them are adventurers who

come to these places to engage in the general scramble for wealth. The

Chinamen of the best class are, as a matter of fact, not the most

numerous in the open ports. Moreover foreign ideas and customs prevail

to a great extent in these foreign communities, and the natives,

whatever they might have been originally, gradually become more or less

denationalized, and present a modified type of their race. The Chinese

being every day brought into contact with drunken sailors and

unscrupulous traders from the west, new lessons are constantly learned

from them in the school of duplicity and immorality. The Chinese of this

class are no fitting type of the race. It is an accepted fact that the

great seaports of the world, where international trade holds sway, are

the worst centers of vice, and no estimate of a people formed from these

cities can be just.

The Chinese as a race are of a phlegmatic and impassive temperament, and

physically less active and energetic than European and American nations.

Children are not fond of athletic and vigorous sports, but prefer

marbles, kite flying, and quiet games of ball or spinning tops. Men take

an easy stroll for recreation, but never a rapid walk for exercise and

are seldom in a hurry or excited. They are also characteristically timid

and docile. But while the Chinese are deficient in active courage and

daring, they are not in passive resistance. They are comparatively

apathetic as regards pain and death, and have great powers of physical

endurance as well as great persistency and obstinacy. Physical

development and strength and longevity vary in different parts of the

empire. In and about Canton, as well as in most parts of the south, from

which we have derived most of our impressions of China, the people are

small in stature; but in the province of Shan-tung in the north, men

varying in height from five feet eight inches to six feet are very

common, while some of them are considerably taller. In this part of

China too, one frequently finds laborers more than seventy years of age

working daily at their trades, and it is not unusual to hear of persons

who have reached the age of ninety or more.

The intellectuality of the Chinese is made evident by so many obvious

and weighty facts, that it seems strange that persons of ordinary

intelligence and information should ever have questioned it. We have

before us a system of government and code of laws which will bear

favorable comparison with those of European nations, and have elicited a

generous tribute of admiration and praise from the most competent

students. The practical wisdom and foresight of those who constructed

this system are evidenced by the fact that it has stood the test of

time, enduring longer than any other which man has devised during the

world’s history; that it has bound together under one common rule, a

population to which the world affords no parallel, and given a degree of

prosperity and wealth which may well challenge our wonder. It is

intelligent thought which has given China such a prominence in the east

and also in the eyes of Christendom. She may well point with pride to

her authentic history reaching back through more than thirty centuries;

to her extensive literature, containing many works of sterling and

permanent value; to her thoroughly elaborated language possessed of a

remarkable power of expression; to her list of scholars, and her

proficiency in belles-lettres. If these do not constitute evidences of

intellectuality, it would be difficult to say where such evidences could

be found, or on what basis we ourselves will rest our claim of

intellectual superiority.

China has been so arrogant and extravagant in her assumptions of

pre-eminence, that we have perhaps for this very reason been indisposed

to accord to her the position to which she is fairly entitled. It should

be remembered, that ignorant until recently of western nations, as they

have been of her, she has compared herself simply with the nations

around her, and a partial excuse for her overweening self conceit may be

found in the fact that she only regarded herself as the nations with

which she is acquainted have regarded her. She has been for ages the

great center of light and civilization in eastern Asia. She has given

literature and religion to Japan, to Corea, and to Manchooria, and has

been looked up to by these and other smaller nations as their

acknowledged teacher. The Japanese have produced no great teachers or

sages which they would presume to compare with those of China; and it is

clearest evidence of their acknowledgment of the literary superiority of

the Chinese that they use Chinese classics as text books in their

schools much as we do those of Greece and Rome. It is true that the

Chinese know hardly anything of the modern arts and sciences and that

there is no word in their language to designate some of them; but how

much did our ancestors know two hundred years ago of chemistry, geology,

philosophy, anatomy, and other kindred sciences. What did we know fifty

years ago of the steamboat, the railroad, and the telegraph? And is our

comparative want of knowledge a few years ago and that of our ancestors

to be taken as evidence of inferiority of race and intellect?

Furthermore, if we go back a few hundred years we are apt to find many

things to establish the claims of the Chinese as a superior rather than

inferior race. There are excellent grounds to credit the Chinese with

the invention or discovery of printing, the use of the magnetic needle,

the manufacture and use of gunpowder, of silk fabrics, and of chinaware

and porcelain, and there seems no doubt that the Chinese discovered

America from the westward, long before the discoveries of Europeans.

Intellectual power manifests itself in a variety of ways, and glaring

defects are often found associated in the same individual with

remarkable powers and capabilities, as particular faculties both of mind

and body are often cultivated and developed at the expense of others.

Chinese education has very little regard to the improvement of the

reasoning powers, and Chinese scholars are deficient in logical acumen

and very inferior to the Hindoos in this respect; but in developing and

storing the memory they are without a rival. Again their system of

training effectually discourages and precludes freedom and originality

of thought, while it has the compensating advantages of creating a love

of method and order, habitual subjection to authority, and a remarkable

uniformity in character and ideas. Perhaps the results which they have

realized in fusing such a vast mass of beings into one homogeneous body,

could have been reached in no other way.

The morality of the Chinese presents another subject about which there

is a wide difference of opinion. It may be a matter of interest and

profit to turn for a moment to the views which the Chinese generally

entertain of our morality, and their reasons for these views. They are

all familiar with the fact that foreigners introduced opium into China,

in opposition to the earnest and persistent remonstrances of the Chinese

government; that out of the opium trade grew the first war with China;

and that when the representatives of Christian England urged the Chinese

government to legalize the trade and make it a source of revenue, the

Chinese emperor replied that he would not use as a means of revenue that

which brought suffering and misery upon his people.

The Chinese form their opinions of western morality to a great extent

from the sailors on shore-leave at the open ports, and these men are

proverbially vicious under such circumstances. For years foreigners of

this class have commanded many of the piratical fleets on the coasts of

China, and foreign thieves and robbers have infested many of the inland

canals and rivers. In business dealings with strangers from western

lands the natives find that duplicity and dishonesty are not confined to

their own people. Replying to our criticism of the system of

concubinage, the Chinese point to the numerous class of native women in

the foreign communities, fostered and patronized by foreigners alone,

who appear in the streets with an effrontery which would be regarded as

utterly indecent and intolerable in most Chinese cities. The large

importation from Europe of obscene pictures which are offered at every

hand, is another fact which the educated Chinese cites in answer to

criticisms of his people’s morality.

On the general subject of morality and Chinese moral teaching, two

quotations from the writings of eminent Englishmen who lived in China

for many years are pertinent. Sir John Davis says: “The most commendable

feature of the Chinese system is the general diffusion of elementary

moral education among the lower orders. It is in the preference of moral

to physical instruction that even we might perhaps wisely take a leaf

out of the Chinese book, and do something to reform this most mechanical

age of ours.” The opinion of Thomas Taylor Meadows is thus expressed:

“No people whether of ancient or modern times has possessed a sacred

literature so completely exempt as the Chinese from licentious

descriptions and from every offensive expression. There is not a single

sentence in the whole of their sacred books and their annotations that

may not when translated word for word be read aloud in any family in

England.”

It must be acknowledged that the Chinese give many evidences, not only

in their literature, but also in their paintings and sculpture, of a

scrupulous care to avoid all indecent and immoral associations and

suggestions. In referring to the above peculiarity of Chinese views and

customs, these remarks are not, of course, concerning the private lives

and practices of the people, but of their standard of propriety and of

what the public taste requires, in objects which are openly represented

to be seen and admired by the young and old of both sexes.

The government of the empire is modeled on the government of a

household, and at the root of all family ties, says one of the Chinese

classics, is the relation of husband and wife, which is as the relation

of heaven and earth. Chinese historians record that the rite of marriage

was first instituted by the Emperor Fuh-he, who reigned in the

twenty-eighth century B.C. But before this period there is abundant

evidence to show that as amongst all other peoples the first form of

marriage was by capture. At the present day marriage is probably more

universal in China than in any other civilized country in the world, for

it is regarded as something indispensable and few men pass the age of

twenty without taking to themselves a wife. To die without leaving

behind a son to perform the burial rites and to offer up the fixed

periodical sacrifices at the tomb, is one of the most direful fates that

can overtake a Chinaman, and he seeks to avoid it by an early marriage.

Like every other rite in China that of marriage is fenced in with a host

of ceremonies. In a vast majority of cases the bridegroom never sees his

bride until the wedding night, it being considered a grave breach of

etiquette for young men and maidens to associate together or even to see

one another. Of course it does occasionally happen that either by

stealth or chance a pair become acquainted; but whether they have thus

associated, or whether they are perfect strangers, the first formal

overture must of necessity be made by a professional go-between, who

having received a commission from the parents of a young man, proceeds

to the house of the young woman and makes a formal proposal on behalf of

the would-be bridegroom’s parents. If the young lady’s father approves

the proposed alliance, the suitor sends the lady some presents as an

earnest of his intentions.

The parents next exchange documents which set forth the hour, day,

month, and year when the young people were born, and the maiden names of

their mothers. Astrologers are then called in to cast the horoscopes,

and should these be favorable the engagement is formally entered into,

but not so irrevocably that there are not several orthodox ways of

breaking it off. But should things go smoothly, the bridegroom’s father

writes a formal letter of agreement to the lady’s father, accompanied by

presents, consisting in some cases of sweetmeats and a live pig, and in

others of a goose and gander, which are regarded as emblems of conjugal

fidelity. Two large cards are also prepared by the bridegroom, and on

these are written the particulars of the engagement. One is sent to the

lady and the other he keeps. She in return now makes a present to the

suitor according to his rank and fortune. Recourse is then again had to

astrologers to fix a fortunate day for the final ceremony, on the

evening of which the bridegroom’s best man proceeds to the house of the

lady and conducts her to her future home in a red sedan chair,

accompanied by musicians who enliven the procession by wedding airs. At

the door of the house the bride alights from her sedan, and is lifted

over a pan of burning charcoal laid on the threshold by two “women of

luck,” whose husbands and children must be living.

In the reception room the bridegroom awaits his bride on a raised dais,

at the foot of which she humbly prostrates herself. He then descends to

her level, and removing her veil gazes on her face for the first time.

Without exchanging a word they seat themselves side by side, and each

tries to sit on a part of the dress of the other, it being considered

that the one who succeeds in so doing will hold rule in the household.

This trial of skill over, the pair proceed to the hall, and there before

the family altar worship heaven and earth and their ancestors. They then

go to dinner in their apartment, through the open door of which the

guests scrutinize and make their remarks on the appearance and demeanor

of the bride. This ordeal is the more trying to her, since etiquette

forbids her to eat anything, a prohibition which is not shared by the

bridegroom, who enjoys the dainties provided as his appetite may

suggest. The attendants next hand to each in turn a cup of wine, and

having exchanged pledges, the wedding ceremonies come to an end. In some

parts of the country it is customary for the bride to sit up late into

the night answering riddles which are propounded to her by the guests;

in other parts it is usual for her to show herself for a time in the

hall, whither her husband does not accompany her, as it is contrary to

etiquette for a husband and wife ever to appear together in public. For

the same reason she goes to pay the customary visit to her parents on

the third day after the wedding alone, and for the rest of her wedded

life she enjoys the society of her husband only in the privacy of her

apartments.

[Illustration: DISCIPLINE ON THE MARCH, IN THE CHINESE ARMY.]

The lives of women in China, and especially of married women, are such

as to justify the wish often expressed by them that in their next state

of existence they may be born men. Even if in their baby days they

escape the infanticidal tendencies of their parents, they are regarded

as secondary considerations compared with their brothers. The

philosophers from Confucius downward have all agreed in assigning them

an inferior place to men. When the time comes for them to marry, custom

requires them in nine cases out of ten, as we have seen, to take a leap

in the dark, and that wife is fortunate who finds in her husband a

congenial and faithful companion.

There is but one proper wife in the family, but there is no law against

a man’s having secondary wives or concubines; and such connections are

common enough wherever the means of a family are sufficient for their

support. The concubine occupies in the family an inferior position to

the wife, and her children, if she has any, belong by law to the wife.

There are seven legal grounds for divorcing a wife: disobedience to her

husband’s parents; not giving birth to a son; Dissolute conduct;

jealousy; talkativeness; thieving, and leprosy. These grounds however

may be nullified by “the three considerations:” If her parents be dead;

if she has passed with her husband through the years of mourning for his

parents; and if he has become rich from being poor.

So many are the disabilities of married women, that many girls prefer

going into nunneries or even committing suicide to trusting their future

to men of whom they can know nothing but from the interested reports of

the go-between.

The re-marriage of widows is regarded as an impropriety, and in wealthy

families is seldom practiced. But among the poorer classes necessity

often compels a widow to seek another bread winner. Some, however,

having been unfortunate in their first matrimonial venture, refuse to

listen to any proposal for a re-marriage, and like the young girls

mentioned above seek escape by death from the importunities of relatives

who desire to get them off their hands. A reverse view of matrimonial

experiences is suggested by the practice of wives refusing to survive

their husbands, and putting a voluntary end to their existence rather

than live to mourn their loss. Such devotion is regarded by the people

with great approbation and a deed of suicide is generally performed in

public and with great punctiliousness.

The picture here given of married life in China has been necessarily

darkly shaded, since it is, as a rule, only in its unfortunate phases,

that it affords opportunity for remark. Without doubt there are many

hundreds of thousands of families in China which are entirely happy.

Happiness is after all a relative term, and Chinese women, knowing no

higher status, are as a rule content to run the risk of wrongs which

would be unendurable to an American woman, and to find happiness under

conditions which are fortunately unknown in western countries.

The family tie in China is strong and the people are clannish. They

seldom change their place of residence and most of them live where their

ancestors have lived for many generations. One will frequently find the

larger portion of a small village bearing the same name, in which case

the village often takes its name from the family. Books on filial piety

and the domestic relations recommend sons not to leave their parents

when married, but to live together lovingly and harmoniously as one

family. This theory is carried out in practice to some extent, in most

instances. In the division of property some regard is had to

primogeniture, but different sons share nearly equally. The eldest

simply has a somewhat larger portion and certain household relics and

valuables.

The position of woman is intermediate between that which she occupies in

Christian and in other non-Christian countries. The manner in which they

regard their lot may be inferred from the fact related on a previous

page, that the most earnest desire and prayer in worshipping in Buddhist

temples is, generally, that they may be men in the next state of

existence. In many families girls have no individual names, but are

simply called No. One, Two, Three, Four, etc. When married they are Mr.

So-and-so’s wife, and when they have sons they are such-and-such a boy’s

mother. They live in a great measure secluded, take no part in general

society, and are expected to retire when a stranger or an acquaintance

of the opposite sex enters the house. The claim of one’s parents and

brothers upon his affections is considered to be paramount to that of

his wife. A reason given for this doctrine in a celebrated Chinese work

is that the loss of a brother is irreparable but that of a wife is not.

Women are treated with more respect and consideration as they advance in

years; mothers are regarded with great affection and tenderness, and

grandmothers are sometimes almost worshipped. It must be further said

that the Chinese have found the theory of inferiority of women a very

difficult one to carry out in practice. There are many families in which

the superiority of her will and authority is sufficiently manifest, even

though not cheerfully acknowledged.

The rules and conventionalities which regulate social life are

exceedingly minute and formal. Politeness is a science, and gracefulness

of manners a study and discipline. The people are hospitable and

generous to a fault, their desire to appear well in these respects often

leading them to expenditures entirely disproportionate to their means.

When under the influence of passion, quarrels arise, the women resort to

abuse in violent language, extreme in proportion to the length of time

during which the feelings which prompted them have been restrained. Men

bluster and threaten in a manner quite frightful to those unaccustomed

to it, but seldom come to blows. In cases of deep resentment the injured

party often adopts a mode of revenge which is very characteristic.

Instead of killing the object of his hate, he kills himself on the

doorstep of his enemy, thereby casting obloquy and the stigma of murder

on the adversary.

In matters of dress, with one or two exceptions, the Chinese must be

acknowledged to have used a wise discretion. They wear nothing that is

tight fitting, and make a greater difference between their summer and

winter clothing than is customary among ourselves. The usual dress of a

coolie in summer is a loose fitting pair of cotton trousers and an

equally loose jacket; but the same man in winter will be seen wearing

quilted cotton clothes, or if he should be an inhabitant of the northern

provinces a sheepskin robe, superadded to an abundance of warm clothing

intermediate between it and his shirt. By the wealthier classes silk,

satin, and gauze are much worn in the summer, and woolen or handsome fur

clothes in the winter. Among such people it is customary except in the

seclusion of their homes, to wear both in summer and winter long tunics

coming down to the ankles.

In summer non-official Chinamen leave their heads uncovered, but do not

seem to suffer any inconvenience from the great heat. On the approach of

summer an edict is issued fixing the day upon which the summer costume

is to be adopted throughout the empire, and again as winter draws near,

the time for putting on winter dress is announced in the same formal

manner. Fine straw or bamboo forms the material of the summer hat, the

outside of which is covered with fine silk. At this season also the

thick silk robes and the heavy padded jackets worn in winter are

exchanged for light silk or satin tunics. The winter cap has a turned-up

brim and is covered with satin with a black cloth lining, and as in the

case of the summer cap a tassel of red silk covers the entire crown.

The wives of mandarins wear the same embroidered insignia on their

dresses as their husbands, and their style of dress as well as that of

Chinese women generally bears a resemblance to that of the men. They

wear a loose fitting tunic which reaches below the knee, and trousers

which are drawn in at the ankle after the bloomer fashion. On state

occasions they wear a richly embroidered petticoat coming down to the

feet, which hangs square both before and behind and is pleated at the

sides like a Highlander’s kilt. The mode of doing the hair varies in

almost every province. At Canton the women plaster their back hair into

the shape of a teapot handle, and adorn the sides with pins and

ornaments, while the young girls proclaim their unmarried state by

sutting their hair in fringe across their foreheads after a fashion not

unknown among ourselves. In most parts of the country, flowers, natural

when obtainable and artificial when not so, are largely used to deck out

the head dresses, and considerable taste is shown in the choice of

colors and the manner in which they are arranged.

[Illustration: A TYPHOON.]

Thus far there is nothing to find fault with in female fashions in

China, but the same cannot be said of the way in which they treat their

faces and feet. In many countries the secret art of removing traces of

the ravages of time with the appliances of the toilet table has been and

is practised; but by an extravagant and hideous use of pigments and

cosmetics, the Chinese girl not only conceals the fresh complexion of

youth, but produces those very disfigurements which furnish the only

possible excuse for artificial complexions. Their poets also have

declared that a woman’s eyebrows should be arched like a rainbow or

shaped like a willow leaf, and the consequence is that wishing to act up

to the idea thus pictured, China women with the aid of tweezers remove

all the hairs of their eyebrows which straggle the least out of the

required line, and when the task becomes impossible even with the help

of these instruments, the paint brush or a stick of charcoal is brought

into requisition. A comparison of one such painted lily with the natural

healthy complexion, bright eyes, laughing lips, and dimpled cheeks of a

Canton boat girl, for example, is enough to vindicate nature’s claim to

superiority over art a thousand fold.

[Illustration: BANDAGING THE FEET.]

But the chief offense of Chinese women is in their treatment of their

feet. Various explanations are current as to the origin of the custom of

deforming the women’s feet. Some say that it is an attempt to imitate

the peculiarly shaped foot of a certain beautiful empress; others that

it is a device intended to restrain the gadding-about tendencies of

women; but however that may be, the practice is universal except among

the Manchoos and the Hakka population at Canton, who have natural feet.

The feet are first bound when the child is about five years old and the

muscles of locomotion have consequently had time to develop. A cotton

bandage two or three inches wide is wound tightly about the foot in

different directions. The four smaller toes are bent under the foot, and

the instep is forced upward and backward. The foot therefore assumes the

shape of an acute triangle, the big toe forming the acute angle and the

other toes, being bent under the foot, becoming almost lost or absorbed.

At the same time, the shoes worn having high heels, the foot becomes

nothing but a club and loses all elasticity. The consequence is that the

women walk as on pegs, and the calf of the leg having no exercise

shrivels up. Though the effect of this custom is to produce real

deformity and a miserable tottering gait, even foreigners naturally come

to associate it with gentility and good breeding, and to estimate the

character and position of women much as the Chinese do, by the size of

their feet. The degree of severity with which the feet are bound differs

widely in the various ranks of society. Country women and the poorer

classes have feet about half the natural size, while those of the

genteel or fashionable class are only about three inches long.

Women in the humbler walks of life are therefore often able to move

about with ease. Most ladies on the other hand are practically debarred

from walking at all and are dependent on their sedan chairs for all

locomotion beyond they own doors. But even in this case habit becomes a

second nature and fashion triumphs over sense. No mother, however keen

may be her recollection of her sufferings as a child, or however

conscious she may be of the inconveniences and ills arising from her

deformed feet, would ever dream of saving her own child from like

immediate torture and permanent evil. Further there is probably less

excuse for such a practice in China than in any other country, for the

hands and feet of both men and women are naturally both small and finely

shaped. The Chinese insist upon it that the custom of compressing

women’s feet is neither in as bad taste nor so injurious to the health

as that of foreign women in compressing the waist.

The male analogue of the women’s compressed feet in the shaven forepart

of the head and the braided queue. The custom of thus treating the hair

was imposed on the people by the first emperor of the present dynasty,

in 1644. Up to that time the Chinese had allowed the hair to grow long,

and were in the habit of drawing it up into a tuft on the top of the

head. The introduction of the queue at the bidding of the Manchoorian

conqueror was intended as a badge of conquest, and as such was at first

unwillingly adopted by the people. For nearly a century the natives of

outlying parts of the empire refused to submit their heads to the razor

and in many districts the authorities rewarded converts to the new way

by presents of money. As the custom spread these bribes were

discontinued, and the converse action of treating those who refused to

conform with severity, completed the conversion of the empire. At the

present day every Chinaman who is not in open rebellion to the throne,

shaves his head with the exception of the crown where the hair is

allowed to grow to its full length. This hair is carefully braided, and

falls down the back forming what is commonly known as the “pig tail.”

Great pride is taken, especially in the south, in having as long and as

thick a queue as possible, and when nature has been niggardly in her

supply of natural growth, the deficiency is supplemented by the

insertion of silk in the plait.

The staff of life in China is rice. It is eaten and always eaten, from

north to south and from east to west, on the tables of the rich and

poor, morning, noon, and night, except among the very poor people in

some of the northern non-rice producing provinces where millet takes its

place. In all other parts the big bowl of boiled rice forms the staple

of the meal eaten by the people, and it is accompanied by vegetables,

fish and meat, according to the circumstances of the household. Among

many people, however, there is a disinclination to eat meat, owing to

the influence of Buddhism. The difference in the quality and expense of

the food of the rich from that of the poor, consists principally in the

concomitants eaten with the rice or millet. The poor have simply a dish

of salt vegetables or fish, which costs comparatively little. The rich

have pork, fowls, eggs, fish and game prepared in various ways.

Before each chair is placed an empty bowl and two chop-sticks, while in

the middle of the table stands the dishes of food. Each person fills his

basin from the large dishes, or is supplied by the servants, and holding

it up to his chin with his left hand he transfers its contents into his

mouth with his chop-sticks with the utmost ease. The chop-sticks are

held between the first and second, and the second and third fingers, and

constant practice enables a Chinaman to lift up and hold the minutest

atoms of food, oily and slippery as they often are, with the greatest

ease. To most foreigners their skillful use is well nigh impossible. To

the view of the Chinese the use of chop-sticks is an evidence of

superior culture; and the use of such barbarous instruments as knives

and forks, and cutting or tearing the meat from the bones on the table

instead of having the food properly prepared and severed into edible

morsels in the kitchen, evidences a lower type of civilization.

The meats most commonly eaten are pork, mutton, and goat’s flesh, beside

ducks, chickens, and pheasants, and in the north deer and hares. Beef is

never exposed for sale in the Chinese markets. The meat of the few

cattle which are killed is disposed of almost clandestinely. There is a

strong and almost universal prejudice against eating beef, and the

practice of doing so is declaimed against in some of the moral tracts.

Milk is hardly used at all in the eighteen provinces, and in many places

our practice of drinking it is regarded with the utmost disgust.

It must be confessed that in some parts of the country less savory

viands find their place on the dinner table. In Canton, for example,

dried rats have a recognized place in the poulterers’ shops and find a

ready market. Horse flesh is also exposed for sale, and there are even

to be found dog and cat restaurants. The flesh of black dogs and cats,

and especially the former is preferred as being more nutritive. Frogs

form a common dish among the poor people and are, it is needless to say,

very good eating. In some parts of the country locusts and grasshoppers

are eaten. At Tien-tsin men may commonly be seen standing at the corners

of the streets frying locusts over portable fires, just as among

ourselves chestnuts are cooked. Ground-grubs, silkworms and water-snakes

are also occasionally treated as food. The sea, lakes, and rivers abound

in fish, and as fish forms a staple food of the people the fisherman’s

art has been brought to a great degree of perfection. The same care as

in the production of fish is extended to that of ducks and poultry. Eggs

are artificially hatched in immense numbers, and the poultry markets and

boats along the river at Canton are most amazing in their extent.

[Illustration: THE SEAT OF THE WAR.]

The funerals of grown persons, and especially of parents, are as

remarkable for burdensome ceremonies, extravagant manifestations of

grief and lavish expense, as those of children are for their coldness

and neglect. Candles, incense and offerings of food are placed before

the corpse, and a company of priests is engaged to chant prayers for the

departed spirit. An abundance of clothing is deposited with the body in

the coffin and various ceremonies are performed during several days

immediately after that, and on every subsequent seventh day, closing

with the seventh seven. When the coffin is carried out for burial, men

and women follow in the procession clothed in coarse white garments,

white being used for mourning.

Inasmuch as the coffin must remain in the hall for forty-nine days,

naturally they are prepared with a great deal of care. Very thick planks

are used in its construction, cut from the hardest trees, caulked on the

outside and cemented on the inside, and finally varnished or lacquered.

Sometimes a coffin containing a body is kept in the house for a

considerable length of time after the forty-nine days have expired,

while arrangements are being made for a burying place and other

preliminaries are attended to. The lids being nailed down in cement they

are perfectly air-tight.

The notions which Chinamen entertain concerning the future life rob

death of half its terrors and lead them to regard their funeral

ceremonies and the due performance of the proper rites by their

descendants as the chief factors of their future well being. Among other

things the importance of securing a coffin according to the approved

fashion is duly recognized, and as men approach old age they not

infrequently buy their own coffins, which they keep carefully by them.

The present of a coffin is considered a dutiful attention from a son to

an aged father.