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[In the drawing is represented the Emperor Hienfung, attended by his principal ministers, kneeling before the shrine of Hwang-tien Shangtí. Though no foreigner has witnessed this ceremony, a few words concerning this native representation will make plain the chief objects of worship.]

Upon the triple altar, or Tien Tan (Volume I., p. [76]), the central temporary shrine is dedicated to Hwang-Tien Shangtí, or ‘Imperial Heaven’s Ruler above.’ Upon the Emperor’s right, nearest the chief pavilion, are tablets to his ancestors, Tienming, Shunchí, Yungching, and Kiaking; the corresponding opposite house is similarly devoted to Tientsung, Kanghí, Kienlung, and Taukwang. The small buildings behind and below these are the Taming chí Wei, the ‘Altar of the Sun’ or ‘Great Luminary’ (on the right), and the Ye-ming chí Wei, or ‘Altar of the Night Luminary.’ The last structure on the worshipper’s right contains tablets to the Chau-tien Sing, or ‘All Stars;’ to the Urh-shih pat Suhsing, or ‘Twenty-eight Constellations in the Ecliptic;’ to the Peh-tan Sing, or Ursa Major; and to the Muh, Kin, Shui, Fo, and Tu, or Five Elements—‘Wood, Metal, Water, Fire, and Earth.’ Facing this building on the left are shrines to Siueh-sz’, Yü-sz’, Fung-sz’, and Lui-sz’, the superintendents of Snow, Rain, Wind, and Thunder.

IMPERIAL WORSHIP OF SHANGTI ON THE ALTAR OF HEAVEN AT PEKING.

FROM A CHINESE PAINTING

論總國中

The Middle Kingdom

A SURVEY OF THE GEOGRAPHY, GOVERNMENT, LITERATURE,
SOCIAL LIFE, ARTS, AND HISTORY
OF
THE CHINESE EMPIRE
AND
ITS INHABITANTS

BY
S. WELLS WILLIAMS, LL.D.
PROFESSOR OF THE CHINESE LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE AT YALE COLLEGE; AUTHOR
OF TONIC AND SYLLABIC DICTIONARIES OF THE CHINESE LANGUAGE

REVISED EDITION, WITH ILLUSTRATIONS AND A NEW MAP OF THE EMPIRE

Volume I.

NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
1900

Copyright, 1882, by
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS

Trow’s
Printing and Bookbinding Company
201-213 East Twelfth Street
NEW YORK

To
GIDEON NYE, Jr.,
OF CANTON, CHINA,
A
TESTIMONIAL OF THE
Respect and Friendship
OF THE AUTHOR.

[PREFACE.]

During the thirty-five years which have elapsed since the first edition of this work was issued, a greater advance has probably been made in the political and intellectual development of China than within any previous century of her history. While neither the social habits nor principles of government have so far altered as to necessitate a complete rewriting of these pages, it will be found, nevertheless, that the present volumes treat of a reformed and in many respects modern nation. Under the new régime the central administration has radically increased its authority among the provincial rulers, and more than ever in former years has managed to maintain control over their pretentions. The Empire has, moreover, established its foreign relations on a well-understood basis by accredited envoys; this will soon affect the mass of the people by the greater facilities of trade, the presence of travellers, diffusion of education, and other agencies which are awaking the people from their lethargy. Already the influences which will gradually transform the face of society are mightily operating.

The changes which have been made in the book comprise such alterations and additions as were necessary to describe the country under its new aspects. In the constant desire to preserve a convenient size, every doubtful or superfluous sentence has been erased, while the new matter incorporated has increased the bulk of the present edition about one-third. The arrangement of chapters is the same. The first four, treating of the geography, combine as many and accurate details of recent explorers or residents as the proportions of this section will permit. The extra-provincial regions are described from the researches of Russian, English, and Indian travellers of the last twenty years. It is a waste, mountainous territory for the most part and can never support a large population. Great pains have been taken by the cartographer, Jacob Wells, to consult the most authentic charts in the construction of the map of the Empire. By collating and reducing to scale the surveys and route charts of reliable travellers throughout the colonies, he has produced in all respects as accurate a map of Central Asia as is at this date possible. The Eighteen Provinces are in the main the same as in my former map.

The chapter on the census remains for the most part without alteration, for until there has been a methodical inspection of the Empire, important questions concerning its population must be held in abeyance. It is worth noticing how generally the estimates in this chapter—or much larger figures—have since its first publication been accepted for the population of China. Foreign students of natural history in China have, by their researches in every department, furnished material for more extensive and precise descriptions under this subject than could possibly have been gathered twoscore years ago. The sixth chapter has, therefore, been almost wholly rewritten, and embraces as complete a summary of this wide field as space would allow or the general reader tolerate. The specialist will, however, speedily recognize the fact that this rapid glance serves rather to indicate how immense and imperfectly explored is this subject than to describe whatever is known.

That portion of the first volume treating of the laws and their administration does not admit of more than a few minor changes. However good their theory of jurisprudence, the people have many things to bear from the injustice of their rulers, but more from their own vices. The Peking Gazette is now regularly translated in the Shanghai papers, and gives a coup d’œil of the administration of the highest value.

The chapters on the languages and literature are considerably improved. The translations and text-books which the diligence of foreign scholars has recently furnished could be only partially enumerated, though here, as elsewhere in the work, references in the foot-notes are intended to direct the more interested student to the bibliography of the subject, and present him with the materials for an exhaustive study. The native literature is extensive, and all branches have contributed somewhat to form the résumé which is contained in this section, giving a preponderance to the Confucian classics. The four succeeding chapters contain notices of the arts, industries, domestic life, and science of the Chinese—a necessarily rapid survey, since these features of Chinese life are already well understood by foreigners. Nothing, however, that is either original or peculiar has been omitted in the endeavor to portray their social and economic characteristics. The emigration of many thousands of the people of Kwangtung within the last thirty years has made that province a representative among foreign nations of the others; it may be added that its inhabitants are well fitted, by their enterprise, thrift, and maritime habits, to become types of the whole.

The history and chronology are made fuller by the addition of several facts and tables;[1] but the field of research in this direction has as yet scarcely been defined, and few certain dates have been determined prior to the Confucian era. The entire continent of Asia must be thoroughly investigated in its geography, antiquities, and literature in order to throw light on the eastern portion. The history of China offers an interesting topic for a scholar who would devote his life to its elucidation from the mass of native literature.

The two chapters on the religions, and what has been done within the past half century to promote Christian missions, are somewhat enlarged and brought down to the present time. The study of modern scholars in the examination of Chinese religious beliefs has enabled them to make comparisons with other systems of Asiatics, as well as discuss the native creeds with more certainty.

The chapter on the commerce of China has an importance commensurate with its growing amount. Within the past ten years the opium trade has been attacked in its moral and commercial bearings between China, India, and England. There are grounds for hope that the British Government will free itself from any connection with it, which will be a triumph of justice and Christianity. The remainder of Volume II. describes events in the intercourse of China with the outer world, including a brief account of the Tai-ping Rebellion, which proximately grew out of foreign ideas. No connected or satisfactory narrative of the events which have forced one of the greatest nations of the world into her proper position, so far as I am aware, has as yet been prepared. A succinct recital of one of the most extraordinary developments of modern times should not be without interest to all.

The work of condensing the vast increase of reliable information upon China into these two volumes has been attended with considerable labor. Future writers will, I am convinced, after the manner of Richthofen, Yule, Legge, and others, confine themselves to single or cognate subjects rather than attempt such a comprehensive synopsis as is here presented. The number of illustrations in this edition is nearly doubled, the added ones being selected with particular reference to the subject-matter. I have availed myself of whatever sources of information I could command, due acknowledgment of which is made in the foot-notes, and ample references in the Index.

The revision of this book has been the slow though constant occupation of several years. When at last I had completed the revised copy and made arrangements as to its publication, in March, 1882, my health failed, and under a partial paralysis I was rendered incapable of further labor. My son, Frederick Wells Williams, who had already looked over the copy, now assumed entire charge of the publication. I had the more confidence that he would perform the duties of editor, for he had already a general acquaintance with China and the books which are the best authority. The work has been well done, the last three chapters particularly having been improved under his careful revision and especial study of the recent political history of China. The Index is his work, and throughout the book I am indebted to his careful supervision, especially on the chapters treating of geography and literature. By the opening of this year I had so far recovered as to be able to superintend the printing and look over the proofs of the second volume.

My experiences in the forty-three years of my life in China were coeval with the changes which gradually culminated in the opening of the country. Among the most important of these may be mentioned the cessation of the East India Company in 1834, the war with England in 1841-42, the removal of the monopoly of the hong merchants, the opening of five ports to trade, the untoward attack on the city of Canton which grew out of the lorcha Arrow, the operations in the vicinity of Peking, the establishment of foreign legations in that city, and finally, in 1873, the peaceful settlement of the kotow, which rendered possible the approach of foreign ministers to the Emperor’s presence. Those who trace the hand of God in history will gather from such rapid and great changes in this Empire the foreshadowing of the fulfilment of his purposes; for while these political events were in progress the Bible was circulating, and the preaching and educational labors of missionaries were silently and with little opposition accomplishing their leavening work among the people.

On my arrival at Canton in 1833 I was officially reported, with two other Americans, to the hong merchant Kingqua as fan-kwai, or ‘foreign devils,’ who had come to live under his tutelage. In 1874, as Secretary of the American Embassy at Peking, I accompanied the Hon. B. P. Avery to the presence of the Emperor Tungchí, when the Minister of the United States presented his letters of credence on a footing of perfect equality with the ‘Son of Heaven.’ With two such experiences in a lifetime, and mindful of the immense intellectual and moral development which is needed to bring an independent government from the position of forcing one of them to that of yielding the other, it is not strange that I am assured of a great future for the sons of Han; but the progress of pure Christianity will be the only adequate means to save the conflicting elements involved in such a growth from destroying each other. Whatever is in store for them, it is certain that the country has passed its period of passivity. There is no more for China the repose of indolence and seclusion—when she looked down on the nations in her overweening pride like the stars with which she could have no concern.

In this revision the same object has been kept in view that is stated in the Preface to the first edition—to divest the Chinese people and civilization of that peculiar and indefinable impression of ridicule which has been so generally given them by foreign authors. I have endeavored to show the better traits of their national character, and that they have had up to this time no opportunity of learning many things with which they are now rapidly becoming acquainted. The time is speedily passing away when the people of the Flowery Land can fairly be classed among uncivilized nations. The stimulus which in this labor of my earlier and later years has been ever present to my mind is the hope that the cause of missions may be promoted. In the success of this cause lies the salvation of China as a people, both in its moral and political aspects. This success bids fair to keep pace with the needs of the people. They will become fitted for taking up the work themselves and joining in the multiform operations of foreign civilizations. Soon railroads, telegraphs, and manufactures will be introduced, and these must be followed by whatsoever may conduce to enlightening the millions of the people of China in every department of religious, political, and domestic life.

The descent of the Holy Spirit is promised in the latter times, and the preparatory work for that descent has been accomplishing in a vastly greater ratio than ever before, and with increased facilities toward its final completion. The promise of that Spirit will fulfil the prophecy of Isaiah, delivered before the era of Confucius, and God’s people will come from the land of Sinim and join in the anthem of praise with every tribe under the sun.

S. W. W.

New Haven, July, 1883.

[CONTENTS OF VOLUME I.]

[LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS IN VOLUME I.]

[NOTE RESPECTING THE SYSTEM OF PRONUNCIATION ADOPTED IN THIS WORK.]

In this the values of the vowels are as follows:

• 1. a as the italicized letters in father, far (never like a in hat); e.g., chang, hang—sounded almost as if written chahng, hahng, not flat as in the English words sang, bang, man, etc.
• 2. ă like the short u in but, or as any of the italicized vowels in American, summer, mother; the German ö approaches this sound, while Wade writes it ê; e.g., păn, tăng, to be pronounced as pun, tongue.
• 3. e as in men, dead, said; as teh, shen, yen.
• 4. é, the French é, as in they, neigh, pray; as ché, yé, pronounced chay, yay.
• 5. i as in pin, finish; as sing, lin, Chihlí.
• 6. í as in machine, believe, feel, me; as lí, Kíshen, Kanghí.
• 7. o as in long, lawn; never like no, crow; as to, soh, po.
• 8. u as in rule, too, fool; as Turk, Belur, ku, sung; pronounced Toork, Beloor, koo, soong. This sound is heard less full in fuh, tsun, and a few other words; this and the next may be considered as equivalent to the two u-sounds found in German.
• 9. ü nearly as in l’une (French), or union, rheum; as hü, tsü.
• 10. ai as in aisle, high, or longer than i in pine; as Shanghai, Hainan. The combination ei is more slender than ai, though the difference is slight; e.g., Kwei chau.
• 11. au and ao as in round, our, how; as Fuhchau, Macao, Taukwang.
• 12. éu as in the colloquial phrase say ’em; e.g., chéung. This diphthong is heard in the Canton dialect.
• 13. ia as in yard; e.g., hia, kiang; not to be sounded as if written high-a, kigh-ang, but like heä, keäng.
• 14. iau is made by joining Nos. 5 and 11; hiau, Liautung.
• 15. ie as in sierra (Spanish), Rienzi; e.g., hien, kien.
• 16. iu as in pew, pure, lengthened to a diphthong; kiu, siun.
• 17. iue is made by adding a short e to the preceding; kiuen, hiuen.
• 18. ui as in Louisiana, suicide; e.g., sui, chui.

The consonants are sounded generally as they are in the English alphabet. Ch as in church; hw as in when; j soft, as s in pleasure; kw as in awkward; ng, as an initial, as in singing, leaving off the first two letters; sz’ and tsz’ are to be sounded full with one breathing, but none of the English vowels are heard in it; the sound stops at the z; Dr. Morrison wrote these sounds tsze and sze, while Sir Thomas Wade, whose system bids fair to become the most widely employed, turns them into ssŭ and tzŭ. The hs of the latter, made by omitting the first vowel of hissing, is written simply as h by the author. Urh, or ’rh, is pronounced as the three last letters of purr.

All these, except No. 12, are heard in the court dialect, which has now become the most common mode of writing the names of places and persons in China. Though foreign authors have employed different letters, they have all intended to write the same sound; thus chan, shan, and xan, are only different ways of writing 閂; and tsse, tsze, tsz’, 𝔷h, tzŭ, and tzu, of 字. Such is not the case, however, with such names as Macao, Hongkong, Amoy, Whampoa, and others along the coast, which are sounded according to the local patois, and not the court pronunciation—Ma-ngau, Hiangkiang, Hiamun, Hwangpu, etc. Many of the discrepancies seen in the works of travellers and writers are owing to the fact that each is prone to follow his own fancy in transliterating foreign names; uniformity is almost unattainable in this matter. Even, too, in what is called the court dialect there is a great diversity among educated Chinese, owing to the traditional way all learn the sounds of the characters. In this work, and on the map, the sounds are written uniformly according to the pronunciation given in Morrison’s Dictionary, but not according to his orthography. Almost every writer upon the Chinese language seems disposed to propose a new system, and the result is a great confusion in writing the same name; for example, eull, olr, ul, ulh, lh, urh, ’rh, í, e, lur, nge, ngí, je, jí, are different ways of writing the sounds given to a single character. Amid these discrepancies, both among the Chinese themselves and those who endeavor to catch their pronunciation, it is almost impossible to settle upon one mode of writing the names of places. That which seems to offer the easiest pronunciation has been adopted in this work. It may, perhaps, be regarded as an unimportant matter, so long as the place is known, but to one living abroad, and unacquainted with the language, the discrepancy is a source of great confusion. He is unable to decide, for instance, whether Tung-ngan, Tungon hien, Tang-oune, and Tungao, refer to the same place or not.

In writing Chinese proper names, authors differ greatly as to the style of placing them; thus, Fuhchaufu, Fuh-chau-fu, Fuh Chau Fu, Fuh-Chau fu, etc., are all seen. Analogy affords little guide here, for New York, Philadelphia, and Cambridge are severally unlike in the principle of writing them: the first, being really formed of an adjective and a noun, is not in this case united to the latter, as it is in Newport, Newtown, etc.; the second is like the generality of Chinese towns, and while it is now written as one word, it would be written as two if the name were translated—as ‘Brotherly Love;’ but the third, Cambridge, despite its derivation, is never written in two words, and many Chinese names are like this in origin. Thus applying these rules, properly enough, to Chinese places, they have been written here as single words, Suchau, Peking, Hongkong; a hyphen has been inserted in some places only to avoid mispronunciation, as Hiau-í, Sí-ngan, etc. It is hardly supposed that this system will alter such names as are commonly written otherwise, nor, indeed, that it will be adhered to with absolute consistency in the following pages; but the principle of the arrangement is perhaps the simplest possible. The additions fu, chau, ting, and hien, being classifying terms, should form a separate word. In conclusion, it may be stated that this system could only be carried out approximately as regards the proper names in the colonies and outside of the Empire.

THE
MIDDLE KINGDOM.

[CHAPTER I.]
GENERAL DIVISIONS AND FEATURES OF THE EMPIRE.

The possessions of the ruling dynasty of China,—that portion of the Asiatic continent which is usually called by geographers the Chinese Empire,—form one of the most extensive dominions ever swayed by a single power in any age, or any part of the world. Comprising within its limits every variety of soil and climate, and watered by large rivers, which serve not only to irrigate and drain it, but, by means of their size and the course of their tributaries, affording unusual facilities for intercommunication, it produces within its own borders everything necessary for the comfort, support, and delight of its occupants, who have depended very slightly upon the assistance of other climes and nations for satisfying their own wants. Its civilization has been developed under its own institutions; its government has been modelled without knowledge or reference to that of any other kingdom; its literature has borrowed nothing from the genius or research of the scholars of other lands; its language is unique in its symbols, its structure, and its antiquity; its inhabitants are remarkable for their industry, peacefulness, numbers, and peculiar habits. The examination of such a people, and so extensive a country, can hardly fail of being both instructive and entertaining, and if rightly pursued, lead to a stronger conviction of the need of the precepts and sanctions of the Bible to the highest development of every nation in its personal, social, and political relations in this world, as well as to individual happiness in another. It is to be hoped, too, that at this date in the world’s history, there are many more than formerly, who desire to learn the condition and wants of others, not entirely for their own amusement and congratulation at their superior knowledge and advantages, but also to promote the well-being of their fellow-men, and impart liberally of the gifts they themselves enjoy. Those who desire to do this, will find that few families of mankind are more worthy of their greatest efforts than those comprised within the limits of the Chinese Empire; while none stand in more need of the purifying, ennobling, and invigorating principles of our holy religion to develop and enforce their own theories of social improvement.

ORIGIN OF THE NAME CHINA.

The origin of the name China has not yet been fully settled. The people themselves have now no such name for their country, nor is there good evidence that they ever did apply it to the whole land. The occurrence in the Laws of Manu and in the Mahâbhârata of the name China, applied to a land or people with whom the Hindus had intercourse in the twelfth century B.C., and who were probably the Chinese, throws the origin far back into the remotest times, where probability must take the place of evidence. The most credible account ascribes its origin to the family of Tsin, whose chief first obtained complete sway, about B.C. 250, over all the other feudal principalities in the land, and whose exploits rendered him famous in India, Persia, and other Asiatic states. His sept had, however, long been renowned in Chinese history, and previous to this conquest had made itself widely known, not only in China, but in other countries. The kingdom lay in the northwestern parts of the empire, near the Yellow River, and according to Visdelou, who has examined the subject, the family was illustrious by its nobility and power. “Its founder was Tayé, son of the emperor Chuen-hü. It existed in great splendor for more than a thousand years, and was only inferior to the royal dignity. Feitsz’, a prince of this family, had the superintendence of the stud of the emperor Hiao, B.C. 909, and as a mark of favor his majesty conferred on him the sovereignty of the city of Tsinchau in mesne tenure, with the title of sub-tributary king. One hundred and twenty-two years afterwards, B.C. 770, Siangkwan, petit roi of Tsinchau (having by his bravery revenged the insults offered to the emperor Ping by the Tartars, who slew his father Yu), was created king in full tenure, and without limitation or exception. The same monarch, abandoning Sí-ngan (then called Hao-king, the capital of his empire) to transport his seat to Lohyang, Siangkwan was able to make himself master of the large province of Shensí, which had composed the proper kingdom of the emperor. The king of Tsin thus became very powerful, but though his fortune changed, he did not alter his title, retaining always that of the city of Tsinchau, which had been the foundation of his elevation. The kingdom of Tsin soon became celebrated, and being the place of the first arrival by land of people from western countries, it seems probable that those who saw no more of China than the realm of Tsin, extended this name to all the rest, and called the whole empire Tsin or Chin.”[2]

This extract refers to periods long before the dethronement of the house of Chau by princes of Tsin; the position of this latter principality, contiguous to the desert, and holding the passes leading from the valley of the Tarim across the desert eastward to China, renders the supposition of the learned Jesuit highly probable. The possession of the old imperial capital would strengthen this idea in the minds of the traders resorting to China from the West; and when the same family did obtain paramount sway over the whole empire, and its head render himself celebrated by his conquests, and by building the Great Wall, the name Tsin was still more widely diffused, and regarded as the name of the country. The Malays and Arabians, whose vessels were early found between Aden and Canton, knew it as China, and probably introduced the name into Europe before 1500. The Hindus contracted it into Ma-chin, from Maha-china, i.e., ‘Great China;’ and the first of these was sometimes confounded with Manji, a term used for the tribes in Yunnan. Thus it appears that these and other nations of Asia have known the country or its people by no other terms than Jin, Chin, Sin, Sinæ, or Tzinistæ. The Persian name Cathay, and its Russian form of Kitai, is of modern origin; it is altered from Ki-tah, the race which ruled northern China in the tenth century, and is quite unknown to the people it designates. The Latin word Seres is derived from the Chinese word sz’ (silk), and doubtless first came into use to denote the people during the Han dynasty.

VARIOUS DESIGNATIONS.

The Chinese have many names to designate themselves and the land they inhabit. One of the most ancient is Tien Hia, meaning ‘Beneath the Sky,’ and denoting the World; another, almost as ancient, is Sz’ Hai, i.e., ‘[all within] the Four Seas,’ while a third is Chung Kwoh, or ‘Middle Kingdom.’ This dates from the establishment of the Chau dynasty, about B.C. 1150, when the imperial family so called its own special state in Honan because it was surrounded by all the others. The name was retained as the empire grew, and thus has strengthened the popular belief that it is really situated in the centre of the earth; Chung Kwoh jin, or ‘men of the Middle Kingdom,’ denotes the Chinese. All these names indicate the vanity and ignorance of the people respecting their geographical position and their rank among the nations; they have not been alone in this foible, for the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans all had terms for their possessions which intimated their own ideas of their superiority; while, too, the area of none of those monarchies, in their widest extent, equalled that of China Proper. The family of Tsin also established the custom, since continued, of calling the country by the name of the dynasty then reigning; but, while the brief duration of that house of forty-four years was not long enough to give it much currency among the people, succeeding dynasties, by their talents and prowess, imparted their own as permanent appellations to the people and country. The terms Han-jin and Han-tsz’ (i.e., men of Han or sons of Han) are now in use by the people to denote themselves: the last also means a “brave man.” Tang-jin, or ‘Men of Tang,’ is quite as frequently heard in the southern provinces, where the phrase Tang Shan, or ‘Hills of Tang,’ denotes the whole country. The Buddhists of India called the land Chin-tan, or the ‘Dawn,’ and this appellation has been used in Chinese writings of that sect.

The present dynasty calls the empire Ta Tsing Kwoh, or ‘Great Pure Kingdom;’ but the people themselves have refused the corresponding term of Tsing-jin, or ‘Men of Tsing.’ The empire is also sometimes termed Tsing Chau, i.e., ‘[land of the] Pure Dynasty,’ by metonymy for the family that rules it. The term now frequently heard in western countries—the Celestial Empire—is derived from Tien Chau, i.e., ‘Heavenly Dynasty,’ meaning the kingdom which the dynasty appointed by heaven rules over; but the term Celestials, for the people of that kingdom, is entirely of foreign manufacture, and their language could with difficulty be made to express such a patronymic. The phrase Lí Min, or ‘Black-haired Race,’ is a common appellation; the expressions Hwa Yen, the ‘Flowery Language,’ and Chung Hwa Kwoh, the ‘Middle Flowery Kingdom,’ are also frequently used for the written language of the country, because the Chinese consider themselves to be among the most polished and civilized of all nations—which is the sense of hwa in these phrases. The phrase Nui Tí, or ‘Inner Land,’ is often employed to distinguish it from countries beyond their borders, regarded as the desolate and barbarous regions of the earth. Hwa Hia (the Glorious Hia) is an ancient term for China, the Hia dynasty being the first of the series; Tung Tu, or “Land of the East,” is a name used in Mohammedan writings alone.

The present ruling dynasty has extended the limits of the empire far beyond what they were under the Ming princes, and nearly to their extent in the reign of Kublai, A.D. 1290. In 1840, its borders were well defined, reaching from Sagalien I. on the north-east, in lat. 48° 10′ N. and long. 144° 50′ E., to Hainan I. in the China Sea, on the south, in lat. 18° 10′ N., and westward to the Belur-tag, in long. 74° E., inclosing a continuous area, estimated, after the most careful valuation by McCulloch, at 5,300,000 square miles. The longest line which could be drawn in this vast region, from the south-western part of Ílí, bordering on Kokand, north-easterly to the sea of Okhotsk, is 3,350 miles; its greatest breadth is 2,100 miles, from the Outer Hing-an or Stanovoi Mountains to the peninsula of Luichau in Kwangtung:—the first measuring 71 degrees of longitude, and the last over 34 of latitude.

Since that year the process of disintegration has been going on, and the cession of Hongkong to the British has been followed by greater partitions to Russia, which have altogether reduced it more than half a million of square miles on the north-east and west. Its limits on the western frontiers are still somewhat undefined. The greatest breadth is from Albazin on the Amur, nearly south to Hainan, 2,150 miles; and the longest line which can be drawn in it runs from Sartokh in Tibet, north-east to the junction of the Usuri River with the Amur.

The form of the empire approaches a rectangle. It is bounded on the east and south-east by various arms and portions of the Pacific Ocean, beginning at the frontier of Corea, and called on European maps the gulfs of Liautung and Pechele, the Yellow Sea, channel of Formosa, China Sea, and Gulf of Tonquin. Cochinchina and Burmah border on the provinces of Kwangtung, Kwangsí, and Yunnan, in the south-west; but most of the region near that frontier is inhabited by half-independent tribes of Laos, Kakyens, Singphos, and others. The southern ranges of the Himalaya separate Assam, Butan, Sikkim, Nípal and states in India from Tibet, whose western border is bounded by the nominally dependent country of Ladak, or if that be excluded, by the Kara-korum Mountains. The kingdoms or states of Cashmere, Badakshan, Kokand, and the Kirghís steppe, lie upon the western frontiers of Little Tibet, Ladak, and Ílí, as far north as the Russian border; the high range of the Belur-tag or Tsung-ling separates the former countries from the Chinese territory in this quarter. Russia is conterminous with China from the Kirghís steppe along the Altai chain and Kenteh range to the junction of the Argun and the Amur, from whence the latter river and its tributary, the Usuri, form the dividing line to the border of Corea, a total stretch of 5,300 miles. The circuit of the whole empire is 14,000 miles, or considerably over half the circumference of the globe. These measurements, it must be remembered, are of the roughest character. The coast line from the mouth of the river Yaluh in Corea to that of the Annam in Cochinchina is not far from 4,400 miles. This immense country comprises about one-third of the continent, and nearly one-tenth of the habitable part of the globe; and, next to Russia, is the largest empire which has existed on the earth.

It will, perhaps, contribute to a better comprehension of the area of the Chinese Empire to compare it with some other countries. Russia is nearly 6,500 miles in its greatest length, about 1,500 in its average breadth, and measures 8,369,144[3] square miles, or one-seventh of the land on the globe. The United States of America extends about 3,000 miles from Monterey on the Pacific in a north-easterly direction to Maine, and about 1,700 from Lake of the Woods to Florida. The area of this territory is now estimated at 2,936,166 square miles, with a coast line of 5,120 miles. The area of the British Empire is not far from 7,647,000 square miles, but the boundaries of some of the colonies in Hindostan and South Africa are not definitely laid down; the superficies of the two colonies of Australia and New Zealand is nearly equal to that of all the other possessions of the British crown.

GENERAL DIVISIONS.

The Chinese themselves divide the empire into three principal parts, rather by the different form of government in each, than by any geographical arrangement.

I. The Eighteen Provinces, including, with trivial additions, the country conquered by the Manchus in 1664.

II. Manchuria, or the native country of the Manchus, lying north of the Gulf of Liautung as far as the Amur and west of the Usuri River.

III. Colonial Possessions, including Mongolia, Ílí (comprising Sungaria and Eastern Turkestan), Koko-nor, and Tibet.

The first of these divisions alone is that to which other nations have given the name of China, and is the only part which is entirely settled by the Chinese. It lies on the eastern slope of the high table-land of Central Asia, in the south-eastern angle of the continent; and for beauty of scenery, fertility of soil, salubrity of climate, magnificent and navigable rivers, and variety and abundance of its productions, will compare with any portion of the globe. The native name for this portion, as distinguished from the rest, is Shih-pah Săng or the ‘Eighteen Provinces,’ but the people themselves usually mean this part alone by the term Chung Kwoh. The area of the Eighteen Provinces is estimated by McCulloch at 1,348,870 square miles, but if the full area of the provinces of Kansuh and Chihlí be included, this figure is not large enough; the usual computation is 1,297,999 square miles; Malte Brun reckons it at 1,482,091 square miles; but the entire dimensions of the Eighteen Provinces, as the Chinese define them, cannot be much under 2,000,000 square miles, the excess lying in the extension of the two provinces mentioned above. This part, consequently, is rather more than two-fifths of the area of the whole empire.

The old limits are, however, more natural, and being better known may still be retained. They give nearly a square form to the provinces, the length from north to south being 1,474 miles, and the breadth 1,355 miles; but the diagonal line from the north-east corner to Yunnan is 1,669 miles, and that from Amoy to the north-western part of Kansuh is 1,557 miles. China Proper, therefore, measures about seven times the size of France, and fifteen times that of the United Kingdom; it is nearly half as large as all Europe, which is 3,650,000 square miles. Its area is, however, nearer that of all the States of the American Union lying east of the Mississippi River, with Texas, Arkansas, Missouri and Iowa added; these all cover 1,355,309 square miles. The position of the two countries facing the western borders of great oceans is another point of likeness, which involves considerable similarity in climate; there is moreover a further resemblance between the size of the provinces in China and those of the newer States.

MOUNTAIN CHAINS.

Before proceeding to define the three great basins into which China may be divided, it will give a better idea of the whole subject to speak of the mountain ranges which lie within and near or along the limits of the country. The latter in themselves form almost an entire wall inclosing and defining the old empire; the principal exceptions being the western boundaries of Yunnan, the border between Ílí and the Kirghís steppe, and the trans-Amur region.

Commencing at the north-eastern corner of the basin of the Amur above its mouth, near lat. 56° N., are the first summits of the Altai range, which during its long course of 2,000 miles takes several names; this range forms the northern limit of the table-land of Central Asia. At its eastern part, the range is called Stanovoi by the Russians, and Wai Hing-an by the Chinese; the first name is applied as far west as the confluence of the Songari with the Amur, beyond which, north-west as far as lake Baikal, the Russians call it the Daourian Mountains. The distance from the lake to the ocean is about 600 miles, and all within Russian limits. Beyond lake Baikal, westward, the chain is called the Altai, i.e., Golden Mountains, and sometimes Kin shan, having a similar meaning. Near the head-waters of the river Selenga this range separates into two nearly parallel systems running east and west. The southern one, which lies mostly in Mongolia, is called the Tangnu, and rises to a much higher elevation than the northern spur. The Tangnu Mountains continue under that name on the Chinese maps in a south-westerly direction, but this chain properly joins the Tien shan, or Celestial Mountains, in the province of Cobdo, and continues until it again unites with the Altai further west, near the junction of the Kirghís steppe with China and Russia. The length of the whole chain is not far from 2,500 miles, and except near the Tshulyshman River, does not, so far as is known, rise to the snow line, save in detached peaks. The average elevation is supposed to be in the neighborhood of 7,000 feet; most of it lies between latitudes 47° and 52° N., largely covered with forests and susceptible of cultivation.

The next chain is the Belur-tag, Tartash ling, in Chinese Tsung ling, Onion Mountains, or better, Blue Mountains, so called from their distant hue.[4] This range lies in the south-west of Songaria, separating that territory from Badakshan; it commences about lat. 50° N., nearly at right angles with the Tien shan, and extends south, rising to a great height, though little is known of it. It may be considered as the connecting link between the Tien shan and the Kwănlun; or rather, both this and the latter may be considered as proceeding from a mountain knot, detached from the Hindu-kush, in the south-western part of Turkestan called Pushtikhur, the Belur-tag coming from its northern side, while the Kwănlun issues from its eastern side, and extends across the middle of the table-land to Koko-nor, there diverging into two branches. This mountain knot lies between latitudes 36° and 37° N., and longitudes 70° and 74° E. The Himalaya range proceeds from it south-easterly, along the southern frontier of Tibet, till it breaks up near the head-waters of the Yangtsz’, Salween, and other rivers between Tibet, Burmah, and Yunnan, thus nearly completing the inland frontier of the empire. A small spur from the Yun ling, in the west of Yunnan, in the country of the Singphos and borders of Assam, may also be regarded as forming part of the boundary line. The Chang-peh shan lies between the head-waters of the Yaluh and Toumen rivers, along the Corean frontier, forming a spur of the lower range of the Sihota or Sih-hih-teh Mountains, east of the Usuri.

THE TIEN SHAN AND KWĂNLUN RANGES.

Within the confines of the empire are four large chains, some of the peaks in their course rising to stupendous elevations, but the ridges generally falling below the snow line. The first is the Tien shan or Celestial Mountains, called Tengkiri by the Mongols, and sometimes erroneously Alak Mountains. This chain begins at the northern extremity of the Belur-tag in lat. 40° N., or more properly comes in from the west, and extends from west to east between longitudes 76° and 90° E., and generally along the 22° of north latitude, dividing Ílí into the Northern and Southern Circuits. Its western portion is called Muz-tag; the Muz-daban, about long. 79° E., between Kuldja and Aksu, is where the road from north to south runs across, leading over a high glacier above the snow line. East of this occurs a mass of peaks among the highest in Central Asia, called Bogdo-ula; and at the eastern end, near Urumtsi, as it declines to the desert, are traces of volcanic action seen in solfataras and spaces covered with ashes, but no active volcanoes are now known. The doubtful volcano of Pí shan, between the glacier and the Bogdo-ula, is the only one reported in continental China. The Tien shan end abruptly at their eastern point, where the ridge meets the desert, not far from the meridian of Barkul in Kansuh, though Humboldt considers the hills in Mongolia a continuation of the range eastward, as far as the Nui Hing-an. The space between the Altai and Tien shan is very much broken up by mountainous spurs, which may be considered as connecting links of them both, though no regular chain exists. The western prolongation of the Tien shan, under the name of the Muz-tag, extends from the high pass only as far as the junction of the Belur-tag, beyond which, and out of the Chinese Empire, it continues nearly west, south of the river Sihon toward Kodjend, under the names of Ak-tag and Asferah-tag; this part is covered with perpetual snow.

Nearly parallel with the Tien shan in part of its course is the Nan shan, Kwănlun or Koulkun range of mountains, also called Tien Chu or ‘Celestial Pillar’ by Chinese geographers. The Kwănlun starts from the Pushtikhur knot in lat. 36° N., and runs along easterly in nearly that parallel through the whole breadth of the table-land, dividing Tibet from the desert of Gobi in part of its course. About the middle of its extent, not far from long. 90° E., it divides into several ranges, which decline to the south-east through Koko-nor and Sz’chuen, under the names of the Bayan-kara, the Burkhan-buddha, the Shuga and the Tangla Mountains,—each more or less parallel in their general south-east course till they merge with the Yun ling (i.e., Cloudy Mountains), about lat. 33° N. Another group bends northerly, beyond the sources of the Yellow River, and under the names of Altyn-tag, Nan shan, Ín shan, and Ala shan, passes through Kansuh and Shensí to join the Nui Hing-an, not far from the great bend of the Yellow River. Some portion of the country between the extremities of these two ranges is less elevated, but no plains occur, though the parts north of Kansuh, where the Great Wall runs, are rugged and unfertile. The large tract between the basins of the Tarim River and that of the Yaru-tsangbu, including the Kwănlun range, is mostly occupied by the desert of Gobi, and is now one of the least known parts of the globe. The mineral treasures of the Kwănlun are probably great, judging from the many precious stones ascribed to it; this desolate region is the favorite arena for the monsters, fairies, genii, and other beings of Chinese legendary lore, and is the Olympus where the Buddhist and Taoist divinities hold their mystic sway, strange voices are heard, and marvels accomplished.[5]

From near the head-waters of the Yellow River, the four ridges run south-easterly, and converge hard by the confines of Burmah and Yunnan, within an area about one hundred miles in breadth. The Yun ling range constitutes the western frontier of Sz’chuen, and going south-east into Yunnan, thence turns eastward, under the names of Nan ling, Mei ling, Wu-í shan, and other local terms, passing through Kweichau, Hunan, and dividing Kwangtung and Fuhkien from Kiangsí and Chehkiang, bends north-east till it reaches the sea opposite Chusan. One or two spurs branch off north from this range through Hunan and Kiangsí, as far as the Yangtsz’, but they are all of moderate elevation, covered with forests, and susceptible of cultivation. The descent from the Siueh ling or Bayan-kara Mountains, and the western part of the Yun ling, to the Pacific, is very gradual. The Chinese give a list of fifty peaks lying in the provinces which are covered with snow for the whole or part of the year, and describe glaciers on several of them.

Another less extensive ridge branches off nearly due east from the Bayan-kara Mountains in Koko-nor, and forms a moderately high range of mountains between the Yellow River and Yangtsz’ kiang as far as long. 112° E., on the western borders of Nganhwui; this range is called Ko-tsing shan, and Peh ling (i.e., Northern Mountains), on European maps. These two chains, viz., the Yun ling—with its continuation of the Mei ling—and the Peh ling, with their numerous offsets, render the whole of the western part of China very uneven.

HING-AN AND HIMALAYA RANGES.

On the east of Mongolia, and commencing near the bend of the Yellow River, or rather forming a continuation of the range in Shansí, is the Nui Hing-an ling or Sialkoi, called also Soyorti range, which runs north-east on the west side of the basin of the Amur, till it reaches the Wai Hing-an, in lat. 56° N. The sides of the ridge toward the desert are nearly naked, but the eastern acclivities are well wooded and fertile. On the confines of Corea a spur strikes off westward through Shingking, called Kolmin-shanguin alin by the Manchus, and Chang-peh shan (i.e., Long White Mountains) by the Chinese. Between the Sialkoi and Sihota are two smaller ridges defining the basin of the Nonni River on the east and west. Little is known of the elevation of these chains except that they are low in comparison with the great western ranges, and under the snow line.

The fourth system of mountains is the Himalaya, which bounds Tibet on the south, while the Kwănlun and Burkhan Buddha range defines it on the north. A small range runs through it from west to east, connected with the Himalaya by a high table-land, which surrounds the lakes Manasa-rowa and Ravan-hrad, and near or in which are the sources of the Indus, Ganges, and Yaru-tsangbu. This range is called Gang-dis-ri and Zang, and also Kailasa in Dr. Buchanan’s map, and its eastern end is separated from the Yun ling by the narrow valley of the Yangtsz’, which here flows from north to south. The country north of the Gang-dis-ri is divided into two portions by a spur which extends in a north-west direction as far as the Kwănlun,[6] called the Kara-korum Mountains. On the western side of this range lies Ladak, drained by one of the largest branches of the Indus, and although included in the imperial domains on Chinese maps, has long been separated from imperial cognizance. The Kara-korum Mountains may therefore be taken as composing part of the boundary of the empire; Chinese geographers regard them as forming a continuation of the Tsung ling.

PUMPELLY’S SINIAN SYSTEM.

This hasty sketch of the mountain chains in and around China needs to be further illustrated by Pumpelly’s outlines of their general course and elevation in what he suitably terms the Sinian System, applied “to that extensive northeast-southwest system of upheaval which is traceable through nearly all Eastern Asia, and to which this portion of the continent owes its most salient features.” He has developed this system in the Researches in China, Mongolia and Japan, issued by the Smithsonian Institution in 1866. The mountains of China correspond in many respects to the Appalachian system in America, and its revolution probably terminated soon after the deposition of the Chinese coal measures. Mr. Pumpelly describes the principal anticlinal axes of elevation in China Proper, beginning with the Barrier Range, extending through the northern part of Chihlí and Shansí, where it trends W.S.W., prolonging across the Yellow River at Pao-teh, and hence S.W. through Shansí and Kansuh, coinciding with the watershed between the bend of that river, which traverses it through an immense gorge.

The next axis east begins at the Tushih Gate, and goes S.W. to the Nankau Pass, both of them in the Great Wall, and thence across Shansí to the elbow of the Yellow River, and onward to Western Sz’chuen, forming the watershed within the bend of the Yangtsz’. In the regions between these two axes are found coal deposits. A central axis succeeds this in Shansí, crossing the Yangtsz’ near Íchang, and passing on S.W. through Kweichau to the Nan ling; going N.E., it runs through Honan and subsides as it gets over the Yellow River, till in Shantung and the Regent’s Sword it rises higher and higher as it stretches on to the Chang-peh shan in Manchuria, and the ridge between the Songari and Usuri rivers. Between the last two ranges lie the great coal, iron, and salt deposits in the provinces, and each side of the central axis huge troughs and basins occur, such as the valley of the Yangtsz’ in Yunnan, the Great Plain in Nganhwui and Chihlí, the Gulf of Pechele, and the basins of the Liao and Songari rivers.

The coast axis of elevation is indicated by ranges of granitic mountains between Kiangsí and Kiangsu on the north, and Chehkiang and Fuhkien on the south, extending S.W. through Kwangtung into the Yun ling, and N.E. into the Chusan Archipelago, thence across to Corea and the Sihota Mountains east of the Usuri River. An outlying granitic range, reaching from Hongkong north-easterly to Wănchau, and S.W. to Hainan Island, marks a fifth axis of elevation.

Crossing these anticlinal axes are three ranges, coming into China Proper from the west in such a manner as to prove highly beneficial to its structure. The northern is apparently a continuation of the Bayan-kara Mountains in a S.E. direction into Kansuh, and south of the river Wei into Honan, under the name of the Hiung shan or ‘Bear Mountains.’ The centre is an offset from this, going across the north of Hupeh. The southern appears to be a prolongation of the Himalaya into Yunnan and Kwangsí, making the watershed between the Yangtsz’ and Pearl river basins.

THE DESERT OF GOBI.

Between the Tien shan and the Kwănlun range on the south-west, and reaching to the Sialkoi on the north-east, in an oblique direction, lies the great desert of Gobi or Sha-moh, both words signifying a waterless plain, or sandy floats.[7] The entire length of this waste is more than 1,800 miles, but if its limits are extended to the Belur-tag and the Sialkoi, at its western and eastern extremity, it will reach 2,200 miles; the average breadth is between 350 and 400 miles, subject, however, to great variations. The area within the mountain ranges which define it is over a million square miles, and few of the streams occurring in it find their way to the ocean. The whole of this tract is not a barren desert, though no part of it can lay claim to more than comparative fertility; and the great altitude of most portions seems to be as much the cause of its sterility as the nature of the soil. Some portions have relapsed into a waste because of the destruction of the inhabitants.

The western portion of Gobi, lying east of the Tsung ling and north of the Kwănlun, between long. 76° and 94° E., and in lat. 36° and 41° N., is about 1,000 miles in length, and between 300 and 400 wide. Along the southern side of the Tien shan extends a strip of arable land from 50 to 80 miles in width, producing grain, pasturage, cotton, and other things, and in which lie nearly all the Mohammedan cities and forts of the Nan Lu. The Tarim and its branches flow eastward into Lob-nor, through the best part of this tract, from 76° to 89° E.; and along the banks of the Khoten River a road runs from Yarkand to that city, and thence to H’lassa. Here the desert is comparatively narrow. This part is called Han hai, or ‘Mirage Sea,’ by the Chinese, and is sometimes known as the desert of Lob-nor. The remainder of this region is an almost unmitigated waste, and north of Koko-nor assumes its most terrific appearance, being covered with dazzling stones, and rendered insufferably hot by the reflection of the sun’s rays from these and numerous movable mountains of sand. Nor in winter is the climate milder or more endurable. “The icy winds of Siberia, the almost constantly unclouded sky, the bare saline soil, and its great altitude above the sea, combine to make the Gobi, or desert of Mongolia, one of the coldest countries in the whole of Asia.”[8]

The sandhills—kuzupchi, as the Mongols call them—appear north of the Ala shan and along the Yellow River, and when the wind sets them in motion they gradually travel before it, and form a great danger to travellers who try to cross them. One Chinese author says, “There is neither water, herb, man, nor smoke;—if there is no smoke, there is absolutely nothing.” The limits of the actual desert are not easily defined, for near the base of the mountain ranges, streams and vegetation are usually found.

Near the meridian of Hami, long. 94° E., the desert is narrowed to about 150 miles. The road from Kiayü kwan to Hami runs across this narrow part, and travellers find water at various places in their route. It divides Gobi into two parts—the desert of Lob-nor and the Great Gobi—the former being about 4,500 feet elevation, and the latter or eastern not higher than 4,000 feet. The borders of Kansuh now extend across this tract to the foot of the Tien shan.

The eastern part, or Great Gobi, stretches from the eastern declivity of the Tien shan, in long. 94° to 120° E., and about lat. 40° N., as far as the Inner Hing-an. Its width between the Altai and the Ín shan range varies from 500 to 700 miles. Through the middle of this tract extends the depressed valley properly called Sha-moh, from 150 to 200 miles across, and whose lowest depression is from 2,600 to 2,000 feet above the sea. Sand almost covers the surface of this valley, generally level, but sometimes rising into low hills. The road from Urga to Kalgan, crossing this tract, is watered during certain seasons of the year, and clothed with grass. It is 660 miles, and forty-seven posts are placed along the route. The crow, lark, and sand-grouse are abundant on this road, the first being a real pest, from its pilfering habits. Such vegetation as occurs is scanty and stunted, affording indifferent pasture, and the water in the small streams and lakes is brackish and unpotable. North and south of the Sha-moh the surface is gravelly and sometimes rocky, the vegetation more vigorous, and in many places affords good pasturages for the herds of the Kalkas tribes. In those portions bordering on or included in Chihlí province, among the Tsakhars, agricultural labors are repaid, and millet, oats, and barley are produced, though not to a great extent. Trees are met with on the water-courses, but not to form forests. This region is called tsau-ti, or Grassland, and maintains large herds of sheep and cattle. It extends more or less northward towards Siberia. The Etsina is the largest inland stream in this division of Gobi, but on its north-eastern borders are some large tributaries of the Amur. On the south of the Sialkoi range the desert-lands reach nearly to the Chang-peh shan, about five degrees beyond those mountains. The general features of this portion of the earth’s surface are less forbidding than Sahara, but more so than the steppes of Siberia or the pampas of Buenos Ayres. The whole of Gobi is regarded by Pumpelly as having formed a portion of a great ocean, which, in comparatively recent geological times, extended south to the Caspian and Black Seas, and between the Ural and Inner Hing an Mountains, and was drained off by an upheaval whose traces and effects can be detected in many parts. “It appears to me,” he adds, “that the ancient physical geography of this region, and the effects of its elevation, present one of the most important fields of exploration.” It will no doubt soon be more fully explored. Baron Richthofen describes Central Asia as properly a shallow trough, 1,800 miles long and about 400 miles wide, whose bottom is about 1,800 feet above the ocean; its ancient shore-line extended between the Kwănlun and Tien shan ranges on the west, from 5,000 to 10,000 feet high, and gradually falling to 3,600 feet in its eastern shore. This is the Han-hai; eastward is Sha-moh, and outside of both these wildernesses are the peripheral regions, where the waters flow to the ocean, carrying their silt, the erosions from the mountains. Inside of the shore-line nothing reaches the oceans, and these results of degradation are washed or blown into the valleys, and the country is buried in its own dust.[9]

The rivers of China are her glory, and no country can compare with her for natural facilities of inland navigation. The people themselves consider that portion of geography relating to their rivers as the most interesting, and give it the greatest attention. The four largest rivers in the empire are the Yellow River, the Yangtsz’, the Amur, and the Tarim; the Yaru-tsangbu also runs more than a thousand miles within its borders.

THE YELLOW RIVER.

The Hwang ho, or ‘Yellow River,’ rises in the plain of Odontala, called in Chinese Sing-suh hai, or ‘Starry Sea,’ from the numerous springs or lakelets found there between the Shuga and Bayan-kara Mountains, in lat. 35⅓°, and about long. 96° E., and not a hundred miles from the Yangtsz’. The Chinese popularly believe that the Yellow River runs underground from Lob-nor to Sing-suh hai. In this region are two lakes—the Dzaring and Oling, which are its fountains; and its course is very crooked after it leaves them. It turns first south 30 miles, then east 160, then nearly west about 120, winding through gorges of the Kwănlun; the river then flows north-east and east to Lanchau in Kansuh, having gone about 700 miles in its devious line. From Lanchau it turns northward along the Great Wall for 430 miles, till deflected eastward by the Ín shan, on the edge of the plateau, and incloses the country of the Ortous Mongols within this great bend. A spur of the Peh ling forces it south, about long. 110° E., between Shansí and Shensí, for some 500 miles, till it enters the Great Plain, having run 1,130 miles from Lanchau. Through this loess region it becomes tinged with the soil which imparts both color and name to it. At the northern bend it separates in several small lakes and branches, and during this part of its course, for more than 500 miles, receives not a single stream of any size, while it is still so rapid, in descending from the plateau, as to demand much care when crossing it by boats. At the south-western corner of Shansí this river meets its largest tributary, the Wei, which comes in from the westward after a course of 400 miles, and is more available as a navigable stream than any other of the affluents. The area of the whole basin is less than that of the Yangtsz’, and may be estimated at about 475,000 square miles; though the source of this stream is only 1,290 miles in a direct line from its mouth, its numerous windings prolong its course to nearly double that distance.

The great differences of level in winter and summer have always made this river nearly useless, except as a drain; while the effect of the long-continued deposit of silt along its lower level course has finally choked the mouth altogether. This remarkable result has been hastened, no doubt, by the dikes built along the banks to the east of Kaifung, which thus forced the floods to fill up the channel, and pushed the waters back over 500 miles to Honan-fu. Here the land is low, and the refluent waters gradually worked their way through marshes and creeks into the river Wei on the north bank, and thus found a north-east channel into the Canal and the Ta-tsing River, till they reached the Gulf of Pechele. A small part of these floods have perhaps gone south into the head-waters of the river Hwai, and thence into Hung-tsih Lake; but that lake has shrivelled, like its great feeder, and all its waters flow into the Yangtsz’. The history of the Yellow River furnishes a conclusive argument against diking a river’s banks to restrain its floods. It has now reverted to the channel it occupied about fourteen centuries ago.[10]

THE YANGTSZ’ KIANG.

Far more tranquil and useful is its rival, the Yangtsz’ kiang, called also simply Kiang or Ta kiang, the ‘River,’ or ‘Great River.’ It is often erroneously named on western maps, Kyang Ku, which merely means ‘mouth of the river.’ The sources of the Kiang are in the Tangla Mountains and the Kwănlun range, and are placed on native maps in three streams flowing from the southern side of the Bayan-kara. This has been partly confirmed by Col. Prejevalsky. In January, 1873, he reached the Murui-ussu (Tortuous River) in lat. 35°, long. 94°, at its junction with the Napchitai, the northern of the three branches, and found it 750 feet wide at that season. In spring, the river’s bed there is filled up a mile wide. Its course thence is south-east, receiving three other streams, all of which may be considered as its head-waters. All their channels are over ten thousand feet above the sea, but the ranges near them are under the snow-line. There is no authentic account of its course from this union till it joins the Yalung kiang in Sz’chuen, a distance of nearly 1,300 miles; but Chinese maps indicate a south-easterly direction through the gorges of the Yun ling, till it bursts out from the mountains in lat. 26° N., where it turns north-east. During much of this distance it bears the name of the Po-lai-tsz’. The Yalung River rises very near the Yellow River, and runs parallel with the Kiang in a valley further east, flowing upwards of 600 miles before they join. Great rafts of timber are floated down both these streams, for sale at the towns further east, but no large boats are seen on them before they leave the mountains. The town of Batang, in Sz’chuen, on the road from H’lassa, is the first large place on the river. The main trunk is called Kin sha kiang (i.e., Golden-sand River), until it receives the Yalung in the southern part of Sz’chuen, which the Chinese there regard as the principal stream of the two. Beyond the junction, the united river is called Ta kiang as far as Wuchang, in Hupeh, beyond which the people know it also as the Chang kiang, or ‘Long River.’ They do not often call it Yangtsz’, which is properly applied only to the reach from Nanking out to sea, which lay within the old region of Yangchau. This name has been erroneously written in Chinese, and thence translated ‘Son of the Ocean.’ The French often call it the Fleuve Bleu, but the Chinese have no such name. Its general course from Wuchang is easterly, receiving various tributaries on both shores, until it discharges its waters at Tsungming Island, by two mouths, in lat. 32° N., more than 1,850 miles from its mouth in a direct line, but flowing nearly 3,000 miles in all its windings.[11]

One of the largest and most useful of its tributaries in its lower course is the Kan kiang in Kiangsí, which empties through the Poyang lake, and continues the transverse communication from north to south, connecting with the Grand Canal. The Tungting lake receives the Siang and Yuen, which drain the northern sides of the Nan ling in Hunan; and west of them is the Kungtan or Wu, which comes in with its surplus waters from Kweichau. These are on the south; the Han in Hupeh, and the Kialing, Min, and Loh in Sz’chuen, are the main affluents on the north, contributing the drainage south of the Peh ling. The Grand Canal comes in opposite Chinkiang, and from thence the deep channel, able to carry the largest men-of-war on its bosom, finds its way to the Pacific. No two rivers can be more unlike in their general features than these two mighty streams. While the Yellow River is unsteady, the Yangtsz’ is uniform and deep in its lower course, and available for rafts from Batang in the western confines of Sz’chuen, and for boats from beyond Tungchuen in Yunnan, more than 1,700 miles from its mouth. Its great body and depth afford ample room for ocean steam-ships 200 miles, as far as Nanking, where in some places no bottom could be found at twenty fathoms, while the banks are not so low as to be often injured by the freshets, even when the flood is over thirty feet. At Pingshan above Süchau in Sz’chuen, 1,550 miles from its mouth, Blakiston reckons the river to be 1,500 feet above tide-water, which gives an average fall of 12 inches to a geographical mile; the inclination is increased to 19 inches in some portions, and it is this force which carries the silt of this stream out to sea, but which is wanting in the Yellow River. The fall of the Yangtsz’ is nearly double that of the Nile and Amazon, and half that of the Mississippi. The amount of water discharged is estimated at 500,000 cubic feet a second at Íchang, about 700 miles up, and it may reasonably be concluded that at Tsungming it discharges in times of flood a million cubic feet per second. Barrow calculated the discharge of the Yellow River in 1798 to be 11,616 cubic feet per second, when the current ran seven miles an hour. No river in the world exceeds the Yangtsz’ for arrangement of subsidiary streams, which render the whole basin accessible as far as the Yalung. When a ship-canal has been dug around the gorges and rapids between Íchang and Kwei, steam-vessels can ascend nearly two thousand miles. The area of its basin is estimated at 548,000 square miles; and from its central course, and the number of provinces through which it passes, it has been termed the Girdle of China; while for its size, perennial and ample supply of water, and accessibility for navigation, it ranks with the great rivers of the world.[12]

Besides these two notable rivers, numerous others empty into the ocean along the coast from Hainan to the Amur, three of which drain large tracts of country, and afford access to many populous cities and districts. The third basin is that south of the Nan ling to the ocean; it is drained chiefly by the Chu kiang, and its form is much less regular than those of the Yellow River and Yangtsz’. The Chu kiang or Pearl River, like most of the rivers in China, has many names during its course, and is formed by three principal branches, respectively called East, North, and West rivers, according to the quarter from whence they come. The last is by far the largest, and all of them are navigable most of their length. They disembogue together at Canton, and drain a region of not much less than 130,000 square miles, being all the country east of the Yun ling and south of the Nan ling ranges. The rivers in Yunnan, for the most part, empty into the Salween, Saigon, Meikon, and other streams in Cochinchina. The Min, which flows by Fuhchau, the Tsih, upon which Ningpo lies, the Tsientang, leading up to Hangchau, and the Pei ho, or White River, emptying into the Gulf of Pechele, are the most considerable among these lesser outlets in the provinces; while the Liau ho and Yahluh kiang, discharging into the Gulf of Liautung, are the only two that deserve mention in Southern Manchuria. The difference between the number of river-mouths cutting the Chinese coast and that of the United States is very striking, resulting from the different direction of the mountain chains in the interior.

LAKES OF CHINA.

The lakes of China are comparatively few and small; all those in the provinces of any size lie within the Plain, and are connected with the two great rivers. The largest is the Tungting in Hunan, about 220 miles in circumference, through which the waters of the Siang and Yuen rivers flow, and fill its channels and beds according to the season; it is now the silted-up bed of a former inland sea in Hupeh, lying on both sides of the Yangtsz’, and through which countless lakes, creeks, and canals form a navigable network between that river and the Han. The lake receives the silt as the tributaries flow on through it, and discharge themselves along the deep outlet near Yohchau; this depression altogether is about 200 miles long and 80 broad. About 320 miles eastward lies the Poyang Lake in Kiangsí, which also discharges the surplus waters of the Kan into the Yangtsz’. It is nearly 90 miles long, and about 20 in breadth, inclosing within its bosom many beautiful and populous islets. The scenery around this lake is highly picturesque, and its trade and fisheries are more important than those of the Tungting. The Yangtsz’ receives the waters of several other lakes as it approaches the ocean, the largest of which are the Ta hu or ‘Great Lake’ near Suchau, and the Tsau hu, lying on the northern bank, between Nganking and Nanking; both these lakes join the river by navigable streams, and the former is connected with the ocean by more than one channel.

The only considerable lake connected with the Yellow River is the Hungtsih in Kiangsu, situated near the junction of that river and the Grand Canal, into which it discharges the drainings of the Hwai River; it is more remarkable for the fleets of boats upon it than for scenery in the vicinity. The larger part of the country between the mouths of the two rivers is so marshy and full of lakes, as to suggest the idea that the whole was once an enormous estuary where their waters joined, or else that their deposits have filled up a huge lake which once occupied this tract, leaving only a number of lesser sheets. Besides these, there are small lakes in Chihlí and Shantung; also the Tien, the Sien, and the Tali, of moderate extent, in Yunnan; all of them support an aquatic population upon the fish taken from their waters.

The largest lake in Manchuria is the Hinkai-nor in Kirin, near the source of the Usuri; the two lakes Hurun and Puyur, or Pir, in the basin of the Nonni River, give their name to Hurun-pir, the western district of Tsitsihar; but of the extent and productions of these sheets of water little is known.

The regions lying north and south of Gobi contain many salt lakes, none of them individually comparing with the Aral Sea, but collectively covering a much larger extent, and most of them receiving the waters of the streams which drain their own isolated basins. The peculiarities of these little known parts, especially the depression on each side of the Tien shan, are such as to render them among the most interesting fields for geographical and geological research in the world. The largest one in Turkestan is Lob-nor, stated to be a great marsh overgrown with tall reeds and having a length of 75 miles and width of 15 miles.[13] Bostang-nor, said to connect with this lake, is placed on Chinese maps some 30 miles north of it. North of the Tien shan the lakes are larger and more numerous; the Dzaisang, Kisil-bash and Issik-kul are the most important. All these lakes are salt.

The whole region of Koko-nor is a country of lakes. The Oling and Dzaring are among the sources of the Yellow River; and the Tsing hai, or Azure Sea, better known as Koko-nor, gives its name to the province. The Tengkiri-nor in Tibet lies to the north of H’lassa, and is the largest sheet of water within the frontiers of the empire. In its neighborhood are numerous small lakes extending northward into Koko-nor. The Palti or Yamorouk is shaped like a ring, an island in its centre occupying nearly the whole surface. Ulterior Tibet possesses many lakes on both sides of the Gang-dis-ri range; the Yik and Paha, near Gobi, are the largest, being only two of a long row of them south of the Kwănlun range.

BOUNDARIES OF THE PROVINCES.

The Eighteen Provinces are bounded on the north-east by the colony of Shingking, from which they are separated by the line of a former palisade marking the boundary from the town of Shan-hai kwan to the Hwang ho. Following this stream to its sources in the Ín shan, the boundary then crosses these mountains and pursues a west and south-west course, through the territories of roving Mongol tribes, until it finds the Yellow River at the settlement of Hokiuh in Shensí. West of this the Great Wall divides the provinces of Shensí and Kansuh from the Mongolian deserts as far as the Kiayü Pass, beyond which lies the desert of Gobi, called Peh hai (North Sea) and Hah hai (Black Sea). On the east are the Gulf of Pechele and the Yellow Sea or Hwang hai, also called Tung hai (Eastern Sea) as far south as the Channel of Formosa. This channel and the China Sea lie on the south-east and south, as far as the Gulf of Tongking and the confines of Annam. Kwangsí and Yunnan border on Annam and Siam on their south sides, while Burmah marks the western frontier, but nearly the whole south-west and western frontiers beyond Yunnan and Sz’chuen are possessed by small tribes of uncivilized people, over whom neither the Chinese nor Burmese have much real control. Koko-nor bounds Sz’chuen and Kansuh on their western and south-western sides.

CHARACTER OF THE COAST.

The coast of China, from Hainan to the mouth of the Yangtsz’, is bordered with multitudes of islands and rocky islets; from that point northward to Liautung, the shores are low, and, except in Shantung, the coast is rendered dangerous by shoals.

South of the Pei ho, along to the end of Shantung Promontory, the coast is bolder, increasing in height after passing the Miautau Islands, though neither side of the promontory presents any point of remarkable elevation; Cape Macartney, at the eastern end, is a conspicuous bluff when approaching it from sea. From this cape to the mouth of the Tsientang River, near Chapu, a distance of about 400 miles, the coast is low, especially between the mouths of the Yangtsz’ and Yellow rivers, and has but few good harbors. Quicksands in the regions near these rivers and the Bay of Hangchau render the navigation dangerous to native junks. From Kitto Point, near Ningpo, down to Hongkong, the shores assume a bolder aspect, and numerous small bays and coves occur among the islands, affording safe refuge for vessels. The aspect along this part is uninviting in the extreme, consisting principally of a succession of yellowish cliffs and naked headlands, giving little promise of the highly cultivated country beyond them. This bleak appearance is caused by the rains washing the decomposed soil off the surface; the rock being granite in a state of partial and progressive disintegration, the loose soil is easily carried down into the intervals. Another reason for its treeless surface is owing to the practice of annually cutting the coarse grass for fuel, and after the crop is gathered setting the stubble on fire, in order to manure the ground for the coming year; the fire and thinness of the soil together effectually prevent any large growth of trees or shrubbery upon the hills.

The estuary of the Pearl River from the Bocca Tigris down to the Grand Ladrones, a distance of 70 miles, and from Hongkong westerly to the Island of Tungku, about 100 miles, is interspersed with islands. The strait which separates Hainan from the Peninsula of Luichau has been supposed to be the place called by Arabian travellers in the ninth century the Gates of China, but that channel was probably near the Chusan Archipelago. That group of fertile islands is regarded as the broken termination of the continental range of mountains running through Chehkiang.

The Island of Formosa, or Taiwan, connects the islands of Japan and Lewchew with Luçonia. Between Formosa and the coast lie the Pescadores or Panghu Islands, a group much less in extent and number than the Chusan Islands. The Chinese have itineraries of all the places, headlands, islands, etc., along the entire coast, but they do not afford much information respecting the names of positions.[14]

The first objects that invite attention in the general aspect of China Proper are the Great Plain in the north-east, and the three longitudinal basins into which the country is divided by mountain chains running east and west.[15] The three great rivers which drain these basins flow through them very irregularly, but by means of their main trunks and the tributaries, water communication is easily kept up, not only from west to east along the great courses, but also across the country. These natural facilities for inland navigation have been greatly improved by the people, but they still, in most cases, await the introduction of steam to assist them in stemming the rapid currents of some of their rivers, and bringing distant places into more frequent communication.

The whole surface of China may be conveniently divided into the mountainous and hilly country and the Great Plain. The mountainous country comprehends more than half of the whole, lying west of the meridian of 112° or 114° (nearly that of Canton), quite to the borders of Tibet. The hilly portion is that south of the Yangtsz’ kiang and east of this meridian, comprising the provinces of Fuhkien, Kiangsí, Kwangtung, and sections of Hunan and Hupeh. The Great Plain lies in the north-east, and forms the richest part of the empire.

This Plain extends in length 700 miles from the Great Wall and Barrier Range north of Peking to the confluence of Poyang Lake with the Yangtsz’ in Kiangsí, lat. 30° N. The latter river is considered as its southern boundary as far down as Nganking in Nganhwui, whence to the sea it is formed by a line drawn nearly east through Hangchau. The western boundary may be marked by a line drawn from Kingchau in Hupeh (lat. 30° 36′), nearly north to Hwaiking, on the Yellow River, and thence due north to the Great Wall, 50 miles north-west of Peking. The breadth varies. North of lat. 35°, where it partly extends to the Yellow Sea, and partly borders on the western side of Shantung, thence across to the Bear Mountains and Shansí, its measure is between 150 and 250 miles; stating the average at 200 miles, this portion has an area of 70,000 square miles. Between 34° and 35° the Plain enlarges, and in the parallel of the Yellow River has a breadth of some 300 miles from east to west; while further south, along the course of the Yangtsz’, it reaches nearly 400 miles inland. Estimating the mean breadth of this portion at 400 miles, there are 140,000 square miles, which, with the northern part, make an area of about 210,000 square miles—a surface seven times as large as that of Lombardy, and about the same area as the plain of Bengal drained by the Ganges. The northern portion in Chihlí up to the edge of the Plateau is mostly a deposit of the yellow loess and alluvial on the river bottoms; that lying near the coast in Kiangsu is low and swampy, covered by lakes and intersected by water-courses. This portion is extremely fertile, and furnishes large quantities of silk, tea, cotton, grain, and tobacco. The most interesting feature of this Plain is the enormous population it supports, which is, according to the census of 1812, not less than 177 millions of human beings, if the whole number of inhabitants contained in the six provinces lying wholly or partly in it be included; making it by far the most densely settled of any part of the world of the same size, and amounting to nearly two-thirds of the whole population of Europe.[16]

THE GREAT WALL.

The public works of China are probably unequalled in any land or by any people, for the amount of human labor bestowed upon them; the natural aspect of the country has been materially changed by them, and it has been remarked that the Great Wall is the only artificial structure which would arrest attention in a hasty survey of the surface of the globe. But their usefulness, or the science exhibited in their construction, is far inferior to their extent. The Great Wall, called Wan-lí Chang Ching (i.e., Myriad-mile Wall), was built by Tsin Chí-hwangtí, in order to protect his dominions from the incursions of the northern tribes. Some portions of it were already in existence, and he formed the plan of joining and extending them along the whole northern frontier to guard it. It was finished B.C. 204, having been ten years in building, seven of which were done after the Emperor’s death. This gigantic work was probably a popular one in the main, and still remains as its own chief evidence of the energy, industry, and perseverance of its builders, as well as their unwisdom and waste. Its construction probably cost less than the usual sums spent by European States for their standing armies. It commences at Shanhai wei or Shanhai kwan (lat. 40°, long. 119° 50′), a coast town of some importance as on the boundary between Chihlí and Shingking, and a place of considerable trade. Lord Jocelyn describes the wall, when observed from the ships, as “scaling the precipices and topping the craggy hills of the country, which have along this coast a most desolate appearance.”

It runs along the shore for several miles, and terminates on the beach near a long reef. Its course from this point is west, a little northerly, along the old frontiers of the province of Chihlí, and then in Shansí, till it strikes the Yellow River, in lat. 39½° and long. 111½°. This is the best built part, and contains the most important gates, where garrisons and trading marts are established. Within the province of Chihlí there are two walls, inclosing a good part of the basin of the Sangkan ho west of Peking; the inner one was built by an emperor of the Ming dynasty. From the point where it strikes the Yellow River, near Pau-teh, it forms the northern boundary of Shensí, till it touches that stream again in lat. 37°, inclosing the country of the Ortous Mongols. Its direction from this point is north-west along the northern frontier of Kansuh to its termination near Kiayü kwan, through which the road passes leading to Hami.

From near the eastern extremity of the Wall in the province of Chihlí, extending in a north-easterly direction, there was once a wooden stockade or palisade, forming the boundary between Liautung and Kirin, which has been often taken from its representation on maps as a continuation of the Great Wall. It was erected by the Manchus, but has long since become decayed and disused.

The entire length of the Great Wall between its extremities is 22½ degrees of latitude, or 1,255 miles in a straight line; but its turnings and doublings increase it to fully 1,500 miles. It would stretch from Philadelphia to Topeka, or from Portugal to Naples, on nearly the same latitude. The construction of this gigantic work is somewhat adapted to the nature of the country it traverses, and the material was taken or made on the spot where it was used. In the western part of its course, it is in some places merely a mud or gravel wall, and in others earth cased with brick.

The eastern part is generally composed of earth and pebbles faced with large bricks, weighing from 40 to 60 lbs. each, supported on a coping of stone. The whole is about 25 feet thick at the base, and 15 feet at the top, and varying from 15 to 30 feet high; the top is protected with bricks, and defended by a slight parapet, the thinness of which has been taken as proof that cannon were unknown at the time it was erected. There are brick towers at different intervals, some of them more than 40 feet high, but not built upon the Wall. These are independent structures, usually about 40 feet square at the base, diminishing to 30 at the top; at particular spots the towers are of two stories.

The impression left upon the mind of a foreigner, on seeing this monument of human toil and unremunerative outlay, is respect for a people that could in any manner build it. Standing on the peak at Ku-peh Kau (Old North Gate), one sees the cloud-capped towers extending away over the declivities in single files both east and west, until dwarfed by miles and miles of skyward perspective as they dwindle into minute piles, yet stand with solemn stillness where they were stationed twenty centuries ago, as though condemned to wait the march of time till their builders returned. The crumbling dike at their feet may be followed, winding, leaping across gorges, defiles, and steeps, now buried in some chasm, now scaling the cliffs and slopes, in very exuberance of power and wantonness, as it vanishes in a thin, shadowy line, at the horizon. Once seen, the Great Wall of China can never be forgotten.

At present this remarkable structure is simply a geographical boundary, and except at the Gates nothing is done to keep it in repair. Beyond the Yellow River to its western extremity, the Great Wall, according to Gerbillon, is mostly a mound of earth or gravel, about fifteen feet in height, with only occasional towers of brick, or gateways made of stone. At Kalgan portions of it are made of porphyry and other stones piled up in a pyramidal form between the brick towers, difficult to cross but easy enough to pull down. The appearance of this rampart at Ku-peh kau is more imposing; the entire extent of the main and cross walls in sight from one of the towers there is over twenty miles. In one place it runs over a peak 5,225 feet high, where it is so steep as to make one wonder as much at the labor of erecting it on such a cliff as on the folly of supposing it could be of any use there as a defence. The wall is most visited at Nan-kau (South Gate), in the Ku-yung Pass, a remarkable Thermopyla fifteen miles in length, which leads from the Plain at Peking up to the first terrace above it, and at one time was guarded by five additional walls and gates, now all in ruins. From this spot, the wall reaches across Shansí, and was built at a later period.

THE GRAND CANAL.

The other great public work is the Grand Canal, or Chah ho (i.e., river of Flood-gates), called also Yun ho or ‘Transit River,’ an enterprise which reflects far more credit upon the monarchs who devised and executed it, than does the Great Wall, and if the time in which it was dug, and the character of the princes who planned it, be considered, few works can be mentioned in the history of any country more admirable and useful. When it was in order, before the inflow of the Yellow River failed, by means of its connection with its feeders, an uninterrupted water communication across the country from Peking to Canton existed, and goods and passengers passed from the capital to nearly every large town in the basins of the two great rivers. The canal was designed by Kublai to reach from his own capital as far as Hangchau, the former capital of the Sung dynasty, and cannot be better described than in Marco Polo’s language: “You must understand that the Emperor has caused a water communication to be made from this city [Kwa-chau] to Cambaluc, in the shape of a wide and deep channel dug between stream and stream, between lake and lake, forming as it were a great river on which large vessels can ply.”[17] The northern end is a channel fourteen miles long, from Tung-chau up to Peking, which, passing under the city walls, finishes its course of some 600 miles at the palace wall, close by the British Legation; here it is called Yu ho, or ‘Imperial River,’ but all boats now unlade at the eastern gate. An abridged account of Davis’s observations[18] will afford a good idea of its construction and appearance.

“Early on the 23d September, we entered the canal through two stone piers and between very high banks. The mounds of earth in the immediate vicinity were evidently for the purpose of effecting repairs, which, to judge from the vestiges of inundation on either side, could not be infrequent. The canal joins the Yu ho, which we had just quitted, on its eastern bank, as that river flows towards the Pei ho. One of the most striking features of the canal is the comparative clearness of its waters, when contrasted with that of the two rivers on which we had hitherto travelled; a circumstance reasonably attributable to the depositions occasioned by the greater stillness of its contents. The course of the canal at this point was evidently in the bed of a natural river, as might be perceived from its winding course, and the irregularity and inartificial appearance of its banks. The stone abutments and flood-gates are for the purpose of regulating its waters, which at present were in excess and flowing out of it. As we proceeded on the canal, the stone flood-gates or sluices occurred at the rate of three or four a day, sometimes oftener, according as the inequalities in the surface of the country rendered them necessary....

“As we advanced, the canal in some parts became narrower, and the banks had rather more of an artificial appearance than where we first entered it, being occasionally pretty high; but still the winding course led to the inference, that as yet the canal was for the most part only a natural river, modified and regulated by sluices and embankments. The distance between the stone piers in some of the flood-gates was apparently so narrow as only just to admit the passage of our largest boats. The contrivance for arresting the course of the water through them was extremely simple; stout boards, with ropes fastened to each end, were let down edgewise over each other through grooves in the stone piers. A number of soldiers and workmen always attended at the sluices, and the danger to the boats was diminished by coils of rope being hung down at the sides to break the force of blows. The slowness of our progress, which for the last week averaged only twenty miles a day, gave us abundant leisure to observe the country....

“We now began to make better progress on the canal than we had hitherto done. The stream, though against us, was not strong, except near the sluices, where it was confined. In the afternoon we stopped at Kai-ho chin (i.e., River-opening mart), so called, perhaps, because the canal was commenced near here. On the 28th we arrived at the influx of the Yun ho, where the stream turned in our favor, and flowed to the southward, being the highest point of the canal, and a place of some note. The Yun ho flows into the canal on its eastern side nearly at right angles, and a part of its waters flow north and part south, while a strong facing of stone on the western bank sustains the force of the influx. At this point is the temple of the Dragon King, or genius of the watery element, who is supposed to have the canal in his special keeping. This enterprise of leading in this river seems to have been the work of Sung Lí, who lived under Hungwu, the first emperor of the Ming dynasty, about 1375. In his time, a part of the canal in Shantung became so impassable that the coasting passage by sea began to be most used. This was the very thing the canal had been intended to prevent; Sung accordingly adopted the plan of an old man named Píying, to concentrate the waters of the Yun ho and neighboring streams, and bring them down upon the canal as they are at present. History states that Sung employed 300,000 men to carry the plan into operation, and that the work was completed in seven months. On both sides of us, nearly level with the canal, were extensive swamps with a shallow covering of water, planted with the Nelumbium; they were occasionally separated by narrow banks, along which the trackers walked, and the width of the canal sometimes did not exceed twenty-five yards. On reaching the part which skirts the Tu-shan Lake, the left bank was entirely submerged, and the canal confounded with the lake. All within sight was swamp, coldness, and desolation—in fact, a vast inland sea, as many of the large boats at a distance were hull down. The swamps on the following day were kept out of sight by some decent villages on the high banks, which from perpetual accumulation assumed in some places the aspect of hills.

“A part of our journey on the first of October lay along a portion of the canal where the banks, particularly to the right, were elaborately and thoroughly faced with stone; a precaution which seemed to imply a greater than ordinary danger from inundations. In fact, the lakes, or rather floods, seemed to extend at present nearly to the feet of the mountains which lay at a distance on our left. We were now approaching that part of China which is exposed to the disastrous overflowings of the Yellow River, a perpetual source of wasteful expenditure to the government, and of peril and calamity to the people; it well deserves the name of China’s Sorrow. We observed the repairs of the banks diligently proceeding under the superintendence of the proper officer. For this purpose they use the natural soil in combination with the thick stalks of the gigantic millet.”

The canal reaches the Yellow River about 70 miles from its mouth; but before leaving the lakes in the southern part of Shantung, it used to run nearly parallel with that stream for more than a hundred miles, and between it and the New Salt River during a good part of this distance. It is hard to understand how, by natural causes, so powerful a river, as it is described to be by the historians of both the British embassies less than one hundred years ago, should have become so completely choked up. The difference of level near Kaifung is found to be so very little that the siltage there has been enough to turn the current into the river Wei and elsewhere. When Amherst’s embassy passed, the boats struck right across the stream, and gained the opposite bank, about three-fourths of a mile distant, in less than an hour. They drifted about two miles down, and then slowly brought up against the current to the spot where the canal entered. This opening was a sluice nearly a hundred yards across, and through it the waters rushed into the river like a mill-race; the banks were constructed of earth, strengthened with sorghum stalks, and strongly bound with cordage. Sir John Davis remarks, with the instinct of a tradesman, as he commends the perseverance and industry which had overcome these obstacles, that if the science of a Brunel could be allowed to operate on the Yellow River and Grand Canal, “a benefit might be conferred on the Chinese that would more than compensate for all the evil that we have inflicted with our opium and our guns.” The boats were dragged through and up the sluice close to the bank by ropes communicating with large windlasses worked on the bank, which safely, though slowly, brought them into still water.

The distance between the Yellow and Yangtsz’ rivers is about ninety miles, and the canal here is carried largely upon a raised work of earth, kept together by retaining walls of stone, and not less than twenty feet above the surrounding country in some parts. This sheet of water is about two hundred feet wide, and its current nearly three miles an hour. South of the Hwang ho several large towns stand near the levees, below their level, whose safety wholly depends upon the care taken of the banks of the canal. Hwai-ngan and Pauying lie thus under and near them, in such a position as to cause an involuntary shudder at the thought of the destruction which would take place if they should give way. The level descends from these towns to the Yangtsz’, and at Yangchau the canal is much below the houses on its sides. It also connects with every stream or lake whose waters can be led into it. There are two or three inlets into the Yangtsz’ where the canal reaches the northern bank, but Chinkiang, on the southern shore, is regarded as the principal defence and post of its crossing. The canal leaves the river east of that city, proceeds south-east to Suchau, and thence southerly on the eastern side of lake Tai, with which it communicates, to Hangchau in Chehkiang. This portion is by far the most interesting and picturesque of the whole line, owing to its rich and populous cities, the fertility and high cultivation of the banks, and the lively aspect imparted by the multitude of boats. Though Kublai has had the credit of this useful work, it existed in parts of its course long before his day. The reach between the two great rivers was opened in the Han dynasty, and repaired by the wise founder of the Sui dynasty (A.D. 600). The princes of the Tang dynasty kept it open, and when the Sung emperors lived at Hangchau they made the extension up to Chinkiang the great highway which it is to this day. The work from Peking to the Yellow River was opened by the Mongols about 1289, in which they merely joined the rivers and lakes to each other as they now exist. The Ming and Tsing emperors have done all they could to keep it open throughout, and lately an attempt has been made to reopen the passage from Hungtsih Lake north into the old bed, so that boats can reach Tientsin from Kwachau. Its entire length is about 650 miles, or not quite twice that of the Erie Canal, but it varies in its breadth and depth more than any important canal either of America or Europe.

As a work of art, compared with canals now existing in western countries, the Transit River does not rank high; but even at this day there is no work of the kind in Asia which can compare with it, and there was none in the world equal to it when first put in full operation. It passes through alluvial soil in every part of its course, and the chief labor was expended in constructing embankments, and not in digging a deep channel. The junction of the Yun ho, about lat. 36° N., was probably taken as the summit level. From this point northward the trench was dug through to Lintsing to join the Yu ho, and embankments thrown up from the same place southward to the Yellow River, the whole being a line of two hundred miles. In some places the bed is cut down thirty, forty, and even seventy feet, but it encountered no material obstacle. The sluices which keep the necessary level are of rude construction, and thick planks, sliding in grooves hewn in stone buttresses, form the only locks. Still, the objects intended are all fully gained, and the simplicity of the means certainly does not derogate from the merit and execution of the plan.[19]

CANALS.

There are some other inferior canals in the empire. Kienlung constructed a waste-weir for carrying off the surplus waters of the Yellow River of about a hundred miles in length, by cutting a canal from Ífung hien in Honan, to one of the principal affluents of lake Hungtsih. It also answered as a drain for the marshy land in that part, and has probably recently served to convey the floods from the main stream into the lake. In the vicinity of Canton and Suchau are many channels cut through the plains, which serve both for irrigation and navigation, but they are not worthy the name of canals. Similar conveniences are more or less frequently met with in all parts of the provinces, notably those on the Plain and low coast-lands.

A Road-Cut in the Loess.

PUBLIC ROADS.

The public roads, in a country so well provided with navigable streams, are of minor consequence, but these media of travel are not neglected. “I have travelled near 600 leagues by land in China,” observes De Guignes, “and have found many good roads, most of them wide and planted with trees. They are not usually paved, and consequently in rainy weather are either channelled by the water or covered with mud, and in dry weather so dusty that travellers are obliged to wear spectacles to protect their eyes. In Kwangtung transportation is performed almost wholly by water, the only roads being across the lines of navigation. The pass across the Mei ling is paved or filled up with stones; at Kih-ngan, in Kiangsí, are paved roads in good condition, but beyond the Yangtsz’, in Nganhwui, they were almost impracticable, but became better as we proceeded northward, and in many places had trees on both sides. Beyond the Hwang ho they were broader, and we saw crowds of travellers, carts, mules, and horses. In Shantung and Chihlí they were generally broad and shady, and very dusty. This is, no doubt, disagreeable, but we went smoothly over these places, while in the villages and towns we were miserably jolted on the pavements. I hope, for the sake of those who may come after me, that the Chinese will not pave their roads before they improve their carriages. Some of the thoroughfares leading to Peking are paved with thick slabs of stone. One feature of the roads through the northern provinces which attracts attention is the great number that lie below the level of the country. It is caused by the wind sweeping along them, and carrying over the fields the dust made and raised by the carts. As soon as the pools left by the rains dry enough to let the carts pass, the earth is reduced to powder; as the winds sweep through the passage and clear it out, the process in a few years cuts a defile through the loam often fifteen feet deep, which impedes travel by its narrow gauge, hindering the carts as they meet. The banks are protected by revetment walls or turf, if necessary. Those near Hangchau, and the great road leading from Chehkiang into Kiangsí, are all in good condition. Generally speaking, however, as is the case with most things in China, the roads are not well repaired, and large holes are frequently allowed to remain unfilled in the path, to the great danger of those who travel by night.”[20]

Mountain passes have been cut for facilitating the transit of goods and people over the high ranges in many parts of the empire. The great road leading from Peking south-west through Shansí and Shensí, and thence to Sz’chuen, is carried across the Peh ling and the valley of the river Hwai by a mountain road, “which, for the difficulties it presents and the art and labor with which they have been overcome, does not appear to be inferior to the road over the Simplon.”[21] At one place on this route, called Lí-nai, a passage has been cut through the rock, and steps hewn on both sides of the mountain from its base to the summit. The passage across the peak being only wide enough for one sedan, the guards are perched in little houses placed on poles over the pass. This road was in ancient times the path to the metropolis, and these immense excavations were made from time to time by different monarchs. The pass over the Mei ling, at Nan-ngan, is a work of later date, and so are most of the other roads across this range in Fuhkien and Kwangtung.

GENERAL ASPECT AND RACE TYPES.

The general aspect of the country is perhaps as much modified by labor of man in China as in England, but the appearance of a landscape in the two kingdoms is unlike. Whenever water is available, streams are led upon the rice fields, and this kind of cultivation allows few or no trees to grow in the plats. Such fields are divided by raised banks, which serve for pathways across the marshy enclosure, and assist in confining the water when let in upon the growing crop. The bounds of other fields are denoted by stones or other landmarks, and the entire absence of walls, fences, or hedgerows, makes a cultivated plain appear like a vast garden.

The greatest sameness exists in all the cities. A wall encloses all towns above a sz’ or township, and the suburbs are not unfrequently larger than their enceinte. The streets in large towns south of the Hwang ho are paved, and the sewers run under the cross slabs. What filth is not in them is generally in the street, as these drains easily become choked. The roadways are not usually over ten feet wide, but the low houses on each side make them appear less like alleys than would be the case in western cities. Villages have a pleasant appearance at a distance, usually embowered among trees, between which the whitewashed houses look prettily; but on entering them one is disappointed at their irregularity, dirtiness, and generally decayed look. The gardens and best houses are mostly walled in from sight, while the precincts of temples are the resort of idlers, beggars, and children, with a proportion of pigs and dogs.

Elegance or ornament, orderly arrangement and grandeur of design, cleanliness, or comfort, as these terms are applied in Europe, are almost unknown in Chinese houses, cities, or gardens. Commanding or agreeable situations are chosen for temples and monasteries, which are not only the abode of priests but serve for inns, theatres, and other purposes. The terrace cultivation sometimes renders the acclivities of hills beautiful in the highest degree, but it does not often impart a distinguishing feature to the landscape. A lofty solitary pagoda, an extensive temple shaded by trees in the opening of a vale, a commemorative pai-lau, or boats moving in every direction through narrow creeks or on broad streams, are some of the peculiar lineaments of Chinese scenery. No imposing mansions with beautiful grounds are found on the skirts of a town, for the people huddle together in hamlets and villages for mutual aid and security. No tapering spires pointing out the rural church, nor towers, pillars, domes, or steeples in the cities, indicating buildings of public utility, rise upon the low level of dun-tiled roofs. No meadows or pastures, containing herds and flocks, are visible from the hill-tops in China; nor are coaches or railroad cars observed hurrying across its landscapes. Steamers have just begun to course through some of its rivers, and disturb, by their whistles and wheels, the drowsy silence of past ages and the slow progress of unwieldy junks—the other changes have yet to come.

The condition and characteristics of the various families of man inhabiting this great empire, render its study far more interesting than anything relating to its physical geography or public works. The Chinese forms the leading family, but the Miaotsz’, the Li-mu, the Kakyens, and other aborigines in the southern provinces, the Manchus, the Mongols, and various Tartar tribes, the Tibetans, and certain wild races in Kirin and Formosa, must not be overlooked. The sons of Han are indeed a remarkable race, whether regard be had to their antiquity, their numbers, their government, or their literature, and on these accounts deserve the study and respect of every intelligent student of mankind; while their unwearied industry, their general peaceableness and good humor, and their attainments in domestic order and mechanical arts, commend them to the notice of every one who sees in these points of character an earnest of their future position amid the great family of civilized nations when once they shall have attained the same.

The physical traits of the Chinese may be described as being between the light and agile Hindu, and the muscular, fleshy European. Their form is well built and symmetrical; their color is a brunette or sickly white, rather approaching to a yellowish than to a florid tint, but this yellow hue has been much exaggerated; in the south they are swarthy but not black, never becoming as dark even as the Portuguese, whose fifth or sixth ancestors dwelt near the Tagus. The shades of complexion differ much according to the latitude and degree of exposure to the weather, especially in the females. The hair of the head is lank, black, coarse, and glossy; beard always black, thin, and deficient; scanty or no whiskers; and very little hair on the body. Eyes invariably black, and apparently oblique, owing to the slight degree in which the inner angles of the eyelids open, the internal canthi being more acute than in western races, and not allowing the whole iris to be seen; this peculiarity in the eye distinguishes the eastern races of Asia from all other families of man. There is a marked difference between the features of the mixed race living south of the Mei ling, and the inhabitants of the Great Plain and in Shansí or further west; the latter are the finer appearing. The hair and eyes being always black, a European with blue eyes and light hair appears strange to them; one reason given by the people of Canton for calling foreigners fan kwei, or ‘foreign devils,’ is, that they have sunken blue eyes, and red hair like demons.

The cheek-bones are high, and the outline of the face remarkably round. The nose is rather small, much depressed, nearly even with the face at the root, and wide at the extremity; there is, however, considerable difference in this respect, but no aquiline noses are seen. Lips thicker than among Europeans, but not at all approaching those of the negro. The hands are small, and the lower limbs better proportioned than among any other Asiatics. The height of those living north of the Yangtsz’ is about the same as that of Europeans. A thousand men taken as they come in the streets of Canton, will hardly equal in stature and weight the same number in Rome or New Orleans, while they would, perhaps, exceed these, if gathered in Peking; their muscular powers, however, would probably be less in either Chinese city than in those of Europe or America.

In size, the women are smaller than European females; and in the eyes of those accustomed to the European style of beauty, the Chinese women possess little; the broad upper face, low nose, and linear eyes, being quite the contrary of handsome. Nevertheless, the Chinese face is not destitute of beauty, and when animated with good humor and an expressive eye, and lighted by the glow of youth and health, the features lose much of their repulsiveness. Nor do they fade so soon and look as ugly and withered when old as some travellers say, but are in respect to bearing children and keeping their vigor, more like Europeans than the Hindus or Persians.

ABORIGINAL TRIBES.

The mountainous regions in Yunnan, Kwangsí, and Kweichau, give lodgement to many clans of the Miaotsz’ or “children of the soil,” as the words may be rendered. It is singular that any of these people should have maintained their independence so long, when so large a portion of them have partially submitted to Chinese rule. Those who will not are called săng Miaotsz’, i.e., wild or ‘unsubdued,’ while the others are termed shuh or ‘subdued.’ They present so many physical points of difference as to lead one to infer that they are a more ancient race than the Chinese around them, and the aborigines of Southern China. They are rather smaller in size and stature, have shorter necks, and their features are somewhat more angular. They are divided into many tribes, and have been described by Chinese travellers, who have illustrated their habits by paintings and sketches, from which a good idea can be obtained of their condition. Dr. Bridgman has translated such an account, written by a Chinese native traveller, in which he sketches the manners of eighty-two clans, especially those customs relating to worship and marriage, showing how little they have learned from their rulers or improved from the savage state. An examination of their languages shows that those of the Miaotsz’ proper have strong affinities with the Siamese and Annamese, and those known as Lolo exhibit a decided likeness to the Burmese. The former of these are mentioned in Chinese history during 4,000 years; the latter about A.D. 250, when a Shan nation came under Chinese influence in Yunnan, and was the object of a warlike expedition. The same race still remain on the Upper Irrawadi and in Assam as Shans and Khamti, and in the basins of the Meinam and Mei-lung, all of them akin to the Tibetans and Burmese. They form together an interesting relic of the ancient peoples of the land, and further inquiries will doubtless develop something of their history and origin.[22]

An aboriginal race—the Li-mu—exists in the centre of Hainan, an offset from the Miaotsz’, judging by the little that is known of their language. The natives of Formosa seem to have more affinity with their neighbors in Luzon and southward than with the Chinese.

MANCHUS AND MONGOLS.

The Mongol and Manchu races have been considered as springing from the same stock, but during centuries of separation under different circumstances they have altered much. The Mongols are essentially a nomadic race, while the Manchus are an agricultural or a hunting people, according to the part of their country they inhabit. The Manchus are of a lighter complexion and somewhat larger than the Chinese, have the same conformation of the eyelids, but rather more beard, while their countenances indicate greater intellectual capacity. They seem to partake of both the Mongol and Chinese character, possessing more determination and largeness of plan than the latter, with much of the rudeness and haughtiness of the former. They have fair, if not florid, complexions, straight noses, and, in a few cases, brown hair and heavy beards. They are more allied to the Chinese, and when they ruled the northern provinces as the Kin dynasty, amalgamated with them. They may be regarded as the most improvable race in Central Asia, if not on the continent; and the skill with which they have governed the Chinese empire, and adopted a civilization higher than their own, gives promise of still further advances when they become familiar with the civilization of Christian lands.

Under the term Mongols or Moguls a great number of tribes occupying the steppes of Central Asia are comprised. They extend from the borders of the Khirgís steppe and Kokand eastward to the Sialkoi Mountains, and it is particularly to this race that the name Tartars or Tatars is applicable. No such word is now known among the people, except as an ignominious epithet, by the Chinese, who usually write it with two characters—tah-tsz’—meaning ‘trodden-down people.’ Klaproth confines the appellation of Tartars to the Mongols, Kalmucks, Kalkas, Eleuths, and Buriats, while the Kirghís, Usbecks, Cossacks, and Turks are of Kurdish and Turkoman origin.

The Mongol tribes generally are a stout, squat, swarthy, ill-favored race of men, having high and broad shoulders, short, broad noses, pointed and prominent chins, long teeth distant from each other, eyes black, elliptical, and unsteady, thick, short necks, extremities bony and nervous, muscular thighs, but short legs, with a stature nearly or quite equal to the European. They have a written language, but their literature is limited and mostly religious. The same language is spoken by all the tribes, with slight variations and only a small admixture of foreign words. Most of the accounts of their origin, their wars, and their habits, were written by foreigners living or travelling among them; but they themselves, as McCulloch remarks, know as little of these things as rats or marmots do of their descent. Yet it is not so easy to find the typical Mongol among the medley of nationalities in their towns. A crowd in a town like Yarkand exhibits all the varieties of the human race. The gaunt, almost beardless Manchu, with sunken eyes, high cheek-bones, and projecting jowl, contrasts with the smooth face, pinky yellow, oblique eye, flat cheeks, and rounded jowl of the Chinese. The bearded, sallow Toork, the angular, rosy Kirghís, the coarse, hard Dungani, and thick-lipped, square-faced Eleuth, all show poorly with the tall, handsome Cashmerian, the swarthy Badakshi, and robust, intelligent Uzbek. The fate of the vast swarms of this race which have descended from the table-land of Central Asia and overrun, in different ages, the plains of India, China, Syria, Egypt, and Eastern Europe, and the rise and fall of the gigantic empire they themselves erected under Genghis in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, are among the most remarkable episodes in the world’s history. They have always maintained the same character in their native wilds, their conquests have been exterminations rather than subjugations, their history a record of continual quarrels between clans.

The last of the five races is the Tibetan, who partake of the physical characteristics of the Mongols and Hindus. They are short, squat, and broad-shouldered in body, with angular faces, wide, high cheek-bones, small black eyes, and scant beard. They are mild in disposition, have a stronger religious feeling than the Chinese, and have never left their own highlands either for emigration or conquest. Their civilization is fully equal to that of the Siamese and Burmese, and life and property are more secure with them than among their turbulent neighbors in Butan, Lahore, or Cabul.

CIVILIZATION PAST AND FUTURE.

It will be seen from this short survey that a full account of the geography, government, manners, literature, and civilization of so large a part of the world and its inhabitants requires the combined labors of many observers, all of them well acquainted with the languages and institutions of the people whom they describe. No one will look, therefore, for more than a brief outline of these subjects in the present work, minute enough, however, to enable readers to form a fair opinion of the people. It is the industry of the Chinese which has given them their high place among the nations of the earth. Not only has the indigenous vegetation been superseded wherever culture would remunerate toil, but lofty hills have been tilled and terraced almost to their tops, cities have been built upon them, and extensive ranges of wall erected along their summits. They practise all the industrial arts whose objects are to feed, clothe, educate or adorn mankind, and maintain the largest population ever united under one system of rule. Ten centuries ago they were the most civilized nation on earth, and the incredulity manifested in Europe, five hundred years ago, at the recitals of Marco Polo regarding their condition, is the counterpart of the sentiments now expressed by the Chinese when they hear of the power and grandeur of western nations.

Isolated by natural boundaries from other peoples, their civilization, developed under peculiar influences, must be compared to, rather than judged of, by European. A people from whom some of the most distinguishing inventions of modern Europe came (such as the compass, porcelain, gunpowder, and printing), and were known and practised many centuries earlier; who probably amount to more than three hundred millions, united in one system of manners, letters, and polity; whose cities and capitals rival in numbers the greatest metropoles of any age; who have not only covered the earth, but the waters, with towns and streets—such a nation must occupy a conspicuous place in the history of mankind, and the study of their character and condition commend itself to every well-wisher of his race.

It has been too much the custom of writers to overlook the influence of the Bible upon modern civilization; but when a comparison is to be drawn between European and Asiatic civilization, this element forces itself upon the attention as the main cause of the superiority of the former. It is not the civilization of luxury or of letters, of arts or of priestcraft; it is not the spirit of war, the passion for money, nor its exhibitions in trade and the application of machinery, that render a nation permanently great and prosperous. “Christianity is the summary of all civilization,” says Chenevix; “it contains every argument which could be urged in its support, and every precept which explains its nature. Former systems of religion were in conformity with luxury, but this alone seems to have been conceived for the region of civilization. It has flourished in Europe, while it has decayed in Asia, and the most civilized nations are the most purely Christian.” Christianity is essentially the religion of the people, and when it is covered over with forms and contracted into a priesthood, its vitality goes out; this is one reason why it has declined in Asia. The attainments of the Chinese in the arts of life are perhaps as great as they can be without this spring of action, without any other motives to industry, obedience, and morality, than the commands or demands of the present life.

A survey of the world and its various races in successive ages leads one to infer that God has some plan of national character, and that one nation exhibits the development of one trait, while another race gives prominence to another, and subordinates the first. Thus the Egyptian people were eminently a priestly race, devoted to science and occult lore; the Greeks developed the imaginative powers, excelling in the fine arts; the Romans were warlike, and the embodiment of force and law; the Babylonians and Persians magnificent, like the head of gold in Daniel’s vision; the Arabs predacious, volatile, and imaginative; the Turks stolid, bigoted, and impassible; the Hindus are contemplative, religious, and metaphysical; the Chinese industrious, peaceful, literary, atheistic, and self-contained.[23] The same religion, and constant intercommunication among European nations, has assimilated them more than these other races ever could have become; but every one knows the national peculiarities of the Spaniards, Italians, French, English, etc., and how they are maintained, notwithstanding the motives to imitation and coalescence. The comparison of national character and civilization, with the view of ascertaining such a plan, is a subject worthy the profound study of any scholar, and one which would offer new views of the human race. The Chinese would be found to have attained, it is believed, a higher position in general security of life and property, and in the arts of domestic life and comfort among the mass, and a greater degree of general literary intelligence, than any other heathen or Mohammedan nation that ever existed—or indeed than some now calling themselves Christian, as Abyssinia. They have, however, probably done all they can do, reached as high a point as they can without the Gospel; and its introduction, with its attendant influences, will erelong change their political and social system. The rise and progress of this revolution among so mighty a mass of human beings will form one of the most interesting parts of the history of the world during the nineteenth century, and solve the problem whether it be possible to elevate a race without the intermediate steps of disorganization and reconstruction.

[CHAPTER II.]
GEOGRAPHICAL DESCRIPTION OF THE EASTERN PROVINCES.

The provinces of China Proper are politically subdivided in a scientific manner, but in the regions beyond them, these divisions are considerably modified. Manchuria is regarded as belonging to the reigning family, somewhat as Hanover once pertained to the kings of England, and its scanty population is ruled by a simple military organization, the higher officials being appointed by his majesty himself. The khans of the Mongols in Mongolia and Ílí, the Mohammedan begs in Turkestan, and the lamas in Tibet, are assisted in their rule by Chinese residents and generals who direct and uphold the government.

The geography of foreign countries has not been studied by the Chinese; and so few educated men have travelled even into the islands of the Indian Archipelago, or the kingdoms of Siam, Corea, or Burmah, that the people have had no opportunity to become acquainted with the countries lying on their borders, much less with those in remoter parts, whose names, even, they hardly know. A few native works exist on foreign geography, among which four may be here noticed. “1. Researches in the East and West, 6 vols. 8vo. It was written about two centuries ago; the first volume contains some rude charts intended to show the situation and form of foreign countries. 2. Notices of the Seas, 1 vol. Its author, Yang Ping-nan, obtained his information from a townsman, who, being wrecked at sea, was picked up by a foreign ship, and travelled abroad for fourteen years; on his return to China he became blind, and was engaged as an interpreter in Macao. 3. Notices of Things heard and seen in Foreign Countries, 2 vols. 12mo; written about a century ago, containing among other things a chart of the whole Chinese coast. 4. The Memoranda of Foreign Tribes, 4 vols. 8vo, published in the reign of Kienlung.”[24] A more methodical work is that of Lí Tsing-lai, called ‘Plates Illustrative of the Heavens,’ being an astronomical and geographical work, much of whose contents were obtained from Europeans residing in the country. But even if the Chinese had better treatises on these subjects, the information contained in them would be of little use until it was taught in their schools. The high officers in the government begin now to see the importance of a better acquaintance with general geography. Commissioner Lin, in 1841, published a partial translation of Murray’s Cyclopædia of Geography, in 20 volumes; Gov. Seu Ki-yu, in 1850, issued a compend of geographical notices with maps, and many others, more accurate and extensive, are now extant.

However scarce their geographical works upon foreign countries may be, those delineating the topography of their own are hardly equalled in number and minuteness in any language: every district and town of importance in the empire, as well as every department and province, has a local geography of its own. It may be said that the topographical and statistical works form, after the ethical, the most valuable portion of Chinese literature. It would not be difficult to collect a library of 10,000 volumes of such treatises alone; the topography of the city of Suchau, and of the province of Chehkiang, are each in 40 vols., while the Kwangtung Tung Chí, an ‘Historical and Statistical Account of Kwangtung,’ is in 182 volumes. None of these works, however, would bear to be translated entire, such is the amount of legendary and unimportant matter contained in them; but they contain many data not to be overlooked by one who undertakes to write a geography of China.

CLIMATE OF THE PROVINCES.

The Climate of the Eighteen Provinces has been represented in meteorological tables sufficiently well to ascertain its general salubrity. Pestilences do not frequently visit the land, nor, as in Southern India, is it deluged with rain during one monsoon, and parched with drought during the other. The average temperature of the whole empire is lower than that of any other country on the same latitude, and the coast is subject to the same extremes as that of the Atlantic States in America. The isothermal line of 70° F. as the average for the year, which passes south of Canton, runs by Cairo and New Orleans, eight degrees north of it; the line of 60° F. average passes from Shanghai to Marseilles, Raleigh, St. Louis, and north of San Francisco; and the line of 50° F. average goes near Peking, thence on to Vienna, Dublin, Philadelphia, and Puget’s Sound, in lat. 52°. These various lines show that while Shanghai and Peking have temperatures similar to Raleigh and Philadelphia, nearly on their own parallels, Canton is the coldest place on the globe in its latitude, and the only place within the tropics where snow falls near the sea-shore. One result of this projection of the temperate zone into the tropical is seen in the greater vigor and size of the people of the three southern provinces over any races on the same parallel elsewhere; and the productions are not so strictly tropical. The isothermal lines for the year, as given above, are not so irregular as those for winter. The line of 60° F. runs by the south of Formosa and Hongkong, to Cairo and St. Augustine, a range of nine degrees; but the winter line of 40° F. passes from Shanghai to Constantinople, Milan, Dublin, and Raleigh, ending at Puget’s Sound, a range of twenty degrees. A third line of 32° for winter passes through Shantung to N. Tibet and the Black Sea, Norway, New York, and Sitka—a range of twenty-five degrees.

Peking (lat. 39° 55′ N.) exhibits a fair average of the climate in that part of the Plain. The extremes range from 104° to zero F., but the mean annual temperature is 52.3° F., or more than 9° lower than Naples; the mean winter range is 12° below freezing, or about 18° lower than that of Paris (lat. 48° 50′), and 15° lower than Copenhagen. The rainfall seldom reaches sixteen inches in a year, most of it coming in July and August; the little snow that descends remains only two or three days on the ground, and is blown away rather than melted; no one associates white with winter, but snow is earnestly prayed for as a purifier of the air against diphtheria and fevers. The winds from the Plateau cause the barometer and thermometer to fall, but the sky is clear. In the spring, as the heat increases, the winds raise the dust and sand over the country; some of these sand-storms extend even to Shanghai, carrying millions of tons of soil from its original place. The dryness of the region has apparently increased during the last century, and constant droughts destroy the trees, which by their absence increase the desiccation now going on. Frost closes the rivers for three months, and ice is cheap. After the second crops fully start in August, the autumns become mild, and till the 10th of December are calm and genial.[25]

The climate of the Plain is generally good, but near the rivers and marshy grounds along the Grand Canal, agues and bowel complaints prevail. A resident speaks of the temperature of Nanking and the region around it: “This vast Plain being only a marsh half drained, the moisture is excessive, giving rise to many strange diseases, all of them serious, and not unfrequently mortal. The climate affects the natives from other provinces, and Europeans. I have not known one of the latter who was not sick for six months or a year after his arrival. Every one who comes here must prepare himself for a tertian or quotidian. For myself, after suffering two months from a malignant fever, I had ten attacks of a malady the Chinese here call the sand, from the skin being covered with little blackish pimples, resembling grains of dust. It is prompt and violent in its progress, and corrupts the blood so rapidly that in a few minutes it stagnates and coagulates in the veins. The best remedy the people have is to cicatrize the least fleshy parts of the body with a copper cash. The first attack I experienced rendered all my limbs insensible in two minutes, and I expected to die before I could receive extreme unction. After recovering a little, great lassitude succeeded.”[26] The monsoons form an important element in the seaside climate as far north as latitude 31°. The dry and wet seasons correspond to the north-east and south-west monsoons, assuaging the heats of summer by their cooling showers, and making the winters bracing and healthy. Above the Formosa Channel they are less regular in the summer than in winter.

CLIMATE OF THE COAST TOWNS.

The inhabitants of Shanghai suffer from rapid changes in the autumn and spring months, and pulmonary and rheumatic complaints are common. The maximum of heat is 100° F., and the minimum 24°, but ice is not common, nor does snow remain long on the ground. The average temperature of the summer is from 80° to 93° by day, and from 60° to 75° by night; the thermometer in winter ranges from 45° to 60° by day, and from 36° to 45° by night.

Owing in some degree to the hills, the extremes are rather greater at Ningpo than Shanghai. The thermometer ranges from 24° to 107° during the twelvemonth, and changes of 20° in the course of two hours are not unusual, rendering it the most unhealthy station along the coast. There is a hot and cold season of three months each at this place. The cold is very piercing when the north-east winds set in, and fires are needed, but natives content themselves with additional clothing. The large brick beds (kang) common in Chihlí are not often seen. Ice forms in pools, and is gathered to preserve fish. Snow frequently falls, but does not remain long. Occasionally it covers the hills in Chehkiang for several weeks to the depth of six inches. Fuhchau and Canton lie at the base of hills, within a hundred miles of the sea-coast, and their climates exhibit greater extremes than Amoy and Hongkong. Frost and ice are common every winter at each of the former, and fires are therefore pleasant in the house. The extremes at Fuhchau are from 38° to 95°, with an average of 56° during December and 82° for August. Along this whole coast the most refreshing monsoon makes the summers very agreeable. The climate of Amoy is delightful, but its insular position renders a residence somewhat less agreeable than on the main. Here the thermometer ranges from 40° to 96° during the year, without the rapid changes of Ningpo. The heat continues longer, though assuaged by breezes from the sea.

Meteorology at Canton and its vicinity has been carefully studied; on the whole, its climate, and especially that of Macao, may be considered more salubrious than in most other places situated between the tropics. The thermometer at Canton in July and August stands on an average at 80° to 88°, and in January and February at 50° to 60°. The highest recorded observation in 1831 was 94°, in July; and the lowest, 29° in January. Ice sometimes forms in shallow vessels a line or two in thickness, but no use is made of it. A fall of snow nearly two inches deep occurred there in February, 1835, which remained on the ground three hours. Having never seen any before, the citizens hardly knew what was its proper name, some calling it falling cotton, and every one endeavoring to preserve a little for a febrifuge. Another similar fall occurred in the winter of 1861. Fogs are common during February and March, and the heat sometimes renders them very disagreeable, it being necessary to keep up a little fire to dry the house. Most of the rain falls in May and June, but there is nothing like the rainy season at Calcutta and Manilla in July, August, and September. The regular monsoon comes from the south-west, with frequent showers to allay the heat. In the succeeding months, northerly winds commence, but from October to January the temperature is agreeable, the sky clear, and the air invigorating. Few large cities are more healthy than Canton; no epidemics nor malaria prevail, notwithstanding the fact that much of the town is built upon piles.

The climate of Macao and Hongkong has not so great a range as Canton, from their proximity to the sea. Few cities in Asia are more salutiferous than Macao, though it has been remarked that few of the natives there attain a great age. The maximum is 90°, with an average summer heat of 84°. The minimum is 50°, and average winter weather 68°, with almost uninterrupted sunshine. Fogs are not often seen here, but on the river they prevail, being frequent at Whampoa. North-easterly gales are common in the spring and autumn, and have a noticeable periodicity of three days. The vegetation does not change its general aspect during the winter, the trees cease to grow, and the grass becomes brownish; but the stimulus of the warm moisture in March soon makes a sensible difference in the appearance of the landscape, and bright green leaves rapidly replace the old. The reputed insalubrity of Hongkong, in early days, was owing to other causes than climate, and when it became a well-built and well-drained town, its unwholesomeness disappeared. The rain-fall is greater than in Macao, owing to the attraction of the high peaks. During the rainy weather the walls of houses become damp, and if newly plastered, drip with moisture.

The Chinese consider the provinces of Kwangtung, Kwangsí, and Yunnan to be the most unhealthy of the eighteen, and for this reason employ them as places of banishment for criminals from the north-eastern districts. The central portions of the country are on some accounts the most bracing, not so liable to sudden changes as the coast, nor so cold as the western and northern districts. Sz’chuen and Kweichau are cooler than Fuhkien and Chehkiang, owing to the mountains in and upon their borders.

RAIN-FALL ON CHINESE AND AMERICAN COASTS.

The marked contrast between the Chinese and American coasts in regard to rain is doubtless owing, in a great degree, to the outlying islands from Formosa to Sagalien on the former, whose high mountains arrest the clouds in their progress inland. The Kuro-siwo, being outside of them, allows a far greater mass of cold water between it and the shore on the Chinese, than is the case on the Atlantic coast, and renders it the colder of the two by nearly eight degrees of latitude, if isothermal lines alone are regarded. This mass of cold water, having less evaporation, deprives the maritime provinces of rain in diminishing supply as one goes north along the skirts of the Plain, until the Chang-peh shan are reached. The rains which fall in the western provinces and the slopes of the Bayan kara Mountains, coming up from the Indian Ocean during the south-west monsoon, fall in decreasing quantities as the clouds are driven north-east across the basins of the Yangtsz’ and Yellow rivers. In the western part of Kansuh the humidity covers the mountains with more vegetation than further east, toward the ocean. Snow falls as late as June, and frosts occur in every month of the year. The enormous elevation of the western side of China near Tibet, the absence of an expanse of water like the great lakes, and the bareness of the mountains north of the Mei ling, account for much of this difference between the United States and China; but more extended data are needed for accurate deductions.

The fall of rain at Canton is 70 inches annually, which is the mean of sixteen years’ observation. Ninety inches was registered during one of these years. Nearly one-half of the whole falls during May, June, and September. The average at Shanghai for four years was 36 inches. No observations are recorded for the valley of the Yangtsz’. Near the edge of the Plateau the rainfall averages 16 inches in the province of Chihlí, and rather more in Shansí and Shantung, where moisture is attracted by the mountains. More than three-fourths of the rain falls during the ten weeks ending August 31st. Snow seldom remains on the level over a fortnight.

TYFOONS.

The increased temperature on the southern coast during the months of June and July operates, with other causes, to produce violent storms along the seaboard, called tyfoons, a word derived from the Chinese ta-fung, or ‘great wind.’ These destructive tornadoes occur from Hainan to Chusan, between July and October, gradually progressing northward as the season advances, and diminishing in fury in the higher latitudes. They annually occasion great losses to the native and foreign shipping in Chinese waters, more than half the sailing ships lost on that coast having suffered in them. Happily, their fury is oftenest spent at sea, but when they occur inland, the loss of life is fearful. In August, 1862, and September 21, 1874, the deaths reported in two such storms near Canton, Hongkong, and their vicinity, were upward of 30,000 each. In the latter instance the American steamer Alaska, of 3,500 tons, was lifted from her anchorage and quietly put down in five feet of water near the shore, from whence she was safely floated some months afterward.

Tyfoons exhaust their force within a narrow track, which, in such cases as have been registered, lies in no uniform direction, other than from south to north, at a greater or less angle, along the coast. The principal phenomena indicating their approach are the direction of the wind, which commences to blow in soft zephyrs from the north, without, however, assuaging the heat or disturbing the stifling calm, and the falling barometer. The glass usually begins to fall several hours before the storm commences, and the rarefaction of the air is further shown by the heavy swell rolling in upon the beach, though the sea remains unruffled. The wind increases as it veers to the north-east, and from that point to south-east blows with the greatest force in fitful gusts. The rain falls heaviest toward the close of the gale, when the glass begins to rise. The barometer not unfrequently falls below 28 in. Capt. Krusenstern in 1804 records his surprise at seeing the mercury sink out of sight.

The Chinese have erected temples in Hainan to the Tyfoon Mother, a goddess whom they supplicate for protection against these hurricanes. They say “that a few days before a tyfoon comes on, a slight noise is heard at intervals, whirling round and then stopping, sometimes impetuous and sometimes slow. This is a ‘tyfoon brewing.’ Then fiery clouds collect in thick masses; the thunder sounds deep and heavy. Rainbows appear, now forming an unbroken curve and again separating, and the ends of the bow dip into the sea. The sea sends back a bellowing sound, and boils with angry surges; the loose rocks dash against each other, and detached sea-weed covers the water; there is a thick, murky atmosphere; the water-fowl fly about affrighted; the trees and leaves bend to the south—the tyfoon has commenced. When to it is superadded a violent rain and a frightful surf, the force of the tempest is let loose, and away fly the houses up to the hills, and the ships and boats are removed to the dry land; horses and cattle are turned heels over head, trees are torn up by the roots, and the sea boils up twenty or thirty feet, inundating the fields and destroying vegetation. This is called tieh kü, or an iron whirlwind.”[27] Those remarkable gusts which annually occur in the Atlantic States, called tornadoes, defined as local storms affecting a thread of surface a few miles long, are unknown in China. The healthy climate of China has had much to do with the civilization of its inhabitants. No similar area in the world exceeds it for general salubrity.

FU, TING, CHAU, AND HIEN.

The Chinese are the only people who have, by means of a term added to the name of a place, endeavored to designate its relative rank. Three of the words used for this purpose, viz., fu, chau, and hien, have been translated as ‘first,’ ‘second,’ and ‘third’ rank; but this gradation is not quite correct, for the terms do not apply to the city or town alone, but to the portions of country of which it is the capital. The nature of these and other terms, and the divisions intended by them, are thus explained:

“The Eighteen Provinces are divided into fu, ting, chau, and hien. A fu is a large portion or department of a province, under the general control of one civil officer immediately subordinate to the heads of the provincial government. A ting is a division of a province smaller than a fu, and either like it governed by an officer immediately subject to the heads of the provincial government, or else forming a subordinate part of a fu. In the former case it is called chih-lí, i.e. under the ‘direct rule’ of the provincial government; in the latter case it is simply called ting. A chau is a division similar to a ting, and like it either independent of any other division, or forming part of a fu. The difference between the two consists in the government of a ting resembling that of a fu more nearly than that of a chau does: that of the chau is less expensive. The ting and chau of the class to which the term chih-lí is attached, may be denominated in common with the fu, departments or prefectures; and the term chih-lí may be rendered by the word independent. The subordinate ting and chau may both be called districts. A hien, which is also a district, is a small division or subordinate part of a department, whether of a fu, or of an independent chau or ting.

“Each fu, ting, chau, and hien, possesses at least one walled town, the seat of its government, which bears the same name as the department or district to which it pertains. Thus Hiangshan is the chief town of the district Hiangshan hien; and Shauking, that of the department Shauking fu. By European writers, the chief towns of the fu or departments have been called cities of the first order; those of the chau, cities of the second order; and those of the hien, cities of the third order. The division called ting, being rarely met with, has been left out of the arrangement—an arrangement not recognized in China. It must be observed that the chief town of a fu is always also the chief town of a hien district; and sometimes, when of considerable size and importance, it and the country around are divided into two hien districts, both of which have the seat of their government within the same walls: but this is not the case with the ting and chau departments. A district is not always subdivided; instances may occur of a whole district possessing but one important town. But as there are often large and even walled towns not included in the number of chief or of district towns, consequently not the seat of a regular chau or hien magistracy, a subdivision of a district is therefore frequently rendered necessary; and for the better government of such towns and the towns surrounding them, magistrates are appointed to them, secondary to the magistrates of the departments or the districts in which they are comprised. Thus Fuhshan is a very large commercial town or mart called a chin, situated in the district of Nanhai, of the department of Kwangchau, about twelve miles distant from Canton. The chief officer of the department has therefore an assistant residing there, and the town is partly under his government and partly under that of the Nanhai magistrate, within whose district it is included, but who resides at Canton. There are several of these chin in the provinces, as Kingteh in Kiangsí, Siangtan in Hunan, etc.; they are not inclosed by walls. Macao affords another instance: being a place of some importance, both from its size and as the residence of foreigners, an assistant to the Hiangshan hien magistrate is placed over it, and it is also under the control of an assistant to the chief magistrate of the fu. Of these assistant magistrates, there are two ranks secondary to the chief magistrate of a fu, two secondary to the magistrate of a chau, and two also secondary to the magistrate of a hien. The places under the rule of these assistant magistrates are called by various names, most frequently chin and so, and sometimes also chai and wei. These names do not appear to have reference to any particular form of municipal government existing in them; but the chai and the wei are often military posts; and sometimes a place is, with respect to its civil government, the chief city of a fu, while with respect to its military position it is called wei. There are other towns of still smaller importance; these are under the government of inferior magistrates who are called siun kien: a division of country under such a magistrate is called a sz’, which is best represented by the term township or commune. The town of Whampoa and country around it form one such division, called Kiautang sz’, belonging to the district of Pwanyu, in the department of Kwangchau.

“In the mountainous districts of Kwangsí, Yunnan, Kweichau, and Sz’chuen, and in some other places, there are districts called tu sz’. Among these, the same distinctions of fu, chau, and hien exist, together with the minor division sz’. The magistrates of these departments and districts are hereditary in their succession, being the only hereditary local officers acknowledged by the supreme government.

“There is a larger division than any of the above, but as it does not prevail universally, it was not mentioned in the first instance. It is called tau, a course or circuit, and comprises two or more departments of a province, whether fu, or independent ting or chau. These circuits are subject to the government of officers called tau-tai or intendants of circuit, who often combine with political and judicial powers a military authority and various duties relating to the territory or to the revenue.”[28]

The eighteen provinces received their present boundaries and divisions in the reign of Kienlung; and the little advance which has been made abroad in the geography of China is shown by the fact, that although these divisions were established a hundred years ago, the old demarkations, existing at the time of the survey in 1710, are still found in many modern European geographies and maps. The following table shows their present divisions and government. The three columns under the head of Departments contain the fu, chihlí ting, and chihlí chau, all of which are properly prefectures; the three columns under the head of Districts contain the ting, chau, and hien.

TOPOGRAPHICAL DIVISIONS OF CHINA PROPER.

The province of Chihlí is the most important of the whole. On foreign maps it is sometimes written Pechele (i.e., North Chihlí), a name formerly given it in order to distinguish it from Kiangnan, or Nan-chihlí, in which the seat of government was once located. This name is descriptive, rather than technical, and means ‘Direct rule,’ denoting that from this province the supreme power which governs the empire proceeds; any province, in which the Emperor and court should be fixed, would therefore be termed Chihlí, and its chief city King, ‘capital,’ or King-tu or King-sz’, ‘court of the capital.’ The surface of this province lying south of the Great Wall is level, excepting a few ridges of hills in the west and north, while the eastern parts, and those south to the Gulf, are among the flattest portions of the Great Plain.

It is bounded on the north-east by Liautung, where for a short distance the Great Wall is the frontier line; on the east by the Gulf of Pechele; on the south-east and south by Shantung; on the south-west by Honan; on the west by Shansí; and north by Inner Mongolia, where the river Liau forms the boundary. The extensive region beyond the Wall, occupied mostly by the Tsakhar Mongols, is now included within the jurisdiction, and placed under the administration of officers residing at one of the garrisoned gates of the Great Wall; the area of this part is about half that of the whole province. The chief department in the province, that of Shuntien, being both large and important, as containing the metropolis, is divided into four lu or circuits, each under the rule of a sub-prefect, who is subordinate to the prefect living at Peking.

Peking[29] (i.e., Northern Capital) is situated upon a sandy plain, about twelve miles south-west of the Pei ho, and more than a hundred miles west-north-west of its mouth, in lat. 39° 54′ 36″ N., and long. 116° 27′ E., or nearly on the parallel of Samarkand, Naples, and Philadelphia. It is a city worthy of note on many accounts. Its ancient history as the capital of the Yen Kwoh (the ‘Land of Swallows’) during the feudal times, and its later position as the metropolis of the empire for many centuries, give it historical importance; while its imperial buildings, its broad avenues with their imposing gates and towers, its regular arrangement, extent, populousness, and diversity of costume and equipage, combine to render it to a traveller the most interesting and unique city in Asia. It is now ruinous and poor, but the remains of its former grandeur under Kienlung’s prosperous reign indicate the justness of the comparisons made by the Catholic writers with western cities one hundred and eighty years ago. The entire circuit of the walls and suburbs is reckoned by Hyacinthe at twenty-five miles, and its area at twenty-seven square miles, but more accurate measurements of the walls alone give forty-one li, or 14.25 miles (or 23.55 kilometres) for the Manchu city, including the cross-wall, and twenty-eight li, or ten miles, for the Chinese city on its south; not counting the cross-wall, the circuit measures almost twenty-one miles. The suburbs near the thirteen outer gates altogether form a small proportion to the whole; the area within them is nearly twenty-six square miles. Those residents who have had the best opportunities estimate the entire population at a million or somewhat less; no census returns are available to prove this figure, nor can it be stated what is the proportion of Manchus, Mongols, and Chinese, except that the latter outnumber all others. Du Halde reckoned it to be about three millions, and Klaproth one million three hundred thousand; and each was probably true at some period, for the number has diminished with the poverty of the Government.

THE AN-TING GATE, WALL OF PEKING.

POSITION AND HISTORY OF PEKING.

Peking is regarded by the Chinese as one of their ancient cities, but it was not made the capital of the whole empire until Kublai established his court at this spot in 1264. The Ming emperors who succeeded the Mongols held their court at Nanking until Yungloh transferred the seat of government to Peking in 1411, where it has since remained. Under the Mongols, the city was called Khan-baligh (i.e., city of the Khan), changed into Cambalu in the accounts of those times; on Chinese maps it is usually called King-sz’.

Peking has, during its history, existed under many different names; after each disaster her walls have been changed and her houses rebuilt, so that to-day she stands, like the capitals of the ancient Roman and Byzantine empires, upon the débris of centuries of buildings. The most important renovations have been those by the Liao dynasty, in 937 A.D., who entirely rebuilt the city, and by the Kin rulers in 1151.

It was at first surrounded by a single wall pierced by nine gates, whence it is sometimes called the City of Nine Gates. The southern suburbs were inclosed by Kiatsing in 1543, and the city now consists of two portions, the northern or inner city (Nui ching), containing about fifteen square miles, where are the palace, government buildings, and barracks for troops; and the southern or Outer city (Wai ching), where the Chinese live. The wall of the Manchu city averages fifty feet high, forty wide at top, and about sixty at bottom, most of the slope being on the inner face. That around the Outer city is no more than thirty in height, twenty-five thick at bottom, and about fifteen at top. The terre-plein throughout is paved with bricks weighing sixty pounds each; a crenellated parapet runs around the entire town, intended only for archers or musketeers, as no port-holes for cannon exist. It is undoubtedly the finest wall surrounding any city now extant. Near the gates, of which there are sixteen in all, the walls are faced with stone, but in other places with these large bricks, laid in a concrete of lime and clay, which in process of time becomes almost as durable as stone. The intermediate space between facings is filled up with the earth taken from the ditch which surrounds the city. Square buttresses occur at intervals of sixty yards on the outer face, each projecting fifty feet, and every sixth one being twice the size of the others; their tops furnish room for the troops posted there to resist side attacks. Each gate is surmounted with a brick tower of many stories, over a hundred feet high, built in galleries with port-holes, and giving a very imposing appearance to the city as one approaches it from the wide plain. The gates of the Manchu city have a double entrance formed by joining their supporting bastions with a circular wall in which are side entrances, thus making an enceinte of several acres, in which the yellow-tiled temple to the tutelary God of War is conspicuous. The arches of all the gates are built solidly of granite; the massive doors are closed and barred every night soon after dark.

GENERAL ASPECT OF THE CAPITAL.

At the sides of the gates, and also between them, are esplanades for mounting to the top; this is shut to the common people, and the guards are not allowed to bring their women upon the wall, which would be deemed an affront to Kwantí. The moat around the city is fed from the Tunghwui River, which also supplies all the other canals leading across or through the city. The approach to Peking from Tung chau is by an elevated stone road, but nothing of the buildings inside the walls is seen; and were it not for the lofty towers over the gates, it would more resemble an encampment inclosed by a massive wall than a large metropolis. No spires or towers of churches, no pillars or monuments, no domes or minarets, nor even many dwellings of superior elevation, break the dull uniformity of this or any Chinese city. In Peking, the different colored yellow or green tiles on official buildings,[30] mixed with the brown roofs of common houses, impart a variety to the scene, but the chief objects to relieve the monotony are the large clumps of trees, and the flag-staffs in pairs near the temples. The view from the walls impresses one with the grand ideas of the founders of the city; and the palaces in the Forbidden City, towering above everything else, worthily exhibit their notions of what was befitting the sovereigns of the Middle Kingdom. The Bell and Clock Towers, the Prospect Hill, the dagobas, pagodas, and gate towers, and lastly the Temple of Heaven, are all likewise visible from this point, and render the scene picturesque and peculiar.[31]

MAP OF PEKING.

REFERENCES.

• A. The Meridian Gate.
• B. Gate of Extensive Peace.
• C. Hall of Perfect Peace.
• D. Hall of Secure Peace.
• E. Palace of Heaven—the Emperor’s.
• F. Palace of Earth’s Repose—the Empress’.
• G. Gate to Earth’s Repose, leads to a Garden.
• H. Ching-hwang miao.
• I. Temple of Great Happiness.
• J. Northern gate of Forbidden City.
• K. Nui Koh, or Privy Council Chamber, lies within the wall.
• K. Gate of Heavenly Rest.
• L. Hall of Intense Mental Exercises.
• M. Library, or Hall of Literary Abyss.
• N. Imperial Ancestral Hall.
• O. Hall of National Portraits.
• P. Printing Office.
• Q. Court of Controllers of Imperial Clan.
• R. Marble Isle: a marble bridge leads to it.
• S. Five Dragon Pavilion.
• T. Great Ancestral Temple.
• U. Altar to the Gods of Land and Grain.
• V. Artificial Mountain. The Russian school lies just north of the Eastern gate near N.
• W. A summer-house.
• X. Military Examination Hall.
• Y. Plantain Garden, or Conservatory.
• Z. A Pavilion.
• a. Medical College.
• b. Astronomical Board.
• c. Five of the Six Boards. The Hanlin Yuen lies just above them.
• d. House of the Russian Mission.
• e. Colonial Office.
• f. Temple for Imperial worship.
• g. Imperial Observatory, partly on the wall.
• h. Hall of Literary Examination.
• i. Russian Church of the Assumption.
• j. Temple of Eternal Peace of the lamas.
• k. Kwoh Tsz’ Kien, a Manchu College.
• l. Temple of the God of the North Star.
• m. High Watch-tower and Police Office.
• n. Board of Punishments.
• o. Censorate.
• p. Mohammedan Mosque.
• q. Portuguese Church.
• r. Elephant’s Inclosure.
• s. Principal Ching-hwang miau.
• t. Temple of Deceased Emperors of all ages.
• u. Obelisk covering a scab of Buddha.
• v. Altar to Heaven.—Altar to Earth is on the north of the city.
• w. Altar to Agriculture.
• x. Black Dragon Pool, and Temple of God of Rain.
• y. Altar to the Moon.
• z. Altar to the Sun.

The plan of the city here given is reduced from a large Chinese map, but is not very exact. The northern portion occupies for the most part the same area as the Cambaluc of Marco Polo, which, however, extended about two miles north, where the remains of the old north wall of the Mongols still exist. On their expulsion Hungwu erected the present northern wall, and his son Yungloh rebuilt the other three sides in 1419 on a rather larger scale; but the arrangement of the streets and gates is due to the Great Khan. When taken possession of by the Manchus in 1644, they found a magnificent city ready for them, uninjured and strong, which they apportioned among their officers and bannermen; but necessity soon obliged these men, less frugal and thrifty than the natives, to sell them, and content themselves with humbler abodes; consequently, the greater part of the northern city is now tenanted by Chinese. The innermost inclosure in the Nui Ching contains the palace and its surrounding buildings; the second is occupied by barracks and public offices, and by many private residences; the outer one, for the most part, consists of dwelling-houses, with shops in the large avenues. The inner inclosure measures 6.3 li, or 2.23 miles, in circuit, and is called Tsz’ Kin Ching, or ‘Carnation Prohibited City;’ the wall is less solid and high than the city wall; it is covered with bright yellow tiles, guarded by numerous stations of bannermen and gendarmerie, and surrounded by a deep, wide moat. Two gates, the Tung-hwa and Sí-hwa, on the east and west, afford access to the interior of this habitation of the Emperor, as well as the space and rooms appertaining, which furnish lodgment to the guard defending the approach to the Dragon’s Throne; a tower at each corner, and one over each gateway, also give accommodation to other troops. The interior of this inclosure is divided into three parts by two walls running from south to north, and the whole is occupied by a suite of court-yards and halls, which, in their arrangement and architecture, far exceed any other specimens of the kind in China. According to the notions of a common Chinese, all here is gold and silver; “he will tell you of gold and silver pillars, gold and silver roofs, and gold and silver vases, in which swim gold and silver fishes.”

PALACES OF THE PROHIBITED CITY.

The southern gate, called the Wu Măn, or ‘Meridian Gate,’ is the fourth in going north from the entrance opposite the Tsien Măn, and this distance of nearly half a mile is occupied by troops. The Wu Măn leads into the middle division, in which are the imperial buildings; it is especially appropriated to the Emperor, and whenever he passes through it, a bell placed in the tower above is struck; when his troops return in triumph, a drum is beaten, and the prisoners are here presented to him; here, too, the presents he confers on vassals and ambassadors are pompously bestowed. Passing through this gate into a large court, over a small creek spanned by five marble bridges, ornamented with sculptures, the visitor is led through the Tai-ho Măn into a second court paved with marble, and terminated on the sides by gates, porticos, and pillared corridors. The next building, at the head of this court, called the Tai-ho tien, or ‘Hall of Highest Peace,’ is a superb marble structure, one hundred and ten feet high, standing on a terrace that raises it twenty feet above the ground; five flights of stairs, decorated with balustrades and sculptures, lead up to it, and five doors open through it into the next court-yard. It is a great hall of seventy-two pillars, measuring about two hundred feet by ninety broad, with a throne in the midst. Here the Emperor holds his levees on New Year’s Day, his birthdays, and other state occasions; a cortége of about fifty household courtiers stand near him, while those of noble and inferior dignity and rank stand in the court below in regular grades, and, when called upon, fall prostrate as they all make the fixed obeisances. It was in this hall that Titsingh and Van Braam were banqueted by Kienlung, January 20, 1795, of which interesting ceremony the Dutch embassador gives an account, and since which event no European has entered the building. The three Tien in this inclosure are the audience halls, and the side buildings contain stores and treasures under the charge of the Household Board, with minor bureaus.

Beyond it are two halls; the first, the Chung-ho tien, or ‘Hall of Central Peace,’ having a circular roof, that rests on columns arranged nearly four-square. Here the Emperor comes to examine the written prayers provided to be offered at the state worship. The second is the Pao-ho tien, or ‘Hall of Secure Peace,’ elevated on a high marble terrace, and containing nine rows of pillars. The highest degrees for literary merit are here conferred triennially by the Emperor upon one hundred and fifty or more scholars; here, also, he banquets his foreign guests and other distinguished persons the day before New Year’s Day. After ascending a stairway, and passing the Kien Tsing Măn, the visitor reaches the Kien Tsing Kung, or ‘Palace of Heavenly Purity,’ into which no one can enter without special license. In it is the council-chamber, where the Emperor usually sits at morning audience up to eight o’clock, to transact business with his ministers, and see those appointed to office. The building is the most important as it is described to be the loftiest and most magnificent of all the palaces. In the court before it is a small tower of gilt copper, adorned with a great number of figures, and on each side are large incense vases, the uses of which are no doubt religious. It was in this palace that Kanghí celebrated a singular and unique festival, in 1722, for all the men in the empire over sixty years of age, that being the sixtieth year of his reign. His grandson Kienlung, in 1785, in the fiftieth year of his reign, repeated the ceremony, on which occasion the number of guests was about three thousand.[32] Beyond it stands the ‘Palace of Earth’s Repose,’ where ‘Heaven’s consort’ rules her miniature court in the imperial harem; there are numerous buildings of lesser size in this part of the inclosure, and adjoining the northern wall of the Forbidden City is the imperial Flower Garden, designed for the use of its inmates. The gardens are adorned with elegant pavilions, temples, and groves, and interspersed with canals, fountains, pools, and flower-beds. Two groves rising from the bosoms of small lakes, and another crowning the summit of an artificial mountain, add to the beauty of the scene, and afford the inmates of the palace an agreeable variety.

In the eastern division of the Prohibited City are the offices of the Cabinet, where its members hold their sessions, and the treasury of the palace. North of it lies the ‘Hall of Intense Thought,’ where sacrifices are presented to Confucius and other sages. Not far from this hall stands the Wăn-yuen koh, or the Library, the catalogue of whose contents is published from time to time, forming an admirable synopsis of Chinese literature. At the northern end of the eastern division are numerous palaces and buildings occupied by princes of the blood, and those connected with them; and in this quarter is placed the Fung Sien tien, a small temple where the Emperor comes to ‘bless his ancestors.’ Here the Emperor and his family perform their devotions before the tablets of their departed progenitors; whenever he leaves or returns to his palace, the first day of a season, and on other occasions, the monarch goes through his devotions in this hall.

The western division contains a great variety of edifices devoted to public and private purposes, among which may be mentioned the hall of distinguished sovereigns, statesmen, and literati, the printing-office, the Court of Controllers for the regulation of the receipts and disbursements of the court, and the Ching-hwang Miao, or ‘Guardian Temple’ of the city. The number of people residing within the Prohibited City cannot be stated, but probably is not large; most of them are Manchus.

IMPERIAL CITY.

The second inclosure, which surrounds the imperial palaces, is called Hwang Ching, or ‘Imperial City,’ and is an oblong rectangle about six miles in circuit, encompassed by a wall twenty feet high, and having a gate in each face. From the southern gate, called the Tien-an Măn, or ‘Heavenly Rest,’ a broad avenue leads up to the Kin Ching; and before it, outside of the wall, is an extensive space walled in, and having one entrance on the south, called the gate of Great Purity, which no one is allowed to enter except on foot, unless by special permission. On the right of the avenue within the wall is a gateway leading to the Tai Miao, or ‘Great Temple’ of the imperial ancestors, a large collection of buildings inclosed by a wall 3,000 feet in circuit. It is the most honored of religious structures next to the Temple of Heaven, and contains tablets to princes and meritorious officers. Here offerings are presented before the tablets of deceased emperors and empresses, and worship performed at the end of the year by the members of the imperial family and clan to their departed forefathers. Across the avenue from this temple is a gateway leading to the Shié-Tsih tan, or altar of the gods of Land and Grain. These were originally Kau-lung, a Minister of Works, B.C. 2500, and Hau-tsih, a remote ancestor of Chau Kung; here the Emperor sacrifices in spring and autumn. This altar consists of two stories, each five feet high, the upper one being fifty-eight feet square; no other altar of the kind is found in the empire, and it would be tantamount to high treason to erect one and worship upon it. The north, east, south, and west altar are respectively black, green, red, and white, and the top yellow; the ceremonies connected with the worship held here are among the most ancient practised among the Chinese.

PUBLIC BUILDINGS AND PARKS.

On the north of the palace, separated by a moat, and surrounded by a wall more than a mile in circuit, is the King Shan, or ‘Prospect Hill,’ an artificial mound, nearly one hundred and fifty feet high, and having five summits, crowned with as many temples; many of these show the neglect in which public edifices soon fall. Trees of various kinds border its base, and line the paths leading to the tops. Its height allows the spectator to overlook the whole city, while, too, it is itself a conspicuous object from every direction. The earth and stone in it were taken from the ditches and pools dug in and around the city, and near its base are many tanks of picturesque shape and appearance; so that altogether it forms a great ornament to the city. Another name for it is Mei Shan, or ‘Coal Hill,’ from a tradition that a quantity of coal was placed there, as a supply in case of siege. The western part of this inclosure is chiefly occupied by the Sí Yuen, or ‘Western Park,’ in and around which are found some of the most beautiful objects and spots in the metropolis. An artificial lake, more than a mile long, and averaging a furlong in breadth, occupies the centre; it is supplied from the Western Hills, and its waters are adorned with the splendid lotus. A marble bridge of nine arches crosses it, and its banks are shaded by groves of trees, under which are well-paved walks. On its south-eastern side is a large summer-house, consisting of several edifices partly in or over the water, and inclosing a number of gardens and walks, in and around which are artificial hills of rock-work beautifully alternating or supporting groves of trees and parterres of flowers.

On the western side is the hall for examining military candidates, where his majesty in person sees them exhibit their prowess in equestrian archery. At the north end of the lake is a bridge leading to an islet, which presents the aspect of a hill of gentle ascent covered with groves, temples, and summer-houses, and surmounted with a tower, from which an extensive view can be enjoyed. On the north of the bridge is a hill on an island called Kiung-hwa tan, capped by a white dagoba. Near by is an altar forty feet in circuit, and four feet high, inclosed by a wall, and a temple dedicated to Yuenfí, the reputed discoverer of the silk-worm, where the Empress annually offers sacrifices to her; in the vicinity a plantation of mulberry trees and a cocoonery are maintained. Near the temple of ‘Great Happiness,’ not far distant from the preceding, on the northern borders of the lake, is a gilded copper statue of Maitreya, or the coming Buddha, sixty feet high, with a hundred arms; the temple is one of the greatest ornaments of the Park. Across the lake on its western bank, and entered through the first gate on the south side of the street, is the Tsz’-kwang Koh, where foreign ministers are received by the Emperor; the inclosure is kept with great care, and numerous halls and temples are seen amidst groves of firs. The object kept in view in the arrangement of these gardens and grounds has been to make them an epitome of nature, and then furnish every part with commodious buildings. But however elegant the palaces and grounds may have appeared when new, it is to be feared that his majesty has no higher ideas of cleanliness and order than his subjects, and that the various public and private edifices and gardens in these two inclosures are despoiled of half their beauty by dirt and neglect. The number of the palaces in them both is estimated to be over two hundred, “each of which,” says Attinet, in vague terms, “is sufficiently large to accommodate the greatest of European noblemen, with all his retinue.”

Along the avenue leading south from the Imperial City to the division wall, are found the principal government offices. Five of the Six Boards have their bureaus on the east side, the Board of Punishments with its subordinate departments being situated with its courts on the west side; immediately south of this is the Censorate. The office attached to the Board of Rites, for the preparation of the Calendar, commonly called the Astronomical Board, stands directly east of this; and the Medical College has its hall not far off. The Hanlin Yuen, or National Academy, and the Li-fan Yuen, or Colonial Office, are also near the south-eastern corner of the Imperial City. Opposite to the Colonial Office is the Tang Tsz’, where the remote ancestors of the reigning family are worshipped by his majesty together with the princes of his family; when they come in procession to this temple in their state dresses, the Emperor, as high-priest of the family, performs the highest religious ceremony before his deified ancestors, viz., three kneelings and nine knockings. After he has completed his devotions, the attendant grandees go through the same ceremonies. The temple itself is pleasantly situated in the midst of a grove of fir and other trees, and the large inclosure around it is prettily laid out.

BUDDHIST AND CONFUCIAN TEMPLES.

In the south-eastern part of the city, built partly upon the wall, is the Observatory, which was placed under the superintendence of the Romish missionaries by Kanghí, but is now confided to the care of Chinese astronomers. The instruments are arranged on a terrace higher than the city wall, and are beautiful pieces of bronze art, though now antiquated and useless for practical observations. Nearly opposite to the Observatory stands the Hall for Literary Examinations, where the candidates of the province assemble to write their essays. In the north-eastern corner of the city is the Russian Mission and Astronomical Office, inclosed in a large compound; near it live the converts. About half a mile west is the Yung-ho Kung, or ‘Lamasary of Eternal Peace,’ wherein about 1,500 Mongol and Tibetan priests study the dogmas of Buddhism, or spend their days in idleness, under the control of a Gegen or living Buddha. Their course of study comprises instruction in metaphysics, ascetic duties, astrology, and medicine; their daily ritual is performed in several courts, and the rehearsal of prayers and chants by so many men strikes the hearer as very impressive. The rear building contains a wooden image, 70 feet in height, of Maitreya, the coming Buddha; the whole establishment exhibits in its buildings, pictures, images, cells, and internal arrangements for study, living, and worship, one of the most complete in the empire. Several smaller lamasaries occur in other parts of the city.

Portal of Confucian Temple, Peking.

Directly west of the Yung-ho Kung, and presenting the greatest contrast to its life and activity, lies the Confucian Temple, where embowered in a grove of ancient cypresses stands the imposing Wăn Miao, or ‘Literary Temple,’ in which the Example and Teacher of all Ages and ten of his great disciples are worshipped. The hall is 84 feet in front, and the lofty roof is supported on wooden pillars over 40 feet high, covering the single room in which their tablets are placed in separate niches, he in the high seat of honor. All is simple, quiet, and cheerless; the scene here presents an impressive instance of merited honors paid to the moral teachers of the people. Opposite and across the court are ten granite stones shaped like drums, which are believed to have been made about the eighth century B.C., and contain stanzas recording King Süen’s hunting expeditions. In another court are many stone tablets containing the lists of Tsin-sz’ graduates since the Mongol dynasty, many thousands of names with places of residence. Contiguous to this temple is the Pih-yung Kung, or ‘Classic Hall,’ where the Emperor meets the graduates and literati. It is a beautiful specimen of Chinese architectural taste. Near it are 300 stone tablets on which the authorized texts of the classics are engraved.[33]

North of the Imperial City lies the extensive yamun of the Ti-tuh, who has the police and garrison of the city under his control, and exercises great authority in its civil administration. The Drum and Bell Towers stand north of the Ti-ngan Măn in the street leading to the city wall, each of them over a hundred feet high, and forming conspicuous objects; the drum and bell are sounded at night watches, and can be heard throughout the city; a clepsydra is still maintained to mark time—a good instance of Chinese conservatism, for clocks are now in general use, and correct the errors of the clepsydra itself.

SHRINES OF ALL RELIGIONS.

Outside of the south-western angle of the Imperial City stands the Mohammedan mosque, and a large number of Turks whose ancestors were brought from Turkestan about a century ago live in its vicinity; this quarter is consequently the chief resort of Moslems who come to the capital. South-west of the mosque, near the cross-wall, stands the Nan Tang, or old Portuguese church, and just west of the Forbidden City, inside of the Hwang Ching, is the Peh Tang, or Cathedral; both are imposing edifices, and near them are large schools and seminaries for the education of children and neophytes. There are religious edifices in the Chinese metropolis appropriated to many forms of religion, viz., the Greek, Latin, and Protestant churches, Islamism, Buddhism in its two principal forms, Rationalism, ancestral worship, state worship, and temples dedicated to Confucius and other deified mortals, besides a great number in which the popular idols of the country are adored. One of the most worthy of notice is the Tí-Wang Miao, lying on the avenue leading to the west gate, a large collection of halls wherein all the tablets of former monarchs of China from remote ages are worshipped. The rule for admission into this Walhalla is to accept all save the vicious and oppressive, those who were assassinated and those who lost their kingdoms. This memorial temple was opened in 1522; the Manchus have even admitted some of the Tartar rulers of the Kin and Liao dynasties, raising the total number of tablets to nearly three hundred. It is an impressive sight, these simple tablets of men who once ruled the Middle Kingdom, standing here side by side, worshipped by their successors that their spirits may bless the state. This selection of the good sovereigns alone recalls to mind the custom in ancient Jerusalem of allowing wicked princes no place in the sepulchres of the kings. Distinguished statesmen of all ages, called by the Chinese kwoh chu, or ‘pillars of state,’ are associated with their masters in this temple, as not unworthy to receive equal honors.

A little west of this remarkable temple is the Peh-ta sz’, or ‘White Pagoda Temple,’ so called from a costly dagoba near it erected about A.D. 1100, renovated by Kublai in the thirteenth century, and rebuilt in 1819. Its most conspicuous feature is the great copper umbrella on the top. When finished, the dagoba was described as covered with jasper, and the projecting parts of the roof with ornaments of exquisite workmanship tastefully arranged. Around this edifice, which contains twenty beads or relics of Buddha, two thousand clay pagodas and five books of charms, are also one hundred and eight small pillars on which lamps are burned. The portion of the city lying south of the cross-wall is inhabited mostly by Chinese, and contains hundreds of hwui-kwan, or club-houses, erected by the gentry of cities and districts in all parts of the empire to accommodate their citizens resorting to the capital. Its streets are narrow and the whole aspect of its buildings and markets indicates the life and industry of the people. Hundreds of inns accommodate travellers who find no lodging-places in the Nui Ching, and storehouses, theatres, granaries and markets attract or supply their customers from all parts. There is more dissipation and freedom from etiquette here, and the Chinese officials feel freer from their Manchu colleagues.

THE TEMPLE OF HEAVEN.

Three miles south of the Palace, in the Chinese City, is situated the Tien Tan, or ‘Altar to Heaven,’ so placed because it was anciently customary to perform sacrifices to Heaven in the outskirts of the Emperor’s residence city. The compound is inclosed by more than three miles of wall, within which is planted a thick grove of locust (Sophora), pine and fir trees, interspaced with stretches of grass. Within a second wall, which surrounds the sacred buildings, rises a copse of splendid and thickly growing cypress trees, reminding one of the solemn shade in the vicinity of famous temples in Ancient Greece, or of those celebrated shrines described in Western Asia. The great South Altar, the most important of Chinese religious structures, is a beautiful triple circular terrace of white marble, whose base is 210, middle stage 150, and top 90 feet in width, each terrace encompassed by a richly carved balustrade. A curious symbolism of the number three and its multiples may be noticed in the measurements of this pile. The uppermost terrace, whose height above the ground is about eighteen feet, is paved with marble slabs, forming nine concentric circles—the inner of nine stones inclosing a central piece, and around this each receding layer consisting of a successive multiple of nine until the square of nine (a favorite number of Chinese philosophy) is reached in the outermost row. It is upon the single round stone in the centre of the upper plateau that the Emperor kneels when worshipping Heaven and his ancestors at the winter solstice.

Four flights of nine steps each lead from this elevation to the next lower stage, where are placed tablets to the spirits of the sun, the moon, the stars, and the Year God. On the ground at the end of the four stairways stand vessels of bronze in which are placed the bundles of cloth and sundry animals constituting part of the sacrificial offerings. But of vastly greater importance than these in the matter of burnt-offering is the great furnace, nine feet high, faced with green porcelain, and ascended on three of its sides by porcelain staircases. In this receptacle, erected some hundred feet to the south-east of the altar, is consumed a burnt-offering of a bullock—entire and without blemish—at the yearly ceremony. The slaughter-house of the sacrificial bullock stands east of the North Altar, at the end of an elaborate winding passage, or cloister of 72 compartments, each 10 feet in length.

Separated from the Altar to Heaven by a low wall, is a smaller though more conspicuous construction called Ki-kuh Tan, or ‘Altar of Prayer for Grain.’ Its proportions and arrangement are somewhat similar to those of the South Altar, but upon its upper terrace rises a magnificent triple-roofed, circular building known to foreigners as the ‘Temple of Heaven.’ This elaborate house of worship, whose surmounting gilded ball rests 100 feet above the platform, was originally roofed with blue, yellow and green tiles, but by Kienlung these colors were changed to blue. When, added to these brilliant hues, we consider the richly carved and painted eaves, the windows shaded by venetians of blue-glass rods strung together, and the rare symmetry of its proportions, it is no exaggeration to call this temple the most remarkable edifice in the capital—or indeed in the empire. The native name is Ki-kien Tien, or ‘Temple of Prayer for the Year.’ In the interior, the large shrines of carved wood for the tablets correspond to the movable blue wooden huts which on days of sacrifice are put up on the Southern Altar. Here, upon some day following the first of spring (Feb. 6), the Emperor offers his supplications to Heaven for a blessing upon the year. In times of drought, prayer for rain is also made at this altar, the Emperor being obliged to proceed on foot, as a repentant suppliant, to the ‘Hall of Penitent Fasting,’ a distance of three miles. A green furnace for burnt-offerings lies to the south-east of this, as of the North Altar; while in the open park not far from the two and seventy cloisters are seven great stones, said to have fallen from heaven and to secure good luck to the country.

Across the avenue upon which is situated this great inclosure of the Tien Tan, is the Sien Nung Tan, or ‘Altar dedicated to Shinnung,’ the supposed inventor of agriculture. These precincts are about two miles in circumference, and contain four separate altars: to the gods of the heavens, of the earth, of the planet Jupiter, and to Shinnung. The worship here is performed at the vernal equinox, at which time the ceremony of ploughing a part of the inclosed park is performed by the Emperor, assisted by various officials and members of the Board of Rites. The district magistrates and prefect also plough their plats; but no one touches the imperial portion save the monarch himself. The first two altars are rectangular; that to the gods of heaven, on the east, is 50 feet long and 4½ feet high: four marble tablets on it contain the names of the gods of the clouds, rain, wind, and thunder. That to the gods of earth is 100 feet long by 60 wide; here the five marble tablets contain the names of celebrated mountains, seas, and lakes in China. Sacrifices are offered to these divinities at various times, and, with the prayers presented, are burned in the furnaces, thus to come before them in the unseen world; the idea which runs through them partakes of the nature of homage, not of atonement.

Nearly one-half of the Chinese City is empty of dwellings, much of the open land being cultivated; a large pond for rearing gold-fish near the Tien Tan is an attractive place. West of this city wall is an old and conspicuous dagoba in the Tien-ning sz’, nearly 200 feet high, and a landmark for the city gate. This part of Peking was much the best built when the Liao and Kin dynasties occupied it. West of the main city is the Temple of the Moon, and on the east side, directly opposite, stands the Temple to the Sun; the Tí Tan, or ‘Altar to Earth,’ is on the north over against the Altar to Heaven, just described. At all these the Emperor performs religious rites during the twelve months.

The inclosure of the Altar to Earth is smaller, and everything connected with the sacrifices is on an inferior scale to those conducted in the Altar to Heaven. The main altar has two terraces, each 6 feet high, and respectively 106 feet and 60 feet square; the tablet to Imperial Earth is placed on the upper with those to the Imperial Ancestors, and all are adored at the summer solstice. The bullock for sacrifice is afterwards buried and not burned. Adjoining the terraced altar on the south is a small tank for water.

THE BELL TEMPLE AND HWANG SZ’.

About two miles from the Tí Tan, in a northerly direction, passing through one of the ruined gates of the Peking of Marco Polo’s time on the way, is found the Ta-chung sz’, or ‘Bell Temple,’ in which is hung the great bell of Peking. It was cast about 1406, in the reign of Yungloh, and was covered over in 1578 by a small temple. It is 14 feet high, including the umbones, 34 feet in circumference at the rim, and 9 inches thick; the weight is 120,000 lbs. av.; it is struck by a heavy beam swung on the outside. The Emperor cast five bells in all, but this one alone was hung. It is covered with myriads of Chinese characters, both inside and out, consisting of extracts from the Fah-hwa King and Ling-yen King, two Buddhist classics. In some respects this may be called the most remarkable work of art now in China; it is the largest suspended bell in the world. A square hole in the top prevents its fracture under the heaviest ringing.[34]

MONUMENT, OR TOPE, OF A LAMA. HWANG SZ’, PEKING.

A short distance outside the northern gate, Tah-shing Măn, is an open ground for military reviews, and near it a Buddhist temple of some note, called Hwang sz’, containing in its enceinte a remarkable monument erected by Kienlung. In 1779 the Teshu Lama started for Peking with an escort of 1,500 men; he was met by the Emperor near the city of Sí-ning in Kansuh, conducted to Peking with great honor, and lodged in this temple for several months. He died here of small-pox, November 12, 1780, and this cenotaph of white marble was erected to his memory; the body was inclosed in a gold coffin and sent to the Dalai Lama at Lhassa in 1781. The plinth of this beautiful work contains scenes in the prelate’s life carved on the panels, one of which represents a lion rubbing his eyes with his paw as the tears fall for grief at the Lama’s death.

SUMMER PALACE AT YUEN-MING YUEN.

The Summer Palace at Yuen-ming Yuen lies about seven miles from the north-west corner of Peking, and its entire circuit is reckoned to contain twelve square miles. The country in this direction rises into gentle hills, and advantage has been taken of the original surface in the arrangement of the different parts of the ground, so that the whole presents a great variety of hill and dale, woodlands and lawns, interspersed with pools, lakes, caverns, and islets joined by bridges and walks, their banks thrown up or diversified like the free hand of nature. Some parts are tilled, groves or tangled thickets occur here and there, and places are purposely left wild to contrast the better with the cultivated precincts of a palace, or to form a rural pathway to a retired temple or arbor. Here were formerly no less than thirty distinct places of residence for various palace officials, around which were houses occupied by eunuchs and servants, each constituting a little village.

But all was swept away by the British and French troops in 1860, and their ruins still remain to irritate the officials and people of Peking against all foreigners. Near the Summer Palace is the great cantonment of Hai-tien, where the Manchu garrison is stationed to defend the capital, and whose troops did their best in the vain effort to stay the attack in 1860. As a contrast to the proceedings connected with this approach of the British, an extract from Sir John Davis’s Chinese (chap. x.) will furnish an index of the changed condition of things.

“It was at a place called Hai-tien, in the immediate vicinity of these gardens, that the strange scene occurred which terminated in the dismissal of the embassy of 1816. On his arrival there, about daylight in the morning, with the commissioners and a few other gentlemen, the ambassador was drawn to one of the Emperor’s temporary residences by an invitation from Duke Ho, as he was called, the imperial relative charged with the conduct of the negotiations. After passing through an open court, where were assembled a vast number of grandees in their dresses of ceremony, they were shown into a wretched room, and soon encompassed by a well-dressed crowd, among whom were princes of the blood by dozens, wearing yellow girdles. With a childish and unmannerly curiosity, consistent enough with the idle and disorderly life which many of them are said to lead, they examined the persons and dress of the gentlemen without ceremony; while these, tired with their sleepless journey, and disgusted at the behavior of the celestials, turned their backs upon them, and laid themselves down to rest. Duke Ho soon appeared, and surprised the ambassador by urging him to proceed directly to an audience of the Emperor, who was waiting for him. His lordship in vain remonstrated that to-morrow had been fixed for the first audience, and that tired and dusty as they all were at present, it would be worthy neither of the Emperor nor of himself to wait on his majesty in a manner so unprepared. He urged, too, that he was unwell, and required immediate rest. Duke Ho became more and more pressing, and at length forgot himself so far as to grasp the ambassador’s arm violently, and one of the others stepped up at the same time. His lordship immediately shook them off, and the gentlemen crowded about him; while the highest indignation was expressed at such treatment, and a determined resolution to proceed to no audience this morning. The ambassador at length retired, with the appearance of satisfaction on the part of Duke Ho, that the audience should take place to-morrow. There is every reason, however, to suppose that this person had been largely bribed by the heads of the Canton local government to frustrate the views of the embassy, and prevent an audience of the Emperor. The mission, at least, was on its way back in the afternoon of the same day.”

The principal part of the provisions required for the supply of this immense city comes from the southern provinces, and from flocks reared beyond the wall. It has no important manufactures, horn lanterns, wall papers, stone snuff-bottles, and pipe mouth-pieces, being the principal. Trade in silks, foreign fabrics, and food is limited to supplying the local demand, inasmuch as a heavy octroi duty at the gates restrains all enterprise. No foreign merchants are allowed to carry on business here. The government of Peking differs from that of other cities in the empire, the affairs of the department being separated from it, and administered by officers residing in the four circuits into which it is divided. “A minister of one of the Boards is appointed superintendent of the city, and subordinate to him is a fuyin, or mayor. Their duties consist in having charge of the metropolitan domain, for the purpose of extending good government to its four divisions. They have under them two district magistrates, each of whom rules half the city; none of these officers are subordinate to the provincial governor, but carry affairs which they cannot determine to the Emperor. They preside or assist at many of the festivals observed in the capital, superintend the military police, and hold the courts which take cognizance of the offences committed there.”[35]

STREET SCENES AND FEATURES OF PEKING.

The thoroughfares leading across Peking, from one gate to the other, are broad, unpaved avenues, more than a hundred feet wide, which appear still wider owing to the lowness of the buildings; the centre is about two feet higher than the sides. The cross-streets in the main city are generally at right angles with them, not over forty feet wide, and for the most part occupied with dwellings. The inhabitants of the avenues are required to keep them well sprinkled in summer; but in rainy weather they are almost impassable from the mud and deep puddles, the level surface of the ground, and obstructed, neglected drains, preventing rapid drainage. The crowds which throng these avenues, some engaged in various callings, along the sides or in the middle of the way, and others busily passing and repassing, together with the gay appearance of the sign-boards, and an air of business in the shops, render the great streets of the Chinese metropolis very bustling, and to a foreigner a most interesting scene. Shop-fronts can be entirely opened when necessary; they are constructed of panels or shutters fitting into grooves, and secured to a row of strong posts which set into mortises. At night, when the shop is closed, nothing of it is seen from without; but in the daytime, when the goods are exposed, the scene becomes more animated.

The sign-boards are often broad planks, fixed in stone bases on each side of the shop-front, and reaching to the eaves, or above them; the characters are large and of different colors, and in order to attract more notice, the signs are often hung with various colored flags, bearing inscriptions setting forth the excellence of the goods. The shops in the outer city are frequently constructed in this manner, others are made more compact for warmth in winter, but as a whole they are not brilliant in their fittings. Their signs are, when possible, images of the articles sold and always have a red pennon attached; the finer shop-fronts are covered with gold-leaf, brilliant when new, but shabby enough when faded, as it soon does. The appearance of the main streets exhibits therefore a curious mixture of decay and renovation, which is not lessened by the dilapidated temples and governmental buildings everywhere seen, all indicating the impoverished state of the exchequer. In many parts of the city are placed pai-lau, or honorary gateways, erected to mark the approach to the palace, and worthy, by their size and ornamental entablatures, to adorn the avenues and impress the traveller, if they were kept in good condition.

The police of the city is connected with the Bannermen, and is, on the whole, efficient and successful in preserving the peace. During the night the thoroughfares are quiet; they are lighted a little by lanterns hanging before the houses, but generally are dark and cheerless. In the metropolis, as in all Chinese cities, the air is constantly polluted by the stench arising from private vessels and public reservoirs for urine and every kind of offal, which is all carefully collected by scavengers. By this means, although the streets are kept clean, they are never sweet; but habit renders the people almost insensible to this as well as other nuisances. Carts, mules, donkeys and horses are to be hired in all the thoroughfares. The Manchu women ride astride; their number in the streets, both riding and walking, imparts a pleasant feature to the crowd, which is not seen in cities further south. The extraordinary length and elaborateness of marriage and funeral processions daily passing through the avenues, adds a pretty feature to them, which other cities with narrow streets cannot emulate.

The environs beyond the suburbs are occupied with mausolea, temples, private mansions, hamlets, and cultivated fields, in or near which are trees, so that the city, viewed from a distance, appears as if situated in a thick forest. Many interesting points for the antiquarian and scientist are to be found in and around this old city, which annually attracts more and more the attention of other nations. Its population has decreased regularly since the death of Kienlung in 1797, and is now probably rather less than one million, including the immediate suburbs. The climate is healthy, but subject to extremes from zero to 104°; the dryness during ten months of the year is, moreover, extremely irritating. The poor, who resort thither from other parts, form a needy and troublesome ingredient of the population, sometimes rising in large mobs and pillaging the granaries to supply themselves with food, but more commonly perishing in great numbers from cold and hunger. Its peace is always an object of considerable solicitude with the imperial government, not only as it may involve the personal safety of the Emperor, but still more from the disquieting effect it may have upon the administration of the empire. The possession of this capital by an invading force is more nearly equivalent to the control of the country than might be the case in most European kingdoms, but not as much as it might be in Siam, Burmah, or Japan. The good influences which may be exerted upon the nation from the metropolis are likewise correspondingly great, while the purification of this source of contamination, and the liberalizing of this centre of power, now well begun in various ways, will confer a vast benefit upon the Chinese people.[36]

Chihlí contains several other large cities, among which Pauting, the former residence of the governor-general, and Tientsin, are the most important. The former lies about eighty miles south-west of the capital, on the Yungting River and the great road leading to Shansí. The whole department is described as a thoroughly cultivated, populous region; it is well watered, and possesses two or three small lakes.

TIENTSIN AND THE RIVER.

Tientsin is the largest port on the coast above Shanghai. Owing, however, to the shallowness of the gulf and the bar at the mouth of the Pei ho, over which at neap tide only three or four feet of water flow, the port is rendered inaccessible to large foreign vessels. Its size and importance were formerly chiefly owing to its being the terminus of the Grand Canal, where the produce and taxes for the use of the capital were brought. Mr. Gutzlaff, who visited Tientsin in 1831, described it as a bustling place, comparing the stirring life and crowds on the water and shores outside of the walls of the city with those of Liverpool. The enormous fleet of grain junks carrying rice to the capital is supplemented by a still greater number of vessels which take the food up to Tung chau. Formerly the coast trade increased the shipping at Tientsin to thousands of junks, including all which lined the river for about sixty miles. This native trade has diminished since 1861, inasmuch as steamers are gradually ousting the native vessels, no one caring to risk insurance on freight in junks. The country is not very fertile between the city and the sea, owing to the soda and nitre in the soil; but scanty crops are brought forth, and these only after much labor; one is a species of grass (Phragmites) much used in making floor-mats. Sometimes the rains cause the Pei ho and its affluents to break over their banks, at which periods their waters deposit fertilizing matter over large areas.

The approach to Tientsin from the eastward indicates its importance, and the change from the sparsely populated country lying along the banks of the Pei ho, to the dense crowds on shore and the fleets of boats, adds greatly to the vivacity of its aspect. “If fine buildings and striking localities are required to give interest to a scene,” remarks Mr. Ellis, “this has no claims; but, on the other hand, if the gradual crowding of junks till they become innumerable, a vast population, buildings, though not elegant, yet regular and peculiar, careful and successful cultivation, can supply these deficiencies, the entrance to Tientsin will not be without attractions to the traveller.”[37] The stacks of salt along the river arrest the attention of the voyager; the immense quantity of this article collected at this city is only a small portion of the amount consumed in the interior. Tientsin will gradually increase in wealth, and now perhaps contains half a million of inhabitants. Its position renders it one of the most important cities in the empire, and the key of the capital.

Near the embouchure of the river is Ta-ku, with its forts and garrison, a small town noticeable as the spot where the first interview between the Chinese and English plenipotentiaries was held, in August, 1840; and for three engagements between the British and Chinese forces in 1858, 1859, and 1860. The general aspect of the province is flat and cheerless, the soil near the coast unproductive, but, as a whole, rich and well cultivated, though the harvests are jeopardized by frequent droughts.

The port of Peking is Tung chau on the Pei ho, twelve miles from the east gate, and joined to it by an elevated stone causeway. All boats here unload their passengers and freight, which are transported in carts, wheelbarrows, or on mules and donkeys. The city of Tung chau presents a dilapidated appearance amidst all its business and trade, and its population depends on the transit of goods for their chief support. The streets are paved, the largest of them having raised footpaths on their sides. The houses indicate a prosperous community. A single pagoda towers nearly 200 feet above them, and forms a waymark for miles across the country. Tung chau is only 100 feet above the sea, from which it is distant 120 miles in a direct line; consequently, its liability to floods is a serious drawback to its permanent prosperity.

Another city of note is Siuenhwa fu, finely situated between the branches of the Great Wall. Timkowski remarks, “the crenated wall which surrounds it is thirty feet high, and puts one in mind of that of the Kremlin, and resembles those of several towns in Russia; it consists of two thin parallel brick walls, the intermediate space being filled with clay and sand. The wall is flanked with towers. We passed through three gates to enter the city: the first is covered with iron nails; at the second is the guard-house; we thence proceeded along a broad street, bordered with shops of hardware; we went through several large and small streets, which are broad and clean; but, considering its extent, the city is thinly peopled.”[38]

The department of Chahar, or Tsakhar, lies beyond the Great Wall, north and west of the province, a mountainous and thinly settled country, chiefly inhabited by Mongol shepherds who keep the flocks and herds of the Emperor.[39]

DOLON-NOR AND TOWNS IN THE NORTH.

In the north-east of their grounds lies the thriving town of Dolon-nor (i.e., Seven Lakes), or Lama-miao, of about 20,000 Chinese, founded by Kanghí. The Buddhist temples and manufactories of bells, idols, praying machines, and other religious articles found here, give it its name, and attract the Mongols, whose women array themselves in the jewelry made here. It is in latitude 42° 16′ N., about ten miles from the Shangtu River, a large branch of the river Liao, on a sandy plain, and is approached by a road winding among several lakes. North-west of Dolon-nor are the ruins of the ancient Mongolian capital of Shangtu, rendered more famous among English reading people by Coleridge’s exquisite poem—

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

A stately pleasure-dome decree:

Where Alph, the sacred river, ran

Through caverns measureless to man

Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground

With walls and towers were girdled round—

than by Marco Polo’s relation, which moved the poet to pen the lines. It was planned as Mukden now is, an outer and inner wall inclosing separate peoples, and its tumuli will probably furnish many tablets and relics of the Mongol emperors, when carefully dug over. It was too far from Peking for the Manchu monarchs to rebuild, and the Ming emperors had no power there. It was visited in 1872 by Messrs. Grosvenor and Bushell of the British Legation; Dr. Bushell’s description corroborates Polo’s account and Gerbillon’s later notices of its size.[40]

There are several lakes, the largest of which, the Peh hu, in the south-western part, connects with the Pei ho through the river Hü-to. The various branches of the five rivers, whose united waters disembogue at Ta-ku, afford a precarious water communication through the southern half of Chihlí. Their headwaters rise in Shansí and beyond the Great Wall, bringing down much silt, which their lower currents only partially take out into the gulf; this sediment soon destroys the usefulness of the channels by raising them dangerously near the level of the banks. The utilization of their streams is a difficult problem in civil engineering, not only here but throughout the Great Plain.

Near the banks of the Lan ho, a large stream flowing south from the eastern slopes of the Chahar Hills, past Yungping fu into the gulf, and about one hundred and seventy-four miles north of Ta-ku, lies Chingpeh, or Jeh-ho, the Emperor’s country palace. The approach to it is through a pass cut out of the rock, and resembles that leading to Damascus. The imperial grounds are embraced by a high range of hills forming a grand amphitheatre, which at this point is extremely fine. This descent to the city presents new and captivating views at every turn of the road. The hunting grounds are inclosed by a high wall stretching twenty miles over the hills, and stocked with deer, elks, and other game. The Buddhist temples form the chief attraction to a visitor. The largest one is square and castellated, eleven stories high, and about two hundred feet on each of its sides; the stories are painted red, yellow and green alternating. There are several similar but smaller structures below this one, and on each of the first two or three series is a row of small chinaware pagodas of a blue color; their tiles are likewise blue. In the bright sunlight the effect of these brilliant bands is very good, and the general neatness adds to the pleasing result of the gay coloring. Nearly a thousand lamas live about these shrines. The town of Jeh-ho (i.e., Hot River) consists mostly of one street coiling around the hills near the palace; its inhabitants are of a higher grade than usual in Chinese cities, the greater part being connected with the government. The road through Ku-peh kau in the Great Wall from Peking to Jeh-ho is one of the best in the province, and the journey presents a variety of charming scenery; its chief interest to foreigners is connected with the visit there of Lord Macartney, in 1793.[41] This fertile prefecture is rapidly settling by Chinese, whose numbers are now not far from two millions.