A String of Chinese Peach-Stones

Front matter

String of Ghinese I?Qach~Stone$ MORRISON AND G1BB, PRINTERS, RDINBUKUH. $% String of Ghinoso Reach* Stones By V. Arthur Cornaby ilontjon CHARLES H. KELLY 2, CASTLE ST., CITY RD. ; AND 66, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C. TO THE REVEREND DAVID HILL THIS KESULT OF THE GATHERED UP FRAGMENTS OF NINE YEARS IS DEDICATED WITH HEARTIEST AFFECTION. Qontents CHAP. 1'AOK I. A Village District in Light and Shade ... 1 ii. Rural Scenes and Sounds 20 in. The Mandarin in Embryo 47 iv. Red Letter Days 75 v. Compensations 94 vi. Records of an Ancient City 112 vii. Can any Pathos come out of China? .... 135 viii. An Historical Romance 153 ix. Problems Domestic and National 187 x. Gods Many and Lords Many 209 xi. A Taiping Camp 234 xii. The Longhaired have come 258 xiii. Suffering by Deputy 273 xiv. An Old, Old Story in a New Edition, . . . 290 xv.

Imperial Pop-guns 306 xvi. The Mart of Central China 322 xvn. Four Miles of Flame 347 xvm. Imperialists to the Front 356 v CONTENTS. VIII CHAP. PAGE xix. Art and Artists 372 xx. How to become a Demigod ..... 386 xxi. Changing Scenes 404 xxii. Father and Daughter 421 xxiu. Resurrection 442 xxiv. For Better, for Worse Jfoto on the Illustrations The seals on the back of the cover contain the Chinese name, etc., of the author, and the brazier on the title-page has inscribed upon it the title of the book in Chinese. The illustrations are, many of them (reduced) facsimiles of Chinese pictures of various penmanship, while the bulk are composed on the style of the best drawings in one or other of the two native (photo-lithographed) illustrated papers of Shanghai, to whose artists (unknown) the writer must here express his indebtedness.

Thanks are also due to Dr. Fryer of the Kiang-nan Arsenal, Shanghai, for his kind loan of the one surviving impression from a block (since stolen), engraved with the portrait of Cheng Kwoh-fan. At the other end of the scale, thanks have already been rendered to a vendor of watermelon slices in Hankow streets, who was generous enough to give to a passing foreigner a character-formed picture of an ox, whose doleful proportions he was studying. Such little incidents are as cheering as willow trees in the somewhat dreary expanse, as it seems, of many parts of China. VIEW OF THE PLAIN NORTH OF HANKOW. Introduction PiESPected Eeader, — May I be allowed to dispense with conventionalities, take a seat by your side, and have a chat with you about the book you hold in your hand ? The title ? It may be taken to indicate that you are in possession of a collection of desiccated tales, legends, and the like, picked up here and there along the highways and byways of China.