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BATTLEFIELD OF PING-YANG.

The War in the East.

JAPAN,

CHINA,

AND COREA.

A complete history of the War: Its causes and results; its campaigns on sea and land; its terrific fights, grand victories and overwhelming defeats.

With a preliminary account of the customs, habits and history of the three peoples involved. Their cities, arts, sciences, amusements and literature.

BY

TRUMBULL WHITE,

Late Correspondent of the “North China Daily News,” and the “Kobe Herald.”

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

JULIUS KUMPEI MATUMOTO, A.M.

OF TOKIO, JAPAN.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY

TEITOKU MORIMOTO, J.C. FIREMAN,

and others.

P.W. ZIEGLER & CO.,

Philadelphia, Pa.; St. Louis, Mo.

Copyrighted, 1895, by

TRUMBULL WHITE

PREFACE.

Some striking act in a man’s career is necessary to attract general attention to him. The one who moves along through his path in life doing nothing out of the ordinary, will win few glances from the public, and little will the world notice his existence. Worthy of the worthiest he may be, but if he does nothing to demonstrate it, how shall the world know his merit or his strength? But with all this true, it does not follow that it is man’s duty to seek an occasion to advertise these qualities. Only when the necessity for action arises, then should he act, and then will the world know what his ability and character are.

The same is true as to the nations of the earth. Those years during which they move onward in their national life and history in peace and quietness, however full of latent strength they may be, are not the ones which command the attention of the eyes of the world. It is the year of supreme test, of struggle, moral or physical, that furnishes crucial testimony what the nation really is. War is always a curse unless it be waged to advance justice and assure more worthy peace. But if such a war be necessary, the progress of it, the results, and the lessons they teach are essential to the student of humanity, in whatever quarter of the globe the battles are.

China, Japan and Corea are a strange trinity to most of us in the western world. Separated from us by long distances and by immense differences in race, in language, in religion, and in customs, they have been known here only through the writings of the comparatively few travelers who exchange visits. Of late years, it is true, the hermitages of the Orient have been opening to freer intercourse, trade and treaties have multiplied, and students have come to us for the knowledge we could give them. But there was needed a great movement of some sort to awaken the Orient from its centuries of slumber, and to make known to us the truth of eastern affairs. Nothing could do this as the War in the East has done. We can study its conduct and its results if we will, in a way to teach us more of the characteristics of the three nations than we could learn in any other way.

It has been the object of the author in the present volume, to record the facts of the war and its preliminaries so clearly that every seeker for knowledge might trace the lessons for himself. To justify this effort, it is necessary to say no more than that the conflict involves directly nations whose total population includes more than one-fourth of the human race. And the results will affect the progress of civilization in those countries, as well as the commercial and other interests of all the European and American nations.

Invertebrate China, with scorn of western methods, and complacent rest in the belief that all but her own people are barbarians, had to face an inevitable war with Japan, the sprightly, absorbent, adaptive, western-spirited, whose career in the two score years since her doors were opened to the call of the American Perry has been the marvel of those who knew it. And the conflict was to be on the soil of the Hermit Nation, Corea, “the Land of Morning Calm,” for centuries the land of contention between “the Day’s Beginning” and “the Middle Kingdom.”

It is to record the history and description of these realms and peoples in sufficient detail to make plainer the facts of the war that the preliminary chapters are written. The work must speak for itself. The importance of the subjects included in the volume must be the explanation of any inadequacy of treatment.

Trumbull White.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

INTRODUCTION.

The unexpected news of war between the Mikado’s Empire and the Celestial Kingdom has startled the whole world. Thereby considerable light was thrown upon the Oriental world.

Japan, up to a very short time ago, through the pen and tongue of poets and artists, who have visited this land, has been thought to be merely a country of beautiful flowers, charming mademoiselles, fantastic parasols, fans and screens. Such misrepresentation has long impressed the western mind, and the people hardly imagined Japan as a political power, enlightened by a perfect educational system and developed to a high pitch of excellence in naval and military arts.

The war in the East is certainly interesting from more than one point of view. Viewing it from the humane standpoint, Japan is, indeed, the true standard-bearer of civilization and progress in the far east. Her mission is to enlighten the millions of slumbering souls in the Celestial Kingdom, darkened for generations. Politically, she, with her enterprising genius, youthful courage and alert brain, as well as the art and science of civilization, has lifted herself into the ranks of the most powerful nations of the earth, and compelled the whole of the western powers to reckon her as a “living force,” as she has proved her right to a proud place among the chief powers of the world. Commercially, she has demonstrated herself the mistress of the Pacific and Asiatic Seas.

From the outbreak of the war all the civilized nations, except England, have sympathized with Japan, especially the people of America have given a strong moral support to Japan, not because this country is the warmest friend of Japan, but because Japan is, to-day, the propagandist of civilization and humanity in the far east.

At the beginning of the hostilities a majority of the people had an erroneous idea that the overwhelming population and resources of China would soon be able to crush the Island Empire of Japan; but they overlooked the fact that in our day it is science, brains and courage, together with the perfected organization of warfare that grasp the palm of victory. Thousands of sheep could do nothing against a ferocious wolf. So the numerical comparison has but little weight.

Some sagacious writer compared Japan to a lively swordfish and China to a jellyfish, being punctured at every point. Truly Japan has proved it so.

From the sinking of the Kow-shing transport, up to the present time, Japan has an unbroken series of victories over China. At the battle of Asan she gained the first brilliant victories and swept all the Chinese put of Corea, and at Ping-Yang, by both tactics and superb strategy, crushed the best army of China, which Li Hung Chang brought up to the greatest efficiency, by the aid of many European officers, as if it had been an egg shell. Again, at the mouth of the Yalu River, she gained a brilliant naval victory over China, by completely destroying the Ping-Yang squadron. Once more on the land the Japanese army stormed Port Arthur, the strongest naval fort, known as the Gibraltar of China.

All these facts are viewed with amazement by the eyes of the world. For all that the people know about Japan and the Japanese is that the people of Japan are very artistic, as the producers of beautiful porcelain, embroidery, lacquer work and all sorts of artistic fancy goods, and they wonder how it is possible that such an artistic people as the Japanese could fight against sober, calm Chinamen. But such an erroneous notion would soon vanish if they came to learn the true nature and character of the Japanese.

More than once the world has seen that an artistic nation could fight. The Greeks demonstrated this long ago, and the French in the latter times have shown a shining example. Japan is reckoned as one of the most artistic people in the world, as the producer of beautiful things, as the lover of fine arts and natural beauties. The Japanese have proved the same as what the ancient Greeks and modern French have shown. The history of Japan reveals the true color of the Japanese as brilliant fighters and a warlike nation. “In no country,” says Mr. Rogers, “has military instinct been more pronounced in the best blood of the people. Far back in the past, beyond that shadowy line where legend and history blend, their story has been one of almost continual war, and the straightest path to distinction and honor has, from the earliest times, led across the battle field. The statesmen of Japan saw, as did Cavour, that the surest way to win the respect of nations was by success in war.”

The ancestor of the Japanese people, who claim to have descended from high heaven, seems to have been the descendant of the ancient Hittites, the warlike and conquering tribe once settled in the plain of Mesopotamia. The Hittites, so far as our investigation is concerned, extending their sway of conquest towards the north-eastern portion of Asia, must have, at last, brought the Japanese family to the island of Japan. As they settled on the island, they found it inhabited by many different tribes; but they soon vanquished them and established the everlasting foundation of the Mikado’s Empire, which they called the “Glorious Kingdom of Military Valour.” The first Mikado was Jimmu, whose coronation took place two thousand five hundred and fifty-four years ago, long before Alexander the Great thought he had conquered the world and Julius Cæsar entered Gaul. The present Mikado is the one hundred and twenty-second lineal descendant of the first Mikado Jimmu. The unbroken dynasty of the Mikado has continued for twenty-five centuries. The people are brave, adventurous and courageous. Fanatical patriotism for country and strong loyalty towards the Mikado are essential characteristics of the Japanese people. And all these tend to form the peculiar nationality of Japan. Since the establishment of the Mikado’s Empire their land has never been defiled by invaders and they have never known how to be subject to a foreign yoke. The history of Japan is the pride of the Japanese people.

The Japanese, in an early time, have displayed their superior courage and distinguished themselves from the rest of the Asiatic nations in the point of military affairs.

In the year A.D. 201 the Empress Jingo, the greatest female character in the Japanese history, undertook a gigantic expedition to the Asiatic continent. She assembled an immense army and built a great navy. Placing herself as the commander-in-chief of the invading army, she sailed for the continent. Her victory was brilliant. Corea was at once subjected without any bloodshed. Long since the Japanese power was established on the Asiatic continent.

Again in the sixteenth century, ambitious Taiko, who is known as the Napoleon of Japan, undertook a great continental expedition, to show the military glory of Japan before the world. He found Japan too small to satisfy his immoderate ambition, and sent word to the emperor of China and the king of Corea that if they would not hear him, he would invade their territory with his invincible army. It was his plan to divide the four hundred provinces of China and eight provinces of Corea among his generals in fiefs, after conquering them. So he assembled his generals and fired their enthusiasm, recounting their exploits mutually achieved. All the generals and soldiers were delighted with the expedition. Fifty thousand samurai were embarked for the continent and sixty thousand reserve was kept ready in Japan as re-enforcement.

The Japanese army was everywhere victorious. After many battles fought and fortresses stormed, the entire kingdom of Corea was subdued. The capitol was taken, the king fled. The emperor of China sent an army forward against the Japanese and a severe battle was fought. The victorious Japanese were on the point of invading China, when in 1598, the death of Taiko was announced and the Japanese government ordered the invading army to return home. Peace was concluded. Thus the conquest of China was frustrated.

The invasion of the Mongolian-Tartars is the most memorable event in Japanese history, which excited the utmost patriotism and valour of the nation. The dangers and glories at this time will never be forgotten by the Japanese.

In the thirteenth century, Genghis Khan, who is now identified as Minamoto Yoshitsune or Gen Gi Kei in Japanese history, who left Japan for Manchilia, began his sway of conquest in Mongolia. The conquest of the whole earth was promised him. He vanquished China, Corea and the whole of Central and Northern Asia, subjected India and overthrew the Caliphate of Bagdad. In Europe, he made subject the entire dominion of Russia and extended the Mongolian Empire as far as the Oder and the Danube. After his death the Empire was divided among his three sons. Kublai Khan received as his share North-eastern Asia. He had completely overthrown the Sung dynasty of China and founded the Mongolian dynasty. He placed the whole of Eastern Asia under his yoke, and then sent envoys to Japan, demanding tributes and homage. The nation of Japan was indignant at the insolent demand, for they were never accustomed to such treatment, and dismissed them in disgrace. Six embassies were sent and six times rejected. Again, the haughty Mongolian prince sent nine envoys, who demanded a definite answer from the Japanese sovereign. The Japanese reply was given by cutting off their heads.

At the sight of imminent foreign invasion, the Japanese were in a great hurry to prepare for war. Once more, and for the last time, Chinese envoys came to demand tribute; again the sword gave the answer. Enraged, the great Mongolian prince prepared a gigantic armada to crush the island of Japan, which had refused homage and tribute to the invincible conqueror. The army, consisting of one hundred thousand Chinese and Tartars and seven thousand Coreans, aided by thirty-five hundred of armed navy, that seemed to cover the entire seas, sailed for the invasion in August of 1281. The whole nation of Japan now roused with sword in hand and marched against its formidable foe. Re-enforcements poured in from all quarters to swell the host of defenders. The fierce Mongolian force could not effect their landing, but were driven into the sea as soon as they reached the shore. Aided by a mighty typhoon, before which the Chinese armada was utterly helpless, the Japanese fiercely attacked the invaders and after a bloody struggle, they succeeded in destroying the enemy’s war ships, and killing all or driving them into the sea to be drowned. The corpses were piled on the shore or floating on the water so thickly that it seemed almost possible to walk thereon. Only three out of hundreds of thousands of invaders, were sent back to tell their emperor how the brave men of Japan had destroyed their armada.

The courage of the Japanese is fully manifested in these great events. Many ambitious men, seeking for military glory, have expatriated themselves from their own native lands, and gone off to the less warlike countries of Asia, where they found themselves by their distinguished courage and military genius, kings, ministers and generals.

The Japanese seamen have long been renowned for their adventurous spirit and audacity. Trading ships of Japan, in the remotest ancient age, are said to have sailed around the Persian Gulf, beyond the Indian seas. It is said that at the beginning of the fourteenth century a Japanese junk had discovered the American Pacific sea-coast, now known as the regions of Oregon and California. For a long time the Japanese pirates were the mistress of all the eastern seas. China, Siam, Birmah and the southern islands had paid tribute to them. The name of the Japanese was, indeed, the terror of the Oriental world, just as the northmen had been the object of dread to the southern Europeans.

A policy, that was adopted by the Japanese people in the seventeenth century, was an injurious one for its national development. Up to this time, foreign intercourse was free and commerce flourished. Nagasaki, Hirado, Satsuma, and all western seaports were the cosmopolitan cities, where all European and Asiatic tradesmen were found crowded. Unfortunately these foreigners were sources of vice. The avarice and extortion of the foreign traders; bitter sectarian strife between Dominicans, Franciscans and the Jesuits; and the most cruel intolerance and persecution by the Catholic people, which were vices unknown to the Japanese mind; political-religious plots of the Christians against the Japanese government; the slave trade carried on by the foreign merchants, and the like events, disgusted the Japanese authority, and forced them to believe the exclusion of the vicious foreigners was absolutely necessary to the welfare of Japan. Thus the Japanese resolved to expel all foreigners out of the islands. Tokugawa, the founder of Tai Kun shogunate, vigorously enforced this principle and carried it so far that all the Roman Catholics both native and foreign were extinguished and all foreign merchants except a few Dutch, were expelled out of the country. The policy of the Tokugawa Government not only excluded the foreigners but also kept the natives at home. No foreigners (except the Dutch) were allowed to peep in this forbidden land and no native was permitted to leave his own country. Thus it was cut off from all the rest of the world. Japan furnishes different varieties of productions, which can amply supply all the needs of the nation without any inconvenience; hence commercial intercourse with foreign lands, was not absolutely necessary. In the course of time she had forgotten all about the outside world and so the world neglected her.

The people, however, enjoyed a profound peace by this policy. Ignoring the rise and fall of other nations, the people in this ocean guarded paradise, cultivated arts and learning and developed their own civilization, which is quite different from what we call now the civilization of the nineteenth century. While thus she was enjoying tranquility and cultivating the arts and learning in a secluded corner of the earth, in the western nations, endless struggles and everlasting contests completely revolutionized the old phases of the earth. The peace and culture of two centuries and a half, which Japan has enjoyed, exalted her to the certain state of civilization. But her isolated condition and tranquility lacked the systematic development of army and navy and the arts of international negotiation, which are the weapons vitally important in order to stand on the field of struggle for existence.

Suddenly this tranquility that has continued for two hundred and fifty years, was broken, when in 1853, the war ships of Commodore Perry appeared in the Bay of Yeddo. This event threw into great confusion and panic the whole nation. Japan had no navy and no army to fight with the foreign intruders, nor had she the art of diplomacy, with which to consult in regard to the protection of Japan’s interest. Japan stood then with her naked civilization against the armed civilization of Europe. She was forced to make a disadvantageous treaty with the European and American states at the cannon’s mouth. In this treaty she conceded her sovereign right to the western people who live in the realm.

Thus Japan entered, infamously, the group of the civilized world. She saw at once that the western nations were far in advance of her in the art of war and diplomacy, that they have learned from the constant struggle of the past three centuries, while she was devoted to arts and learning. She perceived that the so-called civilization of the 19th century is but a disguised form of barbarism of iron and fire, covered with comity and humanity, and that to exist in the field of struggle for existence she must adopt the same means by which the European nations stand. Hence the whole nation of Japan, since the intercourse with the western people, has struggled, with the utmost energy, to adopt what is called the 19th century civilization.

In 1868 a revolution took place, from which the New Japan suddenly emanated. The French Revolution did not cause greater changes in France than the Revolution of 1868 in Japan. The old feudal regime, in full force, was cast away. The social system was completely reorganized. New and enlightened criminal and civil codes were enacted; the modes of judicial procedure were utterly revolutionized; the jail system radically improved; the most effective organization of police, of posts, of railways, of telegraphs, telephones and all means of communication were adopted; enlightened methods of national education were employed; and the Christian religion was welcomed for the sake of social innovation. The most complete national system of navy and army, after the modern European model, was achieved. The sound order of the imperial government, financially and politically, were firmly established; the most improved and extended scheme of local government was put into operation, and the central government was organized according to the pattern of the most advanced scale. The imperial constitution was promulgated, and the Imperial Diet, consisting of two houses—the House of Lords and House of Commons—elected by popular votes, was founded. Freedom of thought, speech and faith was established; the system of an influential press and party rapidly grew up. Now the monarchial absolutism of the Mikado’s Empire is replaced by a government by parliament and constitution.

BATTLE OF THE YALU.—Japanese Drawing.

Such is the progress which Japan has achieved in the past twenty-five years. This progress must not, by any means, be taken as strange. The Revolution of 1868 also, must not be imagined as the birthday of the Empire of the Rising Sun. Those who do not know the true condition of the Japanese before the Revolution, and who observe superficially the phases of modern Japan, have often said that the Japanese are merely imitating western civilization without any idea of understanding it. This a gross mistake. The Revolution of 1868 is merely a moment of transition when Japan adopted the western system. The Japanese mind was fully developed and enlightened, at the time when they came in contact with foreigners, to fully grasp western civilization. Mentally, the Japanese people were so enlightened as to be able to digest European science and art at one glance. As a clever writer has said: “It must be clearly understood that like a skillful gardener, who grafts a new rose or an apple upon a healthy and well-established stock, so did Japan adopt the scientific and civil achievement of the west to an eastern root, full of vigorous life and latent force.” For these causes we have no reason to wonder at the rapid progress which the Japanese have made in the past twenty-five years. And by all these facts, we have no reason to wonder how the colossal Celestial Empire, that was thought by the Europeans invincible, came to ask the mercy of Japan.

The collision between Japan and China, though it was thought strange to those who are not familiar to eastern affairs, is not a surprising matter to the person well acquainted with Asiatic politics. Japan had predicted, long ago, that the inevitable conflict of the two powers in the Orient must come sooner or later, and the nation has been long prepared for to-day. She has perceived the weakness and corruption of the Celestial Empire, while the European diplomats were dazzled, in the court of Peking, by an outward appearance of unity, power, and majesty that the huge Middle Kingdom maintained for centuries. She knew quite well that the lack of national spirit and effective system of government, hatred of races, depravity of the officers, ignorance of the people, corruption of naval and military organization and constant maladministration of the Manchoorian government dominated the stupid empire, whose people still proudly style their country the “Flowery Kingdom, in the Enlightened Earth.”

The Japanese, as they are polite and artistic, are by no means a blood-thirsty race; nay, far from that. But the present war is in an inevitable chain of circumstances. For a long time the Japanese and Chinese were not good friends, they hated each other, as much, if not more than the French and the Germans do to-day.

Since Japan came in contact with the Europeans, she adopted, with the most marvelous activity, the western methods which have completely revolutionized the nation in a quarter of a century, while China maintained her regime and looked upon all western arts and science with utmost hatred and contempt. So she regarded Japan as the traitor of Asia. Naturally Japan represented the civilization and progress in the far east; and China ultra-conservatism. It was long expected that the collision of these two antagonistic principles must come. And so it has now come.

Moreover, the goal of Japan was, as the leading spirit of Asia, to exalt herself among the first-class powers of the civilized world. But China, up to a very short time ago, pretended to be the mistress of Asia. Thus they envied each other, and conflict of the two powers for supremacy became inevitable. The first collision between Japan and China came in 1874, with the question of the Liu Kiu Islands, which China abandoned for Japan, then the Formosa expedition provoked serious trouble between the two countries. In both cases Japan came off successful in the end.

Again there were collisions in Corea, just as Rome and Carthage met in Sicily. Corea has for a long time, paid tribute both to Japan and China, yet neither had any definite sovereign right over Corea, but mere suzerain powers. In 1875, the Japanese government abandoned all her ancient, traditional suzerain rights in Corea, and concluded a treaty which recognized Corea as an independent State, enjoying the same sovereign powers as Japan. Soon after, the United States, England, France, Germany and Russia followed Japan’s example. This friendly act of Japan by which she introduced Corea as an independent State among civilized nations, was a terrible blow to China, who still had the intention of claiming her traditional suzerainty over Corea. It must be remembered that the permanent neutrality of the Hermit Kingdom is of vital importance to the prosperity and safety of the country of the Rising Sun. It is evident from this point of view that Japan can never permit the Chinese claim of suzerainty, nor Russian aggression in Corea.

From the time that Japan recognized Corea as an independent nation, she made great efforts for the progress of Corea. Many Corean students were educated and many Japanese, sent there as instructors and as advisors, assisted the advancement of her civilization. Japan has never failed to show her friendly sympathy towards Corea, for the progress and welfare of Corea as a firm independent state, has great bearing upon Asiatic civilization, and upon the safety of Japan itself.

While Japan was using her best efforts as the sincere friend of Corea, China constantly and secretly intrigued with the Corean government and the conservatives, in order to restore her old suzerainty and to annihilate[annihilate] Japan’s influence in Corea. In 1882, an insurrection, instigated by the Chinese officers, broke out in Seoul. It was directed chiefly against the Japanese, as the promoters of foreign intercourse. The mob attacked the Japanese legation and several members were murdered. The Japanese minister and his staff escaped to the palace to find refuge, but found there the gates were shut against them, then they were obliged to cut their way through the mob and run all night to Chemulpo, where they were rescued by an English boat and returned to Japan. The insurrection was suppressed by a Chinese force and a number of the leaders were executed. The Corean government consented to pay a sum of $500,000 as indemnity, but this was subsequently forgiven to Corea in consequence of inability to pay it. There were already existing in Corea two parties, that is, the progressive and the conservative. The former party represented civilized elements and the spirit of Japan, while the latter represented the majority of the officers and it was supported by the Chinese government. These two parties were bitter enemies and struggled for supremacy.

Since the rebellion of 1882, Chinese influence in Corea rapidly increased, consequently the conservative spirit predominated. Two years later, the leaders of the progressive party undertook a bold attempt when they saw that their party influence was waning. During a dinner party to celebrate the opening of the new post-office, a plan was made to murder all the conservative leaders who had dominant influence in the government. They partly succeeded in the attempt. The revolutionary leaders proceeded to the palace, secured the person and the sympathy of the king, who sent an autograph letter to ask the Japanese minister for the protection of the royal palace. Thereon, the Japanese minister guarded the palace for a few days with his legation guard of one hundred and thirty Japanese soldiers. In the meantime the Chinese force in Seoul, two thousand in number proceeded to the palace, and without any negotiation or explanation fired upon the Japanese guard. The king fled to the Chinese army and the Japanese retired to the palace of their legation which they found surrounded by the Chinese army. They abandoned the spot, finding it impossible to maintain the legation without any provisions, fought their way to Chemulpo, where they found their way to Japan. Many Japanese were killed in this event. The Japanese government demanded satisfaction from China on account of the action of the Chinese soldiers. The convention of Tien-tsin, after long negotiation between Count Ito, the present premier of Japan and Li Hung Chang, the viceroy of China, was concluded. The main points of the Tien-tsin treaty were three: (1) that the king of Corea should provide a sufficient force to maintain order in future, to be trained by officers of some nation other than China or Japan; (2) that certain internal reforms should be made; (3) that if necessary to preserve order and protect their nations either Japan or China should have the right to dispatch troops to Corea, on giving notice each to the other, and that when order was restored both forces should be withdrawn simultaneously.

The event of 1885 completely extinguished the Japanese influence and established the Chinese authority in Corea. The Chinese minister in Seoul got complete possession of the Corean government, entirely crushed the revolutionary party and organized an ultra-conservative government and appointed ministers at his will. Japan’s influence in Corea has been almost nill during the past ten years, for she has been very busy with her internal reorganization and has not had much time to look after Corea.

THE FIGHT AT PING-YANG.

Two prominent leaders of the revolutionary party fled to Japan on account of the failure of the coup d'état of 1885, where they found their asylum. The Chinese and Corean governments dispatched missions to demand the extradition of these unfortunate political reformers, but Japan was firm in her refusal, on the ground of the ethics of international law. The Corean government, sanctioned by that of China, at once began to take measures to effect the removal of these ruined leaders by other processes. Official assassins followed their footsteps for ten years in vain. But at last they succeeded in murdering Kim-ok-Kiun, one of those reformers, and most barbarous cruelties were committed by the Chinese and Corean authorities. The murder of Kim-ok-Kiun excited great sympathy from the Japanese public. Many a time China and Corea cast disdain and contempt upon Japan’s name. Many a time the political and commercial interest of Japan were impaired by them. Yet Japan forgave their insolence with generous heart.

The progress of the late rebellion in Corea was beyond her power to check. A state of perpetual anarchy seemed to prevail. Insolent China seemed to be using the Corean mobs for her own advantage, and directly against Japan’s interests. China, ignoring the treaty of Tien-tsin in 1885, sent troops to Corea. Japan no longer lightly viewed China’s insolence and Corean disorder.

Japan’s ardent need to take a decided step in Corea, at this moment seemed a more cogent one in the commercial point of view than her political interest. The greater part of the modern trade of Corea has been created by Japan and is in the hands of her merchants; the net value of Corean direct foreign trade for 1892 and 1893 together was $4,240,498 with China, while $8,306,571 with Japan. Hence the interest of Japan is twice that of China. In tonnage of shipping the proportion is vastly greater in favor of Japan. Her tonnage in 1893 was over twenty times that of China, as the exact figures show: tonnage—China, 14,376; Japan, 304,224. Thus Japan’s economic interests in Corea are decidedly greater than any other nation’s.

Immediately after China sent troops to Corea, Japan, also, sent her force, to preserve her political as well as economic interests, and determined not to draw back her troops until Corea should restore the sound order of society and wipe out the Chinese claim of Corean suzerainty, for so long as Chinese influence predominates in Corea, any thoughts of her advancement are hopeless. For a long maladministration of the Li government had weakened the Hermit Kingdom. The country is no more than a desert and its people are plunged in the most miserable poverty of any in the poverty-stricken east. The Japanese government proposed to the Chinese government according to the Tien-tsin treaty, a measure of internal reform for Corea, which was rejected with insult by the Chinese authority.

At first Japan had, by no means, any intention to make war with China, but she was forced by her to enter the struggle. She has never infringed the ethics of international law, nor the comity of nations. It was China that provoked the eastern war, now raging in the Orient, but not Japan; the true idea of Japan, in the war, is, by conquest, to put the blame on China for refusing to adhere faithfully to the spirit of her treaties and for trying to keep Corea in barbarism, and for endeavoring to stop the progress of civilization in Eastern Asia. Her mission in the east is to crush the insolent and ignorant self-conceit of the Peking government and to reform the barbarous abuses of the Corean administration. Therefore Japan fights to-day for the sake of civilization and humanity.

After the eastern war was declared, four months had hardly passed, until the fighting power and the economic resources of the Chinese Empire were destroyed and exhausted. China was forced to beg the mercy of Japan. The banner of the “Rising Sun” is now triumphant. Japan dictating the terms of peace, signifies the beginning of a better era for benighted China and the preservation of permanent peace in the Orient.

Julius Kumpéi Matumoto, A.M.,

Tokio, Japan.

China

CHINESE MUSICIAN.

HISTORICAL SKETCH OF CHINA FROM THE EARLIEST
TIMES TO FIRST CONTACT WITH
EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION.

Origin of Chinese People—Legends—Golden Age of China—Beginnings of Authentic History—Dynasty of Chow—Cultivation of Literature and Progress—Music, Slavery, Household Habits Three Thousand Tears Ago—Confucius and his Work—First Emperor of China—Burning of Books—Han Dynasty—Famous Men of the Period—Paper Money and Printing—Invasions of Tartars and Mongols—Sung Dynasty—Literary Works—Famous Chinese Poet—Literature, Law and Medicine—Kublai Khan—Ming Dynasty—Private Library of a Chinese Emperor—Founding of the Present Dynasty—Connection Between Chinese History and the Rest of the World.

Obscurity shrouds the origin of the Chinese race. The Chinese people cannot be proved to have originally come from anywhere beyond the limits of the Chinese empire. At the remotest period to which investigations can satisfactorily go back, without quitting the domain of history for that of legend, we find them already in existence as an organized, and as a more or less civilized nation. Previous to that time, their condition had doubtless been that of nomadic tribes, but whether as immigrants or as true sons of the soil there is scarcely sufficient evidence to show. Conjecture, however, based for the most part upon coincidences of speech, writing or manners and customs, has been busy with their ultimate origin; and they have been variously identified with the Turks, with the Chaldees, with the earliest inhabitants of Ireland, and with the lost tribes of Israel.

The most satisfactory, however, of recent conclusions, based on most careful investigations are as follows: The first records we have of them represent the Chinese as a band of immigrants settling in the north-eastern provinces of the modern empire of China and fighting their way amongst the aborigines much as the Jews of old forced their way into Canaan against the various tribes which they found in possession of the land. It is probable that though they all entered China by the same route they separated into bands almost on the threshold of the empire, one body, those who have left us the records of their history in the ancient Chinese books, apparently following the course of the Yellow river, and turning southward with it from its northernmost bend, settling themselves in the fertile districts of the modern provinces of Shan-hsi and Honan. But as it is believed also that at about the same period a large settlement was made as far south as Anam of which there is no mention in the books of the northern Chinese, we must assume that another body struck directly southward through the southern provinces of China to that country.

Many writers answer the question that arises as to whence these people came, by declaring that research directly points to the land south of the Caspian sea. They find many reasons in the study of languages which furnish philological proof of this assertion. And they affirm that in all probability the outbreak in Susiana of possibly some political disturbance in about the 24th or 23rd century B.C., drove the Chinese from the land of their adoption and that they wandered eastward until they finally settled in China and the country south of it. Such an emigration is by no means unusual in Asia. We know that the Ottoman Turks originally had their home in northern Mongolia, and we have a record of the movement at the end of last century of a body of six hundred thousand Kalmucks from Russia to the confines of China. It would appear also that the Chinese came into China possessed of the resources of western Asian culture. They brought with them a knowledge of writing and astronomy as well as of the arts which primarily minister to the wants and comforts of mankind.

CHINESE IDEA OF CREATION.

According to one native authority, China, that is, the world was evolved out of chaos exactly 3,276,494 years ago. This evolution was brought about by the action of a First Cause or Force which separated into two principles, active and passive, male and female. Or as some native writers explain it, out of a great egg came a man. Out of the upper half of the egg he created the heavens and out of the lower half he created the earth. He created five elements, earth, water, fire, metal and wood. Out of the vapor from gold he created man and out of vapor from wood he created woman. Traditional pictures of this first man and first woman represent them wearing for dress, girdles of fig leaves. He created the sun to rule the day, the moon to rule the night, and the stars. Those who care to go deeper into these traditions than the limits of this work permit will find ample material for interesting research in the analogies to Christian history.

These principles, male and female, found their material embodiment in heaven and earth and became the father and mother of all things, beginning with man, who was immediately associated with them in a triumvirate of creative powers. Then ensued ten immense periods, the last of which has been made by some Chinese writers on chronology to end where every sober history of China should begin, namely, with the establishment of the Chow dynasty eleven hundred years before the birth of Christ. During this almost immeasurable lapse of time, the process of development was going on, involving such discoveries as the production of fire, the construction of houses, boats and wheeled vehicles, the cultivation of grain, and mutual communication by means of writing.

The father of Chinese history chose indeed to carry us back to the court of the Yellow Emperor, B.C. 2697, and to introduce us to his successors Yao and Shun and to the great Yu, who by his engineering skill had drained away a terrible inundation which some have sought to identify with Noah’s flood.

EMPEROR SHUN PLOWING.

This flood was in Shun’s reign. The waters we are told rose to so great a height that the people had to betake themselves to the mountains to escape death. Most of the provinces of the existing empire were inundated. The disaster arose, as many similar disasters, though of less magnitude, have since arisen, in consequence of the Yellow river bursting its bounds, and the great Yu was appointed to lead the waters back to their channel. With unremitting energy he set about his task, and in nine years succeeded in bringing the river under his control. During this period so absorbed was he in his work, that we are told he took heed neither of food nor clothing, and that thrice he passed the door of his house without once stopping to enter. At the completion of his labors he divided the empire into nine instead of twelve provinces, and tradition represents him as having engraved a record of his toils on a stone tablet on Mount Heng in the province of Hoopih. As a reward for the services he had rendered for the empire, he was invested with the principality of Hea, and after having occupied the throne conjointly with Shun for some years he succeeded that sovereign on his death in 2308 B.C.

VIEW FROM SUMMER PALACE, PEKING.

But all these things were in China’s “golden age,” the true record of which is shrouded for us in the obscurity of centuries. There were a few laws, but never any occasion to exact the penalties attached to misconduct. It was considered superfluous to close the house door at night, and no one would even pick up any lost property that lay in the high road. All was virtue, happiness and prosperity, the like of which has not since been known. The Emperor Shun was raised from the plow handle to the throne simply because of his filial piety, in recognition of which wild beasts used to come and voluntarily drag his plow for him through the furrowed fields, while birds of the air would hover round and guard his sprouting grain from the depredations of insects.

This of course is not history; and but little more can be said for the accounts given of the two dynasties which ruled China between the “golden age” and the opening reigns of the House of Chow. The historian in question had not many sources of information at command. Beside tradition, of which he largely availed himself, the chief of these was the hundred chapters that had been edited by Confucius from the historical remains of those times, now known as the “Book of History.” This contains an unquestionable foundation of facts, pointing to a comparatively advanced state of civilization, even so far back as two thousand years before our era; but the picture is dimly seen and many of its details are of little practical value. This calculation declares that with Yu began the dynasty of Hea which gave place in 1766 B.C. to the Shang dynasty. The last sovereign of the Hea line, Kieh Kwei, is said to have been a monster of iniquity and to have suffered the just punishment for his crimes at the hands of T'ang, the prince of the state of Shang, who took his throne from him. In like manner, six hundred and forty years later, Woo Wang, the prince of Chow, overthrew Chow Sin, the last of the Shang dynasty, and established himself as the chief of the sovereign state of the empire.

It is only with the dynasty of the Chows that we begin to feel ourselves on safe ground, though long before that date the Chinese were undoubtedly enjoying a far higher civilization than fell to the share of most western nations until many centuries later. The art of writing had been already fully developed, having passed, if we are to believe native researches from an original system of knotted cords, through successive stages of notches on wood and rude outlines of natural objects down to the phonetic stage in which it exists at the present day. Astronomical observations of a simple kind had been made and recorded and the year divided into months. The rite of marriage had been substituted for capture; and although cowries were still employed and remained in use until a much later date, metallic coins of various shapes and sizes began to be recognized as a more practicable medium of exchange. Music, both vocal and instrumental, was widely cultivated; and a kind of solemn posturing filled the place that has been occupied by dancing among nations farther to the west. Painting, charioteering and archery were reckoned among the fine arts; the crossbow especially being a favorite weapon either on the battle field or on the chase. The people seem to have lived upon rice and cabbage, pork and fish, much as they do now; they also drank the ardent spirit distilled from rice vulgarly known as “Samshoo” and clad themselves in silk, or their own coarse home stuffs according to the means of each. All this is previous to the dynasty of Chow with which it is now proposed to begin.

The Chows rose to power over the vices of preceding rulers, aided by the genius of a certain duke or chieftain of the Chow state, though he personally never reached the imperial throne. It was his more famous son who in B.C. 1122 routed the forces of the last tyrant of the semi-legendary period and made himself master of China. The China of those days consisted of a number of petty principalities clustering round one central state and thus constituting a federation. The central state managed the common affairs, while each one had its own local laws and administration. It was in some senses a feudal age, somewhat similar to that which prevailed in Europe for many centuries. The various dukes were regarded as vassals owing allegiance to the sovereign at the head of the imperial state, and bound to assist him with money and men in case of need. And in order to keep together this mass, constantly in danger of disintegration from strifes within, the sovereigns of the House of Chow were forever summoning these vassal dukes to the capital and making them renew, with ceremonies of sacrifice and potations of blood, their vows of loyalty and treaties of alliance. At a great feast held by Yu after his accession, there were, it is said, ten thousand princes present with their symbols of rank. But the feudal states were constantly being absorbed by one another. On the rise of the Shang dynasty there were only somewhat over three thousand, which had decreased to thirteen hundred when the sovereignty of the Chows was established.

The senior duke always occupied a position somewhat closer to the sovereign than the others. It was his special business to protect the imperial territory from invasion by any malcontent vassal; and he was often deputed to punish acts of insubordination and contumacy, relying for help on the sworn faith of all the states as a body against any individual recalcitrant. Such was the political condition of things through a long series of reigns for nearly nine centuries, the later history of this long and famous dynasty being simply the record of a struggle against the increasing power and ambitious designs of the vassal state of Ching, until at length the power of the latter not only outgrew that of the sovereign state, but successfully defied the united efforts of all the others combined together in a league. In 403 B.C. the number of states had been reduced to seven great ones, all sooner or later claiming to be “the kingdom,” and contending for the supremacy until Ching put down all the others and in 221 B.C. its king assumed the title of Hwang Ti or emperor and determined that there should be no more feudal principalities, and that as there is but one sun in the sky there should be but one ruler in the nation.

It is interesting to glance backward over these nine hundred years and gather some facts as to the China of those days. The religion of the Chinese was a modification of the older and simpler forms of nature worship practised by their ruder forefathers. The principal objects of veneration were still heaven and earth and the more prominent among the destructive and beneficient powers of nature. But a tide of personification and deification had begun to set in and to the spirits of natural objects and influences now rapidly assuming material shape had been added the spirits of departed heroes whose protection was invoked after death by those to whom it had been afforded during life.

The sovereign of the Chow dynasty worshipped in a building which they called “the hall of light,” which also served the purpose of an audience and council chamber. It was 112 feet square and surmounted by a dome; typical of heaven above and earth beneath. China has always been remarkably backward in architectural development, never having got beyond the familiar roof with its turned up corners, in which antiquaries trace a likeness to the tent of their nomad days. Hence it is that the “hall of light” of the Chows is considered by the Chinese to have been a very wonderful structure.

CHINESE TEMPLE.

Some have said that the Pentateuch was carried to China in the sixth century B.C., but no definite traces of Judaism are discoverable until several centuries later.

The Chow period was pre-eminently one of ceremonial observances pushed to an extreme limit. Even Confucius was unable to rise above the dead level of an ultra formal etiquette, which occupies in his teachings a place altogether out of proportion to any advantages likely to accrue from the most scrupulous compliance with its rules. During the early centuries of this period laws were excessively severe and punishments correspondingly barbarous; mutilation and death by burning or dissection being among the enumerated penalties. From all accounts there speedily occurred a marked degeneracy in the characters of the Chow kings. Among the most conspicuous of the early kings was Muh, who rendered himself notorious for having promulgated a penal code under which the redemption of punishments was made permissible by the payment of fines.

Notwithstanding the spirit of lawlessness that spread far and wide among the princes and nobles, creating misery and unrest throughout the country, that literary instinct which has been a marked characteristic of the Chinese throughout their long history continued as active as ever. At stated intervals officials, we are told, were sent in light carriages into all parts of the empire to collect words from the changing dialects of each district; and at the time of the royal progresses the official music masters and historiographers of each principality presented to the officials appointed for the purpose, collections of the odes and songs of each locality, in order, we are told, that the character of the rule exercised by their princes should be judged by the tone of the poetical and musical productions of their subjects. The odes and songs as found and thus collected were carefully preserved in royal archives, and it was from these materials, as is commonly believed, that Confucius compiled the celebrated “She King” or “Book of Odes.”

One hundred years before the close of the Chow dynasty, a great statesman named Wei Yang appeared in the rising state of Ch’in and brought about many valuable reformations. Among other things he introduced a system of tithings, which has endured to the present day. The unit of Chinese social life has always been the family and not the individual; and this statesman caused the family to be divided into groups of ten families to each, upon a basis of mutual protection and responsibility. The soil of China has always been guarded as the inalienable property of her imperial ruler for the time being, held in trust by him on behalf of a higher and greater power whose vice-regent he is. In the age of the Chows, land appears to have been cultivated upon a system of communal tenure, one-ninth of the total produce being devoted in all cases to the expenses of government and the maintenance of the ruling family in each state. Copper coins of a uniform shape and portable size were first cast, according to Chinese writers, about half way through the sixth century B.C. An irregular form of money, however, had been in circulation long before, one of the early vassal dukes having been advised, in order to replenish his treasury, to “break up the hills and make money out of the metal therein; to evaporate sea water and make salt. This,” added his advising minister, “will benefit the realm and with the profits you may buy up all kinds of goods cheap and store them until the market has risen; establish also three hundred depots of courtesans for the traders, who will thereby be induced to bring all kinds of merchandise to your country. This merchandise you will tax and thus have a sufficiency of funds to meet the expenses of your army.” Such were some of the principles of finance and political economy among the Chows, customs duties being apparently even at that early date a recognized part of the revenue.

The art of healing was practised among the Chinese in their prehistoric times, but the first quasi-scientific efforts of which we have any record belong to the period with which we are now dealing. The physicians of the Chow dynasty classify diseases under the four seasons of the year—headaches and neuralgic affections under spring, skin diseases of all kinds under summer, fever and agues under autumn, and bronchial and pulmonary[pulmonary] complaints under winter. The public at large was warned against rashly swallowing the prescriptions of any physician whose family had not been three generations in the medical profession.

When the Chows went into battle they formed a line with the bowman on the left and the spearman on the right flank. The centre was occupied by chariots, each drawn by three or four horses harnessed abreast. Swords, daggers, shields, iron headed clubs, huge iron hooks, drums, cymbals, gongs, horns, banners and streamers innumerable were also among the equipment of war. Quarter was rarely if ever given and it was customary to cut the ears from the bodies of the slain.

It was under the Chows, a thousand years before Christ, that the people of China began to possess family names. By the time of Confucius the use of surnames had become definitely established for all classes. The Chows founded a university, a shadow of which remains to the present day. They seem to have had theatrical representations of some kind, though it is difficult to say of what nature these actually were. Music must have already reached a stage of considerable development, if we are to believe Confucius himself, who has left it on record that after listening to a certain melody he was so affected as not to be able to taste meat for three months.

Slavery was at this date a regular domestic institution and was not confined as now to the purchase of women alone; and whereas in still earlier ages it had been usual to bury wooden puppets in the tombs of princes, we now read of slave boys and slave girls barbarously interred alive with the body of every ruler of a state, in order, as was believed, to wait upon the tyrant’s spirit after death. But public opinion began during the Confucian era to discountenance this savage rite, and the son of a man who left instructions that he should be buried in a large coffin between two of his concubines, ventured to disobey his father’s commands.

We know that the Chows sat on chairs while all other eastern nations were sitting on the ground, and ate their food and drank their wine from tables; that they slept on beds and rode on horseback. They measured the hours with the aid of sun dials; and the invention of the compass is attributed, though on somewhat insufficient grounds, to one of their earliest heroes. They played games of calculation of an abstruse character, and others involving dexterity. They appear to have worn shoes of leather, and stockings, and hats, and caps, in addition to robes of silk; and to have possessed such other material luxuries as fans, mirrors of metal, bath tubs, and flat irons. But it is often difficult to separate truth from falsehood in the statement of Chinese writers with regard to their history. They are fond of exaggerating the civilization of their forefathers, which, as a matter of fact, was sufficiently advanced to command admiration without the undesirable coloring of fiction they have thus been tempted to lay on.

IMAGE OF CONFUCIUS.

Of the religions of the Chinese we will speak in a succeeding chapter, but it must be said here that during the Chow dynasty was born the most famous of Chinese teachers, Confucius. He was preceded about the middle of the dynasty by Lao-tzu, the founder of an abstruse system of ethical philosophy which was destined to develop into the Taoism of to-day. Closely following, and partially a contemporary, came Confucius, “a teacher who has been equalled in his influence upon masses of the human race by Buddha alone and approached only by Mahomet and Christ.” Confucius devoted his life chiefly to the moral amelioration of his fellow men by oral teaching, but he was also an author of many works. A hundred years later came Mencius, the record of whose teachings also forms an important part of the course of study of a modern student in China. His pet theory was that the nature of man is good, and that all evil tendencies are necessarily acquired from evil communications either by heredity or association. It was during this same period that the literature of the Chinese language was founded. Of this subject, and some of the famous works, more will be said in a succeeding chapter devoted to literature and education.

In their campaign against the prevailing lawlessness and violence, neither Confucius nor Mencius was able to make any headway. Their preachings fell on deaf ears and their peaceful admonitions were passed unheeded by men who held their fiefs by the strength of their right arms, and administered the affairs of their principalities surrounded by the din of war. The feudal system and the dynasty of the Chows were tottering when Confucius died although it was more than two hundred years after when Ch’in acquired the supremacy.

MANCHURIAN MINISTERS.

The nine centuries covered by the history of the Chows were full of stirring incidents in other parts of the world. The Trojan war had just been brought to an end and Æneas had taken refuge in Italy from the sack of Troy. Early in the dynasty Zoroaster was founding in Persia the religion of the Magi, the worship of fire which survives in the Parseeism of Bombay. Saul was made king of Israel and Solomon built the temple of Jerusalem. Later on Lycurgus gave laws to the Spartans and Romulus laid the first stone of the Eternal City. Then came the Babylonic captivity, the appearance of Buddha, the conquest of Asia Minor by Cyrus, the rise of the Roman Republic, the defeats of Darius at Marathon and of Xerxes at Salamis, the Peloponnesian War, the retreat of the Ten Thousand, and Roman conquests down to the end of the first Punic war. From a literary point of view the Chow dynasty was the age of the Vedas in India; of Homer, Æschylus, Herodotus, Aristophanes, Thucydides, Aristotle and Demosthenes in Greece; and of the Jewish prophets from Samuel to Daniel; and of the Talmud as originally undertaken by the scribes subsequent to the return from the captivity in Babylon.

It has been stated that the imperial rule of the Chows over the vassal states which made up the China of those early days, was gradually undermined by the growing power and influence of one of the latter, the very name of which was transformed into a byword of reproach, so that to call a person “a man of Ch’in” was equivalent to saying in vulgar parlance, “He is no friend of mine.” The struggle between the Ch’ins and the rest of the empire may be likened to the struggle between Athens and the rest of Greece though the end in each case was not the same. The state of Ch’in vanquished its combined opponents, and finally established a dynasty, short-lived[short-lived] indeed, but containing among the few rulers who sat upon the throne, only about fifty years in all, the name of one remarkable man, the first emperor of the united China.

GREAT WALL OF CHINA.

On the ruins of the old feudal system, the landmarks of which his three or four predecessors had succeeded in sweeping away, Hwang Ti laid the foundations of a coherent empire which was to date from himself as its founder. He sent an army of 300,000 men to fight against the Huns. He dispatched a fleet to search for some mysterious islands off the coast of China; and this expedition has since been connected with the colonization of Japan. He built the Great Wall which is nearly fourteen hundred miles in length, forming the most prominent artificial object on the surface of the earth. His copper coinage was so uniformly good that the cowry disappeared altogether from commerce with this reign. According to some, the modern hair pencil employed by the Chinese as a pen was invented about this time, to be used for writing on silk; while the characters themselves underwent certain modifications and orthographical improvements. The first emperor desired above all things to impart a fresh stimulus to literary effort; but he adopted singularly unfortunate means to secure this desirable end. For listening to the insidious flattery of courtiers, he determined that literature should begin anew with his reign. He therefore issued orders for the destruction of all existing books, with the exception of works treating of medicine, agriculture and divination and the annals of his own house; and he actually put to death many hundreds of the literati who refused to comply with these commands. The decree was obeyed as faithfully as was possible in case of so sweeping an ordinance and for many years a night of ignorance rested on the country. Numbers of valuable works thus perished in a general literary conflagration, popularly known as “the burning of the books;” and it is partly to accident and partly to the pious efforts of the scholars of the age, that posterity is indebted for the preservation of the most precious relics of ancient Chinese literature. The death of Hwang Ti was the signal for an outbreak among the dispossessed feudal princes, who, however, after some years of disorder, were again reduced to the rank of citizens by a successful peasant leader who adopted the title of Kaou Ti, and named his dynasty that of Han, with himself its first emperor.

From that day to this, with occasional interregnums, the empire has been ruled on the lines laid down by Hwang Ti. Dynasty has succeeded dynasty but the political tradition has remained unchanged, and though Mongols and Manchoos have at different times wrested the throne from its legitimate heirs, they have been engulfed in a homogeneous mass inhabiting the empire, and instead of impressing their seal upon the country, have become but the reflection of the vanquished. The stately House of Han ruled over China for four hundred years, approximately from 200 B.C. to 200 A.D. During the whole period the empire made vast strides towards a more settled state of prosperity and civilization, although there were constant wars with the Tartar tribes to the north and the various Turkish tribes on the west. The communications with the Huns were particularly close, and even now traces of Hunnish influence are discernible in several of the recognized surnames of the Chinese. This dynasty also witnessed the spectacle, most unusual in the east, of a woman wielding the imperial sceptre; and hers was not a reign calculated to inspire the people of China with much faith either in the virtue or the administrative ability of the sex. In Chinese history however, her place is that of the only female sovereign who ever legitimately occupied the throne.

BUDDHIST PRIEST.

It was under the Han dynasty that the religion of Buddha first became known to the Chinese people, and Taoism began to develop from quiet philosophy to foolish superstitions and practices. It was also during this period that the Jews appear to have founded a colony in Honan, but we cannot say what kind of a reception was accorded to the new faith. In the glow of early Buddhism, and in the exciting times of its subsequent persecution, it is probable that Judaism failed to attract much serious attention from the Chinese. In 1850 certain Hebrew rolls were recovered from the few remaining descendants of former Jews; but there was then no one left who could read a word of them, or who possessed any knowledge of the creed of their forefathers, beyond a few traditions of the scantiest possible kind.

But the most remarkable of all events connected with our present period, was the general revival of learning and authorship. The Confucian texts were rescued from hiding places in which they had been concealed at the risk of death; editing committees were appointed, and immense efforts made to repair the mischief sustained by literature at the hand of the first emperor. Ink and paper were invented and authorship was thus enabled to make a fresh start, the very start indeed, that the first emperor had longed to associate with his own reign, and had attempted to secure by such impracticable means. During the latter portion of the second century B. C., flourished the “Father of Chinese History.” His great work, which has been the model for all subsequent histories, is divided into one hundred and thirty books, and deals with a period extending from the reign of the Yellow emperor down to his own times. In another branch of literature, a foremost place among the lexicographers of the world may fairly be claimed for Hsu Shen, the author of a famous dictionary. Many other celebrated writers lived and prospered during the Han dynasty. One man whose name must be mentioned insured for himself, by his virtue and integrity, a more imperishable fame than any mere literary achievement could bestow. Yang Chen was indeed a scholar of no mean attainments, and away in his occidental home he was known as the “Confucius of the west.” An officer of government in a high position, with every means of obtaining wealth at his command, he lived and died in comparative poverty, his only object of ambition being the reputation of a spotless official. The Yangs of his day grumbled sorely at opportunities thus thrown away; but the Yangs of to-day glory in the fame of their great ancestor and are proud to worship in the ancestral hall to which his uprightness has bequeathed the name. For once when pressed to receive a bribe, with the additional inducement that no one would know of the transaction, he quietly replied—“How so? Heaven would know; earth would know; you would know and I should know.” And to this hour the ancestral shrine of the clan of the Yangs bears as it name “The Hall of the Four Knows.”

It was in all probability under the dynasty of the Hans that the drama first took its place among the amusements of the people.

It is unnecessary to linger over the four centuries which connect the Hans with the T'angs. There was not in them that distinctness of character or coherency of aim which leave a great impress upon the times. The three kingdoms passed rapidly away, and other small dynasties succeeded them, but their names and dates are not essential to a right comprehension of the state of China then or now. A few points may, however, be briefly mentioned before quitting this period of transition. Diplomatic relations were opened with Japan; and Christianity was introduced by the Nestorians under the title of the “luminous teaching.” Tea was not known in China before this date. It was at the close of this transitional period that we first detect traces of the art of printing, still in an embryonic state, and it seems to be quite certain that before the end of the sixth century the Chinese were in possession of a method of reproduction from wooden blocks. One of the last emperors of the period succeeded in adding largely to the empire by annexation toward the west. Embassies reached his court from various nations, including Japan and Cochin China, and helped to add to the lustre of his reign.

The three centuries A.D. 600-900, during which the T'angs sat upon the throne, form a brilliant epoch in Chinese history, and the southern people of China are still proud of the designation which has descended to them as “men of T’ang.” Emperor Hsuan Tsung fought against the prevailing extravagance in dress; founded a large dramatic college; and was an enthusiastic patron of literature. Buddhism flourished during this period in spite of edicts against it. Finally, it gained the favor of the emperors and for a time overpowered even Confucianism. It was during the reign of the second emperor of the T'angs and only six years after the Hegira that the religion of Mahomet first reached the shores of China. A maternal uncle of the prophet visited the country and obtained permission to build a mosque at Canton, portions of which may perhaps still be found in the thrice restored structure which now stands upon its site. The use of paper money was first introduced by the government toward the closing years of the dynasty; and it is near to this time that we can trace back the existence of the modern court circular and daily record of edicts, memorials, etc., commonly known as the Peking Gazette.

Another unimportant transition period, sixty years in duration, forms the connecting link between the houses of T'ang and Sung. It is known in Chinese history as the period of the five dynasties, after the five short-lived ones crowded into this space of time. It is remarkable chiefly for the more extended practice of printing from wooden blocks, the standard classical works being now for the first time printed in this way. The discreditable custom of cramping women’s feet into the so-called “golden lilies” belongs probably to this date, though referred by some to a period several hundred years later.

It has been said before that the age of the T'angs was the age of Mahomet and his new religion, the propagation of which was destined to meet in the west with a fatal check from the arms of Charles Martel at the battle of Tours. It was the age of Rome independent under her early popes; of Charlemagne as emperor of the west; of Egbert as first king of England; and of Alfred the Great.

The Sung dynasty extended from about A.D. 960 to 1280. The first portion of this dynasty may be considered as on the whole, one of the most prosperous and peaceable periods of the history of China. The nation had already in a great measure settled down to that state of material civilization and mental culture in which it may be said to have been discovered by Europeans a few centuries later. To the appliances of Chinese ordinary life it is probable that but few additions have been made even since a much earlier date. The national costume has indeed undergone subsequent variations, and at least one striking change has been introduced in later years, that is, the tail, which will be mentioned later. But the plows and hoes, the water wheels and well sweeps, the tools of artisans, mud huts, junks, carts, chairs, tables, chopsticks, etc., which we still see in China, are doubtless approximately those of more than two thousand years ago. Mencius observed that the written language was the same, and axle-trees of the same length all over the empire; and to this day an unaltering uniformity is one of the chief characteristics of the Chinese people in every department of life.

The house of Sung was not however without the usual troubles for any length of time. Periodical revolts are the special feature of Chinese history, and the Sungs were hardly exempt from them in a greater degree than other dynasties. The Tartars too, were forever encroaching upon Chinese territory and finally overran and occupied a large part of northern China. This resulted in an amicable arrangement to divide the empire, the Tartars retaining their conquests in the north. Less than a hundred years later came the invasion of the Mongols under Genghis Khan, with the long struggle which eventuated in a complete overthrow of both the Tartars and the Sungs and the final establishment of the Mongol dynasty under Kublai Khan, whose success was in a great measure due to the military capacity of his famous lieutenant Bayan. From this struggle one name in particular has survived to form a landmark of which the Chinese are justly proud. It is that of the patriot statesman Wen T'ien-hsiang, whose fidelity to the Sungs no defeats could shake, no promises undermine; and who perished miserably in the hands of the enemy rather than abjure the loyalty which had been the pride and almost the object of his existence.

Another name inseparably connected with the history of the Sungs is that of Wang An-shih who has been styled “The Innovator” from the gigantic administrative changes or innovations he labored ineffectually to introduce. The chief of these were a universal system of militia under which the whole body of citizens were liable to military drill and to be called out for service in time of need; and a system of state loans to agriculturists in order to supply capital for more extensive and more remunerative farming operations. His schemes were ultimately set aside through the opposition of a statesman whose name is connected even more closely with literature than with politics. Ssu-ma Kuang spent nineteen years of his life in the compilation of “The Mirror of History,” a history of China in two hundred and ninety-four books, from the earliest times of the Chow dynasty down to the accession of the house of Sung.

CHINESE ARCHERS.

A century later this lengthy production was recast in a greatly condensed form under the superintendence of Chu Hsi, the latter work at once taking rank as the standard history of China to that date. Chu Hsi himself played in other ways by far the most important part among all the literary giants of the Sungs. Besides holding, during a large portion of his life, high official position, with an almost unqualified success, his writings are more extensive and more varied in character than those of any other Chinese author; and the complete collection of his great philosophical works, published in 1713, fills no fewer than sixty-six books. He introduced interpretations of the Confucian classics, either wholly or partially at variance with those which had been put forth by the scholars of the Han dynasty and received as infallible ever since, thus modifying to a certain extent the prevailing standard of political and social morality. His principle was simply one of consistency. He refused to interpret certain words in a given passage in one sense and the same words occurring elsewhere in another sense. And this principle recommended itself at once to the highly logical mind of the Chinese. Chu Hsi’s commentaries were received to the exclusion of all others and still form the only authorized interpretation of the classical books, upon a knowledge of which all success at the great competitive examination for literary degrees may be said to entirely depend.

CHINESE WRITER.

It would be a lengthy task to merely enumerate the names in the great phalanx of writers who flourished under the Sungs and who formed an Augustan Age of Chinese literature. Exception must however be made in favor of Ou-Yang Hsiu, who besides being an eminent statesman, was a voluminous historian of the immediately preceding dynasties, an essayist of rare ability, and a poet; and of Su Tung-p'o whose name next to that of Chu Hsi fills the largest place in Chinese memorials of this period. A vigorous opponent of “The Innovator,” he suffered banishment for his opposition; and again, after his rival’s fall, he was similarly punished for further crossing the imperial will. His exile was shared by the beautiful and accomplished girl “Morning Clouds,” to whose inspiration we owe many of the elaborate poems and other productions in the composition of which the banished poet beguiled his time; and whose untimely death of consumption, on the banks of their favorite lake, hastened the poet’s end, which occurred shortly after his recall from banishment.

Buddhism and Taoism had by this time made advances toward tacit terms of mutual toleration. They wisely agreed to share rather than to quarrel over the carcass which lay at their feet; and from that date they have flourished together without prejudice.

The system of competitive examinations and literary degrees had been still more fully elaborated, and the famous child’s primer, the “Three Character Classic,” which is even now the first stepping stone to knowledge, had been placed in the hands of school boys. The surnames of the people were collected to the number of four hundred and thirty-eight in all; and although this was admittedly not complete, the great majority of those names which were omitted, once perhaps in common use, have altogether disappeared. It is comparatively rare nowadays to meet with a person whose family name is not to be found within the limits of this small collection. Administration of justice is said to have flourished under the incorrupt officials of this dynasty. The functions of magistrates were more fully defined; while the study of medical jurisprudence was stimulated by the publication of a volume which, although combining the maximum of superstition with the minimum of scientific research, is still the officially recognized text book on all subjects connected with murder, suicide and accidental death. Medicine and the art of healing came in for a considerable share of attention at the hands of the Sungs and many voluminous works on therapeutics have come down to us from this period. Inoculation for small-pox has been known to the Chinese at least since the early years of this dynasty if not earlier.

The irruption of the Mongols under Genghis Khan, and the comparatively short dynasty which was later on actually established under Kublai Khan, may be regarded as the period of transition from the epoch of the Sungs to the epoch of the Mings. For the first eighty years after the nominal accession of Genghis Khan the empire was more or less in a state of siege and martial law from one end to the other; and then in less than one hundred years afterwards the Mongol dynasty had passed away. The story of Ser Marco Polo and his wonderful travels, familiar to most readers, gives us a valuable insight into this period of brilliant courts, thronged marts, fine cities, and great national wealth.

At this date the literary glory of the Sungs had hardly begun to grow dim. Ma Tuan-lin carried on his voluminous work through all the troublous times, and at his death bequeathed to the world “The Antiquarian Researches,” in three hundred and forty-eight books, which have made his name famous to every student of Chinese literature. Plane and spherical trigonometry were both known to the Chinese by this time, and mathematics generally began to receive a larger share of the attention of scholars. It was also under the Mongol dynasty that the novel first made its appearance, a fact pointing to a definite social advancement, if only in the direction of luxurious reading. Among other points may be mentioned a great influx of Mohammedans, and consequent spread of their religion about this time.

The Grand Canal was completed by Kublai Khan, and thus Cambaluc, the Peking of those days, was united by inland water communication with the extreme south of China. The work seems to have been begun by the Emperor Yang Ti seven centuries previously, but the greater part of the undertaking was done in the reign of Kublai Khan. Hardly so successful was the same emperor’s huge naval expedition against Japan, which in point of number of ships and men, the insular character of the enemy’s country, the chastisement intended, and the total loss of the fleet in a storm, aided by the stubborn resistance of the Japanese themselves, suggests a very obvious comparison with the object and fate of the Spanish Armada.

The age of the Sungs carries us from a hundred years previous to the Norman Conquest down to about the death of Edward III. It was the epoch of Venetian commerce and maritime supremacy; and of the first great lights in Italian literature, Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio[Boccaccio]. English, French, German and Spanish literature had yet to develop, only one or two of the earlier writers, such as Chaucer, having yet appeared on the scene.

The founder of the Ming dynasty rose from starvation and obscurity to occupy the throne of the Chinese empire. In his youth he sought refuge from the pangs of hunger in a Buddhist monastery; later on he became a soldier of fortune, and joined the ranks of the insurgents who were endeavoring to shake off the alien yoke of the Mongols. His own great abilities carried him on. He speedily obtained the leadership of a large army, with which he totally destroyed the power of the Mongols, and finally established a new Chinese dynasty over the thirteen provinces into which the empire was divided. He fixed his capitol at Nanking, where it remained until the accession of the third emperor, the conqueror of Cochin China and Tonquin, who transferred the seat of government back to Peking, the capitol of the Mongols, from which it has never since been removed.

CHINESE CANNONIERS.

For nearly three hundred years, from 1370 to 1650, the Mings swayed the destinies of China. Their rule was not one of uninterrupted peace, either within or without the empire; but it was on the whole a wise and popular rule, and the period which it covers is otherwise notable for immense literary activity and for considerable refinement in manners and material civilization.

From without, the Mings were constantly harrassed by the encroachments of the Tartars; while from within the ceaseless intriguing of the eunuchs was a fertile cause of trouble.

ANCIENT CHINESE ARCH.

Chief among the literary achievements of this period, is the gigantic encyclopedia in over twenty-two thousand books, only one copy of which, and that imperfect, has survived out of the four that were originally made. Allowing fifty octavo pages to a book, the result would be a total of at least one million one hundred thousand pages, the index alone occupying no fewer than three thousand pages. This wonderful work is now probably rotting, if not already rotted beyond hope of preservation, in some damp corner of the imperial palace at Peking. Another important and more accessible production was the so-called “Chinese Herbal.” This was a compilation from the writings of no fewer than eight hundred preceding writers on botany, mineralogy, entomology, etc., the whole forming a voluminous but unscientific book of reference on the natural history of China. Shortly after the accession of the third emperor, Yung Lo, the imperial library was estimated to contain written and printed works amounting to a total of about one million in all. A book is a variable quantity in Chinese literature, both as regards number and size of pages; the number of books to a work also vary from one to several hundred. But reckoning fifty pages to a book and twenty or twenty-five books to a work, it will be seen that the collection was not an unworthy private library for any emperor in the early years of the fifteenth century.

The overthrow of the Mings was brought about by a combination of events of the utmost importance to those who would understand the present position of the Tartars as rulers of China. A sudden rebellion had resulted in the capture of Peking by the insurgents, and in the suicide of the emperor who was fated to be the last of his line. The imperial commander-in-chief, Wu San-kuei, at that time away on the frontiers of Manchooria engaged in resisting the incursions of the Manchoo-Tartars, now for a long time in a state of ferment, immediately hurried back to the capitol but was totally defeated by the insurgent leader and once more made his way, this time as a fugitive and a suppliant, toward the Tartar camp. Here he obtained promises of assistance chiefly on condition that he would shave his head and grow a tail in accordance with Manchoo custom, and again set off with his new auxiliaries[auxiliaries] toward Peking, being reinforced on the way by a body of Mongol volunteers. As things turned out, the commander arrived in Peking in advance of these allies, and actually succeeded with the remnant of his own scattered forces in routing the troops[troops] of the rebel leader before the Tartars and the Mongols came up. He then started in pursuit of the flying foe. Meanwhile the Tartar contingent arrived and on entering the capitol the young Manchoo prince in command was invited by the people of Peking to ascend the vacant throne. So that by the time Wu San-kuei reappeared, he found a new dynasty already established and his late Manchoo ally at the head of affairs. His first intention had doubtless been to continue the Ming line of emperors; but he seems to have readily fallen in with the arrangement already made and to have tendered his formal allegiance on the four following conditions:

That no Chinese woman should be taken into the imperial seraglio; that the first place at the great triennial examination for the highest literary degrees should never be given to a Tartar; that the people should adopt the national costume of the Tartars in their everyday life; but that they should be allowed to bury their corpses in the dress of the late dynasty; that this condition of costume should not apply to the women of China who were not to be compelled either to wear the hair in a tail before marriage as the Tartar girls do, or to abandon the custom of compressing their feet.

The great Ming dynasty was now at an end, though not destined wholly to pass away. A large part of it may be said to remain in the literary monuments. The dress of the period survives upon the modern Chinese stage; and when occasionally the alien yoke has galled, seditious whispers of “restoration” are not altogether unheard. Secret societies have always been dreaded and prohibited by the government; and of these none more so than the famous “Triad Society,” in which heaven, earth, and man are supposed to be associated in close alliance, and whose watchword is believed to embody some secret allusion to the downfall of the present dynasty.

In the latter part of the sixteenth century, the civilization of western Europe began to make itself felt in China by the advent of the Portuguese, and this matter will be returned to in the following chapter.

In other parts of the world, eventful times have set in. In England we are brought from the accession of Richard II. down to the struggle between the king and the commons and the ultimate establishment of the commonwealth. We have Henry IV. in France and Ferdinand and Isabella in Spain. In England, Shakspeare and Bacon; in France, Rabelais and Descartes; in Germany, Luther and Copernicus; in Spain, Cervantes; and in Italy, Galileo, Machiavelli and Tasso; these names to which should be added those of the great explorers, Columbus and Vasco de Gama, serve to remind one of what was meanwhile passing in the west.

A CHINESE LODGING HOUSE.

FROM FIRST CONTACT WITH EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION
TO THE OUTBREAK OF THE WAR.

How the Western Nations Formed the Acquaintance of China—First Mention of the Orient by Grecian and Roman Historians—Introduction of Judaism—Nestorian Missionaries Bring Christianity—Marco Polo’s Wonderful Journey—Roman Missionaries in the Field—Dissentions among Christians Discredit their Work—Work of the Jesuits—The Dynasty of the Chings—Splendid Literary Labors of Two Emperors—England’s[England’s] First Embassy to China—The Opium War—Opening the Ports of China—Treaties with Western Nations—The Tai-Ping Rebellion—The Later Years of Chinese History.

The works of several Greek and Roman historians, principally those of Ptolemy and Arian, who lived in the second century, contain references of a vague character to a country now generally believed to be China. Ptolemy states that his information came from the agents of Macedonian traders, who gave him an account of a journey of seven months from the principal city of eastern Turkestan, in a direction east inclining a little south. It is probable that these agents belonged to some of the Tartar tribes of Central Asia. They represented the name of this most eastern nation to be Serica, and that on the borders of this kingdom they met and traded with its inhabitants, the Seres. Herodotus speaks of the Isadores as a people in the extreme north-east of Asia. Ptolemy also mentions these tribes as a part of Serica and under its sway. Ammianus Marcellinus, a Roman historian of the fourth century, speaks of the land of the Seres as surrounded by a high and continuous wall. This was about six hundred years after the great wall of northern China was built. Virgil, Pliny, Ricitus and Juvenal refer to the Seres in connection with the Seric garments which seem to have been made of fine silk or gauze. This article of dress was much sought after in Rome by the wealthy and luxurious, and as late as the second century, is said to have been worth its weight in gold. From the length and description of the route of the traders, the description of the mountains and rivers which they passed, the character of the people with whom they traded and the articles of traffic, the evidence seems almost conclusive that the nation which the Greeks and Romans designated by the name of Serica is that now known to us as China. The particular countries visited by the caravans which brought the silk to Europe, were probably the dependencies or territories of China on the west, or possibly cities within the extreme north-west limit of China proper.

The introduction of Judaism into China is evidenced by a Jewish synagogue which existed until quite recently in Kai-fung-foo, a city in the province of Honan. Connected with this synagogue were some Hebrew manuscripts, and a few worshippers who retained some of the forms of their religion, but very little knowledge of its real character and spirit. There is a great deal of uncertainty as to when the Jews came to China, though they have, no doubt, resided there for many centuries.

Nestorian missionaries entered China some time before the seventh century. The principal record which they have left of the success of their missions is the celebrated Nestorian monument in Fen-gan-foo. This monument contains a short history of the sect from the year 630 to 781, and also an abstract of the Christian religion. The missionaries of this sect have left but few records of their labors or of their observations as travelers, but the churches planted by them seem to have existed until a comparatively recent period. The Romish missionaries who entered China in the beginning of the fourteenth century, found them possessed of considerable influence, not only among the people, but also at court, and met with no little opposition from them in their first attempts to introduce the doctrines of their church. It seems to be true that during the period of nearly eight hundred years in which Nestorian Christianity maintained its foothold in China, large numbers of converts were made. But in process of time the Nestorian churches departed widely from their first teachings. After the fall of the Mongolian empire they were cut off from connection with the west, and not having sufficient vitality to resist the adverse influences of heathenism the people by degrees relapsed into idolatry or took up the new faiths that were introduced.

The first western writer, whose works are extant, who has given anything like full and explicit explanation respecting China is Ser Marco Polo. He went to China in the year 1274, in company with his father and uncle, who were Venetian noblemen. At this time, the independent nomad tribes of central Asia being united in one government, it was practicable to reach eastern Asia by passing through the Mongolian empire. Marco Polo spent twenty-four years in China, and seems to have been treated kindly and hospitably. After his return to Europe he was taken prisoner in a war with the Genoese, and during his confinement wrote an account of his travels. The description he gives of the vast territories of China, its teeming population, and flourishing cities, the refinement and civilization of its people, and their curious customs, seemed to his countrymen more like a fiction of fairyland than sober and authentic narrative. It is said that he was urged when on his death bed to retract these statements and make confession of falsehood, which he refused to do. He was undoubtedly one of the most remarkable travelers of any age.

During the period of the Mongolian empire which comprehended under its sway the greater part of Asia from China on the east to the Mediterranean on the west, an intense desire was kindled in the Roman church to convert this powerful nation to its faith. Among the first and the most noted of the missionaries sent to China at this time, was John of Mount Corvin, who reached Peking in 1293. He was afterward made an archbishop. From time to time bishops and priests were sent out to re-enforce this mission, but they met with indifferent success; and when the Mongols were driven from China the enterprise was abandoned as a complete failure. After the fall of the Mongolian empire, direct overland communication with eastern Asia was interrupted, and for about two hundred years China was again almost completely isolated from the western world.

The use of the magnetic needle, and improvements in navigation, made a new era in intercourse with the Orient. It is supposed that the first voyage from Europe to China was made by a Portuguese vessel in 1516. From this period commercial intercourse with China became more frequent, and various embassies were sent to the Chinese court by different nations of Europe. Unfortunately the growing familiarity of the Chinese with western nations did not increase their respect and confidence in them. This was due partly to the servility of most of the embassies to Peking, but principally, no doubt, to the want of honesty and the general lawlessness of most of the traders from the west. The consequence was that the Chinese became desirous of restricting foreign intercourse, and exercising as strict surveillance over their troublesome visitors as possible.

Immediately after connection was established between Europe and the far east by sea, another and a more successful effort was made by the Roman church to propagate its faith in the Chinese empire, this being coincident with the growth of the exchange of business. Francis Xavier, in his attempt to gain an entrance into the country, died on one of the islands of the coast in 1552. Toward the close of the Sixteenth century the Portuguese appeared upon the scene, and from their “concession” at Macao, at one time the residence of Camoens, opened commercial relations between China and the west. They brought the Chinese, among other things, opium, which had previously been imported overland from India. They possibly taught them how to make gunpowder, to the invention of which the Chinese do not seem, upon striking a balance of evidence, to possess an independent claim. About the same time Rome contributed the first installment of those wonderful Jesuit fathers whose names yet echo in the empire, the memory of their scientific labors and the benefits they thus conferred upon China having long survived the wreck and discredit of the faith to which they devoted their lives. At this distance of time it does not appear to be a wild statement, to assert that had the Jesuits, the Franciscans, and the Dominicans been able to resist quarreling among themselves, and had they rather united to persuade papal infallibility to permit the incorporation of ancestor-worship with the rites and ceremonies of the Romish church, China would at this moment be a Catholic country and Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism would long since have receded into the past.

CHINESE PRIEST.

Of all these Jesuit missionaries, the name of Matteo Ricci stands by common consent upon the long list. He established himself in Canton in the garb of a Buddhist priest in 1581. He was a man of varied intellectual gifts and extensive learning, united with indomitable energy, zeal and perseverance, and great prudence. In 1601 he reached Peking in the dress of a literary gentleman. He spent many years in China. He associated with the highest personages in the land. He acquired an unrivalled knowledge of the book language, and left behind him several valuable treatises of a metaphysical and theological character, written in such a polished style as to command the recognition and even the admiration of the Chinese. One of his most intimate friends and fellow workers was the well-known scholar and statesman, Hsu Kuang-chi, the author of a voluminous compendium of agriculture, and joint author of the large work which introduced European astronomy to the Chinese. He was appointed by the emperor to co-operate with other Jesuit missionaries in reforming the national calendar, which had gradually reached a stage of hopeless inaccuracy. He wrote independently several small scientific works; also a severe criticism of the Buddhist religion, and finally, not least in importance, a defense of the Jesuits, addressed to the throne, when their influence at court had begun to excite envy and distrust. Hsu Kuang-chi forms the sole exception in the history of China of a scholar and a man of means and position on the side of Christianity.

MAN OF SWATOW.

The age of the Chings is the age in which we live, but it is not so familiar to some persons as it ought to be that a Tartar and not a Chinese sovereign is now seated on the throne in China. For some time after the accession of the first Manchoo emperor, there was considerable friction between the two races. The subjugation of the empire by the Manchoos was followed by a military occupation of the country, which survived the original necessity, and has remained part of the system of government until the present day. The dynasty thus founded, partly by accident as it seems, as was related in the last chapter, has remained in power through the entire period of intercourse with western nations. The title adopted by the first emperor of the line was Shun-che. It was during the reign of this sovereign that Adam Schaal, a German Jesuit, took up his residence at Peking and that the first Russian embassy, 1656, visited the capital. But in those days the Chinese had not learned to tolerate the idea that a foreigner should enter the presence of the Son of Heaven unless he were willing to perform the prostration known as the Ko-t’ow, and the Russians not being inclined to humor any such presumptuous folly left the capital without opening negotiations.

Of the nine emperors of this line, from the first to the present, the second in every way fills the largest space in Chinese history. Kang Hi, the son of Shun-che, reigned for sixty-one years. This sovereign is renowned in modern Chinese history as a model ruler, a skillful general and an able author. During his reign Thibet was added to the empire, and the Eleuths were successfully subdued. But it is as a just and considerate ruler that he is best remembered among the people. He treated the early Catholic priests with kindness and distinction, and availed himself in many ways of their scientific knowledge. He promulgated sixteen moral maxims collectively known as the “Sacred Edict,” forming a complete code of rules for the guidance of every day life, and presented in such terse, yet intelligible terms, that they at once took firm hold of the public mind and have retained their position ever since. Kang Hi was the most successful patron of literature the world has ever seen. He caused to be published under his own personal supervision the four following compilations, known as the four great works of the present dynasty: A huge thesaurus of extracts in one hundred and ten thick volumes; an encyclopedia in four hundred and fifty books, usually bound in one hundred and sixty volumes; an enlarged and improved edition of a herbarium in one hundred books; and a complete collection of the important philosophical writings of Chu Hsi in sixty-six books. In addition to these the emperor designed and gave his name to the great modern lexicon of the Chinese language, which contains over forty thousand characters under separate entries, accompanied in each case by appropriate citations from the works of authors of every age and every style. The monumental encyclopedia contains articles on every known subject, and extracts from all works of authority dating from the twelfth century B.C. to that time. As only one hundred copies of the first imperial edition were printed, all of which were presented to princes of the blood and high officials, it is rapidly becoming extremely rare, and it is not unlikely that before long the copy in the possession of the British museum will be the only complete copy existing. A cold caught on a hunting excursion in Mongolia brought his memorable reign of sixty-one years to a close, and he was succeeded on the throne by his son Yung Ching.

The labors of the missionaries during the years of this last reign have been effective in establishing many churches and bishoprics, and in making many thousands of converts. But the suspicions in the minds of the Chinese rulers that the Christians were leagued with rebels, as well as the controversies between the different sects, antagonized the authorities. Under the third Manchoo emperor, Yung Ching, began that violent persecution of the Catholics which continued almost to the present day, and in the year 1723 an edict was promulgated prohibiting the further propagation of this religion in the empire. From this time the Roman Catholics were subjected to this persecution except for a few alternate periods of comparative toleration. They have retained their position in the face of great difficulties and trials, and since the late treaties with China the number of their converts has rapidly increased.

After a reign of twelve years, Yung Ching was gathered to his fathers, having bequeathed the throne to his son Kien Lung. This fourth emperor of the dynasty enjoyed a long and glorious reign. He possessed many of the great qualities of his grandfather, but he lacked his wisdom and moderation. His generals led a large army into Nepaul and conquered the Goorkhas, reaching a point only some sixty miles distant from British territory. He carried his armies north, south, and west, and converted Kuldja into a Chinese province. But in Burmah, Cochin China, and Formosa his troops suffered discomfiture. During his reign, which extended over sixty years, a full Chinese cycle, the relations of his government with the East India Company were extremely unsatisfactory. The English merchants were compelled to submit to many indignities and wrongs; and for the purpose of establishing a better international understanding Lord Macartney was sent by George III. on a special mission to the court of Peking. The ambassador was received graciously by the emperor, who accepted the presents sent him by the English king, but owing to his ignorance of his own relative position, and of even the rudiments of international law, he declined to give those assurances of a more equitable policy which were demanded of him.

CHINESE PAPER-MAKING.

Like his illustrious ancestor, Kien Lung was a generous patron of literature, though only two instead of five great literary monuments remain to mark his sixty years of power. These are a magnificent bibliographical work in two hundred parts, consisting of a catalogue of the books in the imperial library, with valuable historical and critical notices attached to the entries of each; and a huge topography of the whole empire in five hundred books, beyond doubt one of the most comprehensive and exhaustive works of the kind ever published. Kang Hi had been a voluminous poet; but the productions of Kien Lung far outnumber those of any previous or subsequent bard. For more than fifty years this emperor was an industrious poet, finding time in the intervals of state duties to put together no fewer than thirty-three thousand nine hundred and fifty separate pieces. In the estimation however of this apparently impossible contribution to poetic literature, it must always be borne in mind that the stanza of four lines is a favorite length for a poem and that the couplet is not uncommon. Even thus a large balance stands to the credit of a Chinese emperor, whose time is rarely his own, and whose day is divided with wearisome regularity, beginning with councils and audiences long before daylight has appeared. We gain a glimpse into Kien Lung’s court from the account of Lord Macartney’s embassy in 1795, which was so favorably received by the venerable monarch a short time previous to his abdication, and three years before his death, and forms such a contrast with that of Lord Amherst to his successor in 1816. In 1795, at the age of eighty-five years, Kien Lung abdicated in favor of his fifteenth son who ascended the throne with the title of Kea King.

During the reign of Kea King, a second English embassy was sent to Peking, in 1816, to represent to the emperor the unsatisfactory position of the English merchants in China. The envoy, Lord Amherst, was met at the mouth of the Peiho and conducted to Yuen-ming-yuen or summer palace, where the emperor was residing. On his arrival he was officially warned that only on condition of his performing the Ko-t’ow would he be permitted to behold “the dragon countenance.” This of course was impossible, and he consequently left the palace without having slept a night under its roof.

CHINESE PEASANT, PEIHO DISTRICT.

Meanwhile the internal affairs of the country were even more disturbed than the foreign relations. A succession of rebellions broke out in the western and northern provinces and the sea-boards were ravaged by pirates. While these disturbing causes were in full play the emperor died, in 1820, and the throne devolved upon Tao Kuang, his second son. It was during the reign of Kea King that Protestant missionaries initiated a systematic attempt to convert the Chinese to Christianity; but the religious toleration of these people, which on the whole has been a marked feature in their civilization of all ages, had been sorely tried by the Catholics and but little progress was made. In another direction some of the early Protestant missionaries did great service to the world at large. They spent much of their time in grappling with the difficulties of the written language; and the publication of Dr. Morrison’s famous dictionary and the achievements of Dr. Legge were the culmination of these labors.

Under Tao Kuang both home and foreign affairs went from bad to worse. A secret league known as the Triad Society, which was first formed during the reign of Kang Hi, now assumed a formidable bearing, and in many parts of the country, notably in Honan, Kwang-hsi, and Formosa, insurrections broke out at its instigation. At the same time the mandarins continued to persecute the English merchants, and on the expiration of the East India Company’s monopoly in 1834 the English government sent Lord Napier to Canton to superintend the foreign trade at that port. Thwarted at every turn by the presumptuous obstinacy of the mandarins, Lord Napier’s health gave way under the constant vexations connected with his post, and he died at Macao after but a few months’ residence in China.

The opium trade was now the question of the hour, and at the urgent demand of Commissioner Lin, Captain Elliot, the superintendent of trade, agreed that all opium in the hands of English merchants should be given up to the authorities. On the 3rd of April, 1839, twenty thousand two hundred and eighty-three chests of opium were, in accordance with this agreement, handed over to the mandarins, who burnt them to ashes. This demand of Lin’s, though agreed to by the superintendent of trade, was considered so unreasonable by the English government that in the following year war was declared against China. The island of Chusan and the Bogue forts on the Canton river soon fell into the English hands, and Commissioner Lin’s successor sought to purchase peace by the cession of Hong Kong and the payment of an indemnity of $6,000,000. This convention was, however, repudiated by the Peking government, and it was not until Canton, Amoy, Ningpo, Shanghai, Chapoo and Chin-keang Foo had been taken by the British troops, that the emperor at last consented to come to terms, now of course far more onerous. By a treaty made by Sir Henry Pottinger in 1842 the cession of Hong Kong was supplemented by the opening of the four ports of Amoy, Foochow Foo, Ningpo, and Shanghai to foreign trade, and the indemnity of $6,000,000 was increased to $21,000,000.

Without noticing the other points at issue and the merits of the dispute concerning them, it is considered by the world at large that one of the blackest pages in the records of the history of civilization is that which tells of the forcing of the opium traffic upon the Chinese by Great Britain. The Chinese people were making most strenuous efforts to abolish the traffic in opium and the habit of its use, which had been introduced from India, and which was rapidly becoming the curse of the nation. But for commercial motives, in this Victorian age of civilization, England sent to force compliance with the demand of her merchants in China that the sale of the drug be legalized. The rapid spread of the use of opium among the hundreds of millions of Chinese, dating from this time, may be charged against England, in the long account which records the oppression and the shame of her dealings with whatever eastern nation she has played the game of war and colonization and annexation.

BATTLE OF CRICKETS.

Death put an end to Tao Kuang’s reign in 1850, and his fourth son, Hien Feng, assumed rule over the distracted empire which was bequeathed him by his father. There is a popular belief among the Chinese that two hundred years is the natural life of a dynasty. This is one of those traditions which are apt to bring about their own fulfilment, and in the beginning of the reign of Hien Feng the air was rife with rumors that an effort was to be made to restore the Ming dynasty to the throne. On such occasions there are always real or pretended scions of the required family forthcoming. And when the flames of rebellion broke out in Kwang-hsi a claimant suddenly appeared under the title of Teen-tih, “heavenly virtue,” to head the movement. But he had not the capacity required to play the necessary part, and the affair languished and would have died out altogether had not a leader named Hung Sew-tseuen arose, who combined all the qualities required in a leader of men, energy, enthusiasm, and religious bigotry.

CHINESE MANDARIN.

As soon as he was sufficiently powerful he advanced northward into Honan and Hoopih, and captured Woo-chang Foo, the capital of the last named province, and a city of great commercial and strategical importance, situated as it is at the junction of the Han river with the Chiang. Having made this place secure he advanced down the river and made himself master of Gan-ting and the old capital of the empire, Nanking. Here in 1852 he established his throne, and proclaimed the commencement of Taiping dynasty. For himself he adopted the title of Teen-wang, or “heavenly king.” For a time all went well with the new dynasty. The Tai-ping standard was carried northward to the walls of Tien-tsin and floated over the towns of Chin-keang Foo and Soochow Foo.

Meanwhile the imperial authorities had by their stupidity raised another enemy against themselves. The outrage on the English flag perpetrated on board the Chinese lorcha “Arrow,” at Canton in 1857, having been left unredressed by the mandarins, led to the proclamation of war by England. Canton fell to the arms of General Straubenzee, and Sir Michael Seymour in December of the same year, and in the following spring the Taku forts at the mouth of the Peiho having been taken, Lord Elgin, who had in the meantime arrived as plenipotentiary minister, advanced up the river to Tien-tsin on his way to the capital. At that city, however, he was met by imperial commissioners, and yielding to their entreaties he concluded a treaty with them which it was arranged should be ratified at Peking in the following year.

But the evil genius of the Chinese still pursuing them, they treacherously fired on the fleet accompanying Sir Frederic Bruce, Lord Elgin’s brother, proceeding in 1860 to Peking, in fulfillment of this agreement. This outrage rendered another military expedition necessary, and in conjunction with the French government, the English cabinet sent out a force under the command of Sir Hope Grant, with orders to march to Peking. In the summer of 1861 the allied forces landed at Peh-tang, a village twelve miles north of the Taku forts, and taking these intrenchments in the rear captured them with but a trifling loss. This success was so utterly unexpected by the Chinese, that leaving Tien-tsin unprotected they retreated rapidly to the neighborhood of the capital. The allies pushed on after them, and in reply to an invitation sent from the imperial commissioners at Tung-chow, a town twelve miles from Peking, Sir Harry Parkes and Mr. Loch, accompanied by an escort and some few friends, went in advance of the army to make a preliminary convention. While so engaged they were treacherously taken prisoners and carried to Peking.

This act precipitated an engagement in which the Chinese were completely routed, and the allies marched on to Peking. After the usual display of obstinacy the Chinese yielded to the demand for the surrender of the An-ting gate of the city. From this vantage point Lord Elgin opened negotiations, and having secured the release of Sir Harry Parkes and the other prisoners who had survived the tortures to which they had been subjected, and having burnt the summer palace of the emperor as a punishment for their treacherous capture and for the cruelties perpetrated on them, he concluded a treaty with Prince Kung, the representative of the emperor. By this instrument the Chinese agreed to pay a war indemnity of $8,000,000 and to open six other ports in China, one in Formosa, and one in the island of Hainan to foreign trade, and to permit the representatives of the foreign governments to reside at Peking.

GATE AT PEKING.

Having thus relieved themselves from the presence of a foreign foe, the authorities were able to devote their attention to the suppression of the Tai-ping rebellion. Fortunately for themselves, the apparent friendliness with which they greeted the arrival of the British legation at Peking enlisted for them the sympathies of Sir Frederic Bruce, the British minister, and inclined him to listen to their request for the services of an English officer in their campaign against the rebels. At the request of Bruce, General Staveley selected Major Gordon, since generally known as Chinese Gordon, who was killed a few years ago at Khartoom, for this duty. A better man or one more peculiarly fit for the work could have been found. A numerous force known as “the ever victorious army,” partly officered by foreigners, had for some time been commanded by an American named Ward and after his death by Burgevine, another American. Over this force Gordon was placed, and at the head of it he marched in conjunction with the Chinese generals against the Tai-pings. With masterly strategy he struck a succession of rapid and telling blows against the fortunes of the rebels. City after city fell into his hands, and at length the leaders at Soochow opened the gates of the city to him on condition that he would spare their lives. With cruel treachery, when these men presented themselves before Li Hung Chang to offer their submission to the emperor, they were seized and beheaded. On learning how lightly his word had been treated by the Chinese general, Gordon armed himself, for the first time during the campaign with a revolver, and sought out the Chinese headquarters intending to avenge with his own hand this murder of the Tai-ping leaders. But Li Hung Chang having received timely notice of the righteous anger he had aroused took to flight, and Gordon, thus thwarted in his immediate object, threw up his command feeling that it was impossible to continue to act with so orientally-minded a colleague.

After considerable negotiation however, he was persuaded to return to his command and soon succeeded in so completely crippling the power of the rebels that in July 1864, Nanking, their last stronghold, fell into the hands of the imperialists. Teen-wang was then already dead, and his body was found within the walls wrapped in imperial yellow. Thus was crushed out a rebellion which had paralyzed the imperial power in the central provinces of the empire and which had for twelve years seriously threatened the existence of the reigning dynasty.

OPIUM SMOKERS.

Meanwhile in the summer following the conclusion of the treaty of Peking, 1861, the emperor, Hien Feng, breathed his last at Jehol, an event which was in popular belief foretold by the appearance of a comet in the early part of the summer. He was succeeded to the throne by his only son, a mere child, and the offspring of one of the imperial concubines. He adopted the name of Tung Chih. On account of his youth the administration of affairs was placed in the hands of the two dowager empresses, the wife of the last emperor and the mother of the new one. These regents were aided by the counsels of the boy emperor’s uncle, Prince Kung.

Under the direction of these regents, though the internal affairs of the empire prospered, the foreign relations were disturbed by the display of an increasingly hostile spirit towards the Christian missionaries and their converts, which culminated in 1870 in the Tien-tsin massacre. In some of the central provinces reports had been industriously circulated that the Roman Catholic missionaries were in the habit of kidnapping and murdering children, in order to make medicine from their eyeballs. Ridiculous as the rumor was, it found ready credence among the ignorant people, and several outrages were perpetrated on the missionaries and their converts in Kwang-hsi and Sze-chwan. Through the active interference, however, of the French minister on the spot, the agitation was locally suppressed only to be renewed at Tien-tsin. Here also the same absurd rumors were set afloat, and were especially directed against some sisters of charity who had opened an orphanage in the city.

For some days previous to the massacre on the 21st of June, reports increasing in alarm reached the foreign residents that an outbreak was to be apprehended, and three times the English consul wrote to Chung How, the superintendent of the three northern ports, calling upon him to take measures to subdue the gathering passions of the people which had been further dangerously exasperated by an infamous proclamation issued by the prefects. To these communications the consul did not receive any reply, and on the morning of the 21st, a day which had apparently been deliberately fixed for the massacre, the attack was made. The mob first broke into the French consulate and while the consul, M. Fontanier, was with Chung How endeavoring to persuade him to interfere, two Frenchmen and their wives, and Father Chevrien were there murdered. While returning the consul suffered the same fate. Having thus whetted their taste for blood, the rioters then set fire to the French cathedral, and afterward moved on to the orphanage of the sisters of mercy. In spite of the appeals of these defenseless women for mercy, if not for themselves at least for the orphans under their charge, the mob broke into the hospital, killed and mutilated most shockingly all the sisters, smothered from thirty to forty children in the vault, and carried off a still larger number of older persons to prisons in the city, where they were subjected to tortures of which they bore terrible evidence when their release was at length affected. In addition to these victims, a Russian gentleman with his bride, and a friend, who were unfortunate enough to meet the rioters on their way to the cathedral, were also murdered. No other foreigners were injured, a circumstance due to the fact that the fury of the mob was primarily directed against the French Roman Catholics, and also that the foreign settlement where all but those engaged in missionary work resided, was at a distance of a couple of miles from the city.

When the evil was done, the Chinese authorities professed themselves anxious to make reparation, and Chung How was eventually sent to Paris to offer the apologies of the Peking cabinet to the French government. These were ultimately accepted; and it was further arranged that the Tien-tsin prefect and district magistrate should be removed from their posts and degraded, and that twenty of the active murderers should be executed. By these retributive measures the emperor’s government made its peace with the European powers, and the foreign relations again assumed their former friendly footing.

The Chinese had now leisure to devote their efforts to the subjugation of the Panthay rebels. This was a great Mohammedan uprising which dated back as far as 1856 and which had for its object the separation of the province of Yun-nan into an independent state. The visit of the adopted son of the rebel leader, the sultan Suleiman, to England, for the purpose of attempting to enlist the sympathies of the English government in the Panthay cause, no doubt added zest to the action of the mandarins, who after a short but vigorous campaign, marked by scenes of bloodshed and wholesale carnage, suppressed the rebellion and restored the province to the imperial sway.

Peace was thus brought about, and when the empresses handed over the reigns of power to the emperor, on the occasion of his marriage in 1872, tranquility reigned throughout the eighteen provinces. The formal assumption of power proclaimed by this marriage was considered by the foreign ministers a fitting opportunity to insist on the fulfillment of the article in the treaties which provided for their reception by the emperor, and after much negotiation it was finally arranged that the emperor should receive them on the 29th of June, 1873.

Very early therefore on the morning of that day, the ministers were astir and were conducted in their sedan chairs to the park on the west side of the palace, where they were met by some of the ministers of state, who led them to the “Temple of Prayer for Seasonable Weather.” Here they were kept waiting for some time while tea and confectionery from the imperial kitchen, by favor of the emperor, were served to them. They were then conducted to an oblong tent made of matting on the west side of the Tsze-kwang pavilion, where they were met by Prince Kung and other ministers. As soon as the emperor reached the pavilion, the Japanese ambassador was introduced into his presence and when he had retired the other foreign ministers entered the audience chamber in a body. The emperor was seated facing southward. On either side of his majesty stood, with Prince Kung, several princes and high officers. When the foreign ministers reached the center aisle they halted and bowed one and all together; they then advanced in line a little further and made a second bow; and when they had nearly reached the yellow table on which their credentials were to be deposited they bowed a third time; after which they remained erect. M. Vlangaly, the Russian minister, then read a congratulatory address in French, which was translated by an interpreter into Chinese, and the ministers making another reverence respectfully laid their letters of credence upon the yellow table. The emperor was pleased to make a slight inclination of the head towards them, and Prince Kung advancing to the left of the throne and falling upon his knees, had the honor to be informed in Manchoo that his majesty acknowledged the receipt of the letters presented. Prince Kung, with his arms raised according to precedent set by Confucius when in the presence of his sovereign, came down by the steps on the left of the desk, to the foreign ministers, and respectfully repeated this in Chinese. After this he again prostrated himself, and in like manner received and conveyed a message to the effect that his majesty hoped that all foreign questions would be satisfactorily disposed of. The ministers then withdrew, bowing repeatedly, until they reached the entrance.

Thus ended the first instance during the present century of Europeans being received in imperial audience. Whether under more fortunate circumstances the ceremony might have been repeated it is difficult to say, but in the following year the young emperor was stricken down with the small-pox, or “enjoyed the felicity of the heavenly flowers,” and finally succumbed to the disease on the twelfth of January, 1875. With great ceremony the funeral obsequies were performed over the body of him who had been Tung Chih, and the coffin was finally laid in the imperial mausoleum among the eastern hills beside the remains of his predecessors. His demise was shortly afterwards followed by the death of the girl empress he had just previously raised to the throne.

For the first time in the annals of the Ching dynasty, the throne was now left without a direct heir. As it is the office of the son and heir to perform regularly the ancestral worship, it is necessary that if there should be no son, the heir should be, if possible, of a later generation than the deceased. In the present instance this was impossible, and it was necessary therefore that the lot should fall on one of the cousins of the late emperor. Tsai-teen, the son of the Prince of Chun, a child not quite four years old, was chosen to fill the vacant throne, and the title conferred upon him was Kuang Su or “an inheritance of glory.”

Scarcely had the proclamation gone forth of the assumption of the imperial title by Kuang Su, when news reached the English legation at Peking of the murder at Manwyne, in the province of Yun-nan, of Mr. Margary, an officer in the consular service who had been dispatched to meet an expedition sent by the Indian government, under the command of Colonel Horace Browne, to discover a route from Birmah into the south-western provinces of China. In accordance with conventional practice, the Chinese government, on being called to account for this outrage, attempted to lay it to the charge of brigands. But the evidence which Sir Thomas Wade was able to adduce proved too strong to be ignored even by the Peking mandarins, and eventually they signed a convention in which they practically acknowledged their blood guiltiness, under the terms of which some fresh commercial privileges were granted, and an indemnity was paid.

At the same time a Chinese nobleman was sent to England to make apology, and to establish an embassy on a permanent footing at the court of St. James. Since that time the Chinese empire has been at peace with all foreign powers until the eruptions of the recent months. There have been some narrow escapes from war with the European countries holding possessions on the southern Chinese border, but serious results have not followed. Ministers have been maintained in China by the western nations, and by China in the western capitals.

Under the child Kuang Su, who came to the throne in 1875, we have seen the completion of Chinese re-conquests in Central Asia and the restoration of Kuldja by the Russians. For many years the progressive party in the nation’s councils, under the leadership of Li Hung Chang, Viceroy of Chihli, gradually appeared to gain ground, amply posted as the court of Peking was in the affairs of western countries. Even the old conservative party, of which the successful and the aged general Tso Tsung-tang was the representative, has vastly modified its tone in the last twenty years.

It is true that the short experimental line of railway which had been laid down between Shanghai and Wusung was objected to, and finally got rid of by the Chinese government; but the reason for this apparently retrograde step arose out of the not very scrupulous means employed by the promoters of the scheme, and out of the very natural dislike of an independent state to be forced into innovations for which it may not be altogether prepared. Since that time several telegraph lines have been constructed, beginning with the first one between Peking and Shanghai, which formed the final connecting link between the capital of the Chinese empire and the western civilized world. The freedom of residence has been greatly extended to foreigners living in China. Travel has become safer, and popular hatred towards foreigners not as apparent. Slow as it has been to take effect, nevertheless the influence of closer association with western civilization has made its impress on the Chinese nation, and the extreme conservatism in many details has been compelled to waver. The stories of the war which are to follow will indicate much of the characteristics of the later day history of the empire.

THE CHINESE EMPIRE.

Origin of the Name of China, and What the Chinese Call their Own Country—Dependencies of the Empire—China and the United States in Comparison—Their Many Physical Similarities—Mountains and Plains—The Fertile Soil—Provinces of China—Rivers and Lakes—Climate—Fauna and Flora—Industries of the People—Commerce with Foreign Nations—The Cities of China—Forms of Government and Administration.

Until recent years the word China was unknown in the empire which we call by that name, but of late it has become more familiar to the Chinese, and in certain regions they are in fact adopting it for their own use, owing to the frequency with which they hear it from the foreigners with whom they are doing business. The name was no doubt introduced in Europe and America from the nations of Central Asia who speak of the Chinese by various names derived from that of the powerful Ching family, who held sway many centuries ago. The names which the Chinese use in speaking of themselves are various. The most common one is Chung Kwo, the “Middle Kingdom.” This term grew up in the feudal period as a name for the royal domain in the midst of the other states, or for those states as a whole in the midst of the uncivilized countries around them. The assumption of universal sovereignty, of being the geographical center of the world, and also the center of light and civilization that have been so injurious to the nation, appear in several of the most ancient names. In the oldest classical writings the country is called the Flowery Kingdom, flowery presenting the idea of beautiful, cultivated, and refined. The terms Heavenly Flowery Kingdom, and Heavenly Dynasty are sometimes used, the word heavenly presenting the Chinese idea that the empire is established by the authority of heaven, and that the emperor rules by divine right. This title has given rise to the contemptuous epithet applied to the race by the Europeans, “The Celestials.”

The Chinese empire, consisting of China proper and Manchooria, with its dependencies of Mongolia, I-li and Thibet, embraces a vast territory in eastern and central Asia, only inferior in extent to the dominions of Great Britain and Russia. The dependencies are not colonies but subject territories; and China proper itself indeed, has been a subject territory of Manchooria since 1644.

China proper was divided nearly two hundred years ago into eighteen provinces; and since the recent separation of the island of Formosa from Fu-chien, and its constitution into an independent province, we may say that it now consists of nineteen. These form one of the corners of the Asiatic continent, having the Pacific ocean on the south and east. They are somewhat in the shape of an irregular rectangle, and including the island of Hainan lie between 18 and 49 degrees north latitude and 98 and 124 degrees east longitude. Their area is about two million square miles, while the whole empire has an area more than twice that large.

In giving a correct general idea of China one cannot perhaps do better than to institute a comparison between it and the United States, to which it bears a striking resemblance. It occupies the same position in the eastern hemisphere that the United States does in the western. Its line of sea coast on the Pacific resembles that of the United States on the Atlantic, not only in length but also in contour. Being found within almost the same parallels of latitude, it embraces almost the same variety of climate and production. A river as grand as the Mississippi, flowing east, divides the empire into nearly two equal parts, which are often designated as “north of the river” and “south of the river.” It passes through an immense and fertile valley, and is supplied by numerous tributaries having rise in mountain ranges on either side and also in the Himalayas on the west. The area of China proper is about two-thirds that of the states of the American union.

CHINESE MINERS.

The resemblance holds also in the artificial divisions. While our country is divided into more than forty states, China is divided into nineteen provinces. As our states are divided into counties, so each province has divisions called fu and each fu is again divided into about an equal number of hien. These divisions and subdivisions of the provinces are generally spoken of in English as departments or prefectures, and districts, but they are much larger than our corresponding counties and townships. And similarly to our own system of government, each of these divisions and subdivisions has its own capital or seat of civil power, in which the officers exercising jurisdiction over it reside. The outer dependencies of the Chinese empire are comparatively sparsely populated, and in this work, when China, without specification, is mentioned, it is intended to refer to the eighteen provinces exclusively, which include the vast proportion of the population, intelligence and wealth of the empire.

As to the physical features of China proper, the whole territory may be described as sloping from the mountainous regions of Thibet and Nepaul towards the shores of the Pacific on the east and south. A far extending spur of the Himalayas called the Nanling, or southern range, is the most extensive mountain system. It commences in Yun-nan, and passing completely through the country enters the sea at Ningpo. Except for a few steep passes, it thus forms a continuous barrier that separates the coast regions of south-eastern China from the rest of the country. Numerous spurs are cast off to the south and east of it, which appear in the sea as a belt of rugged islands. On the borders of Thibet to the north and west of this range, the country is mountainous, while to the east and from the great wall on the north to the Po-yang Lake in the south, there is the great plain comprising an area of more than two hundred thousand square miles and supporting in the five provinces contained in it more than one hundred and seventy-five million people.

In the north-western provinces the soil is a brownish colored earth, extremely porous, crumbling easily between the fingers, and carried far and wide in clouds of dust. It covers the sub-soil to an enormous depth and is apt to split perpendicularly in clefts which render traveling difficult. Nevertheless by this cleavage it affords homes to thousands of the people, who live in caves excavated near the bottom of the cliffs. Sometimes whole villages are so formed in terraces of the earth that rise one above another. The most valuable quality of this peculiar soil is its marvelous fertility, as the fields composed of it require scarcely any other dressing than a sprinkling of its own fresh loam. The farmer in this way obtains an assured harvest two and even three times a year. This fertility, provided there be a sufficient rainfall, seems inexhaustible. The province of Shan-hsi has borne the name for thousands of years of the “granary of the nation,” and it is, no doubt, due to the distribution of this earth over its surface, that the great plain owes its fruitfulness.

Geographically speaking the arrangement of the provinces of China is as follows: On the north there are four provinces, Chihli, Shan-hsi, Shen-hsi, and Kan-su; on the west two, Szechwan, the largest of all, and Yun-nan; on the south two, Kwang-hsi and Kwang-tung; on the east four, Fu-chien, Cheh-chiang, Chiang-su, and Shan-tung. The central area enclosed by these twelve provinces is occupied by Honan, An-hui, Hoopih, Hunan, Chiang-hsi, and Kwei-chau. The latter is a poor province, with parts of it largely occupied by clans or tribes supposed to be the aborigines. The island of Formosa, lying off the coast of Fu-chien, ninety miles west of Amoy, is about two hundred and thirty-five miles in length, fertile and rich in coal, petroleum, and camphor wood. The first settlement of a Chinese population took place only in 1683, and the greater part of it is still occupied by aboriginal tribes of a more than ordinary high type. The population of these provinces is immense, but the various estimates and alleged censuses fluctuate and vary so much that it is impossible to give a definite number as the total. It is a safe estimate however to say that the population of the Chinese empire approximates four hundred million, or considerably more than one-fourth the population of the world, and nearly as much as the total of all Europe and America.

One of the most distinguishing features of China is found in the great rivers. These are called for the most part “ho” in the north and “chiang” (kiang) in the south. Two of these are famous and conspicuous among the great rivers of the world, the Ho, Hoang-ho, or Yellow River, and the Chiang, generally misnamed the Yang-tsze. The sources of these two rivers are not far from one another. The Ho rises in the plain of Odontala, which is a region of springs and small lakes, and the Chiang from the mountains of Thibet only a few miles distant. The Ho pursues a tortuous course first to the east and north until it crosses the great wall into Mongolia. After flowing a long distance northward of the Mongolian desert, to the northern limit of Shen-hsi, it then turns directly south for a distance of five hundred miles. A right angle turns its course again to the eastward and finally north-eastward, when it flows into the Gulf of Pechili in the province of Shan-tung. The Chiang on the contrary turns south where the Ho turns north, and then after a general course to the eastward and northward, roughly parallel[parallel] with its fellow, flows into the Eastern Sea, not far from Shanghai.

Both rivers are exceedingly tortuous and their courses are only roughly outlined here. Almost the very opening of Chinese history is an account of one of the inundations of the Ho River, which has often in course of time changed its channel. The terrible calamities caused by it so often have procured for it the name of “China’s sorrow.” As recently as 1887 it burst its southern bank near Chang Chau, and poured its mighty flood with hideous devastation, and the destruction of millions of lives, into the populous province of Honan. Each of these rivers has a course of more than three thousand miles. They are incomparably the greatest in China, but there are many others which would be accounted great elsewhere. In connection with inland navigation must be mentioned the Grand Canal, intended to connect the northern and southern parts of the empire by an easy water communication; and this it did when it was in good order, extending from Peking to Hankow, a distance of more than six hundred miles. Kublai Khan, the first sovereign of the Yuan dynasty, must be credited with the glory of making this canal. Marco Polo described it, and compliments the great ruler for the success of his work. Steam communication all along the eastern seaboard from Canton to Tien-tsin has very much superseded the use of the canal and portions of it are now in bad condition, but as a truly imperial achievement it continues to be a grand memorial of Kublai.

The Great Wall was another vast achievement of human labor, constructed more than two thousand years ago. It has been alleged a myth at some times, but its existence has not been denied since explorations have been made to the north of China Proper. It was not as useful as the canal, and it failed to answer the purpose for which it was intended, a defense against the incursions of the northern tribes. In 214 B.C. the Emperor Che Hwang Ti determined to erect a grand barrier all along the northern limit of his vast empire. The wall commences at the Shan-hsi pass on the north coast of the Gulf of Pechili. From this point it is carried westward till it terminates at the Chia-yu barrier gate, the road through which leads to the “western regions.” It is twice interrupted in its course by the Ho River, and has several branch and loop walls to defend certain cities and districts. Its length in a straight line would be one thousand two hundred and fifty-five miles, but if measured along its sinuosities this distance must be increased to one thousand five hundred. It is not built so grandly in its western portions after passing the Ho River, nor should it be supposed that to the east of this point it is all solid masonry. It is formed by two strong retaining walls of brick rising from granite foundations, the space between being filled with stones and earth. The breadth of it at the base is about twenty-five feet, at the top fifteen feet, and the height varies from fifteen to thirty feet. The surface at the top was once covered with bricks but is now overgrown with grass. What travelers go to visit from Peking is merely a loop wall of later formation, enclosing portions of Chihli and Shan-hsi.

China includes many lakes, but they are not so commanding in size as the rivers. There are but three which are essential to mention. These are the Tung-ting Hu, the largest, having a circumference of two hundred and twenty miles, about in the center of the empire; the Po-yang Hu, half way between the former and the sea; and the Tai Hu, not far from Shanghai and the Yang-tsze River. The latter lake is famous for its romantic scenery and numerous islets.

The peculiarities of climate along the Chinese coast are due in great measure to the northern and southern monsoons, the former prevailing with more or less uniformity during the winter, and the latter during the summer months. These winds give a greater degree of heat in summer and of cold in winter than is experienced in the United States in corresponding latitudes. At Ningpo, situated in latitude 30, about that of New Orleans, large quantities of ice are secured in the winter for summer use. It is, however, very thin measured by what we think proper ice for preservation[preservation]. In this part of China snow not infrequently falls to the depth of six or eight inches, and the hills are sometimes covered with it for weeks in succession. In the northern provinces the winters are very severe. In the vicinity of Peking, not only are the canals and rivers closed during the winter, but all commerce by sea is suspended during two or three months, while in the summer that part of China is very warm. The period of the change of the monsoon, when the two opposite currents are struggling with each other is marked by a great fall of rain and by the cyclones which are so much dreaded by mariners on the Chinese coast. The southern monsoon gradually loses its force in passing northward, and is not very marked above latitude 32, though its influence is decidedly felt in July and August. With the exception of the summer months the climate of the northern coast of China is remarkably dry; that of the southern coast is damp most of the year, especially during the months of May, June, and July.

In different parts of the country almost every variety of climate can be found, hot or cold, moist or dry, salubrious or malarial. The ports which were at first opened as places of residence for foreigners were unfortunately among the most unhealthful of the empire, not so much from the enervating effects of their southerly latitude as from their local miasmatic influences, being situated in the rice-producing districts and surrounded more or less by stagnant water during the summer months. Under the later treaties which opened new ports in the north, as well as interior cities, foreigners have been permitted to live in regions whose climates will compare favorably with most parts of our own country. The Chinese themselves consider Kwang-tung, Kwang-hsi, and Yun-nan to be less healthful than the other provinces; but foreigners using proper precautions may enjoy their lives in every province.

The Chinese are essentially an agricultural people, and from time immemorial they have held agriculture in the highest esteem as being the means by which the soil has been induced to supply the primary wants of the empire, food. Of course the climate and the nature of a district determine the kind of farming appropriate to it. Agriculturally China may be said to be divided into two parts by the Chiang. South of that river, speaking generally, the soil and climate point to rice as the appropriate crop, while to the north lie vast plains which as clearly are best designed for growing wheat, barley, oats, Indian corn and other cereals. Culinary or kitchen herbs, mushrooms, and aquatic vegetables, with ginger and a variety of other condiments, are everywhere produced and widely used. From Formosa there comes sugar, and the cane thrives also in the southern provinces. Oranges, pomegranates, peaches, plantains, pineapples, mangoes, grapes, and many other fruits and nuts are supplied in most markets. The cultivation of opium is constantly on the increase.

CHINESE FARM SCENE.

Of course the use of tea as a beverage is a national characteristic. The plant does not grow in the north, but is cultivated extensively in the western provinces and in the southern. The infusion of the leaves was little if at all drunk in ancient times, but now its use is universal. Fu-chien, Hoopih, and Hu-nan produce the greater part of the black teas; the green comes chiefly from Cheh-chiang and An-hui; both kinds comes from Kwang-tung and Sze-chwan. Next to silk, if not equally with it, tea is China’s most valuable export. From rice and millet the Chinese distill alcoholic liquors, but they are very sparingly used and it is a compliment to the temperate inclinations of the people, that immediately upon the opening of tea houses many years ago, the places for selling liquor found themselves empty of business and were soon compelled to close.

CHINESE TEA FARM.

Birds and animals are found in great variety, though the country is too thickly peopled and well cultivated to harbor many wild and dangerous beasts. One occasionally hears of a tiger that has ventured from the forest and been killed or captured, but the lion was never a denizen of China and is only to be seen rampant in stone in front of temples. The rhinoceros, elephant, and tapir are said still to exist in the forests and swamps of Yun-nan; but the supply of elephants at Peking for the carriage of the emperor when he proceeds to the great sacrificial altars has been decreasing for several reigns. Both the brown and the black bear are found, and several varieties of the deer family, of which the musk deer is highly valued. Among the domestic animals the breed of horses and cattle is dwarfish and no attempts seem to be made to improve them. The ass is a more lively animal in the north than it is in European countries or America, and receives much attention. About Peking one is struck by many beautiful specimens of the mule. Princes are seen riding on mules, or drawn by them in handsome litters, while their attendants accompany them on horseback. The camel is seen only in the north. Many birds of prey abound, including minos, crows, and magpies. The people are fond of songbirds, especially the thrush, the canary, and the lark. The lovely gold and silver pheasants are well known, and also the mandarin duck, the emblem to the Chinese of conjugal fidelity. Many geese too are reared and eaten, while the ducks are artificially hatched. The number of pigs is enormous and fish are a plentiful supply of food.

CHINESE STREET SCENE.

The people are very fond of flowers and are excellent gardeners, but their favorites are mostly cultivated in pots instead of in beds.

Silk, linen, and cotton furnish abundant provision for the clothing of the race. China was no doubt the original home of silk. The mulberry tree grows everywhere and silk worms flourish as widely. In all provinces some silk is produced, but the best is furnished from Kwang-tung, Sze-chwan, and Cheh-chiang. From the twenty-third century B.C. and earlier, the care of the silk worm and the spinning and weaving of its produce have been the special work of women. As it is the duty of the sovereign to turn over a few furrows in the spring to stimulate the people to their agricultural tasks, so his consort should perform an analogous ceremony with her silk worms and mulberry trees. The manufactures of silk are not inferior to or less brilliant than any that are produced in Europe, and nothing can exceed the embroidery of the Chinese. The cotton plant appears to have been introduced some eight hundred years ago from Eastern Turkestan and is now cultivated most extensively in the basin of the Chiang River. The well known nankeen is named for Nanking, a center for its manufacture. Of woolen fabrics the production is not large, but there are felt caps, rugs of camels hair and furs of various kinds.

CHINESE FARMER.

While the Chinese have done justice to most of the natural capabilities of their country, they have greatly failed in developing its mineral resources. The skill which their lapidaries display in cutting the minerals and jewels is well known, but in the development of the utilitarian minerals they have been very negligent. The coal fields of China are enormous, but the majority of them can hardly be said to be more than scratched. Immense deposits of iron ore are still untouched. Copper, lead, tin, silver, and gold are known to exist in many places, but little has been done to make the stores of them available. More attention has been directed to their mines since their government and companies began to have steamers of their own and a scheme has been approved by the government for working the gold mines in the valley of the Amoor River. With the government once conscious of its mineral wealth, there is no limit to the results which it may bring about.

The commerce of China with the western nations has been constantly on the increase for many years. The number of vessels entering and clearing at the various treaty ports is now between thirty thousand and thirty-five thousand annually, and the value of the whole trade, import and export, approximates $300,000,000 annually. Of course the two principal exports are tea and silk. About half of the trade is done by means of vessels under the British flag, and nearly half of the remainder are vessels of foreign type, but owned by Chinese and sailing under the Chinese flag.

The capitals of the different divisions of the empire are all walled cities, and these form a striking feature of the country. There are important distinctions between the cities of the third class, most of which are designated as hien, a few as cheo and others as ting. Though varying considerably in size, these different cities present nearly the uniform appearance. They are surrounded by walls from twenty to thirty-five feet in height, and are entered by large arched gateways which open into the principal streets and are shut and barred at night. These walls are from twenty to twenty-five feet thick at the base and somewhat narrower at the top. The outside is of solid masonry from two to four feet thick, built of hewn stone, or bricks backed with earth, broken tiles, etc. There is generally a lighter stone facing on the inside. The outside is surmounted by a parapet with embrasures generally built of brick.

The circumferences of the provincial cities vary from eight to fifteen miles; those of the fu cities from four to ten miles, and those of the hien cities from two or three to five miles. Some of the larger and more important cities contain a smaller one, with its separate walls, enclosed within the larger outside walls. This is the Tartar or military city. It is occupied exclusively by Tartars with their families, forming a colony or garrison, and numbering generally several thousand soldiers. In times of insurrection and rebellion the emperor depends principally upon these Tartar colonies to hold possession of the cities where they are stationed. In such emergencies the inhabitants of these enclosed Tartar cities, knowing that their lives and the lives of their families are at stake, defend themselves with great desperation.

The provincial capitals contain an average population of nearly one million inhabitants; the fu cities from one hundred thousand to six hundred thousand or even more, while the cities of the third class, which are much more numerous, generally contain several tens of thousands. The most of these towns of different classes have outgrown their walls, and frequently one-fourth or even one-third of the inhabitants live in the suburbs, which in some cases extend three or four miles outside the walls in different directions. Property is less valuable in these suburbs, not only because it is removed from the business parts of the city, but also because it is more liable to be destroyed in times of rebellion. All the names to be found on even our largest maps of China, are the names of walled cities, and many of those of the third class are not down for want of space. The total number of these cities is more than one thousand seven hundred. From the number and size of the cities of China it might be inferred that they contain the greater portion of the inhabitants of the empire. This is however by no means the case. The Chinese are mainly an agricultural people and live for the most part in the almost innumerable villages which everywhere dot its fertile plains. A detached or isolated farm house is seldom seen. The country people live in towns or hamlets for the sake of society and mutual protection. Most of the cities, even the smaller ones, have thousands of these villages under their jurisdiction. In the more populous parts of China will frequently be found, within a radius of three or four miles, from one hundred and fifty to two hundred of these villages.

The estimate of population made on a previous page gives an average population of about three hundred persons to the square mile, while that of Belgium and some other European countries is greater. Perhaps no country in the world is more fertile and capable of supporting a dense population than China. Every available spot of ground is brought under cultivation, and nearly all the land is made use of to provide food for man, pasture fields being almost unknown. The masses of China eat very little animal food, and what they do eat is mostly pork and fowls, the raising of which requires little or no waste of ground. The comparatively few horses and cattle and sheep which are found in the country are kept in stables, or graze upon the hill tops, or are tethered by the sides of canals. Taking these facts into consideration, that an extended and exceedingly fertile country under the highest state of cultivation, is taxed to its utmost capacity to supply the wants of a frugal and industrious people, the estimate of population need not excite incredulity.

Nearly all of the cities marked on our maps of the coast of China, are now open ports for traffic and residence of foreigners. The most northerly of these is Niuchwang and the most southern Pak-hoi, while between these familiar names are those of Canton, Swatow, Amoy, Foochow, Ningpo, Shanghai, Tien-tsin and several others. Interior cities that have been opened to foreigners include a number on the Chiang River, the one farthest inland being I-chang. Peking is also accessible to foreigners; and several ports on the islands of Hainan and Formosa are opened by treaty. The population of these cities cannot be told with much exactness, as the Chinese census can scarcely claim accuracy. But the largest cities, such as Canton and Peking, are generally credited, in common with several others even smaller, with passing the million mark.

AN IMPERIAL AUDIENCE.

The Chinese government is one of the great wonders of history. It presents to-day the same character which it possessed more than three thousand years ago, and which it has retained ever since, during a period which covers the authentic history of the world. The government may be described as being in theory a patriarchal despotism. The emperor is the father of his people, and just as in a family the father’s law is supreme, so the emperor exercises complete control over his subjects, even to the extent of holding, under certain recognized conditions, their lives in his hands. But from time immemorial it has been held by the highest constitutional authorities that the duties existing between the emperor and his people are reciprocal, and that though it is the duty of the people to render a loyal and willing obedience to the emperor, so long as his rule is just and beneficent, it is equally incumbent upon them to resist his authority, to depose him, and even to put him to death, in case he should desert the paths of rectitude and virtue.

As a matter of fact however, it is very difficult to say what extent of power the emperor actually wields. The outside world sees only the imperial bolts, but how they are forged or whose is the hand that shoots them none can tell. The most common titles of the emperor are Hwang-Shang, “The August Lofty One,” and Tien-Tsz, “The Son of Heaven.” He lives in unapproachable grandeur, and is never seen except by members of his own family and high state officers, save once a year when he gives audience to few foreign diplomats. Nothing is omitted which can add to the dignity and sacredness of his person or character. Almost everything used by him or in his service is tabooed from the common people, and distinguished by some peculiar mark or color so as to keep up the impression of awe with which he is regarded, and which is so powerful an auxiliary to his throne. The outward gate of the palace must always be passed on foot, and the paved entrance walk leading up to it can be used only by him. The vacant throne, or even a screen of yellow silk thrown over a chair, is worshipped equally with his actual presence, and an imperial dispatch is received in the provinces with incense and prostration.

PREPARATION OF VERMICELLI.

The throne is not strictly and necessarily hereditary, though the son of the emperor generally succeeds to it. The emperor appoints his successor, but it is supposed that in doing so he will have supreme regard for the best good of his subjects, and will be governed by the will of heaven, indicated by the conferring of regal gifts, and by providential circumstances pointing out the individual whom heaven has chosen. Of course in the case of unusually able men, such as the second and fourth rulers of the present dynasty, their influence is more felt than that of less energetic rulers; but the throne of China is so hedged in with ceremonials and so padded with official etiquette that unless its occupant be a man of supreme ability he cannot fail to fall under the guidance of his ministers and favorites. In governing so large a realm, of course it is necessary for the emperor to delegate his authority to numerous officers who are regarded as his agents and representatives in carrying out the imperial will. What they do the emperor does through them. The recognized patriarchal character of the government is seen in the familiar expressions of the people, particularly at times when they consider themselves injured or aggrieved by their officers, when they are apt to say, “A strange way for parents to treat their children.”

The government of the empire, omitting the regulation of the imperial court and family, or the special Manchoo department, is conducted from the capital, supervising, directing, controlling the different provincial administrations, and exercising the power of removing from his post any official whose conduct may be irregular or dangerous to the state.

There is the Grand Cabinet, the privy council of the emperor, in whose presence it meets daily to transact the business of the state, between the hours of 4:00 and 6:00 A.M. Its members are few and hold other offices. There is also the Grand Secretariat, formerly the supreme council, but under the present dynasty very much superseded by the Cabinet. It consists of four grand and two assistant grand secretaries, half of them Manchoos and half Chinese. The business on which the Cabinet deliberates comes before it from the six boards or Luh-pu. These are departments of long standing in the government, having been modeled on much the same plan during the ancient dynasties. At the head of each board are two presidents, called Shang-shu, and four vice-presidents called Shi-lang, alternately a Manchoo and a Chinese. There are three subordinate grades of officers in each board, with a great number of minor clerks, and their appropriate departments for conducting the details of the general and peculiar business coming under the cognizance of the board, the whole being arranged in the most business-like style.

Newly Married.

Young Lady of Quality.

CHINESE LADIES.

The six boards are respectively of Civil Office, of Revenue, of Ceremonies, of War, of Punishments, and of Works. In 1861 the changed relations between the empire and foreign nations led to the formation of what may be called a seventh board styled the Tsung-li Yamen, or Court of Foreign Affairs. There is also another important department which must be mentioned, the censorate, members of which exercise a supervision over the board, and are entrusted with the duty of exposing errors and crimes in every department of government. Distributed through the provinces they memorialize the emperor on all subjects connected with the welfare of the people and the conduct of the government. Sometimes they do not shrink even from the dangerous task of criticising the conduct of the emperor himself.