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+The Project Gutenberg Etext The Civilization of China, by Giles
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+THE CIVILIZATION OF CHINA
+
+by Herbert A. Giles, M.A., LL.D.
+
+February, 2000  [Etext #2076]
+
+
+The Project Gutenberg Etext The Civilization of China, by Giles
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+
+
+THE CIVILIZATION OF CHINA
+
+by HERBERT A. GILES, M.A., LL.D.
+
+Professor of Chinese in the University of Cambridge,
+And sometime H.B.M. Consul at Ningpo
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+  The aim of this work is to suggest a rough outline of Chinese
+  civilization from the earliest times down to the present period of
+  rapid and startling transition.
+
+  It has been written, primarily, for readers who know little or
+  nothing of China, in the hope that it may succeed in alluring them
+  to a wider and more methodical survey.
+
+H.A.G.
+
+  Cambridge,
+  May 12, 1911.
+
+
+
+
+THE CIVILIZATION OF CHINA
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE FEUDAL AGE
+
+It is a very common thing now-a-days to meet people who are going to
+"China," which can be reached by the Siberian railway in fourteen or
+fifteen days. This brings us at once to the question--What is meant by
+the term China?
+
+Taken in its widest sense, the term includes Mongolia, Manchuria,
+Eastern Turkestan, Tibet, and the Eighteen Provinces, the whole being
+equivalent to an area of some five million square miles, that is,
+considerably more than twice the size of the United States of America.
+But for a study of manners and customs and modes of thought of the
+Chinese people, we must confine ourselves to that portion of the whole
+which is known to the Chinese as the "Eighteen Provinces," and to us
+as China Proper. This portion of the empire occupies not quite two-
+fifths of the whole, covering an area of somewhat more than a million
+and a half square miles. Its chief landmarks may be roughly stated as
+Peking, the capital, in the north; Canton, the great commercial
+centre, in the south; Shanghai, on the east; and the Tibetan frontier
+on the west.
+
+Any one who will take the trouble to look up these four points on a
+map, representing as they do central points on the four sides of a
+rough square, will soon realize the absurdity of asking a returning
+traveller the very much asked question, How do you like China? Fancy
+asking a Chinaman, who had spent a year or two in England, how he
+liked Europe! Peking, for instance, stands on the same parallel of
+latitude as Madrid; whereas Canton coincides similarly with Calcutta.
+Within the square indicated by the four points enumerated above will
+be found variations of climate, flowers, fruit, vegetables and animals
+--not to mention human beings--distributed in very much the same way
+as in Europe. The climate of Peking is exceedingly dry and bracing; no
+rain, and hardly any snow, falling between October and April. The
+really hot weather lasts only for six or eight weeks, about July and
+August--and even then the nights are always cool; while for six or
+eight weeks between December and February there may be a couple of
+feet of ice on the river. Canton, on the other hand, has a tropical
+climate, with a long damp enervating summer and a short bleak winter.
+The old story runs that snow has only been seen once in Canton, and
+then it was thought by the people to be falling cotton-wool.
+
+The northern provinces are remarkable for vast level plains, dotted
+with villages, the houses of which are built of mud. In the southern
+provinces will be found long stretches of mountain scenery, vying in
+loveliness with anything to be seen elsewhere. Monasteries are built
+high up on the hills, often on almost inaccessible crags; and there
+the well-to-do Chinaman is wont to escape from the fierce heat of the
+southern summer. On one particular mountain near Canton, there are
+said to be no fewer than one hundred of such monasteries, all of which
+reserve apartments for guests, and are glad to be able to add to their
+funds by so doing.
+
+In the north of China, Mongolian ponies, splendid mules, and donkeys
+are seen in large quantities; also the two-humped camel, which carries
+heavy loads across the plains of Mongolia. In the south, until the
+advent of the railway, travellers had to choose between the sedan-
+chair carried on the shoulders of stalwart coolies, or the slower but
+more comfortable house-boat. Before steamers began to ply on the
+coast, a candidate for the doctor's degree at the great triennial
+examination would take three months to travel from Canton to Peking.
+Urgent dispatches, however, were often forwarded by relays of riders
+at the rate of two hundred miles a day.
+
+The market in Peking is supplied, among other things, with excellent
+mutton from a fat-tailed breed of sheep, chiefly for the largely
+Mohammedan population; but the sheep will not live in southern China,
+where the goat takes its place. The pig is found everywhere, and
+represents beef in our market, the latter being extremely unpalatable
+to the ordinary Chinaman, partly perhaps because Confucius forbade men
+to slaughter the animal which draws the plough and contributes so much
+to the welfare of mankind. The staple food, the "bread" of the people
+in the Chinese Empire, is nominally rice; but this is too costly for
+the peasant of northern China to import, and he falls back on millet
+as its substitute. Apples, pears, grapes, melons, and walnuts grow
+abundantly in the north; the southern fruits are the banana, the
+orange, the pineapple, the mango, the pomelo, the lichee, and similar
+fruits of a more tropical character.
+
+Cold storage has been practised by the Chinese for centuries. Blocks
+of ice are cut from the river for that purpose; and on a hot summer's
+day a Peking coolie can obtain an iced drink at an almost
+infinitesimal cost. Grapes are preserved from autumn until the
+following May and June by the simple process of sticking the stalk of
+the bunch into a large hard pear, and putting it away carefully in the
+ice-house. Even at Ningpo, close to our central point on the eastern
+coast of China, thin layers of ice are collected from pools and
+ditches, and successfully stored for use in the following summer.
+
+The inhabitants of the coast provinces are distinguished from the
+dwellers in the north and in the far interior by a marked alertness of
+mind and general temperament. The Chinese themselves declare that
+virtue is associated with mountains, wisdom with water, cynically
+implying that no one is both virtuous and wise. Between the
+inhabitants of the various provinces there is little love lost.
+Northerners fear and hate southerners, and the latter hold the former
+in infinite scorn and contempt. Thus, when in 1860 the Franco-British
+force made for Peking, it was easy enough to secure the services of
+any number of Cantonese, who remained as faithful as though the attack
+had been directed against some third nationality.
+
+The population of China has never been exactly ascertained. It has
+been variously estimated by foreign travellers, Sacharoff, in 1842,
+placing the figure at over four hundred millions. The latest census,
+taken in 1902, is said to yield a total of four hundred and ten
+millions. Perhaps three hundred millions would be a juster estimate;
+even that would absorb no less than one-fifth of the human race. From
+this total it is easy to calculate that if the Chinese people were to
+walk past a given point in single file, the procession would never
+end; long before the last of the three hundred millions had passed by,
+a new generation would have sprung up to continue the neverending
+line. The census, however, is a very old institution with the Chinese;
+and we learn that in A.D. 156 the total population of the China of
+those days was returned as a little over fifty millions. In more
+modern times, the process of taking the census consists in serving out
+house-tickets to the head of every household, who is responsible for a
+proper return of all the inmates; but as there is no fixed day for
+which these tickets are returnable, the results are approximate rather
+than exact.
+
+Again, it is not uncommon to hear people talking of the Chinese
+language as if it were a single tongue spoken all over China after a
+more or less uniform standard. But the fact is that the colloquial is
+broken up into at least eight dialects, each so strongly marked as to
+constitute eight languages as different to the ear, one from another,
+as English, Dutch and German, or French, Spanish, Italian and
+Portuguese. A Shanghai man, for instance, is unintelligible to a
+Cantonese, and so on. All officials are obliged, and all of the better
+educated merchants and others endeavour, if only for business
+purposes, to learn something of the dialect spoken at the court of
+Peking; and this is what is popularly known as "Mandarin." The written
+language remains the same for the whole empire; which merely means
+that ideas set down on paper after a uniform system are spoken with
+different sounds, just as the Arabic numerals are written uniformly in
+England, France and Germany, but are pronounced in a totally different
+manner.
+
+The only difficulty of the spoken language, of no matter what dialect,
+lies in the "tones," which simply means the different intonations
+which may be given to one and the same sound, thus producing so many
+entirely different meanings. But for these tones, the colloquial of
+China would be absurdly easy, inasmuch as there is no such thing as
+grammar, in the sense of gender, number, case, mood, tense, or any of
+the variations we understand by that term. Many amusing examples are
+current of blunders committed by faulty speakers, such as that of the
+student who told his servant to bring him a goose, when what he really
+wanted was some salt, both goose and salt having the same sound,
+/yen/, but quite different intonations. The following specimen has the
+advantage of being true. A British official reported to the Foreign
+Office that the people of Tientsin were in the habit of shouting after
+foreigners, "Mao-tsu, mao-tsu" (pronounced /mowdza/, /ow/ as in
+/how/), from which he gathered that they were much struck by the head-
+gear of the barbarian. Now, it is a fact that /mao-tsu/, uttered with
+a certain intonation, means a hat; but with another intonation, it
+means "hairy one," and the latter, referring to the big beards of
+foreigners, was the meaning intended to be conveyed. This epithet is
+still to be heard, and is often preceded by the adjective "red."
+
+The written characters, known to have been in use for the past three
+thousand years, were originally rude pictures, as of men, birds,
+horses, dogs, houses, the numerals (one, two, three, four), etc.,
+etc., and it is still possible to trace in the modified modern forms
+of these characters more or less striking resemblances to the objects
+intended. The next step was to put two or more characters together, to
+express by their combination an abstract idea, as, for instance, a
+/hand/ holding a /rod/ = father; but of course this simple process did
+not carry the Chinese very far, and they soon managed to hit on a
+joint picture and phonetic system, which enabled them to multiply
+characters indefinitely, new compounds being formed for use as
+required. It is thus that new characters can still be produced, if
+necessary, to express novel objects or ideas. The usual plan, however,
+is to combine existing terms in such a way as to suggest what is
+wanted. For instance, in preference to inventing a separate character
+for the piece of ordnance known as a "mortar," the Chinese, with an
+eye to its peculiar pose, gave it the appropriate name of a "frog
+gun."
+
+Again, just as the natives and the dialects of the various parts of
+China differ one from another, although fundamentally the same people
+and the same language, so do the manners and customs differ to such an
+extent that habits of life and ceremonial regulations which prevail in
+one part of the empire do not necessarily prevail in another. Yet once
+more it will be found that the differences which appear irreconcilable
+at first, do not affect what is essential, but apply rather to matters
+of detail. Many travellers and others have described as customs of the
+Chinese customs which, as presented, refer to a part of China only,
+and not to the whole. For instance, the ornamental ceremonies
+connected with marriage vary in different provinces; but there is a
+certain ceremony, equivalent in one sense to signing the register,
+which is almost essential to every marriage contract. Bride and
+bridegroom must kneel down and call God to witness; they also pledge
+each other in wine from two cups joined together by a red string. Red
+is the colour for joy, as white is the colour for mourning. Chinese
+note-paper is always ruled with red lines or stamped with a red
+picture. One Chinese official who gave a dinner-party in foreign
+style, even went so far as to paste a piece of red paper on to each
+dinner-napkin, in order to counteract the unpropitious influence of
+white.
+
+Reference has been made above to journeys performed by boat. In
+addition to the Yangtsze and the Yellow River or Hoang ho (pronounced
+/Hwong haw/), two of the most important rivers in the world, China is
+covered with a network of minor streams, which in southern China form
+the chief lines of transport. The Yangtsze is nothing more than a huge
+navigable river, crossing China Proper from west to east. The Yellow
+River, which, with the exception of a great loop to the north, runs on
+nearly parallel lines of latitude, has long been known as "China's
+Sorrow," and has been responsible for enormous loss of life and
+property. Its current is so swift that ordinary navigation is
+impossible, and to cross it in boats is an undertaking of considerable
+difficulty and danger. It is so called from the yellowness of its
+water, caused by the vast quantity of mud which is swept down by its
+rapid current to the sea; hence, the common saying, "When the Yellow
+River runs clear," as an equivalent of the Greek Kalends. The huge
+embankments, built to confine it to a given course, are continually
+being forced by any unusual press of extra water, with enormous damage
+to property and great loss of life, and from time to time this river
+has been known to change its route altogether, suddenly diverging,
+almost at a right angle. Up to the year 1851 the mouth of the river
+was to the south of the Shantung promontory, about lat. 34 N.; then,
+with hardly any warning, it began to flow to the north-east, finding
+an outlet to the north of the Shantung promontory, about lat. 38 N.
+
+A certain number of connecting links have been formed between the
+chief lines of water communication, in the shape of artificial
+cuttings; but there is nothing worthy the name of canal except the
+rightly named Grand Canal, called by the Chinese the "river of locks,"
+or alternatively the "transport river," because once used to convey
+rice from the south to Peking. This gigantic work, designed and
+executed in the thirteenth century by the Emperor Kublai Khan,
+extended to about six hundred and fifty miles in length, and completed
+an almost unbroken water communication between Peking and Canton. As a
+wonderful engineering feat it is indeed more than matched by the
+famous Great Wall, which dates back to a couple of hundred years
+before Christ, and which has been glorified as the last trace of man's
+handiwork on the globe to fade from the view of an imaginary person
+receding into space. Recent exploration shows that this wall is about
+eighteen hundred miles in length, stretching from a point on the
+seashore somewhat east of Peking, to the northern frontier of Tibet.
+Roughly speaking, it is twenty-two feet in height by twenty feet in
+breadth; at intervals of a hundred yards are towers forty feet high,
+the whole being built originally of brick, of which in some parts but
+mere traces now remain. Nor is this the only great wall; ruins of
+other walls on a considerable scale have lately been brought to light,
+the object of all being one and the same--to keep back the marauding
+Tartars.
+
+Over the length and breadth of their boundless empire, with all its
+varying climates and inhabitants, the Chinese people are free to
+travel, for business or pleasure, at their own sweet will, and to take
+up their abode at any spot without let or hindrance. No passports are
+required; neither is any ordinary citizen obliged to possess other
+papers of identification. Chinese inns are not exposed to the
+annoyance of domicilary visits with reference to their clients for the
+time being; and so long as the latter pay their way, and refrain from
+molesting others, they will usually be free from molestation
+themselves. The Chinese, however, are not fond of travelling; they
+love their homes too well, and they further dread the inconveniences
+and dangers attached to travel in many other parts of the world.
+Boatmen, carters, and innkeepers have all of them bad reputations for
+extortionate charges; and the traveller may sometimes happen upon a
+"black inn," which is another name for a den of thieves. Still there
+have been many who travelled for the sake of beautiful scenery, or in
+order to visit famous spots of historical interest; not to mention the
+large body of officials who are constantly on the move, passing from
+post to post.
+
+Among those who believe that every nation must have reached its
+present quarters from some other distant parts of the world, must be
+reckoned a few students of the ancient history of China. Coincidences
+in language and in manners and customs, mostly of a shadowy character,
+have led some to suggest Babylonia as the region from which the
+Chinese migrated to the land where they are now found. The Chinese
+possess authentic records of an indisputably early past, but
+throughout these records there is absolutely no mention, not even a
+hint, of any migration of the kind.
+
+Tradition places the Golden Age of China so far back as three thousand
+years before Christ; for a sober survey of China's early civilization,
+it is not necessary to push further back than the tenth century B.C.
+We shall find evidence of such an advanced state of civilization at
+that later date as to leave no doubt of a very remote antiquity.
+
+The China of those days, known even then as the Middle Kingdom, was a
+mere patch on the empire of to-day. It lay, almost lozenge-shaped,
+between the 34th and 40th parallels of latitude north, with the upper
+point of the lozenge resting on the modern Peking, and the lower on
+Si-an Fu in Shensi, whither the late Empress Dowager fled for safety
+during the Boxer rising in 1900. The ancient autocratic Imperial
+system had recently been disestablished, and a feudal system had taken
+its place. The country was divided up into a number of vassal states
+of varying size and importance, ruled each by its own baron, who swore
+allegiance to the sovereign of the Royal State. The relations,
+however, which came to subsist, as time went on, between these states,
+sovereign and vassal alike, as described in contemporary annals, often
+remind the reader of the relations which prevailed between the various
+political divisions of ancient Greece. The rivalries of Athens and
+Sparta, whose capitals were only one hundred and fifty miles apart--
+though a perusal of Thucydides makes one feel that at least half the
+world was involved--find their exact equivalent in the jealousies and
+animosities which stirred the feudal states of ancient China, and in
+the disastrous campaigns and bloody battles which the states fought
+with one another. We read of chariots and horsemanship; of feats of
+arms and deeds of individual heroism; of forced marches, and of night
+attacks in which the Chinese soldier was gagged with a kind of wooden
+bit, to prevent talking in the ranks; of territory annexed and
+reconquered, and of the violent deaths of rival rulers by poison or
+the dagger of the assassin.
+
+When the armies of these states went into battle they formed a line,
+with the bowmen on the left and the spearmen on the right flank. The
+centre was occupied by chariots, each drawn by either three or four
+horses harnessed abreast. Swords, daggers, shields, iron-headed clubs
+some five to six feet in length and weighing from twelve to fifteen
+pounds, huge iron hooks, drums, cymbals, gongs, horns, banners and
+streamers innumerable, were also among the equipment of war. Beacon-
+fires of wolves' dung were lighted to announce the approach of an
+enemy and summon the inhabitants to arms. Quarter was rarely if ever
+given, and it was customary to cut the ears from the bodies of the
+slain. Parleys were conducted and terms of peace arranged under the
+shelter of a banner of truce, upon which two words were inscribed--
+"Stop fighting."
+
+The beacon-fires above mentioned, very useful for summoning the feudal
+barons to the rescue in case of need, cost one sovereign his throne.
+He had a beautiful concubine, for the sake of whose company he
+neglected the affairs of government. The lady was of a melancholy
+turn, never being seen to smile. She said she loved the sound of rent
+silk, and to gratify her whim many fine pieces of silk were torn to
+shreds. The king offered a thousand ounces of gold to any one who
+would make her laugh; whereupon his chief minister suggested that the
+beacon-fires should be lighted to summon the feudal nobles with their
+armies, as though the royal house were in danger. The trick succeeded;
+for in the hurry-skurry that ensued the impassive girl positively
+laughed outright. Later on, when a real attack was made upon the
+capital by barbarian hordes, and the beacon-fires were again lighted,
+this time in stern reality, there was no response from the insulted
+nobles. The king was killed, and his concubine strangled herself.
+
+Meanwhile, a high state of civilization was enjoyed by these feudal
+peoples, when not engaged in cutting each other's throats. They lived
+in thatched houses constructed of rammed earth and plaster, with
+beaten floors on which dry grass was strewn as carpet. Originally
+accustomed to sit on mats, they introduced chairs and tables at an
+early date; they drank an ardent spirit with their carefully cooked
+food, and wore robes of silk. Ballads were sung, and dances were
+performed, on ceremonial and festive occasions; hunting and fishing
+and agriculture were occupations for the men, while the women employed
+themselves in spinning and weaving. There were casters of bronze
+vessels, and workers in gold, silver, and iron; jade and other stones
+were cut and polished for ornaments. The written language was already
+highly developed, being much the same as we now find it. Indeed, the
+chief difference lies in the form of the characters, just as an old
+English text differs in form from a text of the present day. What we
+may call the syntax of the language has remained very much the same;
+and phrases from the old ballads of three thousand years ago, which
+have passed into the colloquial, are still readily understood, though
+of course pronounced according to the requirements of modern speech.
+We can no more say how Confucius (551-479 B.C.) pronounced Chinese,
+than we can say how Miltiades pronounced Greek when addressing his
+soldiers before the battle of Marathon (490 B.C.). The "books" which
+were read in ancient China consisted of thin slips of wood or bamboo,
+on which the characters were written by means of a pencil of wood or
+bamboo, slightly frayed at the end, so as to pick up a coloured liquid
+and transfer it to the tablets as required. Until recently, it was
+thought that the Chinese scratched their words on tablets of bamboo
+with a knife, but now we know that the knife was only used for
+scratching out, when a character was wrongly written.
+
+The art of healing was practised among the Chinese in their
+pre-historic times, but the earliest efforts of a methodical
+character, of which we have any written record, belong to the period
+with which we are now dealing. There is indeed a work, entitled "Plain
+Questions," which is attributed to a legendary emperor of the Golden
+Age, who interrogates one of his ministers on the cause and cure of
+all kinds of diseases; as might be expected, it is not of any real
+value, nor can its date be carried back beyond a few centuries B.C.
+
+Physicians of the feudal age classified diseases under the four
+seasons of the year: headaches and neuralgic affections under
+/spring/, skin diseases of all kinds under /summer/, fevers and agues
+under /autumn/, and bronchial and pulmonary complaints under /winter/.
+They treated the various complaints that fell under these headings by
+suitable doses of one or more ingredients taken from the five classes
+of drugs, derived from herbs, trees, living creatures, minerals, and
+grains, each of which class contained medicines of five flavours, with
+special properties: /sour/ for nourishing the bones, /acid/ for
+nourishing the muscles, /salt/ for nourishing the blood-vessels,
+/bitter/ for nourishing general vitality, and /sweet/ for nourishing
+the flesh. The pulse has always been very much to the front in the
+treatment of disease; there are at least twenty-four varieties of
+pulse with which every doctor is supposed to be familiar, and some
+eminent doctors have claimed to distinguish no fewer than seventy-two.
+In the "Plain Questions" there is a sentence which points towards the
+circulation of the blood,--"All the blood is under the jurisdiction of
+the heart," a point beyond which the Chinese never seem to have pushed
+their investigations; but of this curious feature in their
+civilization, later on.
+
+It was under the feudal system, perhaps a thousand years before
+Christ, that the people of China began to possess family names.
+Previous to that time there appear to have been tribal or clan names;
+these however were not in ordinary use among the individual members of
+each clan, who were known by their personal names only, bestowed upon
+them in childhood by their parents. Gradually, it became customary to
+prefix to the personal name a surname, adopted generally from the name
+of the place where the family lived, sometimes from an appellation or
+official title of a distinguished ancestor; places in China never take
+their names from individuals, as with us, and consequently there are
+no such names as Faringdon or Gislingham, the homes of the Fearings or
+Gislings of old. Thus, to use English terms, a boy who had been called
+"Welcome" by his parents might prefix the name of the place,
+Cambridge, where he was born, and call himself Cambridge Welcome, the
+surname always coming first in Chinese, as, for instance, in Li Hung-
+Chang. The Manchus, it must be remembered, have no surnames; that is
+to say, they do not use their clan or family names, but call
+themselves by their personal names only.
+
+Chinese surnames, other than place names, are derived from a variety
+of sources: from nature, as River, Stone, Cave; from animals, as Bear,
+Sheep, Dragon; from birds, as Swallow, Pheasant; from the body, as
+Long-ears, Squint-eye; from colours, as Black, White; from trees and
+flowers, as Hawthorn, Leaf, Reed, Forest; and others, such as Rich,
+East, Sharp, Hope, Duke, Stern, Tepid, Money, etc. By the fifth
+century before Christ, the use of surnames had definitely become
+established for all classes, whereas in Europe surnames were not known
+until about the twelfth century after Christ, and even then were
+confined to persons of wealth and position. There is a small Chinese
+book, studied by every schoolboy and entitled /The Hundred Surnames/,
+the word "hundred" being commonly used in a generally comprehensive
+sense. It actually contains about four hundred of the names which
+occur most frequently.
+
+About two hundred and twenty years before Christ, the feudal system
+came to an end. One aggressive state gradually swallowed up all the
+others; and under the rule of its sovereign, China became once more an
+empire, and such it has ever since remained. But although always an
+empire, the throne, during the past two thousand years, has passed
+many times from one house to another.
+
+The extraordinary man who led his state to victory over each rival in
+turn, and ultimately mounted the throne to rule over a united China,
+finds his best historical counterpart in Napoleon. He called himself
+the First Emperor, and began by sending an army of 300,000 men to
+fight against an old and dreaded enemy to the north, recently
+identified beyond question with the Huns. He dispatched a fleet to
+search for some mysterious islands off the coast, thought by some to
+be the islands which form Japan. He built the Great Wall, to a great
+extent by means of convict labour, malefactors being condemned to long
+terms of penal servitude on the works. His copper coinage was so
+uniformly good that the cowry disappeared altogether from commerce
+during his reign. Above all things he desired 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 determined to destroy all existing books,
+finally deciding to spare those connected with three important
+departments of human knowledge: namely, (1) works which taught the
+people to plough, sow, reap, and provide food for the race; (2) works
+on the use of drugs and on the healing art; and (3) works on the
+various methods of foretelling the future which might lead men to act
+in accordance with, and not in opposition to, the eternal fitness of
+things as seen in the operations of Nature. Stringent orders were
+issued accordingly, and many scholars were put to death for concealing
+books in the hope that the storm would blow over. Numbers of valuable
+works perished in a vast conflagration of books, and the only wonder
+is that any were preserved, with the exception of the three classes
+specified above.
+
+In 210 B.C. the First Emperor died, and his youngest son was placed
+upon the throne with the title of Second Emperor. The latter began by
+carrying out the funeral arrangements of his father, as described
+about a century later by the first and greatest of China's
+historians:--
+
+"On the 9th moon the First Emperor was buried in Mount Li, which in
+the early days of his reign he had caused to be tunnelled and prepared
+with that view. Then, when he had consolidated the empire, he employed
+his soldiery, to the number of 700,000, to bore down to the Three
+Springs (that is, until water was reached), and there a firm
+foundation was laid and the sarcophagus placed thereon. Rare objects
+and costly jewels were collected from the palaces and from the various
+officials, and were carried thither and stored in huge quantities.
+Artificers were ordered to construct mechanical crossbows, which, if
+any one were to enter, would immediately discharge their arrows. With
+the aid of quicksilver, rivers were made--the Yangtsze, the Yellow
+River, and the great ocean--the metal being made to flow from one into
+the other by machinery. On the roof were delineated the constellations
+of the sky, on the floor the geographical divisions of the earth.
+Candles were made from the fat of the man-fish (walrus), calculated to
+last for a very long time. The Second Emperor said: 'It is not fitting
+that the concubines of my late father who are without children should
+leave him now;' and accordingly he ordered them to accompany the dead
+monarch into the next world, those who thus perished being many in
+number. When the internment was completed, some one suggested that the
+workmen who had made the machinery and concealed the treasure knew the
+great value of the latter, and that the secret would leak out.
+Therefore, so soon as the ceremony was over, and the path giving
+access to the sarcophagus had been blocked up at its innermost end,
+the outside gate at the entrance to this path was let fall, and the
+mausoleum was effectually closed, so that not one of the workmen
+escaped. Trees and grass were then planted around, that the spot might
+look like the rest of the mountain."
+
+The career of the Second Emperor finds an apt parallel in that of
+Richard Cromwell, except that the former was put to death, after a
+short and inglorious reign. Then followed a dynasty which has left an
+indelible mark upon the civilization as well as on the recorded
+history of China. A peasant, by mere force of character, succeeded
+after a three-years' struggle in establishing himself upon the throne,
+206 B.C., and his posterity, known as the House of Han, ruled over
+China for four hundred years, accidentally divided into two nearly
+equal portions by the Christian era, about which date there occurred a
+temporary usurpation of the throne which for some time threatened the
+stability of the dynasty in the direct line of succession. To this
+date, the more northern Chinese have no prouder title than that of a
+"son of Han."
+
+During the whole period of four hundred years the empire cannot be
+said to have enjoyed complete tranquillity either at home or abroad.
+There were constant wars with the Tartar tribes on the north, against
+whom the Great Wall proved to be a somewhat ineffectual barrier. Also
+with the Huns, the forbears of the Turks, who once succeeded in
+shutting up the founder of the dynasty in one of his own cities, from
+which he only escaped by a stratagem to be related in another
+connexion. There were in addition wars with Korea, the ultimate
+conquest of which led to the discovery of Japan, then at a low level
+of civilization and unable to enter into official relations with China
+until A.D. 57, when an embassy was sent for the first time. Those who
+are accustomed to think of the Chinese as an eminently unwarlike
+nation will perhaps be surprised to hear that before the end of the
+second century B.C. they had carried their victorious arms far away
+into Central Asia, annexing even the Pamirs and Kokand to the empire.
+The wild tribes of modern Yunnan were reduced to subjection, and their
+territory may further be considered as added from about this period.
+
+At home, the eunuchs gave an immense deal of trouble by their restless
+spirit of intrigue; besides which, for nearly twenty years the
+Imperial power was in the hands of a famous usurper, named Wang Mang
+(pronounced /Wahng Mahng/), who had secured it by the usual means of
+treachery and poison, to lose it on the battle-field and himself to
+perish shortly afterwards in a revolt of his own soldiery. But the
+most remarkable of all events connected with the Han dynasty was the
+extended revival of learning and authorship. Texts of the Confucian
+Canon were rescued from hiding-places in which they had been concealed
+at the risk of death; editing committees were appointed, and immense
+efforts were made to repair the mischief sustained by literature at
+the hands of the First Emperor. The scholars of the day expounded the
+teachings of Confucius as set forth in these texts; and although their
+explanations were set aside in the twelfth century, when an entirely
+new set of interpretations became (and remain) the accepted standard
+for all students, it is mostly due to those early efforts that the
+Confucian Canon has exercised such a deep and lasting influence over
+the minds of the Chinese people. Unfortunately, it soon became the
+fashion to discover old texts, and many works are now in circulation
+which have no claim whatever to the antiquity to which they pretend.
+
+During the four hundred years of Han supremacy the march of
+civilization went steadily forward. Paper and ink were invented, and
+also the camel's-hair brush, both of which gave a great impetus to the
+arts of writing and painting, the latter being still in a very
+elementary stage. The custom of burying slaves with the dead was
+abolished early in the dynasty. The twenty-seven months of mourning
+for parents--nominally three years, as is now again the rule--was
+reduced to a more manageable period of twenty-seven days. Literary
+degrees were first established, and perpetual hereditary rank was
+conferred upon the senior descendant of Confucius in the male line,
+which has continued in unbroken succession down to the present day.
+The head of the Confucian clan is now a duke, and resides in a palace,
+taking rank with, if not before, the highest provincial authorities.
+
+The extended military campaigns in Central Asia during this period
+brought China into touch with Bactria, then an outlying province of
+ancient Greece. From this last source, the Chinese learnt many things
+which are now often regarded as of purely native growth. They imported
+the grape, and made from it a wine which was in use for many
+centuries, disappearing only about two or three hundred years ago.
+Formerly dependent on the sun-dial alone, the Chinese now found
+themselves in possession of the water-clock, specimens of which are
+still to be seen in full working order, whereby the division of the
+day into twelve two-hour periods was accurately determined. The
+calendar was regulated anew, and the science of music was
+reconstructed; in fact, modern Chinese music may be said to
+approximate closely to the music of ancient Greece. Because of the
+difference of scale, Chinese music does not make any appeal to Western
+ears; at any rate, not in the sense in which it appealed to Confucius,
+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.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+LAW AND GOVERNMENT
+
+In the earliest ages of which history professes to take cognizance,
+persons who wished to dispose of their goods were obliged to have
+recourse to barter. By and by shells were adopted as a medium of
+exchange, and then pieces of stamped silk, linen, and deerskin. These
+were followed by circular discs of copper, pierced with a round hole,
+the forerunners of the ordinary copper coins of a century or two
+later, which had square holes, and bore inscriptions, as they still do
+in the present day. Money was also cast in the shape of "knives" and
+of "trouser," by which names specimens of this early coinage (mostly
+fakes) are known to connoisseurs. Some of these were beautifully
+finished, and even inlaid with gold. Early in the ninth century, bills
+of exchange came into use; and from the middle of the twelve century
+paper money became quite common, and is still in general use all over
+China, notes being issued in some places for amounts less even than a
+shilling.
+
+Measures of length and capacity were fixed by the Chinese after an
+exceedingly simple process. The grain of millet, which is fairly
+uniform in size, was taken as the unit of both. Ten of these grains,
+laid end-ways, formed the inch, ten of which made a foot, and ten feet
+a /chang/. The decimal system has always prevailed in China, with one
+curious exception: sixteen ounces make a pound. How this came to be so
+does not appear to be known; but in this case it is the pound which is
+the unit of weight, and not the lower denomination. The word which for
+more than twenty centuries signified "pound" to the Chinese, was
+originally the rude picture of an axe-head; and there is no doubt that
+axe-heads, being all of the same size, were used in weighing
+commodities, and were subsequently split, for convenience's sake, into
+sixteen equal parts, each about one-third heavier than the English
+ounce. For measures of capacity, we must revert to the millet-grain, a
+fixed number of which set the standard for Chinese pints and quarts.
+The result of this rule-of-thumb calculation has been that weights and
+measures vary all over the empire, although there actually exist an
+official foot, pound and pint, as recognized by the Chinese
+government. In one and the same city a tailor's foot will differ from
+a carpenter's foot, an oilman's pint from a spirit-merchant's pint,
+and so on. The final appeal is to local custom.
+
+With the definitive establishment of the monarchy, two hundred years
+before the Christian era, a system of government was inaugurated which
+has proceeded, so far as essentials are concerned, upon almost uniform
+lines down to the present day.
+
+It is an ancient and well-recognized principle in China, that every
+inch of soil belongs to the sovereign; consequently, all land is held
+on consideration of a land-tax payable to the emperor, and so long as
+this tax is forthcoming, the land in question is practically freehold,
+and can be passed by sale from hand to hand for a small conveyancing
+fee to the local authorities who stamp the deeds. Thus, the foreign
+concessions or settlements in China were not sold or parted with in
+any way by the Chinese; they were "leased in perpetuity" so long as
+the ground-rent is paid, and remain for all municipal and such
+purposes under the uncontrolled administration of the nation which
+leased them. The land-tax may be regarded as the backbone of Chinese
+finance; but although nominally collected at a fixed rate, it is
+subject to fluctuations due to bad harvests and like visitations, in
+which cases the tax is accepted at a lower rate, in fact at any rate
+the people can afford to pay.
+
+The salt and other monopolies, together with the customs, also
+contribute an important part of China's revenue. There is the old
+native customs service, with its stations and barriers all over the
+empire, and the foreign customs service, as established at the treaty
+ports only, in order to deal with shipments on foreign vessels trading
+with China. The traditional and well-marked lines of taxation are
+freely accepted by the people; any attempt, however, to increase the
+amounts to be levied, or to introduce new charges of any kind, unless
+duly authorized by the people themselves, would be at once sternly
+resisted. As a matter of fact, the authorities never run any such
+risks. It is customary, when absolutely necessary, and possibly
+desirable, to increase old or to introduce new levies, for the local
+authorities to invite the leading merchants and others concerned to a
+private conference; and only when there is a general consent of all
+parties do the officials venture to put forth proclamations saying
+that such and such a tax will be increased or imposed, as the case may
+be. Any other method may lead to disastrous results. The people refuse
+to pay; and coercion is met at once by a general closing of shops and
+stoppage of trade, or, in more serious cases, by an attack on the
+official residence of the offending mandarin, who soon sees his house
+looted and levelled with the ground. In other words, the Chinese
+people tax themselves.
+
+The nominal form of government, speaking without reference to the new
+constitution which will be dealt with later on, is an irresponsible
+autocracy; its institutions are likewise autocratic in form, but
+democratic in operation. The philosopher, Mencius (372-289 B.C.),
+placed the people first, the gods second, and the sovereign third, in
+the scale of national importance; and this classification has sunk
+deep into the minds of the Chinese during more than two thousand years
+past. What the people in China will not stand is injustice; at the
+same time they will live contentedly under harsh laws which they have
+at one time or another imposed upon themselves.
+
+Each of the great dynasties has always begun with a Penal Code of its
+own, based upon that of the outgoing dynasty, but tending to be more
+and more humane in character as time goes on. The punishments in old
+days were atrocious in their severity; the Penal Code of the present
+dynasty, which came into force some two hundred and fifty years ago,
+has been pronounced by competent judges to take a very high rank
+indeed. It was introduced to replace a much harsher code which had
+been in operation under the Ming dynasty, and contains the nominally
+immutable laws of the empire, with such modifications and restrictions
+as have been authorized from time to time by Imperial edict. Still
+farther back in Chinese history, we come upon punishments of ruthless
+cruelty, such as might be expected to prevail in times of lesser
+culture and refinement. Two thousand years ago, the Five Punishments
+were--branding on the forehead, cutting off the nose, cutting off the
+feet, mutilation, and death; for the past two hundred and fifty years,
+these have been--beating with the light bamboo, beating with the heavy
+bamboo, transportation for a certain period, banishment to a certain
+distance, and death, the last being subdivided into strangling and
+decapitation, according to the gravity of the offence.
+
+Two actual instruments of torture are mentioned, one for compressing
+the ankle-bones, and the other for squeezing the fingers, to be used
+if necessary to extort a confession in charges of robbery and
+homicide, confession being regarded as essential to the completion of
+the record. The application, however, of these tortures is fenced
+round in such a way as to impose great responsibility upon the
+presiding magistrate; and in addition to the risk of official
+impeachment, there is the more dreaded certainty of loss of influence
+and of popular esteem. Mention is made in the code of the so-called
+"lingering death," according to which first one arm is chopped off,
+then the other; the two legs follow in the same way; two slits are
+made on the breast, and the heart is torn out; decapitation finishes
+the proceedings. It is worthy of note that, although many foreigners
+have been present from time to time at public executions, occasionally
+when the "lingering death" has been announced, not one has established
+it as a fact beyond a doubt that such a process has ever been carried
+out. Not only that; it is also well known that condemned criminals are
+allowed to purchase of themselves, or through their friends, if they
+have any, spirits or opium with which to fortify their courage at the
+last moment. There is indeed a tradition that stupefying drinks are
+served out by the officials to the batches of malefactors as they pass
+to the execution ground at Peking. It would still remain to find
+executioners capable of performing in cold blood such a disgusting
+operation as the "lingering death" is supposed to be. The ordinary
+Chinaman is not a fiend; he does not gloat in his peaceful moments,
+when not under the influence of extreme excitement, over bloodshed and
+cruelty.
+
+The generally lenient spirit in which the Penal Code of China was
+conceived is either widely unknown, or very often ignored. For
+instance, during the excessive summer heats certain punishments are
+mitigated, and others remitted altogether. Prompt surrender and
+acknowledgment of an offence, before it is otherwise discovered,
+entitles the offender, with some exceptions, to a full and free
+pardon; as also does restitution of stolen property to its owner by a
+repentant thief; while a criminal guilty of two or more offences can
+be punished only to the extent of the principal charge. Neither are
+the near relatives, nor even the servants, of a guilty man, punishable
+for concealing his crime and assisting him to escape. Immense
+allowances are made for the weakness of human nature, in all of which
+may be detected the tempering doctrines of the great Sage. A feudal
+baron was boasting to Confucius that in his part of the country the
+people were so upright that a son would give evidence against a father
+who had stolen a sheep. "With us," replied Confucius, "the father
+screens the son, and the son screens the father; that is real
+uprightness." To another questioner, a man in high authority, who
+complained of the number of thieves, the Master explained that this
+was due to the greed of the upper classes. "But for this greed," he
+added, "even if you paid people to steal, they would not do so." To
+the same man, who inquired his views on capital punishment, Confucius
+replied: "What need is there for capital punishment at all? If your
+aims are worthy, the people also will be worthy."
+
+There are many other striking features of the Penal Code. No marriage,
+for instance, may be contracted during the period of mourning for
+parents, which in theory extends to three full years, but in practice
+is reckoned at twenty-seven months; neither may musical instruments be
+played by near relatives of the dead. During the same period, no
+mandarin may hold office, but must retire into private life; though
+the observance of this rule is often dispensed with in the case of
+high officials whose presence at their posts may be of considerable
+importance. In such cases, by special grace of the emperor, the period
+of retirement is cut down to three months, or even to one.
+
+The death of an emperor is followed by a long spell of national
+tribulation. For one hundred days no man may have his head shaved, and
+no woman may wear head ornaments. For twelve months there may be no
+marrying or giving in marriage among the official classes, a term
+which is reduced to one hundred days for the public at large. The
+theatres are supposed to remain closed for a year, but in practice
+they shut only for one hundred days. Even thus great hardships are
+entailed upon many classes of the community, especially upon actors
+and barbers, who might be in danger of actual starvation but for the
+common-sense of their rulers coupled with the common rice-pot at home.
+
+The law forbidding marriage between persons of the same surname is
+widely, but not universally, in operation. No Smith may marry a Smith;
+no Jones may marry a Jones; the reason of course being that all of the
+same surname are regarded as members of the same family. However,
+there are large districts in certain parts of China where the people
+are one and all of the surname, and where it would be a great hardship
+--not to mention the impossibility of enforcing the law--if
+intermarriages of the kind were prohibited. Consequently, they are
+allowed, but only if the contracting parties are so distantly related
+that, according to the legal table of affinity, they would not wear
+mourning for one another in case of death--in other words, not related
+at all. The line of descent is now traced through the males, but there
+is reason to believe that in early days, as is found to be often the
+case among uncivilized tribes, the important, because more easily
+recognizable, parent was the mother. Thus it is illegal for first
+cousins of the same surname to marry, and legal if the surnames are
+different; in the latter case, however, centuries of experience have
+taught the Chinese to frown upon such unions as undesirable in the
+extreme.
+
+The Penal Code forbids water burial, and also cremation; but it is
+permitted to the children of a man dying at a great distance to
+consume their father's corpse with fire if positively unable to bring
+it back for ordinary burial in his native district. The idea is that
+with the aid of fire immediate communication is set up with the
+spirit-world, and that the spirit of the deceased is thus enabled to
+reach his native place, which would be impossible were the corpse to
+remain intact. Hence the horror of dying abroad, common to all
+Chinese, and only faced if there is a reasonable probability that
+their remains will be carried back to the ancestral home.
+
+In spite of the above law, the cremation of Buddhist priests is
+universal, and the practice is tolerated without protest. Priests who
+are getting on in years, or who are stricken with a mortal disease,
+are compelled by rule to move into a certain part of their monastery,
+known as the Abode of a Long Old Age, in which they are required--not
+to die, for death does not come to a good priest, but--to enter into
+Nirvana, which is a sublime state of conscious freedom from all mental
+and physical disturbance, not to be adequately described in words. At
+death, the priest is placed in a chair, his chin supported by a
+crutch, and then put into a wooden box, which on the appointed day is
+carried in procession, with streaming banners, through the monastery,
+and out into the cremation-ground attached, his brother priests
+chanting all the while that portion of the Buddhist liturgies set
+apart as the service for the dead, but which being in Pali, not a
+single one of them can understand. There have, of course, been many
+highly educated priests at one time and another during the long reign
+of Buddhism in China; but it is safe to say that they are no longer to
+be met with in the present day. The Buddhist liturgies have been
+written out in Chinese characters which reproduce the sounds of the
+original Indian language, and these the priests learn by heart without
+understanding a word of their meaning. The box with the dead man in it
+is now hoisted to the top of a funeral pyre, which has been well
+drenched with oil, and set alight; and when the fire has burnt out,
+the ashes are reverently collected and placed in an urn, which is
+finally deposited in a mausoleum kept for that purpose.
+
+Life is remarkably safe in China. No man can be executed until his
+name has been submitted to the emperor, which of course means to his
+ministers at the capital. The Chinese, however, being, as has been so
+often stated, an eminently practical people, understand that certain
+cases admit of no delay; and to prevent the inevitable lynching of
+such criminals as kidnappers, rebels, and others, caught red-handed,
+high officials are entrusted with the power of life and death, which
+they can put into immediate operation, always taking upon themselves
+full responsibility for their acts. The essential is to allay any
+excitement of the populace, and to preserve the public peace.
+
+In the general administration of the law great latitude is allowed,
+and injustice is rarely inflicted by a too literal interpretation of
+the Code. Stealing is of course a crime, yet no Chinese magistrate
+would dream of punishing a hungry man for simple theft of food, even
+if such a case were ever brought into court. Cake-sellers keep a sharp
+eye on their wares; farmers and market-gardeners form associates for
+mutual protection, and woe to the thief who gets caught--his
+punishment is short and sharp. Litigation is not encouraged, even by
+such facilities as ought to be given to persons suffering wrongs;
+there is no bar, or legal profession, and persons who assist
+plaintiffs or defendants in the conduct of cases, are treated with
+scant courtesy by the presiding magistrate and are lucky if they get
+off with nothing worse. The majority of commercial cases come before
+the guilds, and are settled without reference to the authorities. The
+ordinary Chinese dread a court of justice, as a place in which both
+parties manage to lose something. "It is not the big devil," according
+to the current saying, "but the little devils" who frighten the suitor
+away. This is because official servants receive no salary, but depend
+for their livelihood on perquisites and tips; and the Chinese suitor,
+who is a party to the system, readily admits that it is necessary "to
+sprinkle a little water."
+
+Neither do any officials in China, high or low, receive salaries,
+although absurdly inadequate sums are allocated by the Government for
+that purpose, for which it is considered prudent not to apply. The
+Chinese system is to some extent the reverse of our own. Our officials
+collect money and pay it into the Treasury, from which source fixed
+sums are returned to them as salaries. In China, the occupants of
+petty posts collect revenue in various ways, as taxes or fees, pay
+themselves as much as they dare, and hand up the balance to a superior
+officer, who in turn pays himself in the same sense, and again hands
+up the balance to his superior officer. When the viceroy of a province
+is reached, he too keeps what he dares, sending up to the Imperial
+exchequer in Peking just enough to satisfy the powers above him. There
+is thus a continual check by the higher grade upon the lower, but no
+check on such extortion as might be practised upon the tax-payer. The
+tax-payer sees to that himself. Speaking generally, it may be said
+that this system, in spite of its unsatisfactory character, works
+fairly well. Few officials overstep the limits which custom has
+assigned to their posts, and those who do generally come to grief. So
+that when the dishonesty of the Chinese officials is held up to
+reprobation, it should always be remembered that the financial side of
+their public service is not surrounded with such formalities and
+safeguards as to make robbery of public money difficult, if not almost
+impossible. It is, therefore, all the more cheering when we find, as
+is frequently the case, retiring or transferred mandarins followed by
+the good wishes and affection of the people over whom they have been
+set to rule.
+
+Until quite recently, there has been no such thing in China as
+municipal administration and rating, and even now such methods are
+only being tentatively introduced in large cities where there are a
+number of foreign residents. Occupants of houses are popularly
+supposed to "sweep the snow from their own doorsteps," but the repair
+of roads, bridges, drains, etc., has always been left to the casual
+philanthropy of wealthy individuals, who take these opportunities of
+satisfying public opinion in regard to the obligations of the rich
+towards the poor. Consequently, Chinese cities are left without
+efficient lighting, draining, or scavengering; and it is astonishing
+how good the health of the people living under these conditions can
+be. There is no organized police force; but cities are divided into
+wards, and at certain points barriers are drawn across the streets at
+night, with perhaps one watchman to each. It is not considered
+respectable to be out late at night, and it is not safe to move about
+without a lantern, which is carried, for those who can afford the
+luxury, by a servant preceding them.
+
+One difference between life in China and life in this country may be
+illustrated to a certain extent in the following way. Supposing a
+traveller, passing through an English village, to be hit on the head
+by a stone. Unless he can point out his assailant, the matter is at an
+end. In China, all the injured party has to do is to point out the
+village--or, if a town, the ward--in which he was assaulted. Then the
+headman of such town or ward is summoned before the authorities and
+fined, proportionately to the offence, for allowing rowdy behaviour in
+his district. The headman takes good care that he does not pay the
+fine himself. In the same way, parents are held responsible for the
+acts of their children, and householders for those of their servants.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+RELIGION AND SUPERSTITION
+
+The Chinese are emphatically not a religious people, though they are
+very superstitious. Belief in a God has come down from the remotest
+ages, but the old simple creed has been so overlaid by Buddhism as not
+to be discernible at the present day. Buddhism is now the dominant
+religion of China. It is closely bound up with the lives of the
+people, and is a never-failing refuge in sickness or worldly trouble.
+It is no longer the subtle doctrine which was originally presented to
+the people of India, but something much more clearly defined and
+appreciable by the plainest intellect. Buddha is the saviour of the
+people through righteousness alone, and Buddhist saints are popularly
+supposed to possess intercessory powers. Yet reverence is always
+wanting; and crowds will laugh and talk, and buy and sell sweetmeats,
+in a Buddhist temple, before the very eyes of the most sacred images.
+So long as divine intervention is not required, an ordinary Chinaman
+is content to neglect his divinities; but no sooner does sickness or
+financial trouble come upon the family, than he will hurry off to
+propitiate the gods.
+
+He accomplishes this through the aid of the priests, who receive his
+offerings of money, and light candles or incense at the shrine of the
+deity to be invoked. Buddhist priests are not popular with the
+Chinese, who make fun of their shaven heads, and doubt the sincerity
+of their convictions as well as the purity of their lives. "No meat
+nor wine may enter here" is a legend inscribed at the gate of most
+Buddhist temples, the ordinary diet as served in the refectory being
+strictly vegetarian. A tipsy priest, however, is not an altogether
+unheard-of combination, and has provided more than one eminent artist
+with a subject of an interesting picture.
+
+Yet the ordeal through which a novice must pass before being admitted
+to holy orders is a severe tax upon nerve and endurance. In the
+process of a long ritual, at least three, or even so many as nine,
+pastilles are placed upon the bald scalp of the head. These are then
+lighted, and allowed to burn down into the skin until permanent scars
+have been formed, the unfortunate novice being supported on both sides
+by priests who encourage him all the time to bear what must be
+excruciating pain. The fully qualified priest receives a diploma, on
+the strength of which he may demand a day and a night's board and
+lodging from the priests of any temple all over the empire.
+
+At a very early date Buddhism had already taken a firm hold on the
+imagination of Chinese poets and painters, the latter of whom loved to
+portray the World-honoured One in a dazzling hue of gold. A poet of
+the eighth century A.D., who realized for the first time the inward
+meaning of the Law, as it is called, ended a panegyric on Buddhism
+with the following lines:--
+
+  O thou pure Faith, had I but known thy scope,
+  The Golden God had long since been my hope!
+
+Taoism is a term often met with in books about China. We are told that
+the three religions of the people are Confucianism, Buddhism, and
+Taoism, this being the order of precedence assigned to them in A.D.
+568. Confucianism is of course not a religion at all, dealing as it
+does with duty towards one's neighbour and the affairs of this life
+only; and it will be seen that Taoism, in its true sense, has scarcely
+a stronger claim. At a very remote day, some say a thousand, and
+others six hundred, years before the Christian era, there flourished a
+wise man named Lao Tzu, which may be approximately pronounced as
+/Loudza/ (/ou/ as in /loud/), and understood to mean the Old
+Philosopher. He was a very original thinker, and a number of his
+sayings have been preserved to us by ancient authors, whom they had
+reached by tradition; that is to say, the Old Philosopher never put
+his doctrines into book form. There is indeed in existence a work
+which passes under his name, but it is now known to be a forgery, and
+is generally discarded by scholars.
+
+The great flaw in the teaching of the Old Philosopher was its
+extremely impractical character, its unsuitability to the needs of men
+and women engaged in the ordinary avocations of life. In one sense he
+was an Anarchist, for he held that the empire would fare better if
+there were no government at all, the fact being that violence and
+disorder had always been conspicuous even under the best rulers.
+Similarly, he argued that we should get along more profitably with
+less learning, because then there would be fewer thieves, successful
+thieving being the result of mental training. It is not necessary to
+follow him to his most famous doctrine, namely, that of doing nothing,
+by which means, he declared, everything could be done, the solution of
+which puzzle of left everybody to find out for himself. Among his
+quaint sayings will be found several maxims of a very different class,
+as witness his injunction, "Requite evil with kindness," and "Mighty
+is he who conquers himself." Of the latter, the following illustration
+is given by a commentator. Two men meeting in the street, one said to
+the other, "How fat you have grown!" "Yes," replied his friend, "I
+have lately won a battle." "What do you mean?" inquired the former.
+"Why, you see," said the latter, "so long as I was at home, reading
+about ancient kings, I admired nothing but virtue; then, when I went
+out of doors, I was attracted by the charms of wealth and power. These
+two feelings fought inside me, and I began to lose flesh; but now love
+of virtue has conquered, and I am fat."
+
+The teachings of the Old Philosopher were summed up in the word /Tao/,
+pronounced as /tou(t)/, which originally meant a road, a way; and as
+applied to doctrines means simply the right way or path of moral
+conduct, in which mankind should tread so as to lead correct and
+virtuous lives. Later on, when Buddhism was introduced, this Taoism,
+with all its paradoxes and subtleties, to which alchemy and the
+concoction of an elixir of life had been added, gradually began to
+lose its hold upon the people; and in order to stem the tide of
+opposition, temples and monasteries were built, a priesthood was
+established in imitation of the Buddhists, and all kinds of ceremonies
+and observances were taken from Buddhism, until, at the present day,
+only those who know can tell one from the other.
+
+Although alchemy, which was introduced from Greece, via Bactria, in
+the second century B.C., has long ceased to interest the Chinese
+public, who have found out that gold is more easily made from the
+sweat of the brow than from copper or lead; and although only a few
+silly people now believe that any mixture of drugs will produce an
+elixir of life, able to confer immortality upon those who drink it;
+nevertheless, Taoism still professes to teach the art of extending
+life, if not indefinitely, at any rate to a considerable length. This
+art would probably go some way towards extending life under any
+circumstances, for it consists chiefly in deep and regular breathing,
+preferably of morning air, in swallowing the saliva three times in
+every two hours, in adopting certain positions for the body and limbs,
+which are also strengthened by gymnastic exercises, and finally, as
+borrowed from the Buddhists, in remaining motionless for some hours a
+day, the eyes shut, and the mind abstracted as much as possible from
+all surrounding influences. The upshot of these and other practices is
+the development of "the pure man," on which Chuang Tzu (/Chwongdza/),
+a Taoist philosopher of the third and fourth centuries B.C., to be
+mentioned again, writes as follows: "But what is a pure man? The pure
+men of old acted without calculation, not seeking to secure results.
+They laid no plans. Therefore, failing, they had no cause for regret;
+succeeding, no cause for congratulation. And thus they could scale
+heights without fear; enter water without becoming wet, and fire
+without feeling hot. The pure men of old slept without dreams, and
+waked without anxiety. They ate without discrimination, breathing deep
+breaths. For pure men draw breath from their heels; the vulgar only
+from their throats."
+
+Coupled with what may be called intellectual Taoism, as opposed to the
+grosser form under which this faith appeals to the people at large, is
+a curious theory that human life reaches the earth from some
+extraordinarily dazzling centre away in the depths of space, "beyond
+the range of conceptions." This centre appears to be the home of
+eternal principles, the abode of a First Cause, where perfectly
+spotless and pure beings "drink of the spiritual and feed on force,"
+and where likeness exists without form. To get back to that state
+should be the object of all men, and this is only to be attained by a
+process of mental and physical purification prolonged through all
+conditions of existence. Then, when body and soul are fitted for the
+change, there comes what ordinary mortals call death; and the pure
+being closes his eyes, to awake forthwith in his original glory from
+the sleep which mortals call life.
+
+For many centuries Buddhism and Taoism were in bitter antagonism.
+Sometimes the court was Buddhist, sometimes Taoist; first one faith
+was suppressed altogether, then the other; in A.D. 574 both were
+abolished in deference to Confucianism, which, however, no emperor has
+ever dared to interfere with seriously. At present, all the "three
+religions" flourish happily side by side.
+
+The Chinese believe firmly in the existence of spirits, which they
+classify simply as good and evil. They do not trouble their heads much
+about the former, but they are terribly afraid of the latter. Hideous
+devils infest dark corners, and lie in wait to injure unfortunate
+passers-by, often for no cause whatever. The spirits of persons who
+have been wronged are especially dreaded by those who have done the
+wrong. A man who has been defrauded of money will commit suicide,
+usually by poison, at the door of the wrongdoer, who will thereby
+first fall into the hands of the authorities, and if he escapes in
+that quarter, will still have to count with the injured ghost of his
+victim. A daughter-in-law will drown or hang herself to get free from,
+and also to avenge, the tyranny or cruelty of her husband's mother.
+These acts lead at once to family feuds, which sometimes end in
+bloodshed; more often in money compensation; and the known risk of
+such contingencies operates as a wholesome check upon aggressive
+treatment of the weak by the strong.
+
+Divination and fortune-telling have always played a conspicuous part
+in ordinary Chinese life. Wise men, of the magician type, sit at
+stalls in street and market-place, ready for a small fee to advise
+those who consult them on any enterprise to be undertaken, even of the
+most trivial kind. The omens can be taken in various ways, as by
+calculation based upon books, of which there is quite a literature, or
+by drawing lots inscribed with mystic signs, to be interpreted by the
+fortune-teller. Even at Buddhist temples may be found two kidney-
+shaped pieces of wood, flat on one side and round on the other, which
+are thrown into the air before an altar, the results--two flats, two
+rounds, or one of each--being interpreted as unfavourable, medium, and
+very favourable, respectively.
+
+Of all Chinese superstitions, the one that has been most persistent,
+and has exerted the greatest influence upon national life, is the
+famous Wind-and-Water system (/feng shui/) of geomancy. According to
+the principles which govern this system, and of which quite a special
+literature exists, the good or evil fortunes of individuals and the
+communities are determined by the various physical aspects and
+conditions which surround their everyday life. The shapes of hills,
+the presence or absence of water, the position of trees, the height of
+buildings, and so forth, are all matters of deep consideration to the
+professors of the geomantic art, who thrive on the ignorance of
+superstitious clients. They are called in to select propitious sites
+for houses and graves; and it often happens that if the fortunes of a
+family are failing, a geomancer will be invited to modify in some way
+the arrangement of the ancestral graveyard. Houses in a Chinese street
+are never built up so as to form a line of uniform height; every now
+and again one house must be a little higher or a little lower than its
+neighbour, or calamity will certainly ensue. It is impossible to walk
+straight into an ordinary middle-class dwelling-house. Just inside the
+front door there will be a fixed screen, which forces the visitor to
+turn to the right or to the left; the avowed object being to exclude
+evil spirits, which can only move in straight lines.
+
+Mention of the ancestral graveyard brings to mind the universal
+worship of ancestors, which has been from time immemorial such a
+marked feature of Chinese religious life. At death, the spirit of a
+man or woman is believed to remain watching over the material
+interests of the family to which the deceased had belonged. Offerings
+of various kinds, including meat and drink, are from time to time made
+to such a spirit, supposed to be particularly resident in an ancestral
+hall--or cupboard, as the case may be. These offerings are made for
+the special purpose of conciliating the spirit, and of obtaining in
+return a liberal share of the blessings and good things of this life.
+This is the essential feature of the rite, and this it is which makes
+the rite an act of worship pure and simple; so that only superficial
+observers could make the mistake of classifying ancestral worship, as
+practised in China, with such acts as laying wreaths upon the tombs of
+deceased friends and relatives.
+
+With reference to the spirit or soul, the Chinese have held for
+centuries past that the soul of every man is twofold; in a popular
+acceptation it is sometimes regarded as threefold. One portion is that
+which expresses the visible personality, and is permanently attached
+to the body; the other has the power of leaving the body, carrying
+with it an appearance of physical form, which accounts for a person
+being seen in two different places at once. Cases of catalepsy or
+trance are explained by the Chinese as the absence from the body of
+this portion of the soul, which is also believed to be expelled from
+the body by any violent shock or fright. There is a story of a man who
+was so terrified at the prospect of immediate execution that his
+separable soul left his body, and he found himself sitting on the
+eaves of a house, from which point he could see a man bound, and
+waiting for the executioner's sword. Just then, a reprieve arrived,
+and in a moment he was back again in his body. Mr. Edmund Gosse, who
+can hardly have been acquainted with the Chinese view, told a similar
+story in his /Father and Son/: "During morning and evening prayers,
+which were extremely lengthy and fatiguing, I fancied that one of my
+two selves could flit up, and sit clinging to the cornice, and look
+down on my other self and the rest of us."
+
+In some parts of China, planchette is frequently resorted to as a
+means of reading the future, and adapting one's actions accordingly.
+It is a purely professional performance, being carried through
+publicly before some altar in a temple, and payment made for the
+response. The question is written down on a piece of paper, which is
+burnt at the altar apparently before any one could gather knowledge of
+its contents; and the answer from the god is forthwith traced on a
+tray of sand, word by word, each word being obliterated to make room
+for the next, by two men, supposed to be ignorant of the question, who
+hold the ends of a V-shaped instrument from the point of which a
+little wooden pencil projects at right angles.
+
+Another method of extracting information from the spirits of the
+unseen world is nothing more or less than hypnotism, which has long
+been known to the Chinese, and is mentioned in literature so far back
+as the middle of the seventeenth century. With all the paraphernalia
+of altar, candles, incense, etc., a medium is thrown into a hypnotic
+condition, during which his body is supposed to be possessed by a
+spirit, and every word he may utter to be divinely inspired. An
+amusing instance is recorded of a medium who, while under hypnotic
+influence, not only blurted out the pecuniary defalcations of certain
+men who had been collecting in aid of temple restoration, but went so
+far as to admit that he had had some of the money himself.
+
+This same influence is also used in cases of serious illness, but
+always secretly, for such practices, as well as dark /seances/ for
+communicating with spirits, are strictly forbidden by the Chinese
+authorities, who regard the employment of occult means as more likely
+to be subversive of morality than to do any good whatever to a sick
+person, or to any one else. All secret societies of any sort or kind
+are equally under the ban of the law, the assumption--a very
+justifiable one--being that the aim of these societies is to upset the
+existing order of political and social life. The Heaven-and-Earth
+Society is among the most famous, and the most dreaded, partly perhaps
+because it has never been entirely suppressed. The lodges of this
+fraternity, the oath of fidelity, and the ceremonial of admission,
+remind one forcibly of Masonry in the West; but the points of conduct
+are merely coincidences, and there does not appear to be any real
+connexion.
+
+Among the most curious of all these institutions is the Golden Orchid
+Society, the girl-members of which swear never to marry, and not only
+threaten, but positively commit suicide upon any attempt at coercion.
+At one time this society became such a serious menace that the
+authorities were compelled to adopt severe measures of repression.
+
+Another old-established society is that of the Vegetarians, who eat no
+meat and neither smoke nor drink. From their seemingly harmless ranks
+it is said that the Boxers of 1900 were largely recruited.
+
+For nearly twenty-five centuries the Chinese have looked to Confucius
+for their morals. Various religions have appealed to the spiritual
+side of the Chinese mind, and Buddhism has obtained an ascendancy
+which will not be easily displaced; but through all this long lapse of
+time the morality of China has been under the guidance of their great
+teacher, Confucius (551-479 B.C.), affectionately known to them as the
+"uncrowned king," and recently raised to the rank of a god.
+
+His doctrines, in the form sometimes of maxims, sometimes of answers
+to eager inquirers, were brought together after his death--we do not
+know exactly how soon--and have influenced first and last an enormous
+proportion of the human race. Confucius taught man's duty to his
+neighbour; he taught virtue for virtue's sake, and not for the hope of
+reward or fear of punishment; he taught loyalty to the sovereign as
+the foundation stone of national prosperity, and filial piety as the
+basis of all happiness in the life of the people. As a simple human
+moralist he saw clearly the limitations of humanity, and refused to
+teach his disciples to return good for evil, as suggested by the Old
+Philosopher, declaring without hesitation that evil should be met by
+justice. The first systematic writer of Chinese history, who died
+about 80 B.C., expressed himself on the position and influence of
+Confucius in terms which have been accepted as accurate for twenty
+centuries past: "Countless are the princes and prophets that the world
+has seen in its time--glorious in life, forgotten in death. But
+Confucius, though only a humble member of the cotton-clothed masses,
+remains with us after numerous generations. He is the model for such
+as would be wise. By all, from the Son of Heaven down to the meanest
+student, the supremacy of his principles is freely and fully admitted.
+He may indeed be pronounced the divinest of men."
+
+The Son of Heaven is of course the Emperor, who is supposed to be
+God's chosen representative on earth, and responsible for the right
+conduct and well-being of all committed to his care. Once every year
+he proceeds in state to the Temple of Heaven at Peking; and after the
+due performance of sacrificial worship he enters alone the central
+raised building with circular blue-tiled roof, and there places
+himself in communication with the Supreme Being, submitting for
+approval or otherwise his stewardship during the preceding twelve
+months. Chinese records go so far as to mention letters received from
+God. There is a legend of the sixth century A.D., which claims that
+God revealed Himself to a hermit in a retired valley, and bestowed on
+him a tablet of jade with a mysterious inscription. But there is a
+much more circumstantial account of a written communication which in
+A.D. 1008 descended from heaven upon mount T'ai, the famous mountain
+in Shantung, where a temple has been built to mark the very spot. The
+emperor and his courtiers regarded this letter with profound reverence
+and awe, which roused the ire of a learned statesman of the day. The
+latter pointed out that Confucius, when asked to speak, so that his
+disciples might have something to record, had bluntly replied: "Does
+God speak? The four seasons pursue their courses and all things are
+produced; but does God say anything?" Therefore, he argued, if God
+does not speak to us, still less will He write a letter.
+
+The fact that the receipt of such a letter is mentioned in the
+dynastic history of the period must not be allowed to discredit in any
+way the general truth and accuracy of Chinese annals, which, as
+research progresses, are daily found to be far more trustworthy than
+was ever expected to be the case. We ourselves do not wholly reject
+the old contemporary chronicles of Hoveden and Roger of Wendover
+because they mention a letter from Christ on the neglect of the
+Sabbath.
+
+In Chinese life, social and political alike, filial piety may be
+regarded as the keystone of the arch. Take that away, and the
+superstructure of centuries crumbles to the ground. When Confucius was
+asked by one of his disciples to explain what constituted filial
+piety, he replied that it was a difficult obligation to define; while
+to another disciple he was able to say without hesitation that the
+mere support of parents would be insufficient, inasmuch as food is
+what is supplied even to horses and dogs. According to the story-books
+for children, the obligation has been interpreted by the people at
+large in many different ways. The twenty-four standard examples of
+filial children include a son who allowed mosquitoes to feed upon him,
+and did not drive them away lest they should go and annoy his parents;
+another son who wept so passionately because he could procure no
+bamboo shoots for his mother that the gods were touched, and up out of
+the ground came some shoots which he gathered and carried home;
+another who when carrying buckets of water would slip and fall on
+purpose, in order to make his parents laugh; and so on. No wonder that
+Confucius found filial piety beyond his powers of definition.
+
+Now for a genuine example. There is a very wonderful novel in which a
+very affecting love-story is worked out to a terribly tragic
+conclusion. The heroine, a beautiful and fascinating girl, finally
+dies of consumption, and the hero, a wayward but none the less
+fascinating youth, enters the Buddhist priesthood. A lady, the mother
+of a clever young official, was so distressed by the pathos of the
+tale that she became quite ill, and doctors prescribed medicines in
+vain. At length, when things were becoming serious, the son set to
+work and composed a sequel to this novel, in which he resuscitated the
+heroine and made the lovers happy by marriage; and in a short time he
+had the intense satisfaction of seeing his mother restored to health.
+
+Other forms of filial piety, which bear no relation whatever to the
+fanciful fables given above, are commonly practised by all classes. In
+consequence of the serious or prolonged illness of parents, it is very
+usual for sons and daughters to repair to the municipal temple and
+pray that a certain number of years may be cut off their own span of
+life and added to that of the sick parents in question.
+
+Let us now pause to take stock of some of the results which have
+accrued from the operation and influence of Confucianism during such a
+long period, and over such swarming myriads of the human race. It is a
+commonplace in the present day to assert that the Chinese are
+hardworking, thrifty, and sober--the last-mentioned, by the way, in a
+land where drunkenness is not regarded as a crime. Shallow observers
+of the globe-trotter type, who have had their pockets picked by
+professional thieves in Hong-Kong, and even resident observers who
+have not much cultivated their powers of observation and comparison,
+will assert that honesty is a virtue denied to the Chinese; but those
+who have lived long in China and have more seriously devoted
+themselves to discover the truth, may one and all be said to be
+arrayed upon the other side. The amount of solid honesty to be met
+with in every class, except the professionally criminal class, is
+simply astonishing. That the word of the Chinese merchant is as good
+as his bond has long since become a household word, and so it is in
+other walks of life. With servants from respectable families, the
+householder need have no fear for his goods. "Be loyal," says the
+native maxim, "to the master whose rice you eat;" and this maxim is
+usually fulfilled to the letter. Hence, it is that many foreigners who
+have been successful in their business careers, take care to see, on
+their final departure from the East, that the old and faithful
+servant, often of twenty to thirty years' standing, shall have some
+provision for himself and his family. In large establishments,
+especially banks, in which great interests are at stake, it is
+customary for the Chinese staff to be guaranteed by some wealthy man
+(or firm), who deposits securities for a considerable amount, thus
+placing the employer in a very favourable position. The properly
+chosen Chinese servant who enters the household of a foreigner, is a
+being to whom, as suggested above, his master often becomes deeply
+attached, and whom he parts with, often after many years of service,
+to his everlasting regret. Such a servant has many virtues. He is
+noiseless over his work, which he performs efficiently. He can stay up
+late, and yet rise early. He lives on the establishment, but in an
+out-building. He provides his own food. He rarely wants to absent
+himself, and even then will always provide a reliable /locum tenens/.
+He studies his master's ways, and learns to anticipate his slightest
+wishes. In return for these and other services he expects to get his
+wages punctually paid, and to be allowed to charge, without any notice
+being taken of the same, a commission on all purchases. This is the
+Chinese system, and even a servant absolutely honest in any other way
+cannot emancipate himself from its grip. But if treated fairly, he
+will not abuse his chance. One curious feature of the system is that
+if one master is in a relatively higher position than another, the
+former will be charged by his servants slightly more than the latter
+by his servants for precisely the same article. Many attempts have
+been made by foreigners to break through this "old custom," especially
+by offering higher wages; but signal failure has always been the
+result, and those masters have invariably succeeded best who have
+fallen in with the existing institution, and have tried to make the
+best of it.
+
+There is one more, and in many ways the most important, side of a
+Chinese servant's character. He will recognize frankly, and without a
+pang, the superior position and the rights of his master; but at the
+same time, if worth keeping, he will exact from his master the proper
+respect due from man to man. It is wholly beside the mark to say that
+he will not put up for a moment with the cuffs and kicks so freely
+administered to his Indian colleague. A respectable Chinese servant
+will often refuse to remain with a master who uses abusive or violent
+language, or shows signs of uncontrollable temper. A lucrative place
+is as nothing compared with the "loss of face" which he would suffer
+in the eyes of his friends; in other words, with his loss of dignity
+as a man. If a servant will put up with a blow, the best course is to
+dismiss him at once, as worthless and unreliable, if not actually
+dangerous. Confucius said: "If you mistrust a man, do not employ him;
+if you employ a man, do not mistrust him;" and this will still be
+found to be an excellent working rule in dealings with Chinese
+servants.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+A.D. 220-1200
+
+The long-lived and glorious House of Han was brought to a close by the
+usual causes. There were palace intrigues and a temporary usurpation
+of the throne, eunuchs of course being in the thick of the mischief;
+added to which a very serious rebellion broke out, almost as a natural
+consequence. First and last there arose three aspirants to the
+Imperial yellow, which takes the place of purple in ancient Rome; the
+result being that, after some years of hard fighting, China was
+divided into three parts, each ruled by one of the three rivals. The
+period is known in history as that of the Three Kingdoms, and lasted
+from A.D. 220 to A.D. 265. This short space of time was filled,
+especially the early years, with stirring deeds of heroism and
+marvellous strategical operations, fortune favouring first one of the
+three commanders and then another. The whole story of these civil wars
+is most graphically told in a famous historical romance composed about
+a thousand years afterwards. As in the case of the Waverley novels, a
+considerable amount of fiction has been interwoven with truth to make
+the narrative more palatable to the general reader; but its basis is
+history, and the work is universally regarded among the Chinese
+themselves as one of the most valuable productions in the lighter
+branches of their literature.
+
+The three to four centuries which follow on the above period were a
+time of political and social disorganisation, unfavourable, according
+to Chinese writers, to the development of both literature and art. The
+House of Chin, which at first held sway over a once more united
+empire, was severely harassed by the Tartars on the north, who were in
+turn overwhelmed by the House of Toba. The latter ruled for some two
+hundred years over northern China, while the southern portions were
+governed by several short-lived native dynasties. A few points in
+connexion with these times deserve perhaps brief mention.
+
+The old rule of twenty-seven months of mourning for parents was
+re-established, and has continued in force down to the present day.
+The Japanese sent occasional missions, with tribute; and the Chinese,
+who had already in A.D. 240 dispatched an envoy to Japan, repeated the
+compliment in 608. An attempt was made to conquer Korea, and envoys
+were sent to countries as far off as Siam. Buddhism, which had been
+introduced many centuries previously--no one can exactly say when--
+began to spread far and wide, and appeared to be firmly established.
+In A.D. 399 a Buddhist priest, named Fa Hsien, started from Central
+China and travelled to India across the great desert and over the
+Hindu Kush, subsequently visiting Patna, Benares, Buddha-Gaya, and
+other well-known spots, which he accurately described in the record of
+his journey published on his return and still in existence. His object
+was to obtain copies of the sacred books, relics and images,
+illustrative of the faith; and these he safely conveyed to China by
+sea from India, via Ceylon (where he spent three years), and Sumatra,
+arriving after an absence of fifteen years.
+
+In the year A.D. 618 the House of T'ang entered upon its glorious
+course of three centuries in duration. Under a strong but dissolute
+ruler immediately preceding, China had once more become a united
+empire, undivided against itself; and although wars and rebellions
+were not wanting to disturb the even tenor of its way, the general
+picture presented to us under the new dynasty of the T'angs is one of
+national peace, prosperity, and progress. The name of this House has
+endured, like that of Han, to the present day in the popular language
+of the people; for just as the northerners still delight to style
+themselves "good sons of Han," so are the southerners still proud to
+speak of themselves as "men of T'ang."
+
+One of the chief political events of this period was the usurpation of
+power by the Empress Wu--at first, as nominal regent on behalf of a
+step-child, the son and heir of her late husband by his first wife,
+and afterwards, when she had set aside the step-child, on her own
+account. There had been one previous instance of a woman wielding the
+Imperial sceptre, namely, the Empress Lu of the Han dynasty, to whom
+the Chinese have accorded the title of legitimate ruler, which has not
+been allowed to the Empress Wu. The latter, however, was possessed of
+much actual ability, mixed with a kind of midsummer madness; and so
+long as her great intellectual faculties remained unimpaired, she
+ruled, like her successor of some twelve centuries afterwards, with a
+rod of iron. In her old age she was deposed and dismissed to private
+life, the rightful heir being replaced upon his father's throne.
+
+Among the more extravagant acts of her reign are some which are still
+familiar to the people of to-day. Always, even while her husband was
+alive, she was present, behind a curtain, at councils and audiences;
+after his death she was accustomed to take her place openly among the
+ministers of state, wearing a false beard. In 694 she gave herself the
+title of Divine Empress, and in 696 she even went so far as to style
+herself God Almighty. In her later years she became hopelessly
+arrogant and overbearing. No one was allowed to say that the Empress
+was fair as a lily or lovely as a rose, but that the lily was fair or
+the rose lovely as Her Majesty. She tried to spread the belief that
+she was really the Supreme Being by forcing flowers artificially and
+then in the presence of her courtiers ordering them to bloom. On one
+occasion she commanded some peonies to bloom; and because they did not
+instantly obey, she caused every peony in the capital to be pulled up
+and burnt, and prohibited the cultivation of peonies ever afterwards.
+She further decided to place her sex once and for all on an equality
+with man. For that purpose women were admitted to the public
+examinations, official posts being conferred upon those who were
+successful; and among other things they were excused from kneeling
+while giving evidence in courts of justice. This innovation, however,
+did not fulfil its promise; and with the disappearance of its vigorous
+foundress, the system also disappeared. It was not actually the first
+time in Chinese history that the experiment had been tried. An emperor
+of the third century A.D. had already opened public life to women, and
+it is said that many of them rose to high office; but here too the
+system was of short duration, and the old order was soon restored.
+
+Another striking picture of the T'ang dynasty is presented by the
+career of an emperor who is usually spoken of as Ming Huang, and who,
+after distinguishing himself at several critical junctures, mounted
+the throne in 712, in succession to his father, who had abdicated in
+his favour. He began with economy, closing the silk factories and
+forbidding the palace ladies to wear jewels or embroideries,
+considerable quantities of which were actually burnt. He was a warm
+patron of literature, and schools were established in every village.
+Fond of music, he founded a college for training youth of both sexes
+in this art. His love of war and his growing extravagance led to
+increased taxation, with the usual consequences in China--discontent
+and rebellion. He surrounded himself by a brilliant court, welcoming
+men of genius in literature and art; at first for their talents alone,
+but finally for their readiness to participate in scenes of revelry
+and dissipation provided for the amusement of a favourite concubine,
+the ever-famous Yang Kuei-fei (pronounced /Kway-fay/). Eunuchs were
+appointed to official posts, and the grossest forms of religious
+superstition were encouraged. Women ceased to veil themselves, as of
+old. At length, in 755, a serious rebellion broke out, and a year
+later the emperor, now an old man of seventy-one, fled before the
+storm. He had not proceeded far before his soldiery revolted and
+demanded vengeance upon the whole family of the favourite, several
+unworthy members of which had been raised to high positions and loaded
+with honours. The wretched emperor was forced to order the head eunuch
+to strangle his idolized concubine, while the rest of her family
+perished at the hands of the troops. He subsequently abdicated in
+favour of his son, and spent the last six years of his life in
+seclusion.
+
+This tragic story has been exquisitely told in verse by one of China's
+foremost poets, who was born only a few years later. He divides his
+poem into eight parts, dealing with the /ennui/ of the monarch until
+he discovers /beauty/, the /revelry/ of the pair together, followed by
+the horrors of /flight/, to end in the misery of /exile/ without her,
+the /return/ when the emperor passes again by the fatal spot, /home/
+where everything reminds him of her, and finally /spirit-land/. This
+last is a figment of the poet's imagination. He pictures the
+disconsolate emperor sending a magician to discover Yang Kuei-fei's
+whereabouts in the next world, and to bear to her a message of
+uninterrupted love. The magician, after a long search, finds her in
+one of the Isles of the Blest, and fulfils his commission accordingly.
+
+  Her features are fixed and calm, though myriad tears fall,
+  Wetting a spray of pear-bloom, as it were with the raindrops of
+    spring.
+  Subduing her emotions, restraining her grief, she tenders thanks
+    to His Majesty.
+  Saying how since their parting she had missed his form and voice;
+  And how, although their love on earth had so soon come to an end,
+  The days and months among the Blest were still of long duration.
+  And now she turns and gazes towards the above of mortals,
+  But cannot discern the Imperial city, lost in the dust and haze.
+  Then she takes out the old keepsake, tokens of undying love,
+  A gold hairpin, an enamel brooch, and bids the magician carry
+    these back.
+  One half of the hairpin she keeps, and one half of the enamel
+    brooch,
+  Breaking with her hands the yellow gold, and dividing the enamel
+    in two.
+  "Tell him," she said, "to be firm of heart, as this gold and
+    enamel,
+  And then in heaven or on earth below we two may meet once more."
+
+The magnificent House of T'ang was succeeded by five insignificant
+dynasties, the duration of all of which was crowded into about half a
+century. Then, in A.D. 960, began the rule of the Sungs (pronounced
+/Soongs/), to last for three hundred years and rival in national peace
+and prosperity any other period in 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 has remained to the
+present time. To the appliances of ordinary Chinese life it is
+probable that but few additions have been made since a very early
+date. The dress of the people has indeed undergone several variations,
+but the ploughs and hoes, the water-wheels and well-sweeps, the tools
+of the artisans, mud huts, carts, junks, chairs, tables, chopsticks,
+etc., which we still see in China, are probably very much those of two
+thousand years ago. Mencius, of the third century B.C., observed that
+written characters had the same form, and axle-trees the same breadth,
+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.
+
+In spite, however, of the peaceful aspirations of the House of Sung,
+the Kitan Tartars were for ever encroaching upon Chinese territory,
+and finally overran and occupied a large part of northern China, with
+their capital where Peking now stands. This resulted in an amicable
+arrangement to divide the empire, the Kitans retaining their conquests
+in the north, from which, after about two hundred years, they were in
+turn expelled by the Golden Tartars, who had previously been subject
+to them.
+
+Many volumes, rather than pages, would be required to do justice to
+the statesmen, soldiers, philosophers, poets, historians, art critics,
+and other famous men of this dynasty. It has already been stated that
+the interpretation of the Confucian Canon, accepted at the present
+day, dates from this period; and it may now be of interest to give a
+brief account of another remarkable movement connected with the
+dynasty, though in quite a different line.
+
+Wang An-shih (as /shi/ in /shirk/), popularly known as the Reformer,
+was born in 1021. In his youth a keen student, his pen seemed to fly
+over the paper. He rose to high office; and by the time he was forty-
+eight he found himself installed as confidential adviser to the
+emperor. He then entered upon a series of startling political reforms,
+said to be based upon new and more correct interpretations of portions
+of the Confucian Canon, which still remained, so far as explanation
+was concerned, just as it had been left by the scholars of the Han
+dynasty. This appeal to authority was, of course, a mere blind,
+cleverly introduced to satisfy the bulk of the population, who were
+always unwilling to move in any direction where no precedent is
+forthcoming. One of his schemes, the express object of which was to
+decrease taxation and at the same time to increase the revenue, was to
+secure a sure and certain market for all products, as follows. From
+the produce of a given district, enough was to be set aside (1) for
+the payment of taxes, and (2) to supply the wants of the district; (3)
+the balance was then to be taken over by the state at a low rate, and
+held for a rise or forwarded to some centre where there happened to be
+a demand. There would be thus a certainty of market for the farmer,
+and an equal certainty for the state to make profits as a middleman.
+Another part of this scheme consisted in obligatory advances by the
+state to cultivators of land, whether these farmers required the money
+or not, the security for the loans being in each case the growing
+crops.
+
+There was also a system of tithing for military purposes, under which
+every family having more than two males was bound to supply one to
+serve as a soldier; and in order to keep up a breed of cavalry horses,
+every family was compelled to take charge of one, which was provided,
+together with its food, by the government. There was a system under
+which money payments were substituted for the old-fashioned and
+vexatious method of carrying on public works by drafts of forced
+labourers; and again another under which warehouses for bartering and
+hypothecating goods were established all over the empire.
+
+Of all his innovations the most interesting was that all land was to
+be remeasured and an attempt made to secure a more equitable incidence
+of taxation. The plan was to divide up the land into equal squares,
+and to levy taxes in proportion to the fertility of each. This scheme
+proved for various reasons to be unworkable; and the bitter opposition
+with which, like all his other measures of reform, it was received by
+his opponents, did not conduce to success. Finally, he abolished all
+restrictions upon the export of copper, the result being that even the
+current copper "cash" were melted down and made into articles for sale
+and exportation. A panic ensued, which Wang met by the simple
+expedient of doubling the value of each cash. He attempted to reform
+the examination system, requiring from the candidate not so much
+graces of style as a wide acquaintance with practical subjects.
+"Accordingly," says one Chinese author, "even the pupils at the
+village schools threw away their text-books of rhetoric, and began to
+study primers of history, geography, and political economy"--a
+striking anticipation of the movement in vogue to-day. "I have myself
+been," he tells us, "an omnivorous reader of books of all kinds, even,
+for example, of ancient medical and botanical works. I have, moreover,
+dipped into treatises on agriculture and on needlework, all of which I
+have found very profitable in aiding me to seize the great scheme of
+the Canon itself." But like many other great men, he was in advance of
+his age. He fell into disfavour at court, and was dismissed to a
+provincial post; and although he was soon recalled, he retired into
+private life, shortly afterwards to die, but not before he had seen
+the whole of his policy reversed.
+
+His career stands out in marked contrast with that of the great
+statesman and philosopher, Chu Hsi (pronounced /Choo Shee/), who
+flourished A.D. 1130-1200. His literary output was enormous and his
+official career successful; but his chief title to fame rests upon his
+merits as a commentator on the Confucian Canon. As has been already
+stated, he introduced interpretations either wholly or partly at
+variance with those which had been put forth by the scholars of the
+Han dynasty, and hitherto received as infallible, thus modifying to a
+certain extent the prevailing standard of political and social
+morality. His guiding principle was merely one of consistency. He
+refused to interpret words in a given passage in one sense, and the
+same words occurring elsewhere in another sense. The effect of this
+apparently obvious method was magical; and from that date the
+teachings of Confucius have been universally understood in the way in
+which Chu Hsi said they ought to be understood.
+
+To his influence also must be traced the spirit of materialism which
+is so widely spread among educated Chinese. The God in whom Confucius
+believed, but whom, as will be seen later on, he can scarcely be said
+to have "taught," was a passive rather than an active God, and may be
+compared with the God of the Psalms. He was a personal God, as we know
+from the ancient character by which He was designated in the written
+language of early ages, that character being a rude picture of a man.
+This view was entirely set aside by Chu Hsi, who declared in the
+plainest terms that the Chinese word for God meant nothing more than
+"abstract right;" in other words, God was a principle. It is
+impossible to admit such a proposition, which was based on sentiment
+and not on sound reasoning. Chu Hsi was emphatically not a man of
+religious temperament, and belief in the supernatural was distasteful
+to him; he was for a short time under the spell of Buddhism, but threw
+that religion over for the orthodoxy of Confucianism. He was,
+therefore, anxious to exclude the supernatural altogether from the
+revised scheme of moral conduct which he was deducing from the
+Confucian Canon, and his interpretation of the word "God" has been
+blindly accepted ever since.
+
+When Chu Hsi died, his coffin is said to have taken up a position,
+suspended in the air, about three feet from the ground. Whereupon his
+son-in-law, falling on his knees beside the bier, reminded the
+departed spirit of the great principles of which he had been such a
+brilliant exponent in life--and the coffin descended gently to the
+ground.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+WOMEN AND CHILDREN
+
+The Chinese are very fond of animals, and especially of birds; and on
+the whole they may be said to be kind to their animals, though cases
+of ill-treatment occur. At the same time it must be carefully
+remembered that such quantum of humanity as they may exhibit is
+entirely of their own making; there is no law to act persuasively on
+brutal natures, and there is no Society for the Prevention of Cruelty
+to Animals to see that any such law is enforced. A very large number
+of beautiful birds, mostly songless, are found in various parts of
+China, and a great variety of fishes in the rivers and on the coast.
+Wild animals are represented by the tiger (in both north and south),
+the panther and the bear, and even the elephant and the rhinoceros may
+be found in the extreme south-west. The wolf and the fox, the latter
+dreaded as an uncanny beast, are very widely distributed.
+
+Still less would there be any ground for establishing a Society for
+the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, the very name of which would
+make an ordinary, unsophisticated Chinaman stare. Chinese parents are,
+if anything, over-indulgent to their children. The father is, indeed,
+popularly known as the "Severe One," and it is a Confucian tradition
+that he should not spare the rod and so spoil the child, but he draws
+the line at a poker; and although as a father he possesses the power
+of life and death over his offspring, such punishments as are
+inflicted are usually of the mildest description. The mother, the
+"Gentle One," is, speaking broadly, a soft-hearted, sweet-natured
+specimen of humanity; one of those women to whom hundreds of Europeans
+owe deep debts of gratitude for the care and affection lavished upon
+their alien children. In the absence of the Severe One, it falls to
+her to chastise when necessary; and we even read of a son who wept,
+not because his mother hurt him, but because, owing to her advanced
+age, she was no longer able to hit him hard enough!
+
+Among other atrocious libels which have fastened upon the fair fame of
+the Chinese people, first and foremost stands the charge of female
+infanticide, now happily, though still slowly, fading from the
+calculations of those who seek the truth. Fifty years ago it was
+generally believed that the Chinese hated their female children, and
+got rid of them in early infancy by wholesale murder. It may be
+admitted at once that boys are preferred to girls, inasmuch as they
+carry on the family line, and see that the worship of ancestors is
+regularly performed in due season. Also, because girls require
+dowries, which they take away with them for the benefit of other
+families than their own; hence the saying, "There is no thief like a
+family of five daughters," and the term "lose-money goods," as
+jestingly applied to girls, against which may be set another term, "a
+thousand ounces of gold," which is commonly used of a daughter. Of
+course it is the boy who is specially wanted in a family; and little
+boys are often dressed as little girls, in order to deceive the angels
+of disease and death, who, it is hoped, may thus pass them over as of
+less account.
+
+To return to the belief formerly held that female infanticide was
+rampant all over China. The next step was for the honest observer to
+admit that it was not known in his own particular district, but to
+declare that it was largely practised elsewhere. This view, however,
+lost its validity when residents "elsewhere" had to allow that no
+traces of infanticide could be found in their neighbourhood; and so
+on. Luckily, still greater comfort is to be found in the following
+argument,--a rare example of proving a negative--from which it will be
+readily seen that female infanticide on any abnormal scale is quite
+beyond the bounds of the possible. Those who have even a bowing
+acquaintance with Chinese social life will grant that every boy, at
+about the age of eighteen, is provided by his parents with a wife.
+They must also concede the notorious fact that many well-to-do Chinese
+take one or more concubines. The Emperor, indeed, is allowed seventy;
+but this number exists only on paper as a regulation maximum. Now, if
+every Chinaman has one wife, and many have two, over and above the
+host of girls said to be annually sacrificed as worthless babies, it
+must follow that the proportion of girls born in China enormously
+outnumbers the proportion of boys, whereas in the rest of the world
+boys are well known to be always in the majority. After this, it is
+perhaps superfluous to state that, apart from the natural love of the
+parent, a girl is really, even at a very early age, a marketable
+commodity. Girls are sometimes sold into other families to be brought
+up as wives for the sons; more often, to be used as servants, under
+what is of course a form of slavery, qualified by the important
+condition, which can be enforced by law, that when of a marriageable
+age, the girl's master shall find her a husband. Illegitimate
+children, the source of so much baby-farming and infanticide
+elsewhere, are practically unknown in China; and the same may be said
+of divorce. A woman cannot legally divorce her husband. In rare cases
+she will leave him, and return to her family, in spite of the fact
+that he can legally insist upon her return; for she knows well that if
+her case is good, the husband will not dare to risk the scandal of an
+exposure, not to mention the almost certain vengeance of her affronted
+kinsmen. It is also the fear of such vengeance that prevents mothers-
+in-law from ill-treating the girls who pass into their new homes
+rather as servants than daughters to the husband's mother. Every
+woman, as indeed every man, has one final appeal by which to punish an
+oppressor. She may commit suicide, there being no canon, legal or
+moral, against self-slaughter; and in China, where, contrary to
+widespread notions on the subject, human life is held in the highest
+degree sacred, this course is sure to entail trouble and expense, and
+possibly severe punishment, if the aggrieved parties are not promptly
+conciliated by a heavy money payment.
+
+A man may divorce his wife for one of the seven following reasons:--
+Want of children, adultery, neglect of his parents, nagging, thieving
+(i.e. supplying her own family with his goods, popularly known as
+"leakage"), jealous temper and leprosy. To the above, the humanity of
+the lawgiver has affixed three qualifying conditions. He may not put
+her away on any of the above grounds if she has duly passed through
+the period of mourning for his parents; if he has grown rich since
+their marriage; if she has no longer any home to which she can return.
+
+Altogether, the Chinese woman has by no means such a bad time as is
+generally supposed to be the case. Even in the eye of the law, she has
+this advantage over a man, that she cannot be imprisoned except for
+high treason and adultery, and is to all intents and purposes exempt
+from the punishment of the bamboo. Included in this exemption are the
+aged and the young, the sick, the hungry and naked, and those who have
+already suffered violence, as in a brawl. Further, in a well-known
+handbook, magistrates are advised to postpone, in certain
+circumstances, the infliction of corporal punishment; as for instance,
+when either the prisoner or they themselves may be under the influence
+of excitement, anger or drink.
+
+The bamboo is the only instrument with which physical punishment may
+legally be inflicted; and its infliction on a prisoner or recalcitrant
+witness, in order to extort evidence, constitutes what has long been
+dignified as "torture;" but even that is now, under a changing system,
+about to disappear. This must not be taken to mean that torture, in
+our sense of the term, has never been applied in China. The real facts
+of the case are these. Torture, except as already described, being
+constitutionally illegal, no magistrate would venture to resort to it
+if there were any chance of his successful impeachment before the
+higher authorities, upon which he would be cashiered and his official
+career brought abruptly to an end. Torture, therefore, would have no
+terrors for the ordinary citizen of good repute and with a backing of
+substantial friends; but for the outcast, the rebel, the highway
+robber (against whom every man's hand would be), the disreputable
+native of a distant province, and also for the outer barbarian (e.g.
+the captives at the Summer Palace in 1860), another tale must be told.
+No consequences, except perhaps promotion, would follow from too
+rigorous treatment in such cases as these.
+
+Resort to the bamboo as a means of extorting the confession of a
+prisoner is regarded by the people rather as the magistrate's
+confession of his own incapacity. The education of the official, too
+easily and too freely turned into ridicule, gives him an insight into
+human nature which, coupled with a little experience, renders him
+extremely formidable to the shifty criminal or the crafty litigant. As
+a rule, he finds no need for the application of pain. There is a
+quaint story illustrative of such judicial methods as would be sure to
+meet with full approbation in China. A magistrate, who after several
+hearings had failed to discover, among a gang accused of murder, what
+was essential to the completion of the case, namely, the actual hand
+which struck the fatal blow, notified the prisoners that he was about
+to invoke the assistance of the spirits, with a view to elicit the
+truth. Accordingly, he caused the accused men, dressed in the black
+clothes of criminals, to be led into a large barn, and arranged around
+it, face to the wall. Having then told them that an accusing angel
+would shortly come among them, and mark the back of the guilty man, he
+went outside and had the door shut, and the place darkened. After a
+short interval, when the door was thrown open, and the men were
+summoned to come forth, it was seen directly that one of the number
+had a white mark on his back. This man, in order to make all secure,
+had turned his back to the wall, not knowing, what the magistrate well
+knew, that the wall had been newly white-washed.
+
+As to the punishment of crime by flogging, a sentence of one or two
+hundred--even more--blows would seem to be cruel and disgusting;
+happily, it may be taken for granted that such ferocious sentences are
+executed only in such cases as have been mentioned above. An acute
+observer, for many years a member of the municipal police force in
+Shanghai, whose duty it was to see that floggings were administered to
+Chinese criminals, stated plainly in a public report that the bamboo
+is not necessarily a severe ordeal, and that one hundred blows are at
+times inflicted so lightly as to leave scarcely a mark behind, though
+the recipient howls loudly all the time. Those criminals who have
+money can always manage to square the gaoler; and the gaoler has
+acquired a certain knack in laying on, the upshot being great cry and
+little wool, very satisfactory to the culprit. Even were we to accept
+the cruellest estimate in regard to punishment by the bamboo, it would
+only go to show that humanitarian feelings in China are lagging
+somewhat behind our own. In /The Times/ of March 1, 1811, we read
+that, for allowing French prisoners to escape from Dartmoor, three men
+of the Nottingham militia were sentenced to receive 900 lashes each,
+and that one of them actually received 450 lashes in the presence of
+pickets from every regiment in the garrison. On New Year's Day, 1911,
+a eunuch attempted to assassinate one of the Imperial Princes. For
+this he was sentenced to be beaten to death, some such ferocious
+punishment being necessary, in Chinese eyes, to vindicate the majesty
+of the law. That end having been attained, the sentence was commuted
+to eighty blows with the bamboo and deportation to northern Manchuria.
+
+The Chinese woman often, in mature life, wields enormous influence
+over the family, males included, and is a kind of private Empress
+Dowager. A man knows, says the proverb, but a woman knows better. As a
+widow in early life, her lot is not quite so pleasant. It is not
+thought desirable for widows to remarry; but if she remains single,
+she becomes "a rudderless boat;" round which gathers much calumny.
+Many young women brave public opinion, and enter into second nuptials.
+If they are bent upon remarrying, runs the saying, they can no more be
+prevented than the sky can be prevented from raining.
+
+The days of "golden lilies," as the artificially small feet of Chinese
+women are called, are generally believed to date from the tenth
+century A.D., though some writers have endeavoured to place the custom
+many centuries earlier. It must always be carefully remembered that
+Manchu women--the women of the dynasty which has ruled since 1644--do
+not compress their feet. Consequently, the empresses of modern times
+have feet of the natural size; neither is the practice in force among
+the Hakkas, a race said to have migrated from the north of China to
+the south in the thirteenth century; nor among the hill tribes; nor
+among the boating population of Canton and elsewhere. Small feet are
+thus in no way associated with aristocracy or gentleness of birth;
+neither is there any foundation for the generally received opinion
+that the Chinese lame their women in this way to keep them from
+gadding about. Small-footed women may be seen carrying quite heavy
+burdens, and even working in the fields; not to mention that many are
+employed as nurses for small children. Another explanation is that
+women with bound feet bear finer children and stronger; but the real
+reason lies in another direction, quite beyond the scope of this book.
+The question of charm may be taken into consideration, for any
+Chinaman will bear witness to the seductive effect of a gaily-dressed
+girl picking her way on tiny feet some three inches in length, her
+swaying movements and delightful appearance of instability conveying a
+general sense of delicate grace quite beyond expression in words.
+
+The lady of the tenth century, to whom the origin of small feet is
+ascribed, wished to make her own feet like two new moons; but whether
+she actually bound them, as at the present day, is purely a matter of
+conjecture. The modern style of binding inflicts great pain for a long
+time upon the little girls who have to endure it. They become very shy
+on the subject, and will on no account show their bare feet, though
+Manchu women and others with full-sized feet frequently walk about
+unshod, and the boat-girls at Canton and elsewhere never seem to wear
+shoes or stockings at all.
+
+The "pigtail," or long plait of hair worn by all Chinamen, for the
+abolition of which many advanced reformers are now earnestly pleading,
+is an institution of comparatively modern date. It was imposed by the
+victorious Manchu-Tartars when they finally established their dynasty
+in 1644, not so much as a badge of conquest, still less of servitude,
+but as a means of obliterating, so far as possible, the most patent
+distinction between the two races, and of unifying the appearance, if
+not the aspirations, of the subjects of the Son of Heaven. This
+obligation was for some time strenuously resisted by the natives of
+Amoy, Swatow, and elsewhere in that neighbourhood. At length, when
+compelled to yield, it is said that they sullenly wound their queues
+round their heads and covered them with turbans, which are still worn
+by natives of those parts.
+
+The peculiar custom of shaving the head in front, and allowing the
+hair to grow long behind, is said to have been adopted by the Manchus
+out of affectionate gratitude to the horse, an animal which has played
+an all-important part in the history and achievements of the race.
+This view is greatly reinforced by the cut of the modern official
+sleeves, which hang down, concealing the hands, and are shaped exactly
+like a pair of horse's hoofs.
+
+In many respects the Manchu conquerors left the Chinese to follow
+their own customs. No attempt was made to coerce Chinese women, who
+dress their hair in styles totally different from that of the Manchu
+women; there are, too, some tolerated differences between the dress of
+the Manchu and Chinese men, but these are such as readily escape
+notice. Neither was any attempt made in the opening years of the
+conquest to interfere with foot-binding by Chinese women; but in 1664
+an edict was issued forbidding the practice. Readers may draw their
+own conclusions, when it is added that four years after the edict was
+withdrawn. Hopes are now widely and earnestly entertained that with
+the dawn of the new era, this cruel custom will become a thing of the
+past; it is, however, to be feared that those who have been urging on
+this desirable reform may be, like all reformers, a little too
+sanguine of immediate success, and that a comparatively long period
+will have to go by before the last traces of foot-binding disappear
+altogether. Meanwhile, it seems that the Government has taken the
+important step of refusing admission to the public schools of all
+girls whose feet are bound.
+
+The disappearance of the queue is another thing altogether. It is not
+a native Chinese institution; there would be no violation of any
+cherished tradition of antiquity if it were once and for ever
+discarded. On the contrary, if the Chinese do not intend to follow the
+Japanese and take to foreign clothes, there might be a return to the
+old style of doing the hair. The former dress of the Japanese was one
+of the numerous items borrowed by them from China; it was indeed the
+national dress of the Chinese for some three hundred years, between
+A.D. 600-900. One little difficulty will vanish with the queue. A
+Chinese coolie will tie his tail round his head when engaged on work
+in which he requires to keep it out of the way, and the habit has
+become of real importance with the use of modern machinery; but on the
+arrival of his master, he should at once drop it, out of respect, a
+piece of politeness not always exhibited in the presence of a foreign
+employer. The agitation, now in progress, for the final abolition of
+the queue may be due to one or all of the following reasons.
+Intelligent Chinese may have come to realize that the fashion is
+cumbrous and out of date. Sensitive Chinese may fear that it makes
+them ridiculous in the eyes of foreigners. Political Chinese, who
+would gladly see the re-establishment of a native dynasty, may look to
+its disappearance as the first step towards throwing off the Manchu
+yoke.
+
+On the whole, the ruling Manchus have shown themselves very careful
+not to wound the susceptibilities of their Chinese subjects. Besides
+allowing the women to retain their own costume, and the dead, men and
+women alike, to be buried in the costume of the previous dynasty, it
+was agreed from the very first that no Chinese concubines should be
+taken into the Palace. This last condition seems to be a concession
+pure and simple to the conquered; there is little doubt, however, that
+the wily Manchus were only too ready to exclude a very dangerous
+possibility of political intrigue.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+LITERATURE AND EDUCATION
+
+The Chinese people reverence above all things literature and learning;
+they hate war, bearing in mind the saying of Mencius, "There is no
+such thing as a /righteous/ war; we can only assert that some wars are
+better than others;" and they love trade and the finesse of the
+market-place. China can boast many great soldiers, in modern as well
+as in ancient days; but anything like a proper appreciation of the
+military arm is of quite recent growth. "Good iron is not used for
+nails, nor good men for soldiers," says the proverb; and again, "One
+stroke of the civilian's pen reduces the military official to abject
+submission." On the other hand, it is admitted that "Civilians give
+the empire peace, and soldiers give it security."
+
+Chinese parents have never, until recent days, willingly trained their
+sons for the army. They have always wished their boys to follow the
+stereotyped literary curriculum, and then, after passing successfully
+through the great competitive examinations, to rise to high civil
+office in the state. A good deal of ridicule has been heaped of late
+on the Chinese competitive examination, the subjects of which were
+drawn exclusively from the Confucian Canon, and included a knowledge
+of ancient history, of a comprehensive scheme of morality, initiated
+by Confucius, and further elaborated by Mencius (372-289 B.C.), of the
+ballads and ceremonial rites of three thousand years ago, and of an
+aptitude for essay-writing and the composition of verse. The whole
+curriculum may be fitly compared with such an education as was given
+to William Pitt and others among our own great statesmen, in which an
+ability to read the Greek and Roman classics, coupled with an intimate
+knowledge of the Peloponnesian War, carried the student about as far
+as it was considered necessary for him to go. The Chinese course, too,
+has certainly brought to the front in its time a great many eminent
+men, who have held their own in diplomacy, if not in warfare, with the
+subtlest intellects of the West.
+
+Their system of competitive examinations has indeed served the Chinese
+well. It is the brightest spot in the whole administration, being
+absolutely above suspicion, such as attaches to other departments of
+the state. Attempts have been made from time to time to gain admission
+by improper means to the list of successful candidates, and it would
+be absurd to say that not one has ever succeeded; the risk, however,
+is too great, for the penalty on detection may be death.
+
+The ordeal itself is exceedingly severe, as well for the examiners as
+for the candidates. At the provincial examinations, held once in every
+third year, an Imperial Commissioner, popularly known as the Grand
+Examiner, is sent down from Peking. On arrival, his residence is
+formally sealed up, and extraordinary precautions are taken to prevent
+friends of intending candidates from approaching him in any way. There
+is no age limit, and men of quite mature years are to be found
+competing against youths hardly out of their teens; indeed, there is
+an authenticated case of a man who successfully graduated at the age
+of seventy-two. Many compete year after year, until at length they
+decide to give it up as a bad job.
+
+At an early hour on the appointed day the candidates begin to
+assemble, and by and by the great gates of the examination hall are
+thrown open, and heralds shriek out the names of those who are to
+enter. Each one answers in turn as his name is called, and receives
+from the attendants a roll of paper marked with the number of the open
+cell he is to occupy in one of the long alleys into which the
+examination hall is divided. Other writing materials, as well as food,
+he carries with him in a basket, which is always carefully searched at
+the door, and in which "sleeve" editions of the classics have
+sometimes been found. When all have taken their seats, the Grand
+Examiner burns incense, and closes the entrance gates, through which
+no one will be allowed to pass, either in or out, dead or alive, until
+the end of the third day, when the first of the three sessions is at
+an end, and the candidates are released for the night. In case of
+death, not unusual where ten or twelve thousand persons are cooped up
+day and night in a confined space, the corpse is hoisted over the
+wall; and this would be done even if it were that of the Grand
+Examiner himself, whose place would then be taken by the chief
+Assistant Examiner, who is also appointed by the Emperor, and
+accompanies the Grand Examiner from Peking.
+
+The long strain of three bouts of three days each has often been found
+sufficient to unhinge the reason, with a variety of distressing
+consequences, the least perhaps of which may be seen in a regular
+percentage of blank papers handed in. On one occasion, a man handed in
+a copy of his last will and testament; on another, not very long ago,
+the mental balance of the Grand Examiner gave way, and a painful scene
+ensued. He tore up a number of the papers already handed in, and bit
+and kicked every one who came near him, until he was finally secured
+and bound hand and foot in his chair. A candidate once presented
+himself dressed in woman's clothes, with his face highly rouged and
+powdered, as is the custom. He was arrested at the entrance gate, and
+quietly sent home to his friends.
+
+Overwork, in the feverish desire to get into the Government service,
+is certainly responsible for the mental break-down of a large
+proportion of the comparatively few lunatics found in China. There
+being no lunatic asylums in the empire, it is difficult to form
+anything like an exact estimate of their number; it can only be said,
+what is equally true of cripples or deformed persons, that it is very
+rare to meet them in the streets or even to hear of their existence.
+
+As a further measure of precaution against corrupt practices at
+examinations, the papers handed in by the candidates are all copied
+out in red ink, and only these copies are submitted to the examiners.
+The difficulty therefore of obtaining favourable treatment, on the
+score of either bribery or friendship, is very much increased. The
+Chinese, who make no attempt to conceal or excuse, in fact rather
+exaggerate any corruption in their public service generally, do not
+hesitate to declare with striking unanimity that the conduct of their
+examination system is above suspicion, and there appears to be no
+valid reason why we should not accept this conclusion.
+
+The whole system is now undergoing certain modifications, which, if
+wisely introduced, should serve only to strengthen the national
+character. The Confucian teachings, which are of the very highest
+order of morality, and which have moulded the Chinese people for so
+many centuries, helping perhaps to give them a cohesion and stability
+remarkable among the nations of the world, should not be lightly cast
+aside. A scientific training, enabling us to annihilate time and
+space, to extend indefinitely the uses and advantages of matter in all
+its forms, and to mitigate the burden of suffering which is laid upon
+the greater portion of the human race, still requires to be
+effectively supplemented by a moral training, to teach man his duty
+towards his neighbour. From the point of view of science, the Chinese
+are, of course, wholly out of date, though it is only within the past
+hundred and fifty years that the West has so decisively outstripped
+the East. If we go back to the fifteenth century, we shall find that
+the standard of civilization, as the term is usually understood, was
+still much higher in China than in Europe; while Marco Polo, the
+famous Venetian traveller of the thirteenth century, who actually
+lived twenty-four years in China, and served as an official under
+Kublai Khan, has left it on record that the magnificence of Chinese
+cities, and the splendour of the Chinese court, outrivalled anything
+he had ever seen or heard of.
+
+Pushing farther back into antiquity, we easily reach a time when the
+inhabitants of the Middle Kingdom "held learning in high esteem, while
+our own painted forefathers were running naked and houseless in the
+woods, and living on berries and raw meat." In inventive, mechanical
+and engineering aptitudes the Chinese have always excelled; as witness
+--only to mention a few--the art of printing (/see below/); their
+water-wheels and other clever appliances for irrigation; their
+wonderful bridges (not to mention the Great Wall); the "taxicab," or
+carriage fitted with a machine for recording the distance traversed,
+the earliest notice of which takes us back to the fourth century A.D.;
+the system of fingerprints for personal identification, recorded in
+the seventh century A.D.; the carved ivory balls which contain even so
+many as nine or ten other balls, of diminishing size, one within
+another; a chariot carrying a figure which always pointed south,
+recorded as in existence at a very early date, though unfortunately
+the specifications which have came down to us from later dates will
+not work out, as in the case of the "taxicab." The story goes that
+this chariot was invented about 1100 B.C., by a wonderful hero of the
+day, in order to enable an ambassador, who had come to the court of
+China from a far distant country in the south, to find his way
+expeditiously home. The compass proper the Chinese cannot claim; it
+was probably introduced into China by the Arabs at a comparatively
+late date, and has been confused with the south-pointing chariot of
+earlier ages. As to gunpowder, something of that nature appears to
+have been used for fireworks in the seventh century; and something of
+the nature of a gun is first heard of during the Mongol campaigns of
+the thirteenth century; but firearms were not systematically employed
+until the fifteenth century. Add to the above the art of casting
+bronze, brought to a high pitch of excellence seven or eight centuries
+before the Christian era, if not earlier; the production of silk,
+mentioned by Mencius (372-289 B.C.) as necessary for the comfort of
+old age; the cultivation of the tea-plant from time immemorial; also
+the discovery and manufacture of porcelain some sixteen centuries ago,
+subsequently brought to a perfection which leaves all European
+attempts hopelessly out-classed.
+
+In many instances the Chinese seem to have been so near and yet so
+far. There is a distinct tradition of flying cars at a very remote
+date; and rough woodcuts have been handed down for many centuries,
+showing a car containing two passengers, flying through the clouds and
+apparently propelled by wheels of a screw pattern, set at right angles
+to the direction in which the travellers are proceeding. But there is
+not a scrap of evidence to show what was the motive power which turned
+the wheels. Similarly, iron ships are mentioned in Chinese literature
+so far back as the tenth century, only, however, to be ridiculed as an
+impossibility; the circulation of the blood is hinted at; added to
+which is the marvellous anticipation of anaesthetics as applied to
+surgery, to be mentioned later on, an idea which also remained barren
+of results for something like sixteen centuries, until Western science
+stepped in and secured the prize. Here it may be fairly argued that,
+considering the national repugnance to mutilation of the body in any
+form, it could hardly be expected that the Chinese would seek to
+facilitate a process to which they so strongly object.
+
+In the domain of painting, we are only just beginning to awake to the
+fact that in this direction the Chinese have reached heights denied to
+all save artists of supreme power, and that their art was already on a
+lofty level many centuries before our own great representatives had
+begun to put brush to canvas. Without going so far back as the famous
+picture in the British Museum, by an artist of the fourth and fifth
+centuries A.D., the point may perhaps be emphasized by quotation from
+the words of a leading art-critic, referring to painters of the tenth
+and eleventh centuries:--"To the Sung artists and poets, mountains
+were a passion, as to Wordsworth. The landscape art thus founded, and
+continued by the Japanese in the fifteenth century, must rank as the
+greatest school of landscape which the world has seen. It is the
+imaginative picturing of what is most elemental and most august in
+Nature--liberating visions of storm or peace among abrupt peaks,
+plunging torrents, trembling reed-beds--and though having a fantastic
+side for its weakness, can never have the reproach of pretty tameness
+and mere fidelity which form too often the only ideal of Western
+landscape."
+
+Great Chinese artists unite in dismissing fidelity to outline as of
+little importance compared with reproduction of the spirit of the
+object painted. To paint a tree successfully, it is necessary to
+produce not merely shape and colour but the vitality and "soul" of the
+original. Until with the last two or three centuries, nature itself
+was always appealed to as the one source of true inspiration; then
+came the artist of the studio, since which time Chinese art has
+languished, while Japanese art, learned at the feet of Chinese artists
+from the fourteenth century onwards, has come into prominent notice,
+and is now, with extraordinary versatility, attempting to assimilate
+the ideals of the West.
+
+The following words were written by a Chinese painter of the fifth
+century:--
+
+"To gaze upon the clouds of autumn, a soaring exaltation in the soul;
+to feel the spring breeze stirring wild exultant thoughts;--what is
+there in the possession of gold and gems to compare with delights like
+these? And then, to unroll the portfolio and spread the silk, and to
+transfer to it the glories of flood and fell, the green forest, the
+blowing winds, the white water of the rushing cascade, as with a turn
+of the hand a divine influence descends upon the scene. . . . These
+are the joys of painting."
+
+Just as in poetry, so in pictorial art, the artist avoids giving full
+expression to his theme, and leaving nothing for the spectator to
+supply by his own imaginative powers. "Suggestion" is the key-note to
+both the above arts; and in both, "Impressionism" has been also at the
+command of the gifted, centuries before the term had passed into the
+English language.
+
+Literature and art are indeed very closely associated in China. Every
+literary man is supposed to be more or less a painter, or a musician
+of sorts; failing personal skill, it would go without saying that he
+was a critic, or at the lowest a lover, of one or the other art, or of
+both. All Chinese men, women and children seem to love flowers; and
+the poetry which has gathered around the blossoms of plum and almond
+alone would form a not inconsiderable library of itself. Yet a
+European bouquet would appear to a man of culture as little short of a
+monstrosity; for to enjoy flowers, a Chinaman must see only a single
+spray at a time. The poorly paid clerk will bring with him to his
+office in the morning some trifling bud, which he will stick into a
+tiny vase of water, and place beside him on his desk. The owner of
+what may be a whole gallery of pictures will invite you to tea,
+followed by an inspection of his treasures; but on the same afternoon
+he will only produce perhaps a single specimen, and scout the idea
+that any one could call for more. If a long landscape, it will be
+gradually unwound from its roller, and a portion at a time will be
+submitted for the enjoyment and criticism of his visitors; if a
+religious or historical picture, or a picture of birds or flowers, of
+which the whole effort must be viewed in its completeness, it will be
+studied in various senses, during the intervals between a chat and a
+cup of tea. Such concentration is absolutely essential, in the eyes of
+the Chinese critic, to a true interpretation of the artist's meaning,
+and to a just appreciation of his success.
+
+The marvellous old stories of grapes painted by Zeuxis of ancient
+Greece, so naturally that birds came to peck at them; and of the
+curtain painted by Parrhasius which Zeuxis himself tried to pull
+aside; and of the horse by Apelles at which another horse neighed--all
+these find their counterparts in the literature of Chinese art. One
+painter, in quite early days, painted a perch and hung it over a river
+bank, when there was immediately a rush of otters to secure it.
+Another painted the creases on cotton clothes so exactly that the
+clothes looked as if they had just come from the wash. Another
+produced pictures of cats which would keep a place free from rats. All
+these efforts were capped by those of another artist, whose picture of
+the North Wind made people feel cold, while his picture of the South
+Wind made people feel hot. Such exaggerations are not altogether
+without their value; they suggest that Chinese art must have reached a
+high level, and this has recently been shown to be nothing more than
+the truth, by the splendid exhibition of Chinese pictures recently on
+view in the British Museum.
+
+The literary activities of the Chinese, and their output of
+literature, have always been on a colossal scale; and of course it is
+entirely due to the early invention of printing that, although a very
+large number of works have disappeared, still an enormous bulk has
+survived the ravages of war, rebellion and fire.
+
+This art was rather developed than invented. There is no date, within
+a margin even of half a century either way, at which we can say that
+printing was invented. The germ is perhaps to be found in the
+engraving of seals, which have been used by the Chinese as far back as
+we can go with anything like historical certainty, and also of stone
+tablets from which rubbings were taken, the most important of these
+being the forty-six tablets on which five of the sacred books of
+Confucianism were engraved about A.D. 170, and of which portions still
+remain. However this may be, it was during the sixth century A.D. that
+the idea of taking impressions on paper from wooden blocks seems to
+have arisen, chiefly in connexion with religious pictures and tracts.
+It was not widely applied to the production of books in general until
+A.D. 932, when the Confucian Canon was so printed for the first time;
+from which point onwards the extension of the art moved with rapid
+strides.
+
+It is very noticeable that the Chinese, who are extraordinarily averse
+to novelties, and can hardly be induced to consider any innovations,
+when once convinced of their real utility, waste no further time in
+securing to themselves all the advantages which may accrue. This was
+forcibly illustrated in regard to the introduction of the telegraph,
+against which the Chinese had set their faces, partly because of the
+disturbance of geomantic influences caused by the tall telegraph
+poles, and partly because they sincerely doubted that the wires could
+achieve the results claimed. But when it was discovered that some wily
+Cantonese had learnt over the telegraph the names of the three highest
+graduates at the Peking triennial examination, weeks before the names
+could be known in Canton by the usual route, and had enriched himself
+by buying up the tickets bearing those names in the great lotteries
+which are always held in connexion with this event, Chinese opposition
+went down like a house of cards; and the only question with many of
+the literati was whether, at some remote date, the Chinese had not
+invented telegraphy themselves.
+
+Moveable types of baked clay were invented about A.D. 1043, and some
+centuries later they were made of wood and of copper or lead; but they
+have never gained the favour accorded to block-printing, by which most
+of the great literary works have been produced. The newspapers of
+modern days are all printed from moveable types, and also many
+translations of foreign books, prepared to meet the increasing demand
+for Western learning. The Chinese have always been a great reading
+people, systematic education culminating in competitive examinations
+for students going back to the second century A.D. This is perhaps a
+suitable place for explaining that the famous /Peking Gazette/, often
+said to be the oldest newspaper in the world, is not really a
+newspaper at all, in that it contains no news in our sense of the
+term. It is a record only of court movements, list of promoted
+officials, with a few selected memorials and edicts. It is published
+daily, but was not printed until the fifteenth century.
+
+Every Chinese boy may be said to have his chance. The slightest sign
+of a capacity for book-learning is watched for, even among the
+poorest. Besides the opportunity of free schools, a clever boy will
+soon find a patron; and in many cases, the funds for carrying on a
+curriculum, and for entering the first of the great competitions, will
+be subscribed in the district, on which the candidate will confer a
+lasting honour by his success. A promising young graduate, who has won
+his first degree with honours, is at once an object of importance to
+wealthy fathers who desire to secure him as a son-in-law, and who will
+see that money is not wanting to carry him triumphantly up the
+official ladder. Boys without any gifts of the kind required, remain
+to fill the humbler positions; those who advance to a certain point
+are drafted into trade; while hosts of others who just fall short of
+the highest, become tutors in private families, schoolmasters,
+doctors, fortune-tellers, geomancers, and booksellers' hacks.
+
+Of high-class Chinese literature, it is not possible to give even the
+faintest idea in the space at disposal. It must suffice to say that
+all branches are adequately represented, histories, biographies,
+philosophy, poetry and essays on all manner of subjects, offering a
+wide field even to the most insatiate reader.
+
+And here a remark may be interjected, which is very necessary for the
+information of those who wish to form a true estimate of the Chinese
+people. Throughout the Confucian Canon, a collection of ancient works
+on which the moral code of the Chinese is based, there is not a single
+word which could give offence, even to the most sensitive, on
+questions of delicacy and decency. That is surely saying a good deal,
+but it is not all; precisely the same may be affirmed of what is
+mentioned above as high-class Chinese literature, which is pure enough
+to satisfy the most strait-laced. Chinese poetry, of which there is in
+existence a huge mass, will be searched in vain for suggestions of
+impropriety, for sly innuendo, and for the other tricks of the
+unclean. This extraordinary purity of language is all the more
+remarkable from the fact that, until recent years, the education of
+women has not been at all general, though many particular instances
+are recorded of women who have themselves achieved success in literary
+pursuits. It is only when we come to the novel, to the short story, or
+to the anecdote, which are not usually written in high-class style,
+and are therefore not recognized as literature proper, that this
+exalted standard is no longer always maintained.
+
+There are, indeed, a great number of novels, chiefly historical and
+religious, in which the aims of the writers are on a sufficiently high
+level to keep them clear of what is popularly known as pornography or
+pig-writing; still, when all is said and done, there remains a balance
+of writing curiously in contrast with the great bulk of Chinese
+literature proper. As to the novel, the long story with a worked-out
+plot, this is not really a local product. It seems to have come along
+with the Mongols from Central Asia, when they conquered China in the
+thirteenth century, and established their short-lived dynasty. Some
+novels, in spite of their low moral tone, are exceedingly well written
+and clever, graphic in description, and dramatic in episode; but it is
+curious that no writer of the first rank has ever attached his name to
+a novel, and that the authorship of all the cleverest is a matter of
+entire uncertainty.
+
+The low-class novel is purposely pitched in a style that will be
+easily understood; but even so, there is a great deal of word- and
+phrase-skipping to be done by many illiterate readers, who are quite
+satisfied if they can extract the general sense as they go along. The
+book-language, as cultivated by the best writers, is to be freely
+understood only by those who have stocked their minds well with the
+extensive phraseology which has been gradually created by eminent men
+during the past twenty-five centuries, and with historical and
+biographical allusions and references of all sorts and things. A word
+or two, suggesting some apposite allusion, will often greatly enhance
+the beauty of a composition for the connoisseur, but will fall flat on
+the ears of those to whom the quotation is unknown. Simple objects in
+everyday life often receive quaint names, as handed down in
+literature, with which it is necessary to be familiar. For instance, a
+"fairy umbrella" means a mushroom; a "gentleman of the beam" is a
+burglar, because a burglar was once caught sitting on one of the open
+beams inside a Chinese roof; a "slender waist" is a wasp; the "throat
+olive" is the "Adam's apple"--which, by the way, is an excellent
+illustration from the opposite point of view; "eyebrow notes" means
+notes at the top of a page; "cap words" is sometimes used for
+"preface;" the "sweeper-away of care" is wine; "golden balls" are
+oranges; the "golden tray" is the moon; a "two-haired man" is a grey-
+beard; the "hundred holes" is a beehive; "instead of the moon" is a
+lantern; "instead of steps" is a horse; "the man with the wooden
+skirt" is a shopman; to "scatter sleep" means to give hush-money; and
+so on, almost /ad infinitum/.
+
+Chinese medical literature is on a very voluminous scale, medicine
+having always occupied a high place in the estimation of the people,
+in spite of the fact that its practice has always been left to any one
+who might choose to take it up. Surgery, even of an elementary kind,
+has never had a chance; for the Chinese are extremely loath to suffer
+any interference with their bodies, believing, in accordance with
+Confucian dogma, that as they received them from their parents, so
+they should carry them into the presence of their ancestors in the
+next world. Medicine, as still practised in China, may be compared
+with the European art of a couple of centuries ago, and its
+exceedingly doubtful results are fully appreciated by patients at
+large. "No medicine," says one proverb, "is better than a middling
+doctor;" while another points out that "Many sons of clever doctors
+die of disease."
+
+Legend, however, tells us of an extraordinary physician of the fifth
+century B.C. who was able to see into the viscera of his patients--an
+apparent anticipation of the X-rays--and who, by his intimate
+knowledge of the human pulse, effected many astounding cures. We also
+read of an eminent physician of the second and third centuries A.D.
+who did add surgery to this other qualifications. He was skilled in
+the use of acupuncture and cautery; but if these failed he would
+render his patient unconscious by a dose of hashish, and then operate
+surgically. He is said to have diagnosed a case of diseased bowels by
+the pulse alone, and then to have cured it by operation. He offered to
+cure the headaches of a famous military commander of the day by
+opening his skull under hashish; but the offer was rudely declined.
+This story serves to show, in spite of its marvellous setting, that
+the idea of administering an anaesthetic to carry out a surgical
+operation must be credited, so far as priority goes, to the Chinese,
+since the book in which the above account is given cannot have been
+composed later than the twelfth century A.D.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+PHILOSOPHY AND SPORT
+
+Chinese philosophy covers altogether too large a field to be dealt
+with, even in outline, on a scale suitable to this volume; only a few
+of its chief features can possibly be exhibited in the space at
+disposal.
+
+Beginning with moral philosophy, we are confronted at once with what
+was in early days an extremely vexed question; not perhaps entirely
+set at rest even now, but allowed to remain in suspense amid the
+universal acceptance of Confucian teachings. Confucius himself taught
+in no indistinct terms that man is born good, and that he becomes evil
+only by contact with evil surroundings. He does not enlarge upon this
+dogma, but states it baldly as a natural law, little anticipating that
+within a couple of centuries it was to be called seriously in
+question. It remained for his great follower, Mencius, born a hundred
+years later, to defend the proposition against all comers, and
+especially against one of no mean standing, the philosopher Kao
+(/Cow/). Kao declared that righteousness is only to be got out of
+man's nature in the same way that good cups and bowls are to be got
+out of a block of willow wood, namely, by care in fashioning them.
+Improper workmanship would produce bad results; good workmanship, on
+the other hand, would produce good results. In plain words, the nature
+of man at birth is neither good nor bad; and what it becomes
+afterwards depends entirely upon what influences have been brought to
+bear and in what surroundings it has come to maturity. Mencius met
+this argument by showing that in the process of extracting cups and
+bowls from a block of wood, the wood as a block is destroyed, and he
+pointed out that, according to such reasoning, man's nature would also
+be destroyed in the process of getting righteousness out of it.
+
+Again, Kao maintained that man's nature has as little concern with
+good or evil as water has with east or west; for water will flow
+indifferently either one way or the other, according to the conditions
+in each case. If there is freedom on the east, it will flow east; if
+there is freedom on the west, it will flow west; and so with human
+nature, which will move similarly in the direction of either good or
+evil. In reply, Mencius freely admitted that water would flow either
+east or west; but he asked if it would flow indifferently up or down.
+He then declared that the bent of human nature towards good is
+precisely like the tendency of water to flow down and not up. You can
+force water to jump up, he said, by striking it, and by mechanical
+appliances you can make it flow to the top of a hill; but what you do
+in such cases is entirely contrary to the nature of water, and is
+merely the result of violence, such violence, in fact, as is brought
+into play when man's nature is bent towards evil.
+
+"That which men get at birth," said Kao, "is their nature," implying
+that all natures were the same, just as the whiteness of a white
+feather is the same as the whiteness of white snow; whereupon Mencius
+showed that on this principle the nature of a dog would be the same as
+that of a an ox, or the nature of an ox the same as that of a man.
+Finally, Mencius declared that for whatever evil men may commit, their
+natures can in nowise be blamed. In prosperous times, he argued, men
+are mostly good, whereas in times of scarcity the opposite is the
+case; these two conditions, however, are not to be charged against the
+natures with which God sent them into the world, but against the
+circumstances in which the individuals in question have been situated.
+
+The question, however, of man's original nature was not set
+permanently at rest by the arguments of Mencius. A philosopher, named
+Hsun Tzu (/Sheundza/), who flourished not very much later than
+Mencius, came forward with the theory that so far from being good
+according to Confucius, or even neutral according to Kao, the nature
+of man at birth is positively evil. He supports this view by the
+following arguments. From his earliest years, man is actuated by a
+love of gain for his own personal enjoyment. His conduct is
+distinguished by selfishness and combativeness. He becomes a slave to
+envy, hatred, and other passions. The restraint of law, and the
+influence and guidance of teachers, are absolutely necessary to good
+government and the well-being of social life. Just as wood must be
+subjected to pressure in order to make it straight, and metal must be
+subjected to the grindstone in order to make it sharp, so must the
+nature of man be subjected to training and education in order to
+obtain from it the virtues of justice and self-sacrifice which
+characterize the best of the human race. It is impossible to maintain
+that man's nature is good in the same sense that his eyes see and his
+ears hear; for in the latter there is no alternative. An eye which
+does not see, is not an eye; an ear which does not hear, is not an
+ear. This proves that whereas seeing and hearing are natural to man,
+goodness is artificial and acquired. Just as a potter produces a dish
+or a carpenter a bench, working on some material before them, so do
+the sages and teachers of mankind produce righteousness by working
+upon the nature of man, which they transform in the same way that the
+potter transforms the clay or the carpenter the wood. We cannot
+believe that God has favourites, and deals unkindly with others. How,
+then, is it that some men are evil while others are good? The answer
+is, that the former follow their natural disposition, while the latter
+submit to restraints and follow the guidance of their teachers. It is
+indeed true that any one may become a hero, but all men do not
+necessarily become heroes, nor is there any method by which they can
+be forced to do so. If a man is endowed with a capacity for
+improvement, and is placed in the hands of good teachers, associating
+at the same time with friends whose actions display such virtues as
+self-sacrifice, truth, kindness, and so forth, he will naturally
+imbibe principles which will raise him to the same standard; whereas,
+if he consorts with evil livers, he will be a daily witness of deceit,
+corruption, and general impurity of conduct, and will gradually lapse
+into the same course of life. If you do not know your son, says the
+proverb, look at his friends.
+
+The next step was taken by the philosopher Yang Hsiung (/Sheeyoong/),
+53 B.C. to A.D. 18. He started a theory which occupies a middle place
+between the last two theories discussed above, teaching that the
+nature of man at birth is neither wholly good nor wholly evil, but a
+mixture of both, and that development in either direction depends
+altogether on environment. A compromise in matters of faith is not
+nearly so picturesque as an extreme, and Yang's attempted solution has
+attracted but scant attention, though always mentioned with respect.
+The same may also be said of another attempt to smooth obvious
+difficulties in the way of accepting either of the two extremes or the
+middle course proposed by Yang Hsiung. The famous Han Yu, to be
+mentioned again shortly, was a pillar and prop of Confucianism. He
+flourished between A.D. 768 and 824, and performed such lasting
+services in what was to him the cause of truth, that his tablet has
+been placed in the Confucian temple, an honour reserved only for those
+whose orthodoxy is beyond suspicion. Yet he ventured upon an attempt
+to modify this important dogma, taking care all the time to appear as
+if he were criticizing Mencius rather than Confucius, on whom, of
+course, the real responsibility rests. He declared, solely upon his
+own authority, that the nature of man is not uniform but divided into
+three grades--namely, highest, middle, and lowest. Thus, natures of
+the highest grade are good, wholly good, and nothing but good; natures
+of the lowest grade are evil, wholly evil, and nothing but evil; while
+natures of the middle grade may, under right direction, rise to the
+highest grade, or, under wrong direction, sink to the lowest.
+
+Another question, much debated in the age of Mencius, arose out of the
+rival statements of two almost contemporary philosophers, Mo Ti (/Maw
+Tee) and Yang Chu. The former taught a system of mutual and
+consequently universal love as a cure for all the ills arising from
+misgovernment and want of social harmony. He pointed out, with much
+truth, that if the feudal states would leave one another alone,
+families cease to quarrel, and thieves cease to steal, while sovereign
+and subject lived on terms of benevolence and loyalty, and fathers and
+sons on terms of kindness and filial piety--then indeed the empire
+would be well governed. But beyond suggesting the influence of
+teachers in the prohibition of hatred and the encouragement of mutual
+love, our philosopher does little or nothing to aid us in reaching
+such a desirable consummation.
+
+The doctrine of Yang Chu is summed up as "every man for himself," and
+is therefore diametrically opposed to that of Mo Ti. A questioner one
+day asked him if he would consent to part with a single hair in order
+to benefit the whole world. Yang Chu replied that a single hair could
+be of no possible benefit to the world; and on being further pressed
+to say what he would do if a hair were really of such benefit, it is
+stated that he gave no answer. On the strength of this story, Mencius
+said: "Yang's principle was, every man for himself. Though by plucking
+out a single hair he might have benefited the whole world, he would
+not have done so. Mo's system was universal love. If by taking off
+every hair from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot he could
+have benefited the empire, he would have done so. Neither of these two
+doctrines is sound; a middle course is the right one."
+
+The origin of the visible universe is a question on which Chinese
+philosophers have very naturally been led to speculate. Legend
+provides us with a weird being named P'an Ku, who came into existence,
+no one can quite say how, endowed with perfect knowledge, his function
+being to set the gradually developing universe in order. He is often
+represented pictorially with a huge adze in his hand, and engaged in
+constructing the world out of the matter which has just begun to take
+shape. With his death the detailed part of creation appeared. His
+breath became the wind; his voice, the thunder; his left eye, the sun;
+his right eye, the moon; his blood yielded rivers; his hair grew into
+trees and plants; his flesh became the soil; his sweat descended as
+rain; and the parasites which infested his body were the forerunners
+of the human race. This sort of stuff, however, could only appeal to
+the illiterate; for intellectual and educated persons something more
+was required. And so it came about that a system, based originally
+upon the quite incomprehensible Book of Changes, generally regarded as
+the oldest portion of the Confucian Canon, was gradually elaborated
+and brought to a finite state during the eleventh and twelfth
+centuries of our era. According to this system, there was a time,
+almost beyond the reach of expression in figures, when nothing at all
+existed. In the period which followed, there came into existence,
+spontaneously, a principle, which after another lapse of time resolved
+itself into two principles with entirely opposite characteristics. One
+of these principles represented light, heat, masculinity, and similar
+phenomena classed as positive; the other represented darkness, cold,
+femininity, and other phenomena classed as negative. The interaction
+of these two principles in duly adjusted proportions produced the five
+elements, earth, fire, water, wood, and metal; and with their
+assistance all Nature as we see it around us was easily and rapidly
+developed. Such is the Confucian theory, at any rate so called, for it
+cannot be shown that Confucius ever entertained these notions, and his
+alleged connexion with the Canon of Changes is itself of doubtful
+authenticity.
+
+Chuang Tzu (/Chwongdza/), a philosopher of the third and fourth
+centuries B.C., who was not only a mystic but also a moralist and a
+social reformer, has something to say on the subject: "If there is
+existence, there must have been non-existence. And if there was a time
+when nothing existed, then there must have been a time before that,
+when even nothing did not exist. Then when nothing came into
+existence, could one really say whether it belonged to existence or
+non-existence?"
+
+"Nothing" was rather a favourite term with Chuang Tzu for the exercise
+of his wit. Light asked Nothing, saying: "Do you, sir, exist, or do
+you not exist?" But getting no answer to his question, Light set to
+work to watch for the appearance of Nothing. Hidden, vacuous--all day
+long he looked but could not see it, listened but could not hear it,
+grasped at but could not seize it. "Bravo!" cried Light; "who can
+equal this? I can get to be nothing [meaning darkness], but I can't
+get to be not nothing."
+
+Confucius would have nothing to say on the subject of death and a
+future state; his theme was consistently this life and its
+obligations, and he regarded speculation on the unknown as sheer waste
+of time. When one of three friends died and Confucius sent a disciple
+to condole with the other two, the disciple found them sitting by the
+side of the corpse, merrily singing and playing on the lute. They
+professed the then comparatively new faith which taught that life was
+a dream and death the awakening. They believed that at death the pure
+man "mounts to heaven, and roaming through the clouds, passes beyond
+the limits of space, oblivious of existence, for ever and ever without
+end." When the shocked disciple reported what he had seen, Confucius
+said, "These men travel beyond the rule of life; I travel within it.
+Consequently, our paths do not meet; and I was wrong in sending you to
+mourn. They look on life as a huge tumour from which death sets them
+free. All the same they know not where they were before birth, nor
+where they will be after death. They ignore their passions. They take
+no account of their ears and eyes. Backwards and forwards through all
+eternity, they do not admit a beginning or an end. They stroll beyond
+the dust and dirt of mortality, to wander in the realms of inaction.
+How should such men trouble themselves with the conventionalities of
+this world, or care what people may think of them?"
+
+Life comes, says Chuang Tzu, and cannot be declined; it goes, and
+cannot be stopped. But alas, the world thinks that to nourish the
+physical frame is enough to preserve life. Although not enough, it
+must still be done; this cannot be neglected. For if one is to neglect
+the physical frame, better far to retire at once from the world, since
+by renouncing the world one gets rid of the cares of the world. There
+is, however, the vitality which informs the physical frame; that must
+be equally an object of incessant care. Then he whose physical frame
+is perfect and whose vitality remains in its original purity--he is
+one with God. Man passes through this sublunary life as a sunbeam
+passes through a crack; here one moment, and gone the next. Neither
+are there any not equally subject to the ingress and egress of
+mortality. One modification brings life; then comes another, and there
+is death. Living creatures cry out; human beings feel sorrow. The bow-
+case is slipped off; the clothes'-bag is dropped; and in the confusion
+the soul wings its flight, and the body follows, on the great journey
+home.
+
+Attention has already been drawn to this necessary cultivation of the
+physical frame, and Chuan Tzu gives an instance of the extent to which
+it was carried. There was a certain man whose nose was covered with a
+very hard scab, which was at the same time no thicker than a fly's
+wing. He sent for a stonemason to chip it off; and the latter plied
+his adze with great dexterity while the patient sat absolutely rigid,
+without moving a muscle, and let him chip. When the scab was all off,
+the nose was found to be quite uninjured. Such skill was of course
+soon noised abroad, and a feudal prince, who also had a scab on his
+nose, sent for the mason to take it off. The mason, however, declined
+to try, alleging that the success did not depend so much upon the
+skill of the operator as upon the mental control of the patient by
+which the physical frame became as it were a perfectly inanimate
+object.
+
+Contemporary with Chuang Tzu, but of a very different school of
+thought, was the philosopher Hui Tzu (/Hooeydza/). He was particularly
+fond of the quibbles which so delighted the sophists or unsound
+reasoners of ancient Greece. Chuang Tzu admits that he was a man of
+many ideas, and that his works would fill five carts--this, it must be
+remembered, because they were written on slips of wood tied together
+by a string run through eyelets. But he adds that Hui Tzu's doctrines
+are paradoxical, and his terms used ambiguously. Hui Tzu argued, for
+instance, that such abstractions as hardness and whiteness were
+separate existences, of which the mind could only be conscious
+separately, one at a time. He declared that there are feathers in a
+new-laid egg, because they ultimately appear on the chick. He
+maintained that fire is not hot; it is the man who feels hot. That the
+eye does not see; it is the man who sees. That compasses will not make
+a circle; it is the man. That a bay horse and a dun cow are three;
+because taken separately they are two, and taken together they are
+one: two and one make three. That a motherless colt never had a
+mother; when it had a mother, it was not motherless. That if you take
+a stick a foot long and every day cut it in half, you will never come
+to the end of it.
+
+Of what use, asked his great rival, is Hui Tzu to the world? His
+efforts can only be compared with those of a gadfly or a mosquito. He
+makes a noise to drown an echo. He is like a man running a race with
+his own shadow.
+
+When Chuang Tzu was about to die, his disciples expressed a wish to
+give him a splendid funeral. But Chuang Tzu said: "With heaven and
+earth for my coffin and my shell; with the sun, moon and stars as my
+burial regalia; and with all creation to escort me to my grave,--are
+not my funeral paraphernalia ready to hand?" "We fear," argued the
+disciples, "lest the carrion kite should eat the body of our Master;"
+to which Chuang Tzu replied: "Above ground I shall be food for kites;
+below ground for mole-crickets and ants. Why rob one to feed the
+other?"
+
+Life in China is not wholly made up of book-learning and commerce. The
+earliest Chinese records exhibit the people as following the chase in
+the wake of the great nobles, more as a sport than as the serious
+business it must have been in still more remote ages; and the first
+emperors of the present dynasty were also notable sportsmen, who
+organized periodical hunting-tours on a scale of considerable
+magnificence.
+
+Hawking was practised at least so far back as a century before Christ;
+for we have a note on a man of that period who "loved to gallop after
+wily animals with horse and dog, or follow up with falcon the pheasant
+and the hare." The sport may be seen in northern China at the present
+day. A hare is put up, and a couple of native greyhounds are
+dispatched after it; these animals, however, would soon be distanced
+by the hare, which can run straight away from them without doubling,
+but for the sudden descent of the falcon, and a blow from its claw,
+often stunning the hare at the first attempt, and enabling the dogs to
+come up.
+
+Sportsmen who have to make their living by the business frequently
+descend to methods which are sometimes very ingenious, and more
+remunerative than the gun, but can hardly be classified as sport.
+Thus, a man in search of wild duck will mark down a flock settled on
+some shallow sheet of water. He will then put a crate over his head
+and shoulders, and gradually approach the flock as though the crate
+were drifting on the surface. Once among them, he puts out a hand
+under water, seizes hold of a duck's legs, and rapidly pulls the bird
+down. The sudden disappearance of a colleague does not seem to trouble
+its companions, and in a short time a very considerable bag has been
+obtained. Tradition says that Confucius was fond of sport, but would
+never let fly at birds sitting; which, considering that his weapon was
+a bow-and-arrow, must be set down as a marvel of self-restraint.
+
+Scores of Chinese poets have dwelt upon the joys of angling, and
+fishing is widely carried on over the inland waters; but the rod,
+except as a matter of pure sport, has given place to the businesslike
+net. The account of the use of fishing cormorants was formerly
+regarded as a traveller's tale. It is quite true, however, that small
+rafts carrying several of these birds, with a fisherman gently
+sculling at the stern, may be seen on the rivers of southern China.
+The cormorant seizes a passing fish, and the fisherman takes the fish
+from its beak. The bird is trained with a ring round its neck, which
+prevents it from swallowing the prey; while for each capture it is
+rewarded with a small piece of fish. Well-trained cormorants can be
+trusted to fish without the restraint of the ring. Confucius, again,
+is said to have been fond of fishing, but he would not use a net; and
+there was another sage of antiquity who would not even use a hook, but
+fished with a straight piece of iron, apparently thinking that the
+advantage would be an unfair one as against the resources of the fish;
+and declaring openly that he would only take such fish as wished to be
+caught. By such simple narratives do the Chinese strive to convey
+great truths to childish ears.
+
+Many sports were once common in China which have long since passed out
+of the national life, and exist only in the record of books. Among
+these may be mentioned "butting," a very ancient pastime, mentioned in
+history two centuries before the Christian era. The sport consisted in
+putting an ox-skin, horns and all, over the head, and then trying to
+knock one's adversary out of time by butting at him after the fashion
+of bulls, the result being, as the history of a thousand years later
+tells us, "smashed heads, broken arms, and blood running in the Palace
+yard."
+
+The art of boxing, which included wrestling, had been practised by the
+Chinese several centuries before butting was introduced. Its most
+accomplished exponents were subsequently found among the priests of a
+Buddhist monastery, built about A.D. 500; and it was undoubtedly from
+their successors that the Japanese acquired a knowledge of the modern
+/jiu-jitsu/, which is simply the equivalent of the old Chinese term
+meaning "gentle art." A few words from a chapter on "boxing" in a
+military work of the sixteenth century will give some idea of the
+scope of the Chinese sport.
+
+"The body must be quick to move, the hands quick to take advantage,
+and the legs lightly planted but firm, so as to advance or retire with
+effect. In the flying leap of the leg lies the skill of the art; in
+turning the adversary upside down lies its ferocity; in planting a
+straight blow with the fist lies its rapidity; and in deftly holding
+the adversary face upwards lies its gentleness."
+
+Football was played in China at a very early date; originally, with a
+ball stuffed full of hair; from the fifth century A.D., with an
+inflated bladder covered with leather. A picture of the goal, which is
+something like a triumphal arch, has come down to us, and also the
+technical names and positions of the players; even more than seventy
+kinds of kicks are enumerated, but the actual rules of the game are
+not known. It is recorded by one writer that "the winners were
+rewarded with flowers, fruit and wine, and even with silver bowls and
+brocades, while the captain of the losing team was flogged, and
+suffered other indignities." The game, which had disappeared for some
+centuries, is now being revived in Chinese schools and colleges under
+the control of foreigners, and finds great favour with the rising
+generation.
+
+Polo is first mentioned in Chinese literature under the year A.D. 710,
+the reference being to a game played before the Emperor and his court.
+The game was very much in vogue for a long period, and even women were
+taught to play--on donkey-back. The Kitan Tartars were the most
+skilful players; it is doubtful if the game originated with them, or
+if it was introduced from Persia, with which country China had
+relations at a very early date. A statesman of the tenth century,
+disgusted at the way in which the Emperor played polo to excess,
+presented a long memorial, urging his Majesty to discontinue the
+practice. The reasons given for this advice were three in number. "(1)
+When sovereign and subject play together, there must be contention. If
+the sovereign wins, the subject is ashamed; if the former loses, the
+latter exults. (2) To jump on a horse and swing a mallet, galloping
+here and there, with no distinctions of rank, but only eager to be
+first and win, is destructive of all ceremony between sovereign and
+subject. (3) To make light of the responsibilities of empire, and run
+even the remotest risk of an accident, is to disregard obligations to
+the state and to her Imperial Majesty the Empress."
+
+It has always been recognized that the chief duty of a statesman is to
+advise his master without fear or favour, and to protest loudly and
+openly against any course which is likely to be disadvantageous to the
+commonwealth, or to bring discredit on the court. It has also been
+always understood that such protests are made entirely at the risk of
+the statesman in question, who must be prepared to pay with his head
+for counsels which may be stigmatized as unpatriotic, though in
+reality they may be nothing more than unpalatable at the moment.
+
+In the year A.D. 814 the Emperor, who had become a devout Buddhist,
+made arrangements for receiving with extravagant honours a bone of
+Buddha, which had been forwarded from India to be preserved as a
+relic. This was too much for Han Yu (already mentioned), the leading
+statesman of the day, who was a man of the people, raised by his own
+genius, and who, to make things worse, had already been banished
+eleven years previously for presenting an offensive Memorial on the
+subject of tax-collection, for which he had been forgiven and
+recalled. He promptly sent in a respectful but bitter denunciation of
+Buddha and all his works, and entreated his Majesty not to stain the
+Confucian purity of thought by tolerating such a degrading exhibition
+as that proposed. But for the intercession of friends, the answer to
+this bold memorial would have been death; as it was he was banished to
+the neighbourhood of the modern Swatow, then a wild and barbarous
+region, hardly incorporated into the Empire. There he set himself to
+civilize the rude inhabitants, until soon recalled and once more
+reinstated in office; and to this day there is a shrine dedicated to
+his memory, containing the following inscription: "Wherever he passed,
+he purified."
+
+Another great statesman, who flourished over two hundred years later,
+and also several times suffered banishment, in an inscription to the
+honour and glory of his predecessor, put down the following words:
+"Truth began to be obscured and literature to fade; supernatural
+religions sprang up on all sides, and many eminent scholars failed to
+oppose their advance, until Han Yu, the cotton-clothed, arose and
+blasted them with his derisive sneer."
+
+Since the fourteenth century there has existed a definite
+organization, known as the Censorate, the members of which, who are
+called the "ears and eyes" of the sovereign, make it their business to
+report adversely upon any course adopted by the Government in the name
+of the Emperor, or by any individual statesman, which seems to call
+for disapproval. The reproving Censor is nominally entitled to
+complete immunity from punishment; but in practice he knows that he
+cannot count too much upon either justice or mercy. If he concludes
+that his words will be unforgivable, he hands in his memorial, and
+draws public attention forthwith by committing suicide on the spot.
+
+To be allowed to commit suicide, and not to suffer the indignity of a
+public execution, is a privilege sometimes extended to a high official
+whose life has become forfeit under circumstances which do not call
+for special degradation. A silken cord is forwarded from the Emperor
+to the official in question, who at once puts an end to his life,
+though not necessarily by strangulation. He may take poison, as is
+usually the case, and this is called "swallowing gold." For a long
+time it was believed that Chinese high officials really did swallow
+gold, which in view of its non-poisonous character gave rise to an
+idea that gold-leaf was employed, the leaf being inhaled and so
+causing suffocation. Some simple folk, Chinese as well as foreigners,
+believe this now, although native authorities have pointed out that
+workmen employed in the extraction of gold often steal pieces and
+swallow them, without any serious consequences whatever. Another
+explanation, which has also the advantage of being the true one, is
+that "swallowing gold" is one of the roundabout phrases in which the
+Chinese delight to express painful or repulsive subjects. No emperor
+ever "dies," he becomes "a guest on high." No son will say that his
+parents are "dead;" but merely that "they are not." The death of an
+official is expressed by "he is drawing no salary;" of an ordinary man
+it may be said that "he has become an ancient," very much in the same
+way that we say "he has joined the majority." A corpse in a coffin is
+in its "long home;" when buried, it is in "the city of old age," or on
+"the terrace of night." To say grossly, then, that a man took poison
+would be an offence to ears polite.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+RECREATION
+
+To return, after a long digression. The age of manly sport, as above
+described, has long passed away; and the only hope is for a revival
+under the changing conditions of modern China. Some few athletic
+exercises have survived; and until recently, archery, in which the
+Tartars have always excelled, was regarded almost as a semi-divine
+accomplishment. Kite-flying has reached a high level of skill. Clever
+little "messengers" have been devised, which run up the string,
+carrying fire-crackers which explode at a great height. There is a
+game of shuttlecock, without the battledore, for which the feet are
+used as a substitute; and "diavolo," recently introduced into Europe,
+is an ancient Chinese pastime. A few Manchus, too, may be seen skating
+during the long northern winter, but the modern inhabitant of the
+Flowery Land, be he Manchu or Chinese, much prefers an indoor game to
+anything else, especially when, as is universally the case, a stake of
+money is involved.
+
+Gambling is indeed a very marked feature of Chinese life. A child
+buying a cake will often go double or quits with the stall-keeper, to
+see if he is to have two cakes or nothing, the question being settled
+by a throw of dice in a bowl. Of the interval allowed for meals, a
+gang of coolies will devote a portion to a game of cards. The cards
+used are smaller than the European pack, and of course differently
+marked; they were the invention of a lady of the Palace in the tenth
+century, who substituted imitation leaves of gilt paper for real
+leaves, which had previously been adopted for playing some kind of
+game. There are also various games played with chequers, some of great
+antiquity; and there is chess, that is to say, a game so little
+differing from our chess as to leave no doubt as to the common origin
+of both. In all of these the money element comes in; and it is not too
+much to say that more homes are broken up, and more misery caused by
+this truly national vice than can be attributed to any other cause.
+
+For pleasure pure and simple, independent of gains and losses, the
+theatre occupies the warmest place in every Chinaman's heart. If
+gambling is a national vice in China, the drama must be set off as the
+national recreation. Life would be unthinkable to the vast majority if
+its monotony were not broken by the periodical performance of stage-
+plays. It is from this source that a certain familiarity with the
+great historical episodes of the past may be pleasantly picked up over
+a pipe and a cup of tea; while the farce, occasionally perhaps erring
+on the side of breadth, affords plenty of merriment to the laughter-
+loving crowd.
+
+Ability to make Chinamen laugh is a great asset; and a foreigner who
+carries this about with him will find it stand him in much better
+stead than a revolver. When, many years ago, a vessel was wrecked on
+the coast of Formosa, the crew and passengers were at once seized, and
+confined for some time in a building, where traces of their
+inscriptions could be seen up to quite a recent date. At length, they
+were all taken out for execution; but before the ghastly order was
+carried out, one of the number so amused everybody by cutting capers
+and turning head over heels, that the presiding mandarin said he was a
+funny fellow, and positively allowed him to escape.
+
+With regard to the farce itself, it is not so much the actual wit of
+the dialogue which carries away the audience as the refined skill of
+the actor, who has to pass through many trials before he is considered
+to be fit for the stage. Beginning as quite a boy, in addition to
+committing to memory a large number of plays--not merely his own part,
+but the whole play--he has to undergo a severe physical training, part
+of which consists in standing for an hour every day with his mouth
+wide open, to inhale the morning air. He is taught to sing, to walk,
+to strut, and to perform a variety of gymnastic exercises, such as
+standing on his head, or turning somersaults. His first classification
+is as male or female actor, no women having been allowed to perform
+since the days of the Emperor Ch'ien Lung (A.D. 1736-1796), whose
+mother was an actress, just as in Shakespeare's time the parts for
+women were always taken by young men or boys. When once this is
+settled, it only remains to enrol him as tragedian, comedian, low-
+comedy actor, walking gentleman or lady, and similar parts, according
+to his capabilities.
+
+It is not too much to say that women are very little missed on the
+Chinese stage. The make-up of the actor is so perfect, and his
+imitation of the feminine voice and manner, down to the smallest
+detail, even to the small feet, is so exact in every point, that he
+would be a clever observer who could positively detect impersonation
+by a man.
+
+Generally speaking, a Chinese actor has many more difficulties to face
+than his colleague in the West. In addition to the expression of all
+shades of feeling, from mirth to melancholy, the former has to keep up
+a perpetual make-believe in another sense, which is further great
+strain upon his nerves. There being no scenery, no furniture, and no
+appointments of any except the slenderest kind upon the stage, he has
+to create in the minds of his audience a belief that all these missing
+accessories are nevertheless before their eyes. A general comes upon
+the scene, with a whip in his hand, and a studied movement not only
+suggests that he is dismounting from a horse, but outlines the animal
+itself. In the same manner, he remounts and rides off again; while
+some other actor speaks from the top of a small table, which is
+forthwith transfigured, and becomes to all intents and purposes a
+castle.
+
+Many of those who might be apt to smile at the simple Chinese mind
+which can tolerate such absurdities in the way of make-believe,
+require to be reminded that the stage in the days of Queen Elizabeth
+was worked on very much the same lines. Sir Philip Sidney tells us
+that the scene of an imagined garden with imagined flowers had to do
+duty at one time for an imagined shipwreck, and at another for an
+imagined battlefield, the spectator in the latter case being helped
+out by two opposing soldiers armed with swords and bucklers. Even
+Shakespeare, in the Prologue to his play of /Henry V/, speaks of
+imagining one man to be an army of a thousand, and says:--
+
+  Think, when we talk of horses that you see them
+  Printing their proud hoofs i' the receiving earth;
+  For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings.
+
+Here, then, is good authority for the quaint system that still
+prevails in China.
+
+Hundreds of Chinese pilgrims annually went their weary way to the top
+of Mount Omi in the province of Ssuch'uan, and gaze downward from a
+sheer and lofty precipice to view a huge circular belt of light, which
+is called the Glory of Buddha. Some see it, some do not; the Chinese
+say that the whole thing is a question of faith. In a somewhat similar
+sense, the dramatic enthusiast sees before him such beings of the mind
+as the genuine actor is able to call up. The Philistine cannot reach
+this pitch; but he is sharp enough to see other things which to the
+eye of the sympathetic spectator are absolutely non-existent. Some of
+the latter will be enumerated below.
+
+The Chinese stage has no curtain; and the orchestra is on the stage
+itself, behind the actors. There is no prompter and no call-boy. Stage
+footmen wait at the sides to carry in screens, small tables, and an
+odd chair or two, to represent houses, city walls, and so on, or hand
+cups of tea to the actors when their throats become dry from
+vociferous singing, which is always in falsetto. All this in the face
+of the audience. Dead people get up and walk off the stage; or while
+lying dead, contrive to alter their facial expression, and then get up
+and carry themselves off. There is no interval between one play and
+the next following, which probably gives rise to the erroneous belief
+that Chinese plays are long, the fact being that they are very short.
+According to the Penal Code, there may be no impersonation of emperors
+and empresses of past ages, but this clause is now held to refer
+solely to the present dynasty.
+
+For the man in the street and his children, there are to be seen
+everywhere in China where a sufficient number of people gather
+together, Punch-and-Judy shows of quite a high class in point of skill
+and general attractiveness. These shows are variously traced back to
+the eighth and second centuries B.C., and to the seventh century A.D.,
+even the latest of which periods would considerably antedate the
+appearance of performing marionettes in this country or on the
+Continent. Associated with the second century B.C., the story runs
+that the Emperor of the day was closely besieged by a terrible Hun
+chieftain, who was accompanied by his wife. It occurred to one of his
+Majesty's staff to exhibit on the walls of the town, in full view of
+the enemy, a number of manikins, dressed up to a deceptive resemblance
+to beautiful girls. The wife of the Hun chieftain then persuaded her
+husband to draw off his forces, and the Emperor escaped.
+
+By the Chinese marionettes, little plays on familiar subjects are
+performed; many are of a more serious turn than the loves of Mr.
+Punch, while others again are of the knock-about style so dear to the
+ordinary boy and girl. Besides such entertainments as these, the
+streets of a Chinese city offer other shows to those who desire to be
+amused. An acrobat, a rope-dancer or a conjurer will take up a pitch
+right in the middle of the roadway, and the traffic has to get on as
+best it can. A theatrical stage will sometimes completely block a
+street, and even foot-passengers will have to find their way round.
+There is also the public story-reader, who for his own sake will
+choose a convenient spot near to some busy thoroughfare; and there, to
+an assembled crowd, he will read out, not in the difficult book-
+language, but in the colloquial dialect of the place, stories of war
+and heroism, soldiers led to night-attacks with wooden bits in their
+mouths to prevent them from talking in the ranks, the victory of the
+loyal and the rout and slaughter of the rebel. Or it may be a tale of
+giants, goblins and wizards; the bewitching of promising young men by
+lovely maidens who turn out to be really foxes in disguise, ending as
+usual in the triumph of virtue and the discomfiture of vice. The fixed
+eyes and open mouths of the crowd, listening with rapt attention, is a
+sight which, once seen, is not easily forgotten.
+
+For the ordinary man, China is simply peopled with bogies and devils,
+the spirits of the wicked or of those unfortunate enough not to secure
+decent burial with all its accompanying worship and rites. These
+creatures, whose bodies cast no shadow, lurk in dark corners, ready to
+pounce on some unwary passer-by and possibly tear out his heart. Many
+a Confucianist, sturdy in his faith that "devils only exist for those
+who believe in them," will hesitate to visit by night a lonely spot,
+or even to enter a disused tumbledown building by day. Some of the
+stories told are certainly well fitted to make a deep impression upon
+young and highly-strung nerves. For instance, one man who was too fond
+of the bottle placed some liquor alongside his bed, to be drunk during
+the night. On stretching out his hand to reach the flask, he was
+seized by a demon, and dragged gradually into the earth. In response
+to his shrieks, his relatives and neighbours only arrived in time to
+see the ground close over his head, just as though he had fallen into
+water.
+
+From this story it will be rightly gathered that the Chinese mostly
+sleep on the ground floor. In Peking, houses of more than one storey
+are absolutely barred; the reason being that each house is built round
+a courtyard, which usually has trees in it, and in which the ladies of
+the establishment delight to sit and sew, and take the air and all the
+exercise they can manage to get.
+
+Another blood-curdling story is that of four travellers who arrived by
+night at an inn, but could obtain no other accommodation than a room
+in which was lying the corpse of the landlord's daughter-in-law. Three
+of the four were soon snoring; the fourth, however, remained awake,
+and very soon heard a creaking of the trestles on which was the dead
+body dressed out in paper robes, ready for burial. To his horror he
+saw the girl get up, and go and breathe on his companions; so by the
+time she came to him he had his head tucked well under the bedclothes.
+After a little while he kicked one of the others; but finding that his
+friend did not move, he suddenly grabbed his own trousers and made a
+bolt for the door. In a moment the corpse was up and after him,
+following him down the street, and gaining gradually on him, no one
+coming to the rescue in spite of his loud shrieks as he ran. So he
+slipped behind a tree, and dodged right and left, the infuriated
+corpse also dodging right and left, and making violent efforts to get
+him. At length, the girl made a rush forward with one arm on each
+side, in the hope of thus grabbing her victim. The traveller, however,
+fell backwards and escaped her clutch, while she remained rigidly
+embracing the tree. By and by he was found senseless on the ground;
+and the corpse was removed from the tree, but with great difficulty,
+as the fingers were buried in the bark so deep that the nails were not
+even visible. The other three travellers were found dead in their
+beds.
+
+Periodical feasting may be regarded as another form of amusement by
+which the Chinese seek to relieve the monotony of life. They have
+never reserved one day in seven for absolute rest, though of late
+years Chinese merchants connected with foreign trade have to some
+extent fallen in with the observance of Sunday. Quite a number of days
+during the year are set apart as public holidays, but no one is
+obliged to keep them as such, unless he likes, with one important
+exception. The festival of the New Year cannot be ignored by any one.
+For about ten days before this date, and twenty days after it, the
+public offices are closed and no business is transacted, the seal of
+each official is handed over for safe keeping to the official's wife,
+a fact which helps to dispose of the libel that women in China are the
+down-trodden creatures they are often represented to be. All debts
+have to be paid and accounts squared by midnight on the last day of
+the old year. A few nights previously, offerings of an excessively
+sticky sweetmeat are made to the Spirit of the Hearth, one of whose
+functions is that of an accusing angel. The Spirit is then on the
+point of starting for his annual visit to heaven, and lest any of the
+disclosures he might make should entail unpleasant consequences, it is
+adjudged best that he shall be rendered incapable of making any
+disclosures at all. The unwary god finds his lips tightly glued
+together, and is unable to utter a single word. Meanwhile, fire-
+crackers are being everywhere let off on a colossal scale, the object
+being to frighten away the evil spirits which have collected during
+the past twelve months, and to begin the year afresh. The day itself
+is devoted to calling, in one's best clothes, on relatives, friends
+and official superiors, for all of whom it is customary to leave a
+present. The relatives and friends receive "wet" gifts, such as fruit
+or cakes; officials also receive wet gifts, but underneath the top
+layer will be found something "dry," in the shape of silver or bank-
+notes. Everybody salutes everybody with the conventional saying, "New
+joy, new joy; get rich, get rich!" Yet here again, as in all things
+Chinese, we find a striking exception to this good-natured rule. No
+one says "Get rich, get rich!" to the undertaker.
+
+A high authority (on other matters) has recently stated that the
+Chinese calendar "begins just when the Emperor chooses to say it
+shall. He is like the captain of a ship, who says of the hour, 'Make
+it so,' and it is so." The truth is that New Year's Day is determined
+by the Astronomical Board, according to fixed rules, just as Easter is
+determined; and it may fall on any day between the 21st of January and
+the 20th of February, but neither before the former date nor after the
+latter date, in spite even of the most threatening orders from the
+Palace. This book will indeed have been written in vain if the reader
+lays it down without having realized that no such wanton interference
+on the part of their rulers would be tolerated by the Chinese people.
+But we are wandering away from merry-making and festivity.
+
+In their daily life the Chinese are extremely moderate eaters and
+mostly tea-drinkers, even the wealthy confining themselves to few and
+simple dishes of pork, fowl, or fish, with the ever-present
+accompaniment of rice. The puppy-dog, on which the people are
+popularly believed to live, as the French on frogs, is a stall-fed
+animal, and has always been, and still is, an article of food; but the
+consumption of dog-flesh is really very restricted, and many thousands
+of Chinamen have never tasted dog in their lives. According to the
+popular classification of foods, those who live on vegetables get
+strong, those who live on meat become brave, those who live on grain
+acquire wisdom, and those who live on air become divine.
+
+At banquets the scene changes, and course after course of curiously
+compounded and highly spiced dishes, cooked as only Chinese cooks know
+how, are placed before the guests. The wine, too, goes merrily round;
+bumpers are drunk at short intervals, and the wine-cups are held
+upside down, to show that there are no heel-taps. Forfeits are exacted
+over the game of "guess-fingers," for failure to cap a verse, or for
+any other equally sufficient (or insufficient) reason; and the penalty
+is an extra bumper for the loser.
+
+This lively picture requires, perhaps, a little further explanation.
+Chinese "wine" is an ardent spirit distilled from rice, and is
+modified in various ways so as to produce certain brands, some of
+which are of quite moderate strength, and really may be classed as
+wine. It is always drunk hot, the heat being supplied by vessels of
+boiling water, in which the pewter wine-flasks are kept standing. The
+wine-cups are small, and it is possible to drink a good many of them
+without feeling in the least overcome. Even so, many diners now refuse
+to touch wine at all, the excuse always being that it flushes the face
+uncomfortably. Perhaps they fear an undeserved imputation of
+drunkenness, remembering their own cynical saying: "A bottle-nosed man
+may be a tee-totaller, but no one will believe it. To judge from their
+histories and their poetry, the Chinese seem once upon a time to have
+been a fairly tipsy nation: now-a-days, the truth lies the other way.
+An official who died A.D. 639, and was the originator of epitaphs in
+China, wrote his own, as follows:--
+
+  Fu I loved the green hills and white clouds . . .
+    Alas! he died of drink!
+
+There are exceptions, no doubt, as to every rule in every country; but
+such sights as drunken men tumbling about the streets, or lying
+senseless by the roadside, are not to be seen in China. "It is not
+wine," says the proverb, "which makes a man drunk; it is the man
+himself."
+
+Even at banquets, which are often very rich and costly, unnecessary
+expense is by no means encouraged. Dishes of fruit, of a kind which no
+one would wish to eat, and which are placed on the table for show or
+ornament, are simply clever imitations in painted wood, and pass from
+banquet to banquet as part of the ordinary paraphernalia of a feast;
+no one is deceived. The same form of open and above-board deception
+appears in many other ways. There are societies organized for visiting
+in a comfortable style of pilgrimage some famous mountain of historic
+interest. Names are put down, and money is collected; and then the
+party starts off by boat or in sedan-chairs, as the case may be. On
+arriving at the mountain, there is a grand feast, and after the
+picnic, for such it is, every one goes home again. That is the real
+thing; now for the imitation. Names are put down, and money is
+collected, as before; but the funds are spent over a feast at home,
+alongside of a paper mountain.
+
+Another of these deceptions, which deceive nobody, is one which might
+be usefully adapted to life in other countries. A Chinaman meeting in
+the street a friend, and having no leisure to stop and talk, or
+perhaps meeting some one with whom he may be unwilling to talk, will
+promptly put up his open fan to screen his face, and pass on. The
+suggestion is that, wishing to pass without notice, he fails to see
+the person in question, and it would be a serious breach of decorum on
+the part of the latter to ignore the hint thus conveyed.
+
+Japan, who may be said to have borrowed the civilization of China,
+lock, stock and barrel--her literature, her moral code, her arts, her
+sciences, her manners and customs, her ceremonial, and even her
+national dress--invented the folding fan, which in the early part of
+the fifteenth century formed part of the tribute sent from Korea to
+Peking, and even later was looked upon by the Chinese as quite a
+curiosity. In the early ages, fans were made of feathers, as still at
+the present day; but the more modern fan of native origin is a light
+frame of bamboo, wood or ivory, round or otherwise, over which silk is
+stretched, offering a convenient medium for the inscription of poems,
+or for paintings, as exchanged between friend and friend.
+
+The same innocent form of deception, which deceives nobody, is carried
+out when two officials, seated in sedan-chairs, have to pass one
+another. If they are of about equal rank, etiquette demands that they
+should alight from their chairs, and perform mutual salutations. To
+obviate the extreme inconvenience of this rule, large wooden fans are
+carried in all processions of the kind, and these are hastily thrust
+between the passing officials, so that neither becomes aware of the
+other's existence on the scene. The case is different when one of the
+two is of higher rank. The official of inferior grade is bound to stop
+and get out of his chair while his superior passes by, though even now
+he has a chance of escape; he hears the gong beaten to clear the way
+for the great man, whose rank he can tell from the number of
+consecutive blows given; and hurriedly turns off down a side street.
+
+An historical instance of substituting the shadow for the reality is
+that of the great general Ts'ao Ts'ao, third century A.D., who for
+some breach of the law sentenced himself to death, but satisfied his
+sense of justice by cutting off his hair. An emperor of the sixth
+century, who was a devout Buddhist, and therefore unable to
+countenance any destruction of life, had all the sacrificial animals
+made of dough.
+
+The opium question, which will claim a few words later on, has been
+exhaustively threshed out; and in view of the contradictory statements
+for and against the habit of opium smoking, it is recognized that any
+conclusion, satisfactory to both parties, is a very remote
+possibility. The Chinese themselves, who are chiefly interested in the
+argument, have lately come to a very definite conclusion, which is
+that opium has to go; and it seems that in spite of almost invincible
+obstacles, the sincerity and patriotism which are being infused into
+the movement will certainly, sooner or later, achieve the desired end.
+It is perhaps worth noting that in the Decree of 1906, which ordered
+the abolition of opium smoking, the old Empress Dowager, who was
+herself over sixty and a moderate smoker, inserted a clause excusing
+from the operation of the new law all persons already more than sixty
+years of age.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE MONGOLS, 1260-1368
+
+Lack of patriotism is often hurled by foreigners as a reproach to the
+Chinese. The charge cannot be substantiated, any more than it could be
+if directed against some nation in Europe. If willingness to sacrifice
+everything, including life itself, may be taken as a fair test of
+genuine patriotism, then it will be found, if historical records be
+not ignored, that China has furnished numberless brilliant examples of
+true patriots who chose to die rather than suffer dishonour to
+themselves or to their country. A single instance must suffice.
+
+The time is the close of the thirteenth century, when the Mongols
+under Kublai Khan were steadily dispossessing the once glorious and
+powerful House of Sung, and placing the empire of China under alien
+rule. Disaster followed disaster, until almost the last army of the
+Sungs was cut to pieces, and the famous statesman and general in
+command, Wen (pronounced /One/) T'ien-hsian, fell into the hands of
+the Mongols. He was ordered, but refused, to write and advise
+capitulation, and every effort was subsequently made to induce him to
+own allegiance to the conquerors. He was kept in prison for three
+years. "My dungeon," he wrote, "is lighted by the will-o'-the-wisp
+alone; no breath of spring cheers the murky solitude in which I dwell.
+Exposed to mist and dew, I had many times thought to die; and yet,
+through the seasons of two revolving years, disease hovered around me
+in vain. The dank, unhealthy soil to me became Paradise itself. For
+there was that within me which misfortune could not steal away; and so
+I remained firm, gazing at the white clouds floating over my head, and
+bearing in my heart a sorrow boundless as the sky."
+
+At length he was summoned into the presence of Kublai Khan, who said
+to him, "What is it you want?" "By the grace of the Sung Emperor," he
+replied, "I became His Majesty's Minister. I cannot serve two masters.
+I only ask to die." Accordingly, he was executed, meeting his death
+with composure, and making an obeisance in the direction of the old
+capital. His last words were, "My work is finished." Compare this with
+the quiet death-bed of another statesman, who flourished in the
+previous century. He had advised an enormous cession of territory to
+the Tartars, and had brought about the execution of a patriot soldier,
+who wished to recover it at all costs. He was loaded with honours, and
+on the very night he died he was raised to the rank of Prince. He was
+even canonized, after the usual custom, as Loyalty Manifested, on a
+mistaken estimate of his career; but fifty years later his title was
+changed to False and Foul and his honours were cancelled, while the
+people at large took his degraded name for use as an alternative to
+spittoon.
+
+Two names of quite recent patriots deserve to be recorded here as a
+tribute to their earnest devotion to the real interests of their
+country, and incidentally for the far-reaching consequences of their
+heroic act, which probably saved the lives of many foreigners in
+various parts of China. It was during the Boxer troubles in Peking, at
+the beginning of the siege of the legations, that Yuan Ch'ang and Hsu
+Ching-ch'eng, two high Chinese officials, ventured to memorialize the
+Empress Dowager upon the fatal policy, and even criminality, of the
+whole proceedings, imploring her Majesty at a meeting of the Grand
+Council to reconsider her intention of issuing orders for the
+extermination of all foreigners. In spite of their remonstrances, a
+decree was issued to that effect and forwarded to the high authorities
+of the various provinces; but it failed to accomplish what had been
+intended, for these two heroes, taking their lives in their hands, had
+altered the words "slay all foreigners" into "protect all foreigners."
+Some five to six weeks later, when the siege was drawing to a close,
+the alteration was discovered; and next day those two men were
+hurriedly beheaded, meeting death with such firmness and fortitude as
+only true patriotism could inspire.
+
+The Mongols found it no easy task to dispossess the House of Sung,
+which had many warm adherents to its cause. It was in 1206 that
+Genghis Khan began to make arrangements for a projected invasion of
+China, and by 1214 he was master of all the enemy's territory north of
+the Yellow River, except Peking. He then made peace with the Golden
+Tartar emperor of northern China; but his suspicions were soon
+aroused, and hostilities were renewed. In 1227 he died, while
+conducting a campaign in Central Asia; and it remained for his
+vigorous grandson, Kublai Khan, to complete the conquest of China more
+than half a century afterwards. So early as 1260, Kublai was able to
+proclaim himself emperor at Xanadu, which means Imperial Capital, and
+lay about one hundred and eighty miles north of modern Peking, where,
+in those days known as Khan-baligh (Marco Polo's Cambaluc), he
+established himself four years later; but twenty years of severe
+fighting had still to pass away before the empire was finally subdued.
+The Sung troops were gradually driven south, contesting every inch of
+ground with a dogged resistance born of patriotic endeavour. In 1278
+Canton was taken, and the heroic Wen T'ien-hsiang was captured through
+the treachery of a subordinate. In 1279 the last stronghold of the
+Sungs was beleaguered by land and sea. Shut up in their ships which
+they formed into a compact mass and fortified with towers and
+breastworks, the patriots, deprived of fresh water, harassed by
+attacks during the day and by fire-ships at night, maintained the
+unequal struggle for a month. But when, after a hard day's fighting,
+the Sung commander found himself left with only sixteen vessels, he
+fled up a creek. His retreat was cut off; and then at length
+despairing of his country, he bade his wife and children throw
+themselves overboard. He himself, taking the young emperor on his
+back, followed their example, and thus brought the great Sung dynasty
+to an end.
+
+The grandeur of Kublai Khan's reign may be gathered from the pages of
+Marco Polo, in which, too, allusion is made to Bayan, the skilful
+general to whom so much of the military success of the Mongols was
+due. Korea, Burma, and Annam became dependencies of China, and
+continued to send tribute as such even up to quite modern times.
+Hardly so successful was Kublai Khan'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
+offered by the Japanese themselves--suggests a very obvious comparison
+with the object and fate of the Spanish Armada.
+
+Among the more peaceful developments of Mongol rule at this epoch may
+be mentioned the introduction of a written character for the Mongol
+language. It was the work of a Tibetan priest, named Baschpa, and was
+based upon the written language of a nation known as the Ouigours
+(akin to the Turks), which had in turn been based upon Syraic, and is
+written in vertical lines connected by ligatures. Similarly, until
+1599 there was no written Manchu language; a script, based upon the
+Mongol, was then devised, also in vertical lines or columns like
+Chinese, but read from left to right.
+
+Under Kublai Khan the calendar was revised, and the Imperial Academy
+was opened; the Yellow River was explored to its source, and bank-
+notes were made current. The Emperor himself was an ardent Buddhist,
+but he took care that proper honours were paid to Confucius; on the
+other hand, he issued orders that all Taoist literature of the baser
+kind was to be destroyed. Behind all this there was extortionate
+taxation, a form of oppression the Chinese have never learned to
+tolerate, and discontent led to disorder. Kublai's grandson was for a
+time an honest ruler and tried to stem the tide, but by 1368 the
+mandate of the Mongols was exhausted. They were an alien race, and the
+Chinese were glad to get rid of them.
+
+Chinese soldiers are often stigmatized as arrant cowards, who run away
+at the slightest provocation, their first thought being for the safety
+of their own skins. No doubt Chinese soldiers do run away--sometimes;
+at other times they fight to the death, as has been amply proved over
+and over again. It is the old story of marking the hits and not the
+misses. A great deal depends upon sufficiency and regularity of pay.
+Soldiers with pay in arrear, half clad, hungry, and ill armed, as has
+frequently been the case in Chinese campaigns, cannot be expected to
+do much for the flag. Given the reverse of these conditions, things
+would be likely to go badly with the enemy, whosoever he might be.
+
+Underneath a mask of complete facial stolidity, the Chinese conceal
+one of the most exciteable temperaments to be found in any race, as
+will soon be discovered by watching an ordinary street row between a
+couple of men, or still better, women. A Chinese crowd of men--women
+keep away--is a good-tempered and orderly mob, partly because not
+inflamed by drink, when out to enjoy the Feast of the Lanterns, or to
+watch the twinkling lamps float down a river to light the wandering
+ghosts of the drowned on the night of their All Souls' Day, sacred to
+the memory of the dead; but a rumour, a mere whisper, the more
+baseless often the more potent, will transform these law-abiding
+people into a crowd of fiends. In times when popular feeling runs
+high, as when large numbers of men were said to be deprived suddenly
+and mysteriously of their queues, or when the word went round, as it
+has done on more occasions than one, that foreigners were kidnapping
+children in order to use their eyes for medicine,--in such times the
+masses, incited by those who ought to know better, get completely out
+of hand.
+
+A curious and tragic instance of this excitability occurred some years
+ago. The viceroy of a province had succeeded in organizing a
+contingent of foreign-drilled troops, under the guidance and
+leadership of two qualified foreign instructors. After some time had
+elapsed, and it was thought that the troops were sufficiently trained
+to make a good show, it was arranged that a sham fight should be held
+in the presence of the viceroy himself. The men were divided into two
+bodies under the two foreign commanders, and in the course of
+operations one body had to defend a village, while the other had to
+attack it. When the time came to capture the village at the point of
+the bayonet, both sides lost their heads; there was a fierce hand-to-
+hand fight in stern reality, and before this could be effectively
+stopped four men had been killed outright and sixteen badly wounded.
+
+Considering how squalid many Chinese homes are, it is all the more
+astonishing to find such deep attachment to them. There exists in the
+language a definite word for /home/, in its fullest English sense. As
+a written character, it is supposed to picture the idea of a family,
+the component parts being a "roof" with "three persons" underneath.
+There is, indeed, another and more fanciful explanation of this
+character, namely, that it is composed of a "roof" with a "pig"
+underneath, the forms for "three men" and "pig" being sufficiently
+alike at any rate to justify the suggestion. This analysis would not
+be altogether out of place in China any more than in Ireland; but as a
+matter of fact the balance of evidence is in favour of the "three
+men," which number, it may be remarked, is that which technically
+constitutes a crowd.
+
+Whatever may be the literary view of the word "home," it is quite
+certain that to the ordinary Chinaman there is no place like it. "One
+mile away from home is not so good as being in it," says a proverb
+with a punning turn which cannot be brought out in English. Another
+says, "Every day is happy at home, every moment miserable abroad." It
+may therefore be profitable to look inside a Chinese home, if only to
+discover wherein its attractiveness lies.
+
+All such homes are arranged more or less on the patriarchal system;
+that is to say, at the head of the establishment are a father and
+mother, who rank equally so far as their juniors are concerned; the
+mother receiving precisely the same share of deference in life, and of
+ancestral worship after death, as the father. The children grow up;
+wives are sought for the boys, and husbands for the girls, at about
+the ages of eighteen and sixteen, respectively. The former bring their
+wives into the paternal home; the latter belong, from the day of their
+marriage, to the paternal homes of their husbands. Bachelors and old
+maids have no place in the Chinese scheme of life. Theoretically,
+bride and bridegroom are not supposed to see each other until the
+wedding-day, when the girl's veil is lifted on her arrival at her
+father-in-law's house; in practice, the young people usually manage to
+get at least a glimpse of one another, usually with the connivance of
+their elders. Thus the family expands, and one of the greatest
+happinesses which can befall a Chinaman is to have "five generations
+in the hall." Owing to early marriage, this is not nearly so uncommon
+as it is in Western countries. There is an authentic record of an old
+statesman who had so many descendants that when they came to
+congratulate him on his birthdays, he was quite unable to remember all
+their names, and could only bow as they passed in line before him.
+
+As to income and expenditure, the earnings of the various members go
+into a common purse, out of which expenses are paid. Every one has a
+right to food and shelter; and so it is that if some are out of work,
+the strain is not individually felt; they take their rations as usual.
+On the death of the father, it is not at all uncommon for the mother
+to take up the reins, though it is more usual for the eldest son to
+take his place. Sometimes, after the death of the mother--and then it
+is accounted a bad day for the family fortunes--the brothers cannot
+agree; the property is divided, and each son sets up for himself, a
+proceeding which is forbidden by the Penal Code during the parents'
+lifetime. Meanwhile, any member of the family who should disgrace
+himself in any way, as by becoming an inveterate gambler and
+permanently neglecting his work, or by developing the opium vice to
+great excess, would be formally cast out, his name being struck off
+the ancestral register. Men of this stamp generally sink lower and
+lower, until they swell the ranks of professional beggars, to die
+perhaps in a ditch; but such cases are happily of rare occurrence.
+
+In the ordinary peaceful family, regulated according to Confucian
+principles of filial piety, fraternal love, and loyalty to the
+sovereign, we find love of home exalted to a passion; and bitter is
+the day of leave-taking for a long absence, as when a successful son
+starts to take up his official appointment at a distant post. The
+latter, not being able to hold office in his native province, may have
+a long and sometimes dangerous journey to make, possibly to the other
+end of the empire. In any case, years must elapse before he can
+revisit "the mulberry and the elm"--the garden he leaves behind. He
+may take his "old woman" and family with him, or they may follow later
+on; as another alternative, the "old woman" with the children may
+remain permanently in the ancestral home, while the husband carries on
+his official career alone. Under such circumstances as the last-
+mentioned, no one, including his own wife, is shocked if he consoles
+himself with a "small old woman," whom he picks up at his new place of
+abode. The "small old woman" is indeed often introduced into families
+where the "principal old woman" fails to contribute the first of "the
+three blessings of which every one desires to have plenty," namely,
+sons, money, and life. Instances are not uncommon of the wife herself
+urging this course upon her husband; and but for this system the
+family line would often come to an end, failing recourse to another
+system, namely, adoption, which is also brought into play when all
+hope of a lineal descendant is abandoned.
+
+Whether she has children or not, the principal wife--the only wife, in
+fact--never loses her supremacy as the head of the household. The late
+Empress Dowager was originally a concubine; by virtue of motherhood
+she was raised to the rank of Western Empress, but never legitimately
+took precedence of the wife, whose superiority was indicated by her
+title of Eastern Empress, the east being more honourable than the
+west. The emperor always sits with his face towards the south.
+
+The story of Sung Hung, a statesman who flourished about the time of
+the Christian era, pleasantly illustrates a chivalrous side of the
+Chinese character. This man raised himself from a humble station in
+life to be a minister of state, and was subsequently ennobled as
+marquis. The emperor then wished him to put away his wife, who was a
+woman of the people, and marry a princess; to which he nobly replied:
+"Sire, the partner of my porridge days shall never go down from my
+hall."
+
+Of the miseries of exile from the ancestral home, lurid pictures have
+been drawn by many poets and others. One man, ordered from some soft
+southern climate to a post in the colder north, will complain that the
+spring with its flowers is too late in arriving; another "cannot stand
+the water and earth," by which is meant that the climate does not
+agree with him; a third is satisfied with his surroundings, but is
+still a constant sufferer from home-sickness. Such a one was the poet
+who wrote the following lines:--
+
+  Away to the east lie fair forests of trees,
+  From the flowers on the west comes a scent-laden breeze,
+  Yet my eyes daily turn to my far-away home,
+  Beyond the broad river, its waves and its foam.
+
+And such, too, is the note of innumerable songs in exile, written for
+the most part by officials stationed in distant parts of the empire;
+sometimes by exiles in a harsher sense, namely, those persons who have
+been banished to the frontier for disaffection, maladministration of
+government, and like offences. A bright particular gem in Chinese
+literature, referring to love of home, was the work of a young poet
+who received an appointment as magistrate, but threw it up after a
+tenure of only eighty-three days, declaring that he could not "crook
+the hinges of his back for five pecks of rice a day," that being the
+regulation pay of his office. It was written to celebrate his own
+return, and runs as follows:--
+
+"Homewards I bend my steps. My fields, my gardens, are choked with
+weeds: should I not go? My soul has led a bondsman's life: why should
+I remain to pine? But I will waste no grief upon the past: I will
+devote my energies to the future. I have not wandered far astray. I
+feel that I am on the right track once again.
+
+"Lightly, lightly, speeds my boat along, my garments fluttering to the
+gentle breeze. I inquire my route as I go. I grudge the slowness of
+the dawning day. From afar I descry by old home, and joyfully press
+onwards in my haste. The servants rush forth to meet me: my children
+cluster at the gate. The place is a wilderness; but there is the old
+pine-tree and my chrysanthemums. I take the little ones by the hand,
+and pass in. Wine is brought in full bottles, and I pour out in
+brimming cups. I gaze out at my favourite branches. I loll against the
+window in my new-found freedom. I look at the sweet children on my
+knee.
+
+"And now I take my pleasure in my garden. There is a gate, but it is
+rarely opened. I lean on my staff as I wander about or sit down to
+rest. I raise my head and contemplate the lovely scene. Clouds rise,
+unwilling, from the bottom of the hills: the weary bird seeks its nest
+again. Shadows vanish, but still I linger round my lonely pine. Home
+once more! I'll have no friendships to distract me hence. The times
+are out of joint for me; and what have I to seek from men? In the pure
+enjoyment of the family circle I will pass my days, cheering my idle
+hours with lute and book. My husbandmen will tell me when spring-time
+is nigh, and when there will be work in the furrowed fields. Thither I
+shall repair by cart or by boat, through the deep gorge, over the
+dizzy cliff, trees bursting merrily into leaf, the streamlet swelling
+from its tiny source. Glad is this renewal of life in due season: but
+for me, I rejoice that my journey is over. Ah, how short a time it is
+that we are here! Why, then, not set our hearts at rest, ceasing to
+trouble whether we remain or go? What boots it to wear out the soul
+with anxious thoughts? I want not wealth: I want not power: heaven is
+beyond my hopes. Then let me stroll through the bright hours, as they
+pass, in my garden among my flowers; or I will mount the hill and sing
+my song, or weave my verse beside the limpid brook. Thus will I work
+out my allotted span, content with the appointments of Fate, my spirit
+free from care."
+
+Besides contributing a large amount of beautiful poetry, this author
+provided his own funeral oration, the earliest which has come down to
+us, written just before his death in A.D. 427. Funeral orations are
+not only pronounced by some friend at the grave, but are further
+solemnly consumed by fire, in the belief that they will thus reach the
+world of spirits, and be a joy and an honour to the deceased, in the
+same sense that paper houses, horses, sedan-chairs, and similar
+articles, are burnt for the use of the dead.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+MINGS AND CH'INGS, 1368-1911
+
+The first half of the fourteenth century, which witnessed the gradual
+decline of Mongol influence and power, was further marked by the birth
+of a humble individual destined to achieve a new departure in the
+history of the empire. At the age of seventeen, Chu Yuan-chang lost
+both his parents and an elder brother. It was a year of famine, and
+they died from want of food. He had no money to buy coffins, and was
+forced to bury them in straw. He then, as a last resource, decided to
+enter the Buddhist priesthood, and accordingly enrolled himself as a
+novice; but together with the other novices, he was soon dismissed,
+the priests being unable to provide even for their own wants. After
+this he wandered about, and finally joined a party of rebels commanded
+by one of his own uncles. Rapidly rising to the highest military rank,
+he gradually found himself at the head of a huge army, and by 1368 was
+master of so many provinces that he proclaimed himself first emperor
+of the Great Ming dynasty, under the title of Hung (/Hoong/) Wu, and
+fixed his capital at Nanking. In addition to his military genius, he
+showed almost equal skill in the administration of the empire, and
+also became a liberal patron of literature and education. He organized
+the present system of examinations, now in a transition state;
+restored the native Chinese style of dress as worn under the T'ang
+dynasty, which is still the costume seen on the stage; published a
+Penal Code of mitigated severity; drew up a kind of Domesday Book
+under which taxation was regulated; and fixed the coinage upon a
+proper basis, government notes and copper /cash/ being equally
+current. Eunuchs were prohibited from holding official posts, and
+Buddhism and Taoism were both made state religions.
+
+This truly great monarch died in 1398, and was succeeded by a
+grandson, whose very receding forehead had been a source of much
+annoyance to his grandfather, though the boy grew up clever and could
+make good verses. The first act of this new emperor was to dispossess
+his uncles of various important posts held by them; but this was not
+tolerated by one of them, who had already made himself conspicuous by
+his talents, and he promptly threw off his allegiance. In the war
+which ensued, victory attended his arms throughout, and at length he
+entered Nanking, the capital, in triumph. And now begins one of those
+romantic episodes which from time to time lend an unusual interest to
+the dry bones of Chinese history. In the confusion which followed upon
+the entry of troops into his palace, the young and defeated emperor
+vanished, and was never seen again; although in after years pretenders
+started up on more than one occasion, and obtained the support of many
+in their efforts to recover the throne. It is supposed that the
+fugitive made his way to the distant province of Yunnan in the garb of
+a Buddhist priest, left to him, so the story runs, by his grandfather.
+After nearly forty years of wandering, he is said to have gone to
+Peking and to have lived in seclusion in the palace there until his
+death. He was recognized by a eunuch from a mole on his left foot, but
+the eunuch was afraid to reveal his identity.
+
+The victorious uncle mounted the throne in the year 1403, under the
+now famous title of Yung Lo (/Yoong Law/), and soon showed that he
+could govern as well as he could fight. He brought immigrants from
+populous provinces to repeople the districts which had been laid waste
+by war. Peking was built, and in 1421 the seat of government was
+transferred thither, where it has remained ever since. A new Penal
+Code was drawn up. Various military expeditions were despatched
+against the Tartars, and missions under the charge of eunuchs were
+sent to Java, Sumatra, Siam, and even reached Ceylon and the Red Sea.
+The day of doubt in regard to the general accuracy of Chinese annals
+has gone by; were it otherwise, a recent (1911) discovery in Ceylon
+would tend to dispel suspicion on one point. A tablet has just been
+unearthed at Galle, bearing an inscription in Arabic, Chinese and
+Tamil. The Arabic is beyond decipherment, but enough is left of the
+Chinese to show that the tablet was erected in 1409 to commemorate a
+visit by the eunuch Cheng Ho, who passed several times backwards and
+forwards over that route. In 1411 the same eunuch was sent as envoy to
+Japan, and narrowly escaped with his life.
+
+The emperor was a warm patron of literature, and succeeded in bringing
+about the achievement of the most gigantic literary task that the
+world has ever seen. He employed a huge staff of scholars to compile
+an encyclopaedia which should contain within the compass of a single
+work all that had ever been written in the four departments of (1) the
+Confucian Canon, (2) history, (3) philosophy, and (4) general
+literature, including astronomy, geography, cosmogony, medicine,
+divination, Buddhism, Taoism, handicrafts and arts. The completed
+work, over which a small army of scholars--more than two thousand in
+all--had spent five years, ran to no fewer than 22,877 sections, to
+which must be added an index occupying 60 sections. The whole was
+bound up (Chinese style) in 11,000 volumes, averaging over half-an-
+inch in thickness, and measuring one foot eight inches in length by
+one foot in breadth. Thus, if all these were laid flat one upon
+another, the column so formed would rise considerably higher than the
+very top of St. Paul's. Further, each section contains about twenty
+leaves, making a total of 917,480 pages for the whole work, with a
+grand total of 366,000,000 words. Taking 100 Chinese words as the
+equivalent of 130 English, due to the greater condensation of Chinese
+literary style, it will be found that even the mighty river of the
+/Encyclopedia Britannica/ "shrinks to a rill" when compared with this
+overwhelming specimen of Chinese industry.
+
+It was never printed; even a Chinese emperor, and enthusiastic patron
+of literature to boot, recoiled before the enormous cost of cutting
+such a work on blocks. It was however transcribed for printing, and
+there appear to have been at one time three copies in existence. Two
+of these perished at Nanking with the downfall of the dynasty in 1644,
+and the third was in great part destroyed in Peking during the siege
+of the Legations in 1900. Odd volumes have been preserved, and bear
+ample witness to the extraordinary character of the achievement.
+
+This emperor was an ardent Buddhist, and the priests of that religion
+were raised to high positions and exerted considerable influence at
+court. In times of famine there were loud complaints that some ten
+thousand priests were living comfortably at Peking, while the people
+of several provinces were reduced to eating bark and grass.
+
+The porcelain of the Ming dynasty is famous all over the world. Early
+in the sixteenth century a great impetus was given to the art, owing
+to the extravagant patronage of the court, which was not allowed to
+pass without openly expressed remonstrance. The practice of the
+pictorial art was very widely extended, and the list of Ming painters
+is endless, containing as it does over twelve hundred names, some few
+of which stand for a high level of success.
+
+Towards the close of the sixteenth century the Portuguese appeared
+upon the scene, and settled themselves at Macao, the ownership of
+which has been a bone of contention between China and Portugal ever
+since. It is a delightful spot, with an excellent climate, not very
+far from Canton, and was for some time the residence of the renowned
+poet Camoens. Not far from Macao lies the island of Sancian, where St.
+Francois Xavier died. He was the first Roman Catholic missionary of
+more modern times to China, but he never set foot on the mainland.
+Native maps mark the existence of "Saint's Grave" upon the island,
+though he was actually buried at Goa. There had previously been a
+Roman Catholic bishop in Peking so far back as the thirteenth century,
+from which date it seems likely that Catholic converts have had a
+continuous footing in the empire.
+
+In 1583, Matteo Ricci, the most famous of all missionaries who have
+ever reached China, came upon the scene at Canton, and finally, in
+1601, after years of strenuous effort succeeded in installing himself
+at Peking, with the warm support of the emperor himself, dying there
+in 1610. Besides reforming the calendar and teaching geography and
+science in general, he made a fierce attack upon Buddhism, at the same
+time wisely leaving Confucianism alone. He was the first to become
+aware of the presence in China of a Jewish colony, which had been
+founded in 1163. It was from his writings that truer notions of
+Chinese civilization than had hitherto prevailed, began to spread in
+the West. "Mat. Riccius the Jesuite," says Burton in his /Anatomy of
+Melancholy/ (1651), "and some others, relate of the industry of the
+Chinaes most populous countreys, not a beggar, or an idle person to be
+seen, and how by that means they prosper and flourish."
+
+In 1625 an important find was made. A large tablet, with a long
+inscription in Chinese and a shorter one in Syraic, was discovered in
+central China. The inscription, in an excellent state of preservation,
+showed that the tablet had been set up in A.D. 781 by Nestorian
+missionaries, and gave a general idea of the object and scope of the
+Christian religion. The genuineness of this tablet was for many years
+in dispute--Voltaire, Renan, and others of lesser fame, regarding it
+as a pious fraud--but has now been established beyond any possibility
+of doubt; its value indeed is so great that an attempt was made quite
+recently to carry it off to America. Nestorian Christianity is
+mentioned by Marco Polo, but disappears altogether after the
+thirteenth century, without leaving any trace in Chinese literature of
+its once flourishing condition.
+
+The last emperor of the Ming dynasty meant well, but succumbed to the
+stress of circumstances. Eunuchs and over-taxation brought about the
+stereotyped consequence--rebellion; rebellion, too, headed by an able
+commander, whose successive victories soon enabled him to assume the
+Imperial title. In the capital all was confusion. The treasury was
+empty; the garrison were too few to man the walls; and the ministers
+were anxious to secure each his own safety. On April 9, 1644, Peking
+fell. During the previous night the emperor, who had refused to flee,
+slew the eldest princess, commanded the empress to commit suicide, and
+sent his three sons into hiding. At dawn the bell was struck for the
+court to assemble; but no one came. His Majesty then ascended the Coal
+Hill in the palace grounds, and wrote a last decree on the lapel of
+his robe: "WE, poor in virtue and of contemptible personality, have
+incurred the wrath of God on high. My ministers have deceived me. I am
+ashamed to meet my ancestors; and therefore I myself take off my
+crown, and with my hair covering my face await dismemberment at the
+hands of the rebels. Do not hurt a single one of my people." He then
+hanged himself, as also did one faithful eunuch; and his body,
+together with that of the empress, was reverently encoffined by the
+rebels.
+
+So ended the Ming dynasty, of glorious memory, but not in favour of
+the rebel commander, who was driven out of Peking by the Manchus and
+was ultimately slain by local militia in a distant province.
+
+The subjugation of the empire by the victors, who had the disadvantage
+of being an alien race, was effected with comparative ease and
+rapidity. It was carried out by a military occupation of the country,
+which has survived the original necessity, and is part of the system
+of government at the present day. Garrisons of Tartar troops were
+stationed at various important centres of population, each under the
+command of an officer of the highest military grade, whose duty it was
+to co-operate with, and at the same time watch and act as a check
+upon, the high authorities employed in the civil administration. Those
+Tartar garrisons still occupy the same positions; and the descendants
+of the first battalions, with occasional reinforcements from Peking,
+live side by side and in perfect harmony with the strictly Chinese
+populations, though the two races do not intermarry except in very
+rare cases. These Bannermen, as they are called, in reference to eight
+banners or corps under which they are marshalled, may be known by
+their square heavy faces, which contrast strongly with the sharper and
+more astute-looking physiognomies of the Chinese. They speak the
+dialect of Peking, now regarded as the official or "mandarin"
+language, just as the dialect of Nanking was, so long as that city
+remained the capital of the empire.
+
+In many respects the conquering Tartars have been themselves conquered
+by the people over whom they set themselves to rule. They have adopted
+the language, written and colloquial, of China; and they are fully as
+proud as the purest-blooded Chinese of the vast literature and
+glorious traditions of those past dynasties of which they have made
+themselves joint heirs. Manchu, the language of the conquerors, is
+still kept alive at Peking. By a fiction, it is supposed to be the
+language of the sovereign; but the emperors of China have now in their
+youth to make a study of Manchu, and so do the official interpreters
+and others whose duty it is to translate from Chinese into Manchu all
+documents submitted to what is called the "sacred glance" of His
+Majesty. In a similar sense, until quite a recent date, skill in
+archery was required of every Bannerman; and it was undoubtedly a
+great wrench when the once fatally effective weapon was consigned to
+an unmerited oblivion. But though Bannermen can no longer shoot with
+the bow and arrow, they still continue to draw monthly allowances from
+state funds, as an hereditary right obtained by conquest.
+
+Of the nine emperors of the Manchu, or Great Ch'ing dynasty, who have
+already occupied the dragon throne and have become "guests on high,"
+two are deserving of special mention as fit to be ranked among the
+wisest and best rulers the world has ever known. The Emperor K'ang Hsi
+(/Khahng Shee/) began his reign in 1662 and continued it for sixty-one
+years, a division of time which has been in vogue for many centuries
+past. He treated the Jesuit Fathers with kindness and distinction, and
+availed himself in many ways of their scientific knowledge. He was an
+extraordinarily generous and successful patron of literature. His name
+is inseparably connected with the standard dictionary of the Chinese
+language, which was produced under his immediate supervision. It
+contains over forty thousand words, not a great number as compared
+with European languages which have coined innumerable scientific
+terms, but even so, far more than are necessary either for daily life
+or for literary purposes. These words are accompanied in each case by
+appropriate quotations from the works of every age and of every style,
+arranged chronologically, thus anticipating to some extent the
+"historical principles" in the still more wonderful English dictionary
+by Sir James Murray and others, now going through the press. But the
+greatest of all the literary achievements planned by this emperor was
+a general encyclopaedia, not indeed on quite such a colossal scale as
+that one produced under the Ming dynasty and already described, though
+still of respectable dimensions, running as it does in a small-sized
+edition to 1,628 octavo volumes of about 200 pages to each. The term
+encyclopaedia must not be understood in precisely the same sense as in
+Western countries. A Chinese encyclopaedia deals with a given subject
+not by providing an up-to-date article written by some living
+authority, but by exhibiting extracts from authors of all ages,
+arranged chronologically, in which the subject in question is
+discussed. The range of topics, however, is such that the above does
+not always apply--as, for instance, in the biographical section, which
+consists merely of lives of eminent men taken from various sources. In
+the great encyclopaedia under consideration, in addition to an
+enormous number of lives of men, covering a period of three thousand
+years, there are also lives of over twenty-four thousand eminent
+women, or nearly as many as all the lives in our own /National
+Dictionary of Biography/. An original copy of this marvellous
+production, which by the way is fully illustrated, may be seen at the
+British Museum; a small-sized edition, more suitable for practical
+purposes and printed from movable type, was issued about twenty years
+ago.
+
+Skipping an emperor under whose reign was initiated that violent
+persecution of Roman Catholics which has continued more or less openly
+down to the present day, we come to the second of the two monarchs
+before mentioned, whose long and beneficent reigns are among the real
+glories of the present dynasty.
+
+The Emperor Ch'ien Lung (/Loong/) ascended the throne in 1735, when
+twenty-five years of age; and though less than two hundred years ago,
+legend has been busy with his person. According to some native
+accounts, his hands are said to have reached below his knees; his ears
+touched his shoulders; and his eyes could see round behind his head.
+This sort of stuff, is should be understood, is not taken from
+reliable authorities. It cannot be taken from the dynastic history for
+the simple reason that the official history of a dynasty is not
+published until the dynasty has come to an end. There is, indeed, a
+faithful record kept of all the actions of each reigning emperor in
+turn; good and evil are set down alike, without fear or favour, for no
+emperor is ever allowed to get a glimpse of the document by which
+posterity will judge him. Ch'ien Lung had no cause for anxiety on this
+score; whatever record might leap to light, he never could be shamed.
+An able ruler, with an insatiable thirst for knowledge, and an
+indefatigable administrator, he rivals his grandfather's fame as a
+sovereign and a patron of letters. His one amiable weakness was a
+fondness for poetry; unfortunately, for his own. His output was
+enormous so far as number of pieces go; these were always short, and
+proportionately trivial. No one ever better illustrated one half of
+the cynical Chinese saying: "We love our own compositions, but other
+men's wives." He disliked missionaries, and forbade the propagation of
+the Christian religion.
+
+After ten years of internal reorganization, his reign became a
+succession of wars, almost all of which were brought to a successful
+conclusion. His generals led a large army into Nepaul and conquered
+the Goorkhas, reaching a point only some sixty miles distant from
+British territory. Burma was forced to pay tribute; Chinese supremacy
+was established in Tibet; Kuldja and Kashgaria were added to the
+empire; and rebellions in Formosa and elsewhere were suppressed. In
+fifty years the population was nearly doubled, and the empire on the
+whole enjoyed peace and prosperity. In 1750 a Portuguese embassy
+reached Peking; and was followed by Lord Macartney's famous mission
+and a Dutch mission in 1793. Two years after the venerable emperor had
+completed a reign of sixty years, the full Chinese cycle; whereupon he
+abdicated in favour of his son, and died in 1799.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+CHINESE AND FOREIGNERS
+
+A virtue which the Chinese possess in an eminent degree is the rather
+rare one of gratitude. A Chinaman never forgets a kind act; and what
+is still more important, he never loses the sense of obligation to his
+benefactor. Witness to this striking fact has been borne times without
+number by European writers, and especially by doctors, who have
+naturally enjoyed the best opportunities for conferring favours likely
+to make a deep impression. It is unusual for a native to benefit by a
+cure at the hands of a foreign doctor, and then to go away and make no
+effort to express his gratitude, either by a subscription to a
+hospital, a present of silk or tea, or perhaps an elaborate banner
+with a golden inscription, in which his benefactor's skill is likened
+to that of the great Chinese doctors of antiquity. With all this, the
+patient will still think of the doctor, and even speak of him, not
+always irreverently, as a foreign devil. A Chinaman once appeared at a
+British Consulate, with a present of some kind, which he had brought
+from his home a hundred miles away, in obedience to the command of his
+dying father, who had formerly been cured of ophthalmia by a foreign
+doctor, and who had told him, on his deathbed, "never to forget the
+English." Yet this present was addressed in Chinese: "To His
+Excellency the Great English Devil, Consul X."
+
+The Chinaman may love you, but you are a devil all the same. It is
+most natural that he should think so. For generation upon generation
+China was almost completely isolated from the rest of the world. The
+people of her vast empire grew up under influences unchanged by
+contact with other peoples. Their ideals became stereotyped from want
+of other ideals to compare with, and possibly modify, their own.
+Dignity of deportment and impassivity of demeanour were especially
+cultivated by the ruling classes. Then the foreign devil burst upon
+the scene--a being as antagonistic to themselves in every way as it is
+possible to conceive. We can easily see, from pictures, not intended
+to be caricatures, what were the chief features of the foreigner as
+viewed by the Chinaman. Red hair and blue eyes, almost without
+exception; short and extremely tight clothes; a quick walk and a
+mobility of body, involving ungraceful positions either sitting or
+standing; and with an additional feature which the artist could not
+portray--an unintelligible language resembling the twittering of
+birds. Small wonder that little children are terrified at these
+strange beings, and rush shrieking into their cottages as the
+foreigner passes by. It is perhaps not quite so easy to understand why
+the Mongolian pony has such a dread of the foreigner and usually takes
+time to get accustomed to the presence of a barbarian; some ponies,
+indeed, will never allow themselves to be mounted unless blindfolded.
+Then there are the dogs, who rush out and bark, apparently without
+rhyme or reason, at every passing foreigner. The Chinese have a saying
+that one dog barks at nothing and the rest bark at him; but that will
+hardly explain the unfailing attack so familiar to every one who has
+rambled through country villages. The solution of this puzzle was
+extracted with difficulty from an amiable Chinaman who explained that
+what the animals, and indeed his fellow-countrymen as well, could not
+help noticing, was the frowzy and very objectionable smell of all
+foreigners, which, strangely enough, is the very accusation which
+foreigners unanimously bring against the Chinese themselves.
+
+Compare these characteristics with the universal black hair and black
+eyes of men and women throughout China, exclusive of a rare occasional
+albino; with the long, flowing, loose robes of officials and of the
+well-to-do; with their slow and stately walk and their rigid formality
+of position, either sitting or standing. To the Chinese, their own
+language seems to be the language of the gods; they know they have
+possessed it for several thousand years, and they know nothing at all
+of the barbarian. Where does he come from? Where can he come from
+except from the small islands which fringe the Middle Kingdom, the
+world, in fact, bounded by the Four Seas? The books tell us that
+"Heaven is round, Earth is square;" and it is impossible to believe
+that those books, upon the wisdom of which the Middle Kingdom was
+founded, can possibly be wrong. Such was a very natural view for the
+Chinaman to take when first brought really face to face with the West;
+and such is the view that in spite of modern educational progress is
+still very widely held. The people of a country do not unlearn in a
+day the long lessons of the past. He was quite a friendly mandarin,
+taking a practical view of national dress, who said in conversation:
+"I can't think why you foreigners wear your clothes so tight; it must
+be very difficult to catch the fleas."
+
+As an offset against the virtue of gratitude must be placed the deep-
+seated spirit of revenge which animates all classes. Though not
+enumerated among their own list of the Seven passions--joy, anger,
+sorrow, fear, love, hatred and desire--it is perhaps the most over-
+mastering passion to which the Chinese mind is subject. It is revenge
+which prompts the unhappy daughter-in-law to throw herself down a
+well, consoled by the thought of the trouble, if not ruin, she is
+bringing on her persecutors. Revenge, too, leads a man to commit
+suicide on the doorstep of some one who has done him an injury, for he
+well knows what it means to be entangled in the net which the law
+throws over any one on whose premises a dead body may thus be found.
+There was once an absurd case of a Chinese woman, who deliberately
+walked into a pond until the water reached up to her knees, and
+remained there, alternately putting her lips below the surface, and
+threatening in a loud voice to drown herself on the spot, as life had
+been made unbearable by the presence of foreign barbarians. In this
+instance, had the suicide been carried out, vengeance would have been
+wreaked in some way on the foreigner by the injured ghost of the dead
+woman.
+
+The germ of this spirit of revenge, this desire to get on level terms
+with an enemy, as when a life is extracted for a life, can be traced,
+strangely enough, to the practice of filial piety and fraternal love,
+the very cornerstone of good government and national prosperity. In
+the Book of Rites, which forms a part of the Confucian Canon, and
+contains rules not only for the performance of ceremonies but also for
+the guidance of individual conduct, the following passage occurs:
+"With the slayer of his father, a man may not live under the same sky;
+against the slayer of his brother, a man must never have to go home to
+fetch a weapon; with the slayer of his friend, a man may not live in
+the same state." Being now duly admitted among the works which
+constitute the Confucian Canon, the above-mentioned Book of Rites
+enjoys an authority to which it can hardly lay claim on the ground of
+antiquity. It is a compilation made during the first century B.C., and
+is based, no doubt, on older existing documents; but as it never
+passed under the editorship of either Confucius or Mencius, it would
+be unfair to jump to the conclusion that either of these two sages is
+in any way responsible for, or would even acquiesce in, a system of
+revenge, the only result of which would be an endless chain of
+bloodshed and murder. The Chinese are certainly as constant in their
+hates as in their friendships. To use a phrase from their own
+language, if they love a man, they love him to the life; if they hate
+a man they hate him to the death. As we have already noted, the Old
+Philosopher urged men to requite evil with good; but Confucius, who
+was only a mortal himself, and knew the limitations of mortality,
+substituted for an ideal doctrine the more practical injunction to
+requite evil with justice. It is to be feared that the Chinese people
+fall short in practice even of this lower standard. "Be just to your
+enemy" is a common enough maxim; but one for which only a moderate
+application can be claimed.
+
+It has often been urged against the Chinese that they have very little
+idea of time. A friendly Chinaman will call, and stay on so
+persistently that he often outstays his welcome. This infliction is
+recognized and felt by the Chinese themselves, who have certain set
+forms of words by which they politely escape from a tiresome visitor;
+among their vast stores of proverbs they have also provided one which
+is much to the point: "Long visits bring short compliments." Also, in
+contradiction of the view that time is no value to the Chinaman, there
+are many familiar maxims which say, "Make every inch of time your
+own!" "Half-an-hour is worth a thousand ounces of silver," etc. An
+"inch of time" refers to the sundial, which was known to the Chinese
+in the earliest ages, and was the only means they had for measuring
+time until the invention or introduction--it is not certain which--of
+the more serviceable /clepsydra/, or water-clock, already mentioned.
+
+This consists of several large jars of water, with a tube at the
+bottom of each, placed one above another on steps, so that the tube of
+an upper jar overhangs the top of a lower jar. The water from the top
+jar is made to drip through its tube into the second jar, and so into
+a vessel at the bottom, which contains either the floating figure of a
+man, or some other kind of index to mark the rise of the water on a
+scale divided into periods of two hours each. The day and night were
+originally divided by the Chinese into twelve such periods; but now-a-
+days watches and clocks are in universal use, and the European
+division into twenty-four hours prevails everywhere. Formerly, too,
+sticks of incense, to burn for a certain number of hours, as well as
+graduated candles, made with the assistance of the water-clock, were
+in great demand; these have now quite disappeared as time-recorders.
+
+The Chinese year is a lunar year. When the moon has travelled twelve
+times round the earth, the year is completed. This makes it about ten
+days short of our solar year; and to bring things right again, an
+extra month, that is a thirteenth month, is inserted in every three
+years. When foreigners first began to employ servants extensively, the
+latter objected to being paid their wages according to the European
+system, for they complained that they were thus cheated out of a
+month's wages in every third year. An elaborate official almanack is
+published annually in Peking, and circulated all over the empire; and
+in addition to such information as would naturally be looked for in a
+work of the kind, the public are informed what days are lucky, and
+what days are unlucky, the right and the wrong days for doing or
+abstaining from doing this, that, or the other. The anniversaries of
+the death-days of the sovereigns of the ruling dynasty are carefully
+noted; for on such days all the government offices are supposed to be
+shut. Any foreign official who wishes to see a mandarin for urgent
+business will find it possible to do so, but the visitor can only be
+admitted through a side-door; the large entrance-gate cannot possibly
+be opened under any circumstances whatever.
+
+No notice of the Chinese people, however slight or general in
+character, could very well attain its object unless accompanied by
+some more detailed account of their etiquette than is to be gathered
+from the few references scattered over the preceding pages. Correct
+behaviour, whether at court, in the market-place, or in the seclusion
+of private life, is regarded as of such extreme importance--and
+breaches of propriety in this sense are always so severely frowned
+upon--that it behoves the foreigner who would live comfortably and at
+peace with his Chinese neighbours, to pick up at least a casual
+knowledge of an etiquette which in outward form is so different from
+his own, and yet in spirit is so identically the same. A little
+judicious attention to these matters will prevent much unnecessary
+friction, leading often to a row, and sometimes to a catastrophe.
+Chinese philosophers have fully recognized in their writings that
+ceremonies and salutations and bowings and scrapings and rules of
+precedence and rules of the road are not of any real value when
+considered apart from the conditions with which they are usually
+associated; at the same time they argue that without such conventional
+restraints, nothing but confusion would result. Consequently, a
+regular code of etiquette has been produced; but as this deals largely
+with court and official ceremonial, and a great part of the remainder
+has long since been quietly ignored, it is more to the point to turn
+to the unwritten code which governs the masses in their everyday life.
+
+For the foreigner who would mix easily with the Chinese people, it is
+above all necessary to understand not only that the street regulations
+of Europe do not apply in China; but also that he will there find a
+set of regulations which are tacitly agreed upon by the natives, and
+which, if examined without prejudice, can only be regarded as based on
+common sense. An ordinary foot-passenger, meeting perhaps a coolie
+with two buckets of water suspended one at each end of a bamboo pole,
+or carrying a bag of rice, weighing one, two, or even three
+hundredweight, is bound to move out of the burden-carrier's path,
+leaving to him whatever advantages the road may offer. This same
+coolie, meeting a sedan chair borne by two or more coolies like
+himself, must at once make a similar concession, which is in turn
+repeated by the chair-bearers in favour of any one riding a horse. On
+similar grounds, an empty sedan-chair must give way to one in which
+there is a passenger; and though not exactly on such rational grounds,
+it is understood that horse, chair, coolie and foot-passenger all
+clear the road for a wedding or other procession, as well as for the
+retinue of a mandarin. A servant, too, should stand at the side of the
+road to let his master pass. As an exception to the general rule of
+common sense which is so very noticeable in all Chinese institutions,
+if only one takes the trouble to look for it, it seems to be an
+understood thing that a man may not only stand still wherever he
+pleases in a Chinese thoroughfare, but may even place his burden or
+barrow, as the fancy seizes him, sometimes right in the fairway, from
+which point he will coolly look on at the streams of foot-passengers
+coming and going, who have to make the best of their way round such
+obstructions. It is partly perhaps on this account that friends who go
+for a stroll together never walk abreast but always in single file,
+shouting out their conversation for all the world to hear; this, too,
+even in the country, where a more convenient formation would often,
+but not always, be possible. Shopkeepers may occupy the path with
+tables exposing their wares, and itinerant stall-keepers do not
+hesitate to appropriate a "pitch" wherever trade seems likely to be
+brisk. The famous saying that to have freedom we must have order has
+not entered deeply into Chinese calculations. Freedom is indeed a
+marked feature of Chinese social life; some small sacrifices in the
+cause of order would probably enhance rather than diminish the great
+privileges now enjoyed.
+
+A few points are of importance in the social etiquette of indoor life,
+and should not be lightly ignored by the foreigner, who, on the other
+hand, would be wise not to attempt to substitute altogether Chinese
+forms and ceremonies for his own. Thus, no Chinaman, and, it may be
+added, no European who knows how to behave, fails to rise from his
+chair on the entrance of a visitor; and it is further the duty of a
+host to see that his visitor is actually seated before he sits down
+himself. It is extremely impolite to precede a visitor, as in passing
+through a door; and on parting, it is usual to escort him to the front
+entrance. He must be placed on the left of the host, this having been
+the post of honour for several centuries, previous to which it was the
+seat to the right of the host, as with us, to which the visitor was
+assigned. At such interviews it would not be correct to allude to
+wives, who are no more to be mentioned than were the queen of Spain's
+legs.
+
+One singular custom in connection with visits, official and otherwise,
+ignorance of which has led on many occasions to an awkward moment, is
+the service of what is called "guest-tea." At his reception by the
+host every visitor is at once supplied with a cup of tea. The servant
+brings two cups, one in each hand, and so manages that the cup in his
+left hand is set down before the guest, who faces him on his right
+hand, while that for his master is carried across and set down in an
+exactly opposite sense. The tea-cups are so handed, as it were with
+crossed hands, even when the host, as an extra mark of politeness,
+receives that intended for his visitor, and himself places it on the
+table, in this case being careful to use /both/ hands, it being
+considered extremely impolite to offer anything with one hand only
+employed. Now comes the point of the "guest-tea," which, as will be
+seen, it is quite worth while to remember. Shortly after the beginning
+of the interview, an unwary foreigner, as indeed has often been the
+case, perhaps because he is thirsty, or because he may think it polite
+to take a sip of the fragrant drink which has been so kindly provided
+for him, will raise the cup to his lips. Almost instantaneously he
+will hear a loud shout outside, and become aware that the scene is
+changing rapidly for no very evident reason--only too evident,
+however, to the surrounding Chinese servants, who know it to be their
+own custom that so soon as a visitor tastes his "guest-tea," it is a
+signal that he wishes to leave, and that the interview is at an end.
+The noise is simply a bawling summons to get ready his sedan-chair,
+and the scurrying of his coolies to be in their places when wanted.
+There is another side to this quaint custom, which is often of
+inestimable advantage to a busy man. A host, who feels that everything
+necessary has been said, and wishes to free himself from further
+attendance, may grasp his own cup and invite his guest to drink. The
+same results follow, and the guest has no alternative but to rise and
+take his leave. In ancient days visitors left their shoes outside the
+front door, a custom which is still practised by the Japanese, the
+whole of whose civilization--this cannot be too strongly emphasized--
+was borrowed originally from China.
+
+It is considered polite to remove spectacles during an interview, or
+even when meeting in the street; though as this rather unreasonable
+rule has been steadily ignored by foreigners, chiefly, no doubt, from
+unacquaintance with it, the Chinese themselves make no attempt to
+observe it so far as foreigners are concerned. In like manner, it is
+most unbecoming for any "read-book man," no matter how miserably poor
+he is, to receive a stranger, or be seen himself abroad, in short
+clothes; but this rule, too, is often relaxed in the presence of
+foreigners, who wear short clothes themselves. Honest poverty is no
+crime in China, nor is it in any way regarded as cause for shame; it
+is even more amply redeemed by scholarship than is the case in Western
+countries. A man who has gained a degree moves on a different level
+from the crowd around him, so profound is the respect shown to
+learning. If a foreigner can speak Chinese intelligibly, his character
+as a barbarian begins to be perceptibly modified; and if to the knack
+of speech he adds a tolerable acquaintance with the sacred characters
+which form the written language, he becomes transfigured, as one in
+whom the influence of the holy men of old is beginning to prevail over
+savagery and ignorance.
+
+It is not without reason that the term "sacred" is applied above to
+the written words or characters. The Chinese, recognizing the
+extraordinary results which have been brought about, silently and
+invisibly, by the operation of written symbols, have gradually come to
+invest these symbols with a spirituality arousing a feeling somewhat
+akin to worship. A piece of paper on which a single word has once been
+written or printed, becomes something other than paper with a black
+mark on it. It may not be lightly tossed about, still less trampled
+underfoot; it should be reverently destroyed by fire, here again used
+as a medium of transmission to the great Beyond; and thus its
+spiritual essence will return to those from whom it originally came.
+In the streets of a Chinese city, and occasionally along a frequented
+highroad, may be seen small ornamental structures into which odd bits
+of paper may be thrown and burnt, thus preventing a desecration so
+painful to the Chinese mind; and it has often been urged against
+foreigners that because they are so careless as to what becomes of
+their written and printed paper, the matter contained in foreign
+documents and books must obviously be of no great value. It is even
+considered criminal to use printed matter for stiffening the covers or
+strengthening the folded leaves of books; still more so, to employ it
+in the manufacture of soles for boots and shoes, though in such cases
+as these the weakness of human nature usually carries the day. Still,
+from the point of view of the Taoist faith, the risk is too serious to
+be overlooked. In the sixth of the ten Courts of Purgatory, through
+one or more of which sinners must pass after death in order to expiate
+their crimes on earth, provision is made for those who "scrape the
+gilding from the outside of images, take holy names in vain, show no
+respect for written paper, throw down dirt and rubbish near pagodas
+and temples, have in their possession blasphemous or obscene books and
+do not destroy them, obliterate or tear books which teach man to be
+good," etc., etc.
+
+In this, the sixth Court, presided over, like all the others, by a
+judge, and furnished with all the necessary means and appliances for
+carrying out the sentences, there are sixteen different wards where
+different punishments are applied according to the gravity of the
+offence. The wicked shade may be sentenced to kneel for long periods
+on iron shot, or to be placed up to the neck in filth, or pounded till
+the blood runs out, or to have the mouth forced open with iron pincers
+and filled with needles, or to be bitten by rats, or nipped by locusts
+while in a net of thorns, or have the heart scratched, or be chopped
+in two at the waist, or have the skin of the body torn off and rolled
+up into spills for lighting pipes, etc. Similar punishments are
+awarded for other crimes; and these are to be seen depicted on the
+walls of the municipal temple, to be found in every large city, and
+appropriately named the Chamber of Horrors. It is doubtful if such
+ghastly representations of what is to be expected in the next world
+have really any deterrent effect upon even the most illiterate of the
+masses; certainly not so long as health is present and things are
+generally going well. "The devil a monk" will any Chinaman be when the
+conditions of life are satisfactory to him.
+
+As has already been stated, his temperament is not a religious one;
+and even the seductions and threats of Buddhism leave him to a great
+extent unmoved. He is perhaps chiefly influenced by the Buddhist
+menace of rebirth, possibly as a woman, or worse still as an animal.
+Belief in such a contingency may act as a mild deterrent under a
+variety of circumstances; it certainly tends to soften his treatment
+of domestic animals. Not only because he may some day become one
+himself, but also because among the mules or donkeys which he has to
+coerce through long spells of exhausting toil, he may be unwittingly
+belabouring some friend or acquaintance, or even a member of his own
+particular family. This belief in rebirth is greatly strengthened by a
+large number of recorded instances of persons who could recall events
+which had happened in their own previous state of existence, and whose
+statements were capable of verification. Occasionally, people would
+accurately describe places and buildings which they could not have
+visited, while many would entertain a dim consciousness of scenes,
+sights and sounds, which seemed to belong to some other than the
+present life. There is a record of one man who could remember having
+been a horse, and who vividly recalled the pain he had suffered when
+riders dug their knees hard into his sides. This, too, in spite of the
+administration in Purgatory of a cup of forgetfulness, specially
+designed to prevent in those about to reborn any remembrance of life
+during a previous birth.
+
+After all, the most awful punishment inflicted in Purgatory upon
+sinners is one which, being purely mental, may not appeal so
+powerfully to the masses as the coarse tortures mentioned above. In
+the fifth Court, the souls of the wicked are taken to a terrace from
+which they can hear and see what goes on in their old homes after
+their own deaths. "They see their last wishes disregarded, and their
+instructions disobeyed. The property they scraped together with so
+much trouble is dissipated and gone. The husband thinks of taking
+another wife; the widow meditates second nuptials. Strangers are in
+possession of the old estate; there is nothing to divide amongst the
+children. Debts long since paid are brought again for settlement, and
+the survivors are called upon to acknowledge false claims upon the
+departed. Debts owed are lost for want of evidence, with endless
+recriminations, abuse, and general confusion, all of which falls upon
+the three families--father's, mother's, and wife's--connected with the
+deceased. These in their anger speak ill of him that is gone. He sees
+his children become corrupt, and friends fall away. Some, perhaps, may
+stroke the coffin and let fall a tear, departing quickly with a cold
+smile. Worse than that, the wife sees her husband tortured in gaol;
+the husband sees his wife a victim to some horrible disease, lands
+gone, houses destroyed by flood or fire, and everything in an
+unutterable plight--the reward of former sins."
+
+Confucius declined absolutely to discuss the supernatural in any form
+or shape, his one object being to improve human conduct in this life,
+without attempting to probe that state from which man is divided by
+death. At the same time, he was no scoffer; for although he declared
+that "the study of the supernatural is injurious indeed," and somewhat
+cynically bade his followers "show respect to spiritual beings, but
+keep them at a distance," yet in another passage we read: "He who
+offends against God has no one to whom he can pray." Again, when he
+was seriously ill, a disciple asked if he might offer up prayer.
+Confucius demurred to this, pointing out that he himself had been
+praying for a considerable period; meaning thereby that his life had
+been one long prayer.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE OUTLOOK
+
+There is a very common statement made by persons who have lived in
+China--among the people, but not of them--and the more superficial the
+acquaintance, the more emphatically is the statement made, that the
+ordinary Chinaman, be he prince or peasant, offers to the Western
+observer an insoluble puzzle in every department of his life. He is,
+in fact, a standing enigma; a human being, it may be granted, but one
+who can no more be classed than his unique monosyllabic language,
+which still stands isolated and alone.
+
+This estimate is largely based upon some exceedingly false inferences.
+It seems to be argued that because, in a great many matters, the
+Chinaman takes a diametrically opposite view to our own, he must
+necessarily be a very eccentric fellow; but as these are mostly
+matters of convention, the argument is just as valid against us as
+against him. "Strange people, those foreigners," he may say, and
+actually does say; "they make their compass point north instead of
+south. They take off their hats in company instead of keeping them on.
+They mount a horse on its left instead of on its right side. They
+begin dinner with soup instead of dessert, and end it with dessert
+instead of soup. They drink their wine cold instead of hot. Their
+books all open at the wrong end, and the lines in a page are
+horizontal instead of vertical. They put their guests on the right
+instead of on the left, though it is true that we did that until
+several hundred years ago. Their music, too, is so funny, it is more
+like noise; and as for their singing, it is only very loud talking.
+Then their women are so immodest; striding about in ball-rooms with
+very little on, and embracing strange men in a whirligig which they
+call dancing, but very unlike the dignified movements which our male
+dancers exhibit in the Confucian temple. Their men and women shake
+hands, though know from our sacred Book of Rites that men and women
+should not even pass things from one to another, for fear their hands
+should touch. Then, again, all foreigners, sometimes the women also,
+carry sticks, which can only be for beating innocent people; and their
+so-called mandarins and others ride races and row boats, instead of
+having coolies to do these things for them. They are strange people
+indeed; very clever at cunning, mechanical devices, such as fire-
+ships, fire-carriages, and air-cars; but extremely ferocious and
+almost entirely uncivilized."
+
+Such would be a not exaggerated picture of the mental attitude of the
+Chinaman towards his enigma, the foreigner. From the Chinaman's
+imperturbable countenance the foreigner seeks in vain for some
+indications of a common humanity within; and simply because he has not
+the wit to see it, argues that it is not there. But there it is all
+the time. The principles of general morality, and especially of duty
+towards one's neighbour, the restrictions of law, and even the
+conventionalities of social life, upon all of which the Chinaman is
+more or less nourished from his youth upwards, remain, when accidental
+differences have been brushed away, upon a bed-rock of ground common
+to both East and West; and it is difficult to see how such teachings
+could possibly turn out a race of men so utterly in contrast with the
+foreigner as the Chinese are usually supposed to be. It is certain
+that anything like a full and sincere observance of the Chinese rules
+of life would result in a community of human beings far ahead of the
+"pure men" dreamt of in the philosophy of the Taoists.
+
+As has already been either stated or suggested, the Chinese seem to be
+actuated by precisely the same motives which actuate other peoples.
+They delight in the possession of wealth and fame, while fully alive
+to the transitory nature of both. They long even more for posterity,
+that the ancestral line may be carried on unbroken. They find their
+chief pleasures in family life, and in the society of friends, of
+books, of mountains, of flowers, of pictures, and of objects dear to
+the collector and the connoisseur. Though a nation of what the Scotch
+would call "sober eaters," they love the banquet hour, and to a
+certain extent verify their own saying that "Man's heart is next door
+to his stomach." In centuries past a drunken nation, some two to three
+hundred years ago they began to come under the influence of opium, and
+the abuse of alcohol dropped to a minimum. Opium smoking, less harmful
+a great deal than opium eating, took the place of drink, and became
+the national vice; but the extent of its injury to the people has been
+much exaggerated, and is not to be compared with that of alcohol in
+the West. It is now, in consequence of recent legislation, likely to
+disappear, on which result there could be nothing but the warmest
+congratulations to offer, but for the fact that something else, more
+insidious and deadly still, is rapidly taking its place. For a time,
+it was thought that alcohol might recover its sway, and it is still
+quite probable that human cravings for stimulant of some kind will
+find a partial relief in that direction. The present enemy, however,
+and one that demands serious and immediate attention, is morphia,
+which is being largely imported into China in the shape of a variety
+of preparations suitable to the public demand. A passage from opium to
+morphia would be worse, if possible, than from the frying-pan into the
+fire.
+
+The question has often been asked, but has never found a satisfactory
+answer, why and how it is that Chinese civilization has persisted
+through so many centuries, while other civilizations, with equal if
+not superior claims to permanency, have been broken up and have
+disappeared from the sites on which they formerly flourished. Egypt
+may be able to boast of a high level of culture at a remoter date than
+we can reach through the medium of Chinese records, for all we can
+honestly claim is that the Chinese were a remarkably civilized nation
+a thousand years before Christ. That was some time before Greek
+civilization can be said to have begun; yet the Chinese nation is with
+us still, and but for contact with the Western barbarian, would be
+leading very much the same life that it led so many centuries ago.
+
+Some would have us believe that the bond which has held the people
+together is the written language, which is common to the whole Empire,
+and which all can read in the same sense, though the pronunciation of
+words varies in different provinces as much as that of words in
+English, French, or German. Others have suggested that to the
+teachings of Confucius, which have outlived the competition of Taoism,
+Buddhism and other faiths, China is indebted for the tie which has
+knitted men's hearts together, and enabled them to defy any process of
+disintegration. There is possibly some truth in all such theories; but
+these are incomplete unless a considerable share of the credit is
+allowed to the spirit of personal freedom which seems to breathe
+through all Chinese institutions, and to unite the people in
+resistance to every form of oppression. The Chinese have always
+believed in the divine right of kings; on the other hand, their kings
+must bear themselves as kings, and live up to their responsibilities
+as well as to the rights they claim. Otherwise, the obligation is at
+an end, and their subjects will have none of them. Good government
+exists in Chinese eyes only when the country is prosperous, free from
+war, pestilence and famine. Misgovernment is a sure sign that God has
+withdrawn His mandate from the emperor, who is no longer fit to rule.
+It then remains to replace the emperor by one who is more worthy of
+Divine favour, and this usually means the final overthrow of the
+dynasty.
+
+The Chinese assert their right to put an evil ruler to death, and it
+is not high treason, or criminal in any way, to proclaim this
+principle in public. It is plainly stated by the philosopher Mencius,
+whose writings form a portion of the Confucian Canon, and are taught
+in the ordinary course to every Chinese youth. One of the feudal
+rulers was speaking to Mencius about a wicked emperor of eight hundred
+years back, who had been attacked by a patriot hero, and who had
+perished in the flames of his palace. "May then a subject," he asked,
+"put his sovereign to death?" To which Mencius replied that any one
+who did violence to man's natural charity of heart, or failed
+altogether in his duty towards his neighbour, was nothing more than an
+unprincipled ruffian; and he insinuated that it had been such a
+ruffian, in fact, not an emperor in the true sense of the term, who
+had perished in the case they were discussing. Another and most
+important point to be remembered in any attempt to discover the real
+secret of China's prolonged existence as a nation, also points in the
+direction of democracy and freedom. The highest positions in the state
+have always been open, through the medium of competitive examinations,
+to the humblest peasant in the empire. It is solely a question of
+natural ability coupled with an intellectual training; and of the
+latter, it has already been shown that there is no lack at the
+disposal of even the poorest. China, then, according to a high
+authority, has always been at the highest rung of the democratic
+ladder; for it was no less a person than Napoleon who said:
+"Reasonable democracy will never aspire to anything more than
+obtaining an equal power of elevation for all."
+
+In order to enforce their rights by the simplest and most bloodless
+means, the Chinese have steadily cultivated the art of combining
+together, and have thus armed themselves with an immaterial, invisible
+weapon which simply paralyses the aggressor, and ultimately leaves
+them masters of the field. The extraordinary part of a Chinese boycott
+or strike is the absolute fidelity by which it is observed. If the
+boatmen or chair-coolies at any place strike, they all strike; there
+are no blacklegs. If the butchers refuse to sell, they all refuse,
+entirely confident in each other's loyalty. Foreign merchants who have
+offended the Chinese guilds by some course of action not approved by
+those powerful bodies, have often found to their cost that such
+conduct will not be tolerated for a moment, and that their only course
+is to withdraw, sometimes at considerable loss, from the untenable
+position they had taken up. The other side of the medal is equally
+instructive. Some years ago, the foreign tea-merchants at a large
+port, in order to curb excessive charges, decided to hoist the Chinese
+tea-men, or sellers of tea, with their own petard. They organized a
+strict combination against the tea-men, whose tea no colleague was to
+buy until, by what seemed to be a natural order of events, the tea-men
+had been brought to their knees. The tea-men, however, remained firm,
+their countenances impassive as ever. Before long, the tea-merchants
+discovered that some of their number had broken faith, and were doing
+a roaring business for their own account, on the terms originally
+insisted on by the tea-men.
+
+There is no longer any doubt that China is now in the early stages of
+serious and important changes. Her old systems of education and
+examination are to be greatly modified, if not entirely remodelled.
+The distinctive Chinese dress is to be shorn of two of its most
+distinguishing features--the /queue/ of the man and the small feet of
+the woman. The coinage is to be brought more into line with commercial
+requirements. The administration of the law is to be so improved that
+an honest demand may be made--as Japan made it some years back--for
+the abolition of extra-territoriality, a treaty obligation under which
+China gives up all jurisdiction over resident foreigners, and agrees
+that they shall be subject, civilly and criminally alike, only to
+their own authorities. The old patriarchal form of government,
+autocratic in name but democratic in reality, which has stood the
+Chinese people in such good stead for an unbroken period of nearly
+twenty-two centuries, is also to change with the changes of the hour,
+in the hope that a new era will be inaugurated, worthy to rank with
+the best days of a glorious past.
+
+And here perhaps it may be convenient if a slight outline is given of
+the course marked out for the future. China is to have a
+"constitution" after the fashion of most foreign nations; and her
+people, whose sole weapon of defence and resistance, albeit one of
+deadly efficiency, has hitherto been combination of the masses against
+the officials set over them, are soon to enjoy the rights of
+representative government. By an Imperial decree, issued late in 1907,
+this principle was established; and by a further decree, issued in
+1908, it was ordered that at the end of a year provincial assemblies,
+to deliberate on matters of local government, were to be convened in
+all the provinces and certain other portions of the empire, as a first
+step towards the end in view. Membership of these assemblies was to be
+gained by election, coupled with a small property qualification; and
+the number of members in each assembly was to be in proportion to the
+number of electors in each area, which works out roughly at about one
+thousand electors to each representative. In the following year a
+census was to be taken, provincial budgets were to be drawn up, and a
+new criminal code was to be promulgated, on the strength of which new
+courts of justice were to be opened by the end of the third year. By
+1917, there was to be a National Assembly or Parliament, consisting of
+an Upper and Lower House, and a prime minister was to be appointed.
+
+On the 14th of October 1909 these provincial assemblies met for the
+first time. The National Assembly was actually opened on the 3rd of
+October 1910; and in response to public feeling, an edict was issued a
+month later ordering the full constitution to be granted within three
+years from date. It is really a single chamber, which contains the
+elements of two. It is composed of about one hundred members,
+appointed by the Throne and drawn from certain privileged classes,
+including thirty-two high officials and ten distinguished scholars,
+together with the same number of delegates from the provinces. Those
+who obtain seats are to serve for three years, and to have their
+expenses defrayed by the state. It is a consultative and not an
+executive body; its function is to discuss such subjects as taxation,
+the issue of an annual budget, the amendment of the law, etc., all of
+which subjects are to be approved by the emperor before being
+submitted to this assembly, and also to deal with questions sent up
+for decision from the provincial assemblies. Similarly, any resolution
+to be proposed must be backed by at least thirty members, and on being
+duly passed by a majority, must then be embodied in a memorial to the
+Throne. For passing and submitting resolutions which may be classed
+under various headings as objectionable, the assembly can at once be
+dissolved by Imperial edict.
+
+There are, so far, no distinct parties in the National Assembly, that
+is, as regards the places occupied in the House. Men of various shades
+of opinion, Radicals, Liberals and Conservatives, are all mixed up
+together. The first two benches are set aside for representatives of
+the nobility, with precedence from the left of the president round to
+his right. Then come officials, scholars and leading merchants on the
+next two benches. Behind them, again, on four rows of benches, are the
+delegates from the provincial assemblies. There is thus a kind of
+House of Lords in front, with a House of Commons, the representatives
+of the nation, at the back. The leanings of the former class, as might
+be supposed, are mostly of a conservative tendency, while the
+sympathies of the latter are rather with progressive ideas; at the
+same time, there will be found among the Lords a certain sprinkling of
+Radicals, and among the Commons not a few whose views are of an
+antiquated, not to say reactionary, type.
+
+With the above scheme the Chinese people are given to understand quite
+clearly that while their advice in matters concerning the
+administration of government will be warmly welcomed, all legislative
+power will remain, as heretofore, confined to the emperor alone. At
+the first blush, this seems like giving with one hand and taking away
+with the other; and so perhaps it would work out in more than one
+nation of the West. But those who know the Chinese at home know that
+when they offer political advice they mean it to be taken. The great
+democracy of China, living in the greatest republic the world has ever
+seen, would never tolerate any paltering with national liberties in
+the present or in the future, any more than has been the case in the
+past. Those who sit in the seats of authority at the capital are far
+too well acquainted with the temper of their countrymen to believe for
+a moment that, where such vital interests are concerned, there can be
+anything contemplated save steady and satisfactory progress towards
+the goal proposed. If the ruling Manchus seize the opportunity now
+offered them, then, in spite of simmering sedition here and there over
+the empire, they may succeed in continuing a line which in its early
+days had a glorious record of achievement, to the great advantage of
+the Chinese nation. If, on the other hand, they neglect this chance,
+there may result one of those frightful upheavals from which the
+empire has so often suffered. China will pass again through the
+melting-pot, to emerge once more, as on all previous occasions,
+purified and strengthened by the process.
+
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY
+
+1.  /The Chinese Classics/, by James Legge, D.D., late Professor of
+    Chinese at Oxford.
+
+A translation of the whole of the Confucian Canon, comprising the Four
+Books in which are given the discourses of Confucius and Mencius, the
+Book of History, the Odes, the Annals of Confucius' native State, the
+Book of Rites, and the Book of Changes.
+
+2.  /The Ancient History of China/, by F. Hirth, Ph.D., Professor of
+    Chinese at Columbia University, New York.
+
+A sketch of Chinese history from fabulous ages down to 221 B.C.,
+containing a good deal of information of an antiquarian character, and
+altogether placing in its most attractive light what must necessarily
+be rather a dull period for the general reader.
+
+3.  /China/, by E. H. Parker, Professor of Chinese at Victoria
+    University, Manchester.
+
+A general account of China, chiefly valuable for commercial and
+statistical information, sketch-maps of ancient trade-routes, etc.
+
+4.  /A Chinese Biographical Dictionary/, by H. A. Giles, LL.D.,
+    Professor of Chinese at the University of Cambridge.
+
+This work contains 2579 short lives of Chinese Emperors, statesmen,
+generals, scholars, priests, and other classes, including some women,
+from the earliest times down to the present day, arranged
+alphabetically.
+
+5.  /A Comprehensive Geography of the Chinese Empire/, by L. Richard.
+
+This work is rightly named "comprehensive," for it contains a great
+deal of information which cannot be strictly classed as geographical,
+all of which, however, is of considerable value to the student.
+
+6.  /Descriptive Sociology (Chinese)/, by E. T. C. Werner, H.B.M.
+    Consul at Foochow.
+
+A volume of the series initiated by Herbert Spenger. It consists of a
+large number of sociological facts grouped and arranged in
+chronological order, and is of course purely a work of reference.
+
+7.  /A History of Chinese Literature/, by H. A. Giles.
+
+Notes on two or three hundred writers of history, philosophy,
+biography, travel, poetry, plays, fiction, etc., with a large number
+of translated extracts grouped under the above headings and arranged
+in chronological order.
+
+8.  /Chinese Poetry in English Verse/, by H. A. Giles.
+
+Rhymed translations of nearly two hundred short poems from the
+earliest ages down to the present times.
+
+9.  /An Introduction to the History of Chinese Pictorial Art/, by H.
+    A. Giles.
+
+Notes on the lives and works of over three hundred painters of all
+ages, chiefly translated from the writings of Chinese art-critics,
+with sixteen reproductions of famous Chinese pictures.
+
+10. /Scraps from a Collector's Note-book/, by F. Hirth.
+
+Chiefly devoted to notes on painters of the present dynasty, 1644-
+1905, with twenty-one reproductions of famous pictures, forming a
+complementary supplement to No. 9.
+
+11. /Religions of Ancient China/, by H. A. Giles.
+
+A short account of the early worship of one God, followed by brief
+notices of Taoism, Buddhism, Nestorian Christianity, Mahommedanism,
+and other less well-known faiths which have been introduced at various
+dates into China.
+
+12. /Chinese Characteristics/, by the Rev. Arthur Smith, D.D.
+
+A humorous but at the same time serious examination into the modes of
+thought and springs of action which peculiarly distinguish the Chinese
+people.
+
+13. /Village Life in China/, by the Rev. Arthur Smith.
+
+The scope of this work is sufficiently indicated by its title.
+
+14. /China under the Empress Dowager/, by J. O. Bland, and E.
+    Backhouse.
+
+An interesting account of Chinese Court Life between 1860 and 1908,
+with important sidelights on the Boxer troubles and the Siege of the
+Legations in 1900.
+
+15. /The Imperial History of China/, by Rev. J. Macgowan.
+
+A short and compact work on a subject which has not been successfully
+handled.
+
+16. /Indiscreet Letters from Peking/, by B. Putnam Weale.
+
+Though too outspoken to meet with general approbation, this work is
+considered by many to give the most faithful account of the Siege of
+the Legations, as seen by an independent witness.
+
+17. /Buddhism as a Religion/, by H. Hackmann, Lic. Theol.
+
+A very useful volume, translated from the German, showing the various
+developments of Buddhism in different parts of the world.
+
+18. /Chuang Tzu/, by H. A. Giles.
+
+A complete translation of the writings of the leading Taoist
+philosopher, who flourished in the fourth and third centuries B.C.
+
+
+
+
+
+End if The Project Gutenberg Etext The Civilization of China, by Giles
+
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