CLI. INDIA--Concluded…

CLI. INDIA--Concluded

THE INDIANS WITH RELATION TO ANIMALS.

FALCONRY -- THE MINA BIRD AND ITS FEATS -- SNAKE CHARMERS -- SUSPICION OF IMPOSTURE -- GENERAL CAMPBELL’S ACCOUNT OF THE COBRA AND THE CHARMER -- DEATH OF THE MAN -- DIFFICULTY OF THE TASK -- THE POISON FANGS NOT REMOVED -- INITIATION OF A NOVICE -- ELEPHANT HUNTING -- CATCHING ELEPHANTS WITH KOOMKIES -- TAMING THE CAPTURED ANIMAL -- AN ENTHUSIASTIC KOOMKIE -- HUNTING IN NEPÂL -- JUNG BAHADÛR AND THE ELEPHANTS -- HUNTING WITH TRAINED STAGS AND ANTELOPES -- THE CHETAHS OR HUNTING LEOPARDS.

We will end this description of India with a few remarks on one of the chief peculiarities of native character, namely, the wonderful capacity of the Indians in taming and training animals. This capacity develops itself in various ways, some partaking of a religious character, and being considered as in some sense miraculous, and some only illustrative of the natural ascendancy which these men exert over beasts, birds, and reptiles.

The Indians are, for example, unsurpassed in their powers of training falcons, which they teach to attack, not only birds, but antelopes and other game. These falcons are of course unable of themselves to kill an antelope, but they will mark out any one that has been designated by their master, and will swoop down upon its head, clinging firmly with their talons, and buffeting the poor beast about the eyes with their wings, so that it runs wildly hither and thither, and thus allows itself to be captured by the dogs, from which it could have escaped had it been able to proceed in a straight line. A thoroughly trained falcon is held in very great esteem, and many a petty war, in which many lives were lost, has been occasioned by the desire of one rajah to possess a falcon owned by another.

Then there is a little bird called the Mina, belonging to the Grakles. It is a pretty bird, about as large as a starling, with plumage of velvety black, except a white patch on the wing. From either side of the head proceeds a bright yellow wattle. This bird can be taught to talk as well as any parrot, and it is said that, as a rule, the mina’s tones more closely resemble those of the human voice than do those of any parrot. It is very intelligent besides, and can be taught to perform many pretty tricks.

One trick, which is very commonly taught to the bird, is to dart down upon the women, snatch away the ornaments which they wear on their heads, and carry them to its master. This is a little trick that is sometimes played by a young man upon the object of his affections, and is intended to make her grant an interview in order to have her property restored.

As to reptiles, the cobra seems to be as unlikely a creature to be tamed as any on the face of the earth. Yet even this terrible serpent, whose bite is nearly certain death, is tamed by the Indians, and taught to go through certain performances. For example, a couple of serpent charmers will come, with their flat baskets and their musical instruments, and begin to give a performance. One of them plays on a rude native pipe, while the other removes the cover of one of the baskets. Out comes the hooded head of the cobra, which seems as if it were about to glide among the spectators, when a gesture and a few notes from the piper check its progress, and it begins to rise and fall, and sway its head from side to side, as if in time to the music. The men will then take up the venomous reptile, allow it to crawl over their bodies, tie it round their necks, and take all kinds of liberties with it, the serpent appearing to labor under some strange fascination, and to be unable or unwilling to use its fangs.

Some persons think that the serpents are innocuous, their poison fangs having been extracted. This may be the case in some instances, but in them the performers are not the genuine snake charmers. Moreover, there are several sets of fangs, one behind the other, so that when one pair is broken or extracted, another pair speedily comes forward.

That the genuine charmers do not depend upon such imposture for their success is evident from many cases in which the serpents have been carefully examined before and after the performance, and their fangs found to be perfect in every respect. One such instance is narrated by General Campbell in his “Indian Journal.” He had previously been under the impression that the fangs were always removed from the serpents, but the following circumstance convinced him that the charmers could perform their tricks with snakes whose fangs were perfect:--

“When I was on General Dalrymple’s staff at Trichinopoly, there was a dry well in the garden which was the favorite haunt of snakes, and in which I shot several. One morning I discovered a large cobra-capella at the bottom of this well, basking in the sun; but while I ran to fetch my gun some of the native servants began to pelt him with stones, and drove him into his hole among the brickwork. I therefore sent for the snake charmers to get him out. Two of these worthies having arrived, we lowered them into the well by means of a rope. One of them, after performing sundry incantations, and sprinkling himself and his companion with ashes prepared from the dung of a sacred cow, began to play a shrill, monotonous ditty upon a pipe ornamented with shells, brass rings, and beads, while the other stood on one side of the snake’s hole, holding a rod furnished at one end with a slip-noose.

“At first the snake, who had been considerably bullied before he took refuge in his hole, was deaf to the notes of the charmer, but after half an hour’s constant playing the spell began to operate, and the snake was heard to move. In a few minutes more he thrust out his head, the horse-hair noose was dexterously slipped over it and drawn tight, and we hoisted up the men dangling their snake in triumph.

“Having carried him to an open space of ground, they released him from the noose. The enraged snake immediately made a rush at the by-standers, putting to flight a crowd of native servants who had assembled to witness the sport. The snake charmer, tapping him on the tail with a switch, induced him to turn upon himself, and at the same moment sounding his pipe. The snake coiled himself up, raised his head, expanded his hood, and appeared about to strike, but, instead of doing so, he remained in the same position as if fascinated by the music, darting out his slender forked tongue, and following with his head the motion of the man’s knee, which he kept moving from side to side within a few inches of him, as if tempting him to bite.

“No sooner did the music cease, than the snake darted forward with such fury that it required great agility on the part of the man to avoid him, and immediately made off as fast as he could go. The sound of the pipe, however, invariably made him stop, and obliged him to remain in an upright position as long as the man continued to play.

“After repeating this experiment several times, he placed a fowl within his reach, which he instantly darted at and bit. The fowl screamed out the moment he was struck, but ran off, and began picking among his companions as if nothing had happened. I pulled out my watch to see how long the venom took to operate.

“In about half a minute the comb and wattles of the fowl began to change from a red to a livid hue, and were soon nearly black, but no other symptom was apparent. In two minutes it began to stagger, was seized with strong convulsions, fell to the ground, and continued to struggle violently till it expired, exactly three minutes and a half after it had been bitten. On plucking the fowl, we found that he had merely been touched on the extreme point of the pinion. The wound, not larger than the puncture of a needle, was surrounded by a livid spot, but the remainder of the body, with the exception of the comb and wattles (which were of a dark livid hue), was of the natural color, and I afterward learned that the coachman, a half-caste, had eaten it.

“The charmer now offered to show us his method of catching snakes, and seizing the reptile (about five feet long) by the point of the tail with his left hand, he slipped the right hand along the body with the swiftness of lightning, and grasping him by the throat with his finger and thumb, held him fast, and forced him to open his jaws and display his poisonous fangs.

“Having now gratified my curiosity, I proposed that the snake should be destroyed, or at least that his fangs might be extracted, an operation easily performed with a pair of forceps. But, the snake being a remarkably fine one, the charmer was unwilling to extract his teeth, as he said the operation sometimes proved fatal, and begged so hard to be allowed to keep him as he was, that I at last suffered him to put him in a basket and carry him off. After this he frequently brought the snake to the house to exhibit him, and still with his fangs entire, as I ascertained by personal inspection, but so tame that he handled him freely, and apparently without fear or danger.”

The best proof that the snake’s fangs were not extracted is, that some weeks afterwards the reptile bit the charmer, and killed him.

It seems strange that serpents should be thus subject to man. It is comparatively easy to tame a bird or a beast, as hunger can be employed in the process, and really is the chief power, the creature learning to be fond of the person who furnishes it with food. Or, in extreme cases, the power of inflicting pain is employed, so that the animal is ruled by fear, if not by love.

But, in the case of a snake, the tamer is deprived of both of these adjuncts. As a serpent only feeds at very long intervals, and possesses an almost inexhaustible power of fasting, hunger cannot be employed; and its peculiar constitution would render the infliction of pain useless. The charmer has, therefore, to fall back upon some other mode of working upon his pupil, and finds it in music, to which the cobra seems peculiarly accessible. That it is powerfully influenced by music was known many centuries ago, as we may see by the references to serpent charming in the Scriptures. Any music seems to affect the creature, and, if it can be rendered docile by the harsh sounds that proceed from the charmer’s flute, we may conjecture that more melodious sounds would have a like effect. Mr. Williams, who was very much inclined to be sceptical on the subject of serpent charming, and thought that the poison fangs were always removed, mentions that a gentleman at Chinsurah, who was a very excellent violinist, was forced to lay aside his instrument because the sounds of the violin attracted so many serpents to his house.

Serpent charming is thought to be a semi-sacred calling, and is one of those cases where the process of taming partakes of the religious character. The charmers are regularly initiated into their duties, and undergo certain ceremonies before they are thought to be impervious to the serpent’s teeth. Sometimes an European has been initiated into these mysteries, as happened to Lady Duff Gordon, to whom a snake charmer took a fancy, and offered to initiate her. He and his pupil sat opposite each other, and joined their hands. The charmer then twisted a cobra round their joined hands, and repeated some invocation. Both of them afterward spat on the snake, and the novice was pronounced to be safe, and enveloped in snakes as a proof of the success of the incantation.

* * * * *

There is perhaps no better instance of the mastery of the Indians over animals than the manner in which they catch and instruct elephants.

The reader will doubtless remember that, though the elephant is abundant both in Africa and India, the inhabitants of the former country never attempt to domesticate it. It has been thought that the African elephant is not trained, because it is fiercer than the Asiatic species or variety, and lacks the intelligence which distinguishes that animal. This, however, is not the case. The African elephant is as docile and intelligent as that of Asia, and quite as capable of being trained. The elephants which were used in the time of the ancient Romans were brought from Africa, and yet we read of the most wonderful feats which they could perform. Moreover, the African elephants which have been in the Zoölogical Gardens for some years are quite as tractable as the Asiatic animals. The real cause for the non-use of the African elephant is, not its incapacity for domestication, but the lack of capacity in the Africans to domesticate it.

In almost all cases of domesticated animals, the creatures are born in captivity, so that they have never been accustomed to a wild life. The Indian, however, does not trouble himself by breeding elephants, but prefers to capture them when sufficiently grown to suit his purposes. There are two modes of catching the elephant, one of which is so ingenious that it deserves some description, however brief. A common way is by making a large enclosure, called a “keddah,” and driving the elephants into it. The keddah is so made, that when the elephants have fairly entered it they cannot get out again, and are kept there until subdued by hunger and thirst.

By this mode of elephant catching, the animals are taken in considerable numbers, and of all sizes. The genuine elephant hunter, however, cares little for this method, and prefers to pick out for himself the best animals, the Indians being exceedingly particular about their elephants, and an elephant having as many “points” as a prize pigeon or rabbit.

In every herd of elephants the males are given to fighting with each other for the possession of the females, and it often happens that a male, who for some time has reigned supreme in the herd, is beaten at last. Furious with rage and disappointment, he leaves the herd, and ranges about by himself, destroying in his rage everything which opposes him. In this state he is called a “rogue” elephant by the English, and saun by the natives. Now, furious and dangerous as is the saun, he is always a splendid animal, scarcely inferior indeed to the master elephant of the herd. The elephant hunters, therefore, are always glad to hear of a saun, and take measures to capture so valuable a prize.

They possess several female elephants, called “koomkies,” which are used as decoys, and, strangely enough, take the greatest interest in capturing the saun. When the hunter goes out on his expedition, he takes with him at least two koomkies, and sometimes three, if the saun should happen to be a very large one; and in all cases he takes care that the koomkies shall not be much smaller than the saun.

The hunters, furnished with ropes and the other apparatus for securing the saun, lie flat on the koomkies’ backs, cover themselves with a large dark cloth, and proceed toward the place where the saun was seen. Often the koomkies carry in their trunks branches of trees, which they hold in such a manner as to prevent their intended captive from seeing that they carry anything on their backs. The saun, seeing them approach, loses some of his fury, and thinks that he is in great good-fortune to meet with females over whom he can rule as he had done before. He is so delighted with this idea that he fails to perceive the hunters, who usually slip off behind a tree as they near him, but sometimes boldly retain their post.

The koomkies then go up to the saun and begin to caress him, one on each side, and sometimes another in front of him, when three decoys are employed. They caress him, make much of him, and gradually bring him near a stout tree, where they detain him. The hunters then creep under the huge animal, and pass stout ropes round his forelegs, binding them tightly together, being aided in this by the decoys, who place their trunks so that their masters cannot be seen, and sometimes even assist him by passing the rope when he cannot conveniently reach it. The forelegs being secured, the hunter places round the elephant’s hindlegs a pair of strong fetters. These are made of wood, and open with a hinge of rope. They are studded inside with sharp iron spikes, and, when clasped round the feet of the elephant, are fastened to the trunk of the tree with strong ropes.

The elephant being now made fast, the hunters creep away, and are followed by the koomkies, who receive their masters on their necks, and go off, leaving the unfortunate saun to his fate. If he was furious before, he is tenfold more so when he has to add to disappointment the sense of confinement, and the knowledge that he has been tricked. He screams with rage, tears branches off the tree, pulls up the grass by the roots and flings it about, and even tries to break the rope which holds him to the tree, or to pull up the tree itself by the roots. The spikes with which the wooden fetters are lined give him such pain, that he is soon forced to desist, and wearied out with pain and exertion, he becomes more quiet. On the following day the same men and elephants come to him, and bring him a little food; and so they go on until he has learned first to endure, and afterward to desire their presence. When they judge him to be sufficiently tamed, strong ropes are fastened to his legs, and attached to the koomkies, and, the ligatures round his feet being removed, he is marched off to his new quarters.

Sometimes he resists, on finding his limbs at liberty. In such a case the koomkies drag him along by the ropes, while a large male pushes him on from behind, sometimes using his tusks by way of spurs. When he has been taken to his abode, he is treated with firm but kind discipline, and is so effectually tamed, that in a few months after he was ranging wild about the forest he may be seen assisting to convey a refractory brother to his new home.

The intelligence of the koomkies is really wonderful, and they take quite as much interest in the pursuit as their masters. Captain Williams mentions an instance where a gentleman had purchased a koomkie, not knowing her to be such. The mahout or driver would not mention her capacity, because he very much preferred the ease and comfort of a gentleman’s establishment to the dangers and hardships of a hunter’s life. The wealthy natives of the neighborhood would not mention it, because each of them hoped to buy the animal for himself at a less price than would be asked for a koomkie.

One day the animal was missing, and did not return for several days. However, she came back, and was harnessed as usual for a walk. When she came to a certain spot, she became restive, and at last dashed into the jungle, where she brought her master to a fine saun, whom she had crippled by fastening a chain round his forelegs.

In Nepâl the natives adopt a very dangerous mode of elephant hunting. They go to the hunt on elephants, and furnish themselves with very strong ropes, one end of which is made fast to the body of the riding elephant, and the other furnished with a slip-knot, to which is attached a line, by which the noose can be relaxed. They give chase to the herd, and, selecting a suitable animal, the hunter dexterously flings the noose upon the head of the animal just behind its ears and on its brows. The elephant instinctively curls up its trunk, whereupon the noose slips fairly over its head.

The hunter then checks the pace of his animal, so that the noose is drawn tightly round the neck of the captured elephant, and causes a partial choking. His speed being checked, another hunter comes up and flings a second noose, so that by their united force the captive can be strangled if necessary. Sometimes, when he is very furious, the hunters are obliged to render him insensible over and over again, before he can be induced to obey his new masters. The well-known Nepâlese ambassador, Jung Bahadûr, was celebrated for his skill and daring in this dangerous sport.

As an example of the perfect command which the Indian mahouts have over their animals, Captain Williams mentions an adventure which took place at Chittagong. During a stormy night, an elephant got loose, and escaped into the forest. Four years afterward, when a herd of elephants was driven into a keddah, the mahout, who had climbed the palisades to view the enclosed animals, thought that he recognized among them his missing elephant. His comrades ridiculed him, but he persisted in his idea, and called the animal by name. The elephant recognized the voice of its driver, and came toward him. The man was so overjoyed at this, that, regardless of the danger which he ran, he climbed over the palisades, and called to the elephant to kneel down. The animal obeyed him, he mounted on its neck, and triumphantly rode it out of the keddah.

Elephants are sometimes taken in pits, at the bottom of which are laid bundles of grass in order to break the fall of the heavy animal. The elephants are generally decoyed into these pits by a tame animal which is guided close to the pit by the mahout, who has placed certain marks by which he knows its exact locality. Sometimes they are merely dug in the paths of the elephants, which fall into them in their nightly rambles, and by their moanings inform the hunters of their proceedings.

In these pits they are forced to remain until they have been tamed by hunger, just as is the case with those animals that are tied to the trees. When they are sufficiently tame, the hunter throws into the pit successive bundles of jungle grass. These the sagacious animal arranges under his feet in such a way that he soon raises himself sufficiently high to step upon the level earth, where he is received by the hunters and his tame elephants. These “pitted” elephants, as they are called, are not held in high estimation, as there is always danger that they may have suffered some injury by the fall.

Just as tame elephants are brought to capture the wild animals, so are tame stags taught to capture those of their own species. An account of the sport is given in the “Private Life of an Eastern King”:--

“I have never heard of trained stags being employed elsewhere as I saw them employed in Oude.... In our rides in the neighborhood of the lake, near which we encamped, we lighted upon a fine open country adjoining a forest, which would answer admirably for the purpose. The adjoining wood was full of the smaller game of Oude, or, if not smaller, at all events the more harmless, among which the wild deer must be classed as one. Skilful beaters were sent off into the forest to drive the deer, as if unintentionally,--that is, without violence, or making much noise,--toward the point of the forest adjoining the open space which I have just mentioned. Here, protected by its watching guardians, the most warlike and powerful of its males, the herd was congregated in apparent safety.

“We had about a dozen trained stags, all males, with us. These, well acquainted with the object for which they were sent forward, advanced at a gentle trot over the open ground toward the skirt of the wood. They were observed at once by the watchers of the herd, and the boldest of the wild animals advanced to meet them. Whether the intention was to welcome them peaceably, or to do battle for their pasturage, I cannot tell, but in a few minutes the parties were engaged in a furious contest. Head to head, antlers to antlers, the tame deer and the wild fought with great fury. Each of the tame animals, every one of them large and formidable, was closely contested with a wild adversary, standing chiefly on the defensive, not in any feigned battle or mimicry of war, but in a hard-fought combat. We now made our appearance in the open ground on horseback, advancing toward the scene of conflict. The deer on the skirts of the wood, seeing us, took to flight, but those actually engaged maintained their ground, and continued the contest.

“In the meantime a party of native huntsmen, sent for the purpose, gradually drew near to the wild stags, getting in between them and the forest. What their object was we were not at the time aware; indeed, it was not one that we could have approved or encouraged. They made their way to the rear of the wild stags, which were still combating too fiercely to mind them; they approached the animals, and, with a skilful cut of their long knives, the poor warriors fell hamstrung. We felt pity for the noble animals as we saw them fall helplessly on the ground, unable longer to continue the contest, and pushed down by the tame stags. Once down, they were unable to rise again.

“The tame ones were called off in a moment; not one of them pursued his victory. Their work was done; they obeyed the call of their keepers almost at once, and were led off like hounds, some of them bearing evidence in their gored chests that the contest in which they had been engaged was no sham, but a reality. As we rode up we saw them led off, triumphantly capering over the ground as if proud of their exploits, tossing their fine spreading antlers about joyously, and sometimes looking as if they would enjoy a little more fighting,--this time with each other.”

The antelope is sometimes used in a similar manner. The largest and most powerful male antelopes are trained for the purpose, and are sent toward the herd with nooses fastened on their horns. The wild antelopes soon come out to fight the intruders, and are caught by the nooses.

* * * * *

There is another sport of which the Indians are very fond, namely, the chase of the deer by means of the chetah, or hunting leopard. This animal is by no means the same species as the common leopard, from which it is easily distinguished by its much larger legs, its comparatively bushy tail, and a crest or ridge of hair along the neck. It is not so much of a tree-climber as the common leopard, and though it can ascend a tree, very seldom does so. Whether the common leopard could be trained to catch deer is rather doubtful. The experiment has not been tried, probably owing to the fact that the chetah performs its part so well that there is no object in trying another animal.

Chetahs are very docile creatures, and, when tame, seem to be as fond of notice as cats. This I can personally testify, having been in the same cage with the animals at the Zoölogical Gardens, and found them very companionable, even allowing me, though after some protest in the way of growling and spitting, to take their paws in my hand, and push out the talons.

Those which are used for the sport are led about by their attendants, merely having a cord round their necks, and are so gentle that no one is afraid to be near them. Lest, however, they might be irritated, and in a moment of passion do mischief, they wear on their heads a sort of hood, shaped something like the beaver of an ancient helmet. This hood is generally worn on the back of the head, but if the keeper should think that his charge is likely to be mischievous, he has only to slip the hood over the eyes, and the animal is at once rendered harmless.

When the hunters go out in search of deer, the chetahs are taken on little flat-topped carts, not unlike the costermongers’ barrows of our streets. Each chetah is accompanied by its keeper, and is kept hooded during the journey. When they have arrived within sight of deer, the keeper unhoods the animal and points out the prey. The chetah instantly slips off the cart, and makes its way toward the deer, gliding along on its belly like a serpent, and availing itself of every bush and stone by which it can hide its advance. When it can crawl no closer, it marks out one deer, and springs toward it in a series of mighty bounds. The horsemen then put their steeds to the gallop, and a most exciting scene ensues.

The chase is never a very long one, for the chetah, though of wonderful swiftness for a short distance, does not possess the conformation needful for a long chase. Sometimes a chetah of peculiar excellence will continue the chase for some little time, but, as a rule, a dozen mighty bounds bring the animal to its prey. We all know the nature of the cat tribe, and their great dislike to be interrupted while their prey is in their grasp. Even a common cat has a strong objection to be touched while she has a mouse in her mouth, and we may therefore wonder how the keepers contrive to make the chetah relinquish its prey. This is done either by cutting off part of the leg and giving it to the chetah, or filling a ladle with its blood and allowing the leopard to lap it. The hood is then slipped over the eyes, and the chetah allows itself to be replaced in its cart.

Sometimes it is necessary to leave the cart, and lead the animal by its chain toward the place where the animals are known to be. This is always a difficult business, because the animal becomes so excited that the least noise, or the scent left by a passing deer, will cause it to raise its head aloft, and stare round for the deer. In a few moments it would, become unmanageable, and dash away from its keeper, were not he prepared for such an event. He carries with him a kind of ladle, made of a hollowed cocoa-nut shell at the end of a handle. This is sprinkled on the inside with salt, and as soon as the man perceives a change of demeanor on the part of his charge, he puts the ladle over the muzzle of the chetah. The animal licks the salt, forgets the cause of excitement, and walks on quietly as before.

Some of the great men in India take considerable pride in their chetahs, and have them paraded daily, covered with mantles of silk heavily embroidered with gold, and wearing hoods of similarly rich materials.

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CLII. TARTARY

THE MANTCHU TARTARS.

MUTUAL INFLUENCE OF THE TARTARS AND CHINESE UPON EACH OTHER -- A CHINESE BATTLE -- DASH AND COURAGE OF TARTAR HORSEMEN -- TARTAR GUNNERS -- “CATCHING A TARTAR” -- THE BOW, AND MODE OF STRINGING IT -- SYSTEMATIC TRAINING OF THE ARCHER -- THE TARTAR ARROW -- ATHLETIC EXERCISES -- BLOODLESS CONQUEST OF THE TARTARS BY THE CHINESE.

We now proceed to the more civilized portions of the vast Mongolian race, namely the Tartars, the Chinese, and the Japanese. It will of course be impossible to give even the briefest account of the numerous nations which have been called Tartars, and we will therefore confine ourselves to the Mantchu Tartars, who have exercised so remarkable an influence on the empire of China.

It has been well said, that when a strong people invade and conquer the territory of a weaker, their conquest has a double effect. The victors impose certain habits and modes of life upon the vanquished, and, in so doing, generally strengthen them in those points where they are weak. But, in return, the vanquished exert an influence upon their conquerors which has precisely the opposite effect, and tends to diminish rather than to increase their strength. So it has been with the Tartars and the Chinese, whose history during the last few centuries has been most instructive to the ethnologist,--I should rather say, to the anthropologist.

Just as in one family we invariably find that there are members of very different powers, and that the possessor of the stronger intellect invariably obtains dominion over the others, so it has been with the two great divisions of the Asiatic Mongols. The Tartar is in many points superior to the Chinese, and, as a rule, is easily distinguished even by his appearance. He possesses more decided features, is more alert in his movements, and certainly possesses more courage. The Chinese will fight wonderfully well behind walls, or on board ship, and even in the field display great courage of a quiet nature if they are led by European officers. But, when left to themselves, they are not good soldiers in the field, unless opposed to enemies much inferior. Mr. Scarth, who had the opportunity of witnessing a battle, describes it as an absolute farce.

“One day, when a great many soldiers were out, I saw more of the contest than was pleasant. Having got into the line of fire, I was forced to take shelter behind a grave, the bullets striking the grave from each side every second. Why they came my way it was difficult to discover, for they ought to have passed on the other side of a creek, about twenty yards distant, to the people they were intended for; but to see the dodging of the soldiers, then of the rebels, each trying to evade the other, was almost amusing.

“One fellow, ready primed and loaded, would rush up the side of a grave-hillock, drop his matchlock over the top, and, without taking aim, blaze away. There is no ramrod required for the shot they use; the bullet, or bar of iron, is merely dropped in loose upon the powder.

“There was a fine scene on an occasion when the Shanghai rebels made a sortie. One of the men was cut off by an imperial skirmisher, who had his piece loaded. The rebel had no time to charge his; so he ran round and round a grave, which was high enough to keep his enemy from shooting him when on the opposite side. Hare hunting was nothing to it. Red-cap described hosts of circles, and the royalist was fast getting blown, when the gods took pity on his wind, for, by some unlucky chance, the rebel tripped and fell. The soldier was at him in a moment, and, to make sure of his prize, put the muzzle of his matchlock close to Red-cap’s head, fired, and took to his heels as fast as he could go. It is difficult to say who was most astonished, when Mr. Red-cap did exactly the same! The bullet that dropped down readily on the powder fell out as easily when the barrel was depressed. The rebel got off with a good singeing of his long hair.”

The Tartars, however, are very different men in battle, as was frequently proved during our wars in China; and though they were comparatively ignorant of the art of war, and were furnished with weapons that were mere toys in comparison with the arms to which they were opposed, they showed themselves to be really formidable antagonists. As irregular cavalry, they displayed an amount of dash and courage which would make them most valuable allies, could they be trained by European officers. They boldly charged in the face of field-batteries of Armstrong guns, and, though the shells burst among them with murderous precision, they came on in the most gallant manner.

Indeed, a British officer, who was opposed to them, said that scarcely any regular cavalry would have advanced in the face of such a fire, delivered from fifteen breech-loading guns. Of course, when they did close, the superior discipline of their opponents prevailed against them, and the Sikh cavalry of Probyn and Fane at once routed their undisciplined ranks. But, had they been drilled and commanded by such men as those who led the Sikh cavalry against them, the issue of the fight might have been very different.

They served their guns with dauntless courage, and allowed themselves to be cut to pieces by the Armstrong shell rather than leave them. A single man would sometimes be seen working a gun by himself after his comrades had been killed, and he expected the same fate every moment; and it therefore happened, that of the slain in that war by far the greatest number were Tartars. They are better horsemen than the Chinese, and both themselves and their steeds are hardy, active, and capable of existing on very little food. One of their peculiarities is the method in which they carry the sword. Instead of hanging it to the waist, and letting it bang against the horse’s side, they pass it under the saddle-flap, where it is held tight by the pressure of the leg. They thus avoid the jingle and swing of the European sabre, and moreover are free from the drag of a heavy weapon upon the waist of the rider.

Of the courage displayed by the Tartars under adverse circumstances, a curious instance is given by Mr. M’Ghee. After one of the charges of Probyn’s horse, the Tartar cavalry, in spite of their skill in evading the thrust of a lance or the stroke of a sword, had suffered severe loss, and many were stretched on the ground. Among them was the body of a very powerful man, who had carried a handsome lance. As Mr. M’Ghee found himself without arms, in a rather dangerous position, he thought he would arm himself with the lance, and began to dismount.

As he took his foot from the stirrup, the supposed dead man sprang to his feet, lance in hand, and showed fight. An officer just then rode to the rescue with his revolver, and shot the Tartar in the back. The man fell, but rose again, charged the officer with his lance, unhorsed him, and made off, but was killed by a lance thrust from a Sikh horseman. The fact was, his horse had been killed in battle, and he meant to feign death until he could find an opportunity of slipping away. Even the wounded men, knowing nothing of the amenities of civilized war, and expecting no quarter, used to fire at the enemy when they lay writhing with pain on the ground.

These Tartar soldiers are commanded by a general belonging to their own people, and his immediate subordinate is almost invariably a Tartar also. The office of Tartar general is one of great importance, because, as the Emperor is always of a Tartar family, it is thought that the safety of his person and dynasty ought to be confided not to a Chinese, but to a Tartar. The lieutenant-general, who serves under him, though his post is perhaps the least lucrative in the Imperial household, is glad to hold the appointment, because he is usually selected to succeed to the generalship.

The chief weapons of these soldiers are the bow and the spear, the sword and fire-arms playing a comparatively subordinate part. Being good riders, they naturally take to the spear, the true weapon of a horseman, and are drilled in the various modes of delivering a thrust, and of avoiding one, the latter feat being performed with a dexterity almost equalling that of a Camanchee Indian. Although they carry fire-arms with them, they really place little dependence on the heavy, clumsy weapons which they use, that require two men to fire them, and generally knock down the firer by the recoil. Nor do they care very much for the improved fire-arms of Europeans, for, as one warrior said, guns get out of order, spears and swords do not.

The bow of the Tartar (which has spread throughout all China) is much on the principle of the reversed bows which have already been described, though the curve is not so continuous. The bow is nearly straight for the greater part of its length, and then takes an abrupt curve within a foot or so of each end. One of these bows, in my collection, is nearly six feet in length, and measures two inches in width. About seven inches from each end, a broad piece of bone nearly an inch in length is fixed to the bow, so that the string passes over it, and does not strike against the wood.

The strength of these bows is enormous, varying, according to our mode of reckoning, from sixty to ninety pounds. The weapon is strung in manner somewhat resembling that which has already been described in connection with Indian bows. It must be done in a moment, or not at all, and the only method of doing so is, by placing it behind the right thigh and in front of the left, and then bending it with a sudden stoop of the body, at the same time slipping the loop of the string into its notch. My own weapon is so powerful that I can scarcely make any impression upon it, though I have used my best efforts.

The soldiers undergo a vast amount of practice in the use of this weapon, of which they are as proud as were the English archers of their long-bow and cloth-yard arrow. They have a saying, that the first and most important duty of a soldier is to be a good archer, and that a man ought even to sleep with a bow in his hands. In order to instruct them in the proper attitude of an archer, they have invented a simple piece of machinery, by means of which the soldier undergoes a vast amount of “position drill,” so that he may learn to keep his body straight and firm, his shoulders immovable, and his hands in the right position.

From a beam or branch are suspended two rings, which can be moved up and down, to suit the height of the learner. The young archer places his hands in the rings as far as the wrists, and then goes through the various movements of the weapon. When he can satisfy his instructor, a bow is placed in his hands, and he then practises the art of drawing the string to its proper tension. Lastly, he has an arrow besides, and shoots it repeatedly. The head of the arrow is blunted, and the target is a piece of stout leather, hung loosely at a little distance, so that it partially yields to the arrow, and allows the missile to fall to the ground.

The arrow corresponds to the bow. One of these missiles in my collection is three feet three inches in length. It is made of some light wood, and is terminated by a flat, spear-shaped head, two inches long and one inch wide. The other end of the arrow is expanded, so as to allow a large “nock” for the reception of the thick string, and is bound with fish-skin as far as the feathers, which are exactly a foot in length. The shaft is extremely slight in comparison with the length of the arrow.

These men train their muscular powers to a great extent, and have several exercises for this purpose. One of them is called Suay-tau, or throwing the weight. They have a nearly square stone, weighing rather more than fifty pounds, and having a handle in a hollow cut in its upper surface.

The men mark out a square on the ground, and the players stand at some distance apart. One of them takes the stone, swings it once or twice, and hurls it in the air toward the next player. It is thrown with such skill that the hollow always comes uppermost, and the stone descends into the hand with a shock that makes the man spin round on his heels. The same movement, however, is utilized to give force to the stone; and so the players pass this heavy weight from one to the other with apparent ease, and with the regularity of a machine. A similar exercise is conducted with a heavy sand-bag.

It may easily be imagined how such men would vanquish in battle the comparatively sluggish Chinese, and how they would impose upon them many of their manners and customs. But, though they succeeded in their conquest, though they changed the dress of the Chinese, though they placed a Tartar monarch on the throne, and though they have been the chief military power in China, they have themselves suffered a far severer, though slower, conquest at the hands of the vanquished.

The Chinese, being essentially a contemplative and intellectual nation, care very little for military ability, so that the lowest civil mandarin feels a thorough contempt for the highest military mandarin, because the active life of the latter precludes him from following up those peculiar studies which can raise a Chinese from the state of a peasant to that of the highest in the land. Especially do the Chinese despise their intellectual capacities, though they may appreciate and utilize their bodily strength and military prowess. “The Tartars,” said a Chinese shopkeeper, “are cows.”

The extraordinary reaction of the vanquished upon their conquerors is admirably put by Mr. Fleming, in his “Travels on Horseback in Mantchu Tartary.”

“By dint of their extraordinary industry, thrifty habits, an unceasing desire to accumulate wealth by any amount of plodding, cunning, or hardship, the Chinaman has wormed himself beyond the Great Wall, built towns and villages, cultivated every rood of land, and is at once the farmer and the trader everywhere. He claims the best part of Mantchuria as his own, and dares even to scandalize the Tartar race in their own capital, though it is barely two centuries since that race filed in long cavalry troops through those gates at Shan-kis-Kwan, and were introduced by an indiscreet Chinese general to the vast empire which they soon conquered and sternly governed.

“Now the Chinese seem the conquerors, for they have not only obtained possession of the land, and converted it into a region thoroughly Chinese, but they have imposed their language, their habits and customs, and every trait belonging to them, on those of the original occupants who choose to mix with them, and ousted out every grim old banner-man who would not condescend to shopkeeping, or handling the spade or plough.

“There is not the most trifling Mantchu word to designate town, hamlet, mountain, or river, in use among the people nowadays, and anything that might at all tell of the character and power of the original proprietors is entirely effaced. If the Mantchus obtained possession of the Dragon Throne at Pekin, partly by force of arms in military prowess, and partly by perfidy, aided by rebellions among the Chinese themselves; if they compelled the hundreds of millions over whom they found cause to rule to alter their dress, wear tails, and perhaps smoke tobacco,--the people thus subjugated have made ample retaliation by wiping out every trace of their invaders in their own country, and leaving the existence of the usurpers all but traditionary in the metropolis where, two hundred years ago, they held their court, and where one of their kings boldly vowed vengeance for seven great grievances that he imagined had been brought on him by the Chinese Emperor.

“Nothing prevents the invasion of the Corea by these wonderful Chinese but the high palisade that keeps them within the limits of Mantchuria. For, if once they got a footing in that country, the Coreans would suffer the same fate as the Mantchus, and there is no telling when these sons of Ham would stop in their bloodless aggrandizement and territorial acquisitiveness.”

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CLIII. CHINA

APPEARANCE--DRESS--FOOD.

APPEARANCE OF THE CHINESE -- MODE OF PLAITING THE “TAIL” -- THE CHINESE BARBER -- THE REFUSE HAIR AND ITS USES -- CEREMONIOUS EMPLOYMENT OF THE TAIL -- DRESSING THE HAIR OF THE WOMEN -- MUTUAL ASSISTANCE -- POWDER FOR THE SKIN, AND MODE OF APPLYING IT -- SMALL FEET OF THE CHINESE WOMEN -- ORIGIN AND DATE OF THE CUSTOM OF COMPRESSING THE FEET -- DRESS OF THE WOMEN -- DRESS OF THE MEN -- THE “BUTTON” OF RANK -- SYSTEM OF EXAMINATION -- INGENIOUS MODES OF EVASION -- EXCEPTION IN FAVOR OF OLD AGE -- THE FAN AND ITS VARIOUS USES -- CHINESE LANTERNS -- THE “STALKING-HORSE LANTERN” -- FEAST OF LANTERNS -- THE GREAT DRAGON -- CHOPSTICKS, AND THE MODE OF USING THEM -- THE CASE OF CHOPSTICKS -- FOOD OF THE CHINESE -- LIVING CRABS -- BIRDS’-NEST SOUP -- TEA, AND MODE OF PREPARATION.

We now come to China, a country of such extent, so thickly populated, and containing so many matters of interest, that justice could not be fully done if an entire volume were devoted to it. We will therefore restrict ourselves to a selection of those particulars in which the Chinese appear to offer the greatest contrast to Europeans.

The appearance of the Chinese possess many of the characteristics of the Tartar, both nations being different branches of the same great family. The Chinese, however, are, as a rule, of a less determined and manly cast than the Tartars, and have about them a sort of effeminacy which accounts for the conquest suffered at their hands.

One of the chief peculiarities in a Chinaman’s appearance is his “tail.” This mode of dressing the hair was imposed upon the Chinese by the Tartars, and has remained in full force ever since. The Tae-ping rebels, however, viewing the “tail” as an ignominious sign of conquest, refuse to wear it, and allow the whole of their hair to grow.

With the loyal Chinese, however, the tail has become quite an institution, and they regard it with the same sort of reverence which is felt by an Arab, a Turk, or a Persian for his beard. It is scarcely possible to punish a Chinaman more severely than by cutting off his tail, and, though he may supply its place with an artificial tail curiously woven into the hair, he feels the indignity very keenly. Sometimes, when two men are to be punished severely, they are tied together by their tails, and exposed to the derision of the public.

The tail bears some resemblance to the scalp-lock of the American Indian, but it includes very much more hair than is comprehended in the scalp-lock. The Chinaman shaves the hair from his forehead and round the temples, but leaves a circular patch of tolerable size, the hair of which is allowed to grow to its full length. Sometimes, if the patch be not large enough to nourish a sufficient quantity of hair to produce a good tail, it is enlarged by allowing more and more hair to grow at each successive shaving. On an average, the head is shaved once in ten days, and no one would venture to go into good society unless the hair of his head were clean shaven. As for his face, he has so few hairs upon it, that he does not trouble the barber very much with his countenance.

Owing to the position of the tail, a man cannot dress it properly without aid, and, chiefly for this purpose, the peripatetic barber has become quite an institution in China. All the materials of his trade are carried at the ends of a bamboo pole, which the barber carries in yoke fashion across his shoulders. When his services are required, he puts down his load, arranges his simple apparatus in a few moments, and sets to work upon the cherished tail of his customer.

Very little capital is required to set up a barber in trade. There is the razor, a most primitive triangle of steel, two inches long by one inch wide, which cost, perhaps, three half-pence, or twopence if it be of the best kind. There is the linen strop, which costs a penny, and a bamboo seat and table, which cost, perhaps, twopence each. There is one expensive article, namely, the brass basin, but, as a rule, a Chinese barber can be well set up in trade at the expenditure of about six or seven shillings, and can make a good living by his business. This sum includes a supply of black silk, wherewith to supplement the tails of his customers, and a few locks of real hair, with which he can supply artificial tails in cases where they are denied by nature.

The customer always holds a sort of basin in which to catch the clippings of hair. These are preserved, not from any superstitious ideas, as is the case in many parts of the world, but are put aside for the hair collector, who makes his daily rounds with his basket oil his back. The contents of the basket are carefully utilized. The long hair combed from women’s heads is separated and made into false tails for the men, while the short pieces shaven from men’s heads are used as manure, a tiny pinch of hair being inserted into the ground with each seed or plantlet. In consequence of the universal practice of shaving the head and wearing a tail, the number of barbers is very great, and in 1858 they were said to exceed seven thousand in Canton alone.

The right management of the tail is, among the Chinese, what the management of the hat is among ourselves. For example, it is a mark of respect to allow the tail to hang at full length, and any one who ventured to address an equal without having his tail hanging down his back would be thought as boorish as would an Englishman who went into a lady’s drawing-room without removing his hat. When the people are at work, they always coil the cherished tail round their heads, so as to get it out of the way; but if a man of superior rank should happen to pass, down go all the tails at once.

During the late war in China, the common people soon found that the English, in their ignorance of Chinese customs, did not trouble themselves whether the tails hung down their backs or were twisted round their heads. Accordingly, Oriental-like, they took advantage of this ignorance, and, though they would lower their tails for the meanest official who happened to pass near them, they made no sign even when an English general came by. However, one of the English officers discovered this ruse, and every now and then one of them used to go through the streets and compel every Chinaman to let down his tail.

The tail is never entirely composed of the hair of the wearer. Sometimes it is almost wholly artificial, a completely new tail being fixed to a worn-out stump, and, as a general rule, the last eighteen inches are almost entirely made of black silk. Besides being a mark of fashion, the tail is often utilized. A sailor, for example, will tie his hat to his head with his tail when the wind rises, and a schoolmaster sometimes uses his tail in lieu of a cane.

Absurd as the tail looks when worn by any except a Chinese or Tartar, it certainly does seem appropriate to their cast of countenance, and it is to be doubted whether the Tartar conquerors did not confer a benefit instead of inflicting an injury on the Chinese by the enforcement of the tail.

The hair of the women is not shaven, but on the contrary, additions are made to it. While they are unmarried, it hangs down the back in a long queue, like that of the men; but when they marry, it is dressed in various fantastic forms. There is a very fashionable ornament in China, called the “butterfly’s wings.” This is a quantity of false hair made in fanciful imitation of a huge butterfly, and fastened to the back of a woman’s head. Fashions, however, vary in different parts of China, and even in the same locality the women are not tied to the absolute uniformity which distinguishes the hair of the men. One mode of hair-dressing which is very prevalent makes the hair look very much like a teapot, the long tresses being held in their place by a strong cement made from wood shavings. Another mode of hair-dressing which prevails in Northern China is thus described by Mr. Fleming: “Here it is dressed and gummed in the form of an ingot of sycee silver, which is something in shape like a cream-jug, or an oval cup, wide at the top and narrow at the bottom, with a piece scooped out of the edge at each side, and with bright-colored flowers fastened by, or stuck about with skewers and pins, that stand out like porcupine quills. Though their necks be ever so dirty, and their faces not much better, yet the hair must be as exquisitely trimmed and plastered, according to the local rage, as that in a wax model seen in a London barber’s shop-window.”

In the accompanying illustration two women are shown, who render aid to each other in arranging their hair after the “teapot” fashion. In the households of Chinese women, dressing-cases are considered almost the chief requisites of life. In the drawers are the combs, pins, and paint for the cheeks and lips, and the white powder which is rubbed into the skin. This powder is made from white marble, which is broken small with a hammer, and then thrown into a tub in which revolve two stones turned by a buffalo, just like the wheels which are used in making gunpowder. The coarsely ground mass is then transferred, together with water, to a second mill, in which it is reduced to a mixture like cream. This creamy substance is then levigated in a succession of tubs, the sediment of which is taken out and returned to the mill, and the remainder is allowed to settle, the superfluous water drawn off, and the sediment pressed, while still moist, into cakes.

When used it is not only rubbed on the skin, but actually worked into it with string, which is placed on the hands in a sort of cat’s-cradle, and worked backward and forward until the required effect is produced. This powder is also used to give rice a factitious whiteness. The coarser portions are employed for making whitewash and whitening mortar.

Many of the Chinese of both sexes are remarkable for the great length to which they allow their nails to grow. This is supposed to be a sign of rank or literary occupation, inasmuch as the nails would be broken by any laborious work. For this purpose, they are kept carefully oiled to prevent them from being brittle, and are further preserved by being enclosed in tubes which slip over the end of the finger. These tubes are sometimes of bamboo, sometimes of silver, and a few of the most precious minerals.

The feet of the Chinese women are often more strangely decorated than their heads. A vast number of the women have their feet cramped by bandages into a state which renders them little better than mere pegs on which to walk, or rather totter. It is not only the rich who are thus deformed, but the poorest often have their feet cramped. The operation is begun at a very early age, so that the feet of the full-grown woman may not exceed in size that of a child of five or six. Bandages are bound firmly round the foot in such a way as to force it into an arched shape, the heel being pressed forward and the ball of the foot backward, while the four middle toes are bent under the foot, and so completely squeezed into its substance that they almost lose their identity. In fact, the member is made artificially into a club-foot, which, repugnant as it may be to European eyes, is the delight of the Chinese, who call it metaphorically by the name of “golden lily.”

Clay models of these “golden lilies” are sold at many of the shops; and as they are very accurate imitations of the foot, and it is almost impossible to induce a Chinese woman to remove the bandages and exhibit the member, a representation of one of these models is here given. The gait of the woman is necessarily reduced to an awkward waddle. There is no play of the beautiful machinery of the human foot, and the wearer of the “golden lily” walks exactly as she would do if she had no feet at all. Indeed, her gait is even more awkward, inasmuch as the weight of the body is thrown forward upon the great toe, than which nothing can be imagined more opposed to the real intention of the foot.

Fast walking is impossible with these feet, and running is out of the question, the women being obliged to support themselves by holding to walls or other objects, or to balance themselves by holding out their arms at right angles to their bodies. Indeed, even when walking quietly in the house, the woman generally leans on the various articles of furniture as she passes them, the act appearing to be instinctive, and one of which she is not conscious. Stairs are of course a difficulty in the way of “golden lilies.” Fortunately, there are not many stairs in a Chinese dwelling-house, the living rooms of which are mostly on the ground floor. I have noticed that a small-footed Chinawoman can ascend stairs easily enough, but that she always holds by the banisters or wall as she descends.

The deformity in question does not end with the foot. As the toes and ankles are deprived of motion, the muscles which work them, and which form the calf of the leg, gradually dwindle away for want of use, so that from the ankle to the knee the leg is scarcely thicker than a broomstick.

Utterly hideous as is this deformity, it is coveted by all, and those who do not possess it try to look as if they did. This they achieve by making an artificial “golden lily” of wood, putting it into a fashionable shoe, and fastening the contrivance on the sole of the real and serviceable foot. Mr. Milne remarks that a nurse, if called up suddenly in the night, will make her appearance walking firmly on her full-sized bare feet, instead of hobbling along with the fashionable waddle which she has been exhibiting by day. By a similar ruse, the boys who enact female parts on the stage imitate not only the feet but the peculiar walk of the women, and do it with such perfection that no one who was not in the secret would have the least idea that they are not what they pretend to be.

Of the origin or date of the custom nothing is known, though there are various legends which attempt to account for both. One legend, for example, attributes it to an empress of China named Tan-key, who lived some three thousand years ago, and who, having club feet by nature, induced her husband to impose the same deformity on all his female subjects. Another legend states that a certain empress was discovered in the chamber of a courtier, and laid the fault on her feet, which carried her against her will. The emperor accepted the excuse, but cut off the fore-part of her feet in order to render them more subordinate for the future. Another legend, which is a very popular one, attributes the custom to a certain prince named Le-yuh, who in consequence was condemned to seven hundred years’ torture in the infernal regions, and to make with his own hands one million shoes for the women.

The dress of the Chinese varies greatly according to the rank of the individual and the season of the year. Without going into detail, which would occupy too much time, it is sufficient to say that the principle of the dress is similar, not only among different classes, but with the two sexes, the coat and trousers being the principal articles, modified in material and form according to circumstances. The dress of a mandarin or noble, and of his wife, may be seen in the illustration on the 1437th page. The richness of material and beauty of work displayed in some of these dresses are really marvellous. They are generally of the most delicate silks, and are covered with embroidery of such harmonious coloring and exquisite workmanship as no country can equal.

It is not, however, the richness of dress which denotes rank among the Chinese. The symbol of social status is simply a spherical “button,” about as large as a boy’s playing marble, placed on the apex of the cap. The different colors and materials of the buttons designate the rank, the “blue ribbon” being a plain red coral button. The possession of these buttons is an object of high ambition for the Chinese, and its value is increased by the fact that there is no hereditary rank in China, and that the coveted button must be earned, and can neither be purchased nor given by favor.

It can only be gained by passing through a series of examinations, each increasing in severity, and no candidate for high rank being permitted to compete unless he can show the certificate that he has gained the rank immediately below it. The examinations are conducted in a building expressly made for the purpose. It has double walls, between which sentinels are continually pacing. The gates are watched in the strictest manner, and each candidate is locked into a tiny cell, after having undergone the strictest search in order to ascertain that he has not carried in any scrap of writing that may help him in the examination.

The examiners themselves are conveyed from a distance, and surrounded by troops, so that no one can approach them; and so careful are the officers who conduct the examination that the examiners are not allowed to see the original passages written by the candidates, but only copies made by official scribes. When they have passed a paper as satisfactory, the original is produced, the two are compared, and not until then does any one know the name of the writer, which has been pasted between two leaves.

The precautions are most stringent, but the ingenuity exercised in evasion sometimes conquers all the barriers set up between a candidate and external assistance. Sometimes a man, already a graduate, will manage to substitute himself for the candidate, write all the essays, and contrive a second change on leaving the place, so that the real candidate takes up the substituted essays. Sometimes a friend within the building will learn the subject of the essays, write them in tiny characters on very thin paper, enclose the paper in wax, and drop it into the water which is supplied to the candidates. One man of peculiar daring hit on the plan of getting a friend to tunnel under the walls of the college, and push the required documents through the floor of the cell. Should any such attempt be discovered, the candidate is at once ejected, and disqualified from a second attempt.

The Chinese have good reason to be ambitious of the honors of a button, as even the very lowest button exempts the wearer from military service and from arrest by the police. The bearer of this coveted symbol becomes at once one of the privileged classes; he wears an official costume when he likes, and is qualified to enter as candidate for still higher honors. Such privileges are worth much trouble to obtain, and accordingly the rejected candidates will enter the examination year after year, even until they are gray-headed. With the respect for old age which is one of the most pleasing characteristics of the Chinese, there is a law that if a man should attend the examinations annually until he is eighty years of age, and still be unable to pass, he is invested with an honorary degree, and may wear the button and official dress honoris causâ. The same rule holds good with the higher degrees.

The very highest posts in the kingdom are denoted by a peacock’s feather, which falls down the side of the cap. The gradations in rank of the feather wearers are marked by the number of “eyes” in the ornament, the summit of a Chinaman’s ambition being to wear a feather with three eyes, denoting a rank only inferior to that of the Emperor.

There is one article common to all ranks and both sexes, and equally indispensable to all. This is the fan, an article without which a Chinaman is never seen. The richer people carry the fan in a beautifully embroidered case hung to their girdles; but the poorer class content themselves with sticking it between the collar of the jacket and the back of the neck. Whenever the hand is not actually at work on some task, the fan is in it, and in motion, not violently agitated, as is mostly the case in Europe, but kept playing with a gentle, constant, and almost imperceptible movement of the wrist, so as to maintain a continuous though slight current of air.

Sometimes, in very hot weather, a stout mandarin will quietly lift up the skirts of his jacket, place his fan under the garment, and send a current of cool air round his body; and this done, he drops the skirts afresh into their place, and directs the refreshing breeze over his countenance. Sometimes it is used by way of a parasol, the man holding it over his head as he walks along. Sometimes the schoolmaster uses it by way of a ferule, and raps his pupils unmercifully on the knuckles; and so inveterate is the use of the fan, that soldiers, while serving their guns, have been observed quietly fanning themselves in the midst of a brisk fire of shot, shell, and bullets.

The materials and patterns of Chinese fans are innumerable. They are made of paper, silk, satin, palm-leaf, wood, feathers, horn, or ivory. Some of them are made so that when they are opened from left to right they form very good fans, but when spread from right to left all the sticks fall apart, and look as if they never could be united again. Those which are made of paper have various patterns painted or printed on them, and thousands are annually sold on which are complete maps of the larger Chinese cities, having every street and lane marked. Those which are made of silk or satin are covered with the most exquisite embroidery; while the horn and ivory fans are cut into patterns so slight and so delicate that they look more like lace than the material of which they really are composed. The wooden fans are made in much the same way, though the workmanship is necessarily coarser: the material of these fans is sandal-wood, the aromatic odor of which is much prized by the Chinese.

Choice sentences and aphorisms from celebrated authors are often written on the fan; and it is the custom for Chinese gentlemen to exchange autographs written on each other’s fans. The price of these fans varies according to the material and workmanship, common ones being worth about four or five for a penny, while a first-class fan will cost several pounds.

The lantern is almost as characteristic of the Chinese as the fan, inasmuch as every one who goes abroad after dark is obliged by law to carry a lantern, whereas he need not carry a fan unless he chooses. These lanterns have of late years become very common in England, the subdued light which they give through their colored envelopes having a very pretty effect at night, especially in conservatories. There is a wonderful variety of these lanterns, some of them being most complicated in structure, enormous in size, and hung round with an intricate arrangement of scarlet tassels. Others are made of a balloon-like shape, the framework being a delicate net of bamboo, over which is spread a sheet of very thin paper saturated with varnish, so that it is nearly as transparent as glass. Figures of various kinds are painted upon the lantern, and so great is the sale of these articles, that many artists make a good living by painting them. Generally, when a man buys a lantern, he purchases a plain one, and then takes it to the painter to be decorated. The name of the owner is often placed upon his lantern, together with his address, and sometimes the lantern is used as a representative of himself.

Many of the lanterns shut up flat, on the principle of the fan; some of them open out into cylinders, and some into spherical and oval shapes.

One of the most ingenious of these articles is the “stalking-horse lantern,” which is only used for festivals. It is of large size, and contains several tapers. Above the tapers is a horizontal paddle-wheel, which is set revolving by the current of air caused by the flame, and from the wheel silk threads are led to a series of little automaton figures of men, women, birds, beasts, etc., all of which move their arms, legs, and wings as the wheel runs round. A good specimen of this lantern is really a wonderful piece of work, the threads crossing each other in the most complicated style, but never getting out of order.

So completely is the Chinaman a lantern-carrying being, that, during our war in China, when a battery had been silenced by our fire in a night attack, and the garrison driven out, the men were seen running away in all directions, each with a lighted lantern in his hand, as if to direct the aim of the enemy’s musketry.

In connection with this subject, the celebrated Feast of Lanterns must not be omitted. In this remarkable ceremony, every lantern that can be lighted seems to be used, and the Chinese on this occasion bring out the complicated “stalking-horse lantern” which has just been described. The chief object, however, is the Great Dragon. The body of the Dragon is made of a number of lanterns, each as large as a beer barrel, and having large candles fastened within it. Nearly a hundred of these joints are sometimes used in the construction of a single Dragon, each joint being tied to its neighbor, so as to keep them at the same distance from each other. At one end is an enormous head with gaping jaws, and at the other is a tail of proportionate dimensions.

This Dragon is carried through the streets and villages, and has a most picturesque effect as it goes winding along its course, the bearers contriving to give it an undulating movement by means of the sticks to which the different joints are attached. A similar festival is held in the autumn. Accompanying the Dragon are a number of men dressed in various fantastic ways, as representations of the attendants of the gods. Some of them have heads like oxen, others like horses, and they are all armed with curious pronged weapons. Then there are simulated giants and dwarfs, the former being carried on the shoulders of men whose legs are concealed by the robes of the image, and the latter by boys whose heads are received into the hats which the images wear. In neither instance do the bearers trouble themselves to conceal their faces.

Various ceremonies of a like nature are enacted, of which no description can be given for want of space.

* * * * *

Of the Chinaman’s social habits none has been more widely known than the use of the “chopsticks,” or the two little rods by means of which the solid food is eaten. This is not the Chinese name, but is one invented by foreigners, who have employed the term as a sort of equivalent for the “kwai-tsze,” or nimble-lads, as they are very appropriately termed by the Chinese. Originally they were simply two slips of bamboo, but now they are of wood, bone, ivory, or sometimes silver. Two pairs of chopsticks in my collection are nearly ten inches in length, and about as thick at the base as a small goose-quill, tapering gradually to half the thickness at the tip.

Much misunderstanding prevails as to the use of the chopsticks, many persons supposing that they are held one in each hand, after the manner of knives and forks in Europe. These curious implements are both held in the right hand after the following manner: One of them is taken much as a pen is held, except that, instead of being held by the thumb and forefinger, it passes between the tips of the second and third fingers. This chopstick is always kept stationary. The second chopstick is held lightly between the thumb and forefinger, and can be worked so as to press with its tip against the point of the other, and act after the manner of pincers.

The adroitness displayed by the Chinese in the use of these implements is worthy of all admiration. I have seen them pick up single grains of rice with the chopsticks, dip them in soy, and carry them to the mouth with perfect precision; and, indeed, after some few lessons, I could do it tolerably well myself. In eating rice after the usual manner, the tips of the chopsticks are crossed, and the rice lifted with them as if on a spoon. If, however, the man be very hungry, he does not trouble himself about such refinement, but holds the bowl to his lips, and scoops the rice into his mouth with a celerity that must be seen to be believed. In point of speed a spoon would be nothing compared with the chopstick.

The reader must understand that the Chinese never carve at table, thinking that to do so is an utterly barbarous and disgusting custom. The meat is brought to table ready cut up into small morsels, which can be taken up with the chopsticks. The only use made of a knife at table is to separate any small pieces of meat that may adhere together; and for this purpose, a narrow, long-bladed knife is generally kept in the same sheath with the chopstick.

As a rule, every Chinaman who can afford so cheap a luxury has his chopstick-case hanging from his girdle. The case is made of different materials, such as shagreen, tortoise shell, and ivory. Specimens of the two latter kinds of case are in my collection. The ordinary case contains the two chopsticks, the knife, and a flat ivory toothpick. Sometimes, however, a wealthy man will carry a much more complicated set of table apparatus. Besides the usual chopsticks, the knife, and the toothpick, there is a spoon for eating soup, a neat little quatrefoil saucer for soy, and a peculiar two-pronged fork, with its prongs united in the middle by a floriated ornament.

As to the food of the Chinese, it varies according to the wealth of the individual, so that a man of property would not think of eating the food which the poor man thinks luxurious. In fact, it is much the same as with ourselves, so that it is impossible to make the dietary of one station the sample for that of the nation in general. There are, perhaps, one or two articles of food which ought to be casually mentioned. One, which is not generally known, is rather graphically described by Mr. Milne: “Like other Chinese, he” (i. e. a Chinese officer named Le) “invited me to dine with him on an early day after our acquaintance was formed. On this occasion I met at his table with a peculiar dish, which I had never seen under the roof of any other host, though I was informed that it was not a monopoly of Mr. Le’s taste.

“When our party of six had seated themselves at the centre table, my attention was attracted by a covered dish, something unusual at a Chinese meal. On a certain signal, the cover was removed, and presently the face of the table was covered with juvenile crabs, which made their exodus from the dish with all possible rapidity. The crablets had been thrown into a plate of vinegar just as the company sat down, such an immersion making them more brisk and lively than usual. But the sprightly sport of the infant crabs was soon checked by each guest seizing which he could, dashing it into his mouth, and swallowing the whole morsel without ceremony.

“Determined to do as the Chinese did, I tried this novelty also with one. With two I succeeded, finding the shell soft and gelatinous, for they were tiny creatures, not more than a day or two old. But I was compelled to give in to the third, who had resolved to take vengeance, and gave my lower lip a nip so sharp and severe as to make me relinquish my hold, and likewise desist from any further experiment of this nature.”

The celebrated birds’-nests, which the Chinese convert into soup, are not, as some persons seem to think, made of sticks, and straws, and wool, but are formed from the gelatinous substance obtained by masticating a sort of seaweed. The nests are transparent, as if made of gelatine, and when placed in hot water they dissolve as readily. The nest, when dissolved, is very much like the well-known “Irish moss,” or carrageen; and I fully believe that, if the Chinese were to obtain the seaweed itself, and prepare it like the nests, it would answer every purpose. I possess specimens both of the seaweed and the nest, and, after tasting both, have found them to be identical in flavor and consistence. And, as the seaweed might be obtained for about ten shillings per hundredweight, and the finest kind of nest costs eight hundred pounds for the same amount, the importation of the seaweed instead of the nests from Java might be a good speculation.

With regard to the great staple of the country, namely tea, very little can be said here. In the first place, the public is very well informed on the subject, and, in the next, the tea question is so large that it would occupy far too great space. The mode of preparing tea differs much from that practised by ourselves. Instead of allowing the tea to be made and then to stand for a considerable time, the Chinaman puts a little tea into a cup, pours boiling rain-water on it, inverts the saucer over it, so as to prevent the aroma from escaping, and drinks it immediately, using the saucer as a strainer whereby to keep the tea-leaves out of his mouth. As to adulterating the tea with such abominations as cream and sugar, he would be horrified at the idea. The Chinese never use milk for themselves, though of late years they have learned to milk their buffaloes for the service of the foreigner, and they consume sugar in almost every shape except in tea.

We who use either of these accessories cannot understand the true flavor of tea, the aroma of which is as much destroyed by such admixture as would be that of the choicest wine. Even those who do not spoil their tea in the usual manner can seldom know what the best tea is, because it is never sent to this country. Not in China can a foreigner purchase it, as it is not made for general sale, but is reserved for “cumshaws,” or presents.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

CLIV. CHINA--Continued

WARFARE.

WEAPONS OF THE CHINESE -- BREECH-LOADING CANNON -- VARIOUS FORMS OF THE JINGALL -- CHINESE ARTILLERYMEN AND THEIR MAGAZINE -- BOWS AND ARROWS -- THE REPEATING CROSS-BOW AND ITS MECHANISM -- CONSTRUCTION OF THE ARROWS -- CHINESE SWORDS -- THE DOUBLE SWORD, AND MODE OF USING IT -- TWO-HANDED SWORDS -- CRUELTY OF THE VICTORS -- VARIOUS MODES OF TORTURE -- KNEELING ON THE CHAIN -- THE CANGUE -- FINGER AND ANKLE SQUEEZING -- USE OF TORTURE IN MONEY-GETTING -- THE LARGE AND SMALL BAMBOO -- MODE OF EVADING IT -- EXPOSURE IN A CAGE -- THE HOT-WATER SNAKE -- CAPITAL PUNISHMENTS -- SUICIDE BY ORDER -- STRANGLING -- CRUCIFIXION PREFERRED TO BEHEADING -- EXECUTION OF A THIEF -- SAWING ASUNDER -- CONDUCT OF THE MANDARINS -- THE “UMBRELLA OF A THOUSAND PEOPLE” -- THE ROBE OF HONOR -- TRANSFER OF RANK.

Without going into the question of warfare in China, we will mention one or two of the characteristic weapons.

Fire-arms have apparently been known to them for ages, but in all the years that we have been acquainted with China, no improvement has been made in these weapons, the cannon, the jingall, and the hand-gun being as rude and ineffective as they were two centuries ago. The cannon are little more than thick tubes of iron, mostly hooped to strengthen them, and of various lengths and bores. As to preserving any exactness of size in the bores, the Chinese care little for it, and if the ball is too small to fit the cannon, they wrap it up in cotton and then push it upon the powder. Wadding is thought to be needless in fire-arms. It is rather remarkable, however, that the Chinese have used breech-loading cannon from time immemorial. Each of these guns is supplied with several separate chambers, which can be kept loaded, and dropped one by one into the aperture of the gun as fast as they can be fired.

Clumsy as may be the jingall, it appears to be the most efficient of the Chinese firearms. It looks something like a duck-gun, and is supposed to carry an ounce ball, though the missiles sent from it are generally of a very miscellaneous character. Some of these guns are pivoted and fixed on tripod stands, while others are either supported on the shoulder of an assistant gunner while the firer takes aim, or rest upon two supports which are pivoted to the stock not very far from the muzzle of the gun. Of the manner in which the jingall is fired, Captain Blakiston gives a very amusing account, the whole proceeding having a very ludicrous aspect to an English artillery officer.

“We explained to them that we should like to see some practice with their artillery, on which the bombardier, as he seemed to be, went to the powder magazine, which was an old sack carefully tied up and lying under a bed in the hut, and brought forth the charge in a tea-cup. Then he mounted on a stool, and poured the powder in at the muzzle; the jingall was thumped on the ground, and with a long bamboo, which served as a ramrod, they rammed the powder home. A little of the already soft powder was then mealed, and the touch-hole filled with it.

“One man then held on tight to the butt, while another, coming out with a hot poker, discharged the weapon, the effect of which in noise and smoke was marvellous; but the poor fellow who was doing the marksman was knocked heels over head backward. He seemed, however, quite accustomed to that sort of thing, for, picking himself up in a minute, he performed what I certainly took for the coup d’état of the whole proceeding. Suddenly swinging round the jingall on its pivot, he applied his mouth to the muzzle, and blew violently down it, which sent the remaining sparks flying out of the vent, and then swung it back into its former position, by which manœuvre he nearly knocked my companion off his legs.

“The piece was then left with its muzzle inclined well upward, so that any rain which might fall would trickle nicely down the barrel and accumulate at the breech. The picket seemed to be without any shot for their jingall, for we tried to get them to put one in, so that we might fire across the bows of our junks, in order to test the courage of the boat coolies. Probably shot are not used in the warfare of the interior: our after experience was favorable to this supposition.”

Captain Blakiston rather maliciously adds, that the picket was placed there for the purpose of giving an alarm by running away as soon as any body of rebels might come in sight.

I possess a specimen of the jingall. It is exactly seven feet in length, and is, in fact, nothing more than a heavy iron tube mounted on a stock, and supplied with the rudest imaginable arrangement for the match. Altogether, I think that the risk of firing it would be rather greater than that of being fired at with it.

As for the bow and arrow, they are substantially the same as that which has been described when treating of the Tartars, the weapon having been taken up by the Chinese, and its use carefully learned after the same fashion as has been mentioned.

The most characteristic Chinese weapon with which I am acquainted is the repeating crossbow (shown on page 1425), which, by simply working a lever backward and forward, drops the arrows in succession in front of the string, draws the bow, shoots the missile, and supplies its place with another. The particular weapon from which the drawings are taken was said to have been one of the many arms which were captured in the Peiho fort.

It is not at all easy to describe the working of this curious bow, but, with the aid of the illustration, I will try to make it intelligible.

The bow itself is made of three strong, separate pieces of bamboo, overlapping each other like the plates of a carriage-spring, which indeed it exactly resembles. This is mounted on a stock, and, as the bow is intended for wall defence, it is supported in the middle by a pivot. So far, we have a simple crossbow; we have now to see how the repeating machinery is constructed. Upon the upper surface of the stock lies an oblong box, which we will call the “slide.” It is just wide and long enough to contain the arrows, and is open above, so as to allow them to be dropped into it. When in the slide, the arrows necessarily lie one above the other, and, in order to prevent them from being jerked out of the slide by the shock of the bowstring, the opening can be closed by a little wooden shutter which slides over it.

Through the lower part of the slide a transverse slit is cut, and the bowstring is led through this cut, so that the string presses the slide upon the stock. Now we come to the lever. It is shaped like the Greek letter π, the cross-piece forming the handle. The lever is jointed to the stock by an iron pin or bolt, and to the slide by another bolt. Now, if the lever be worked to and fro, the slide is pushed backward and forward along the stock, but without any other result.

Supposing that we wish to make the lever draw the bow, we have only to cut a notch in the under part of the slit through which the string is led. As the slide passes along the stock, the string by its own pressure falls into the notch, and is drawn back, together with the slide, thus bending the bow. Still, however much we may work the lever, the string will remain in the notch, and must therefore be thrown out by a kind of trigger. This is self-acting, and is equally simple and ingenious. Immediately under the notch which holds the string, a wooden peg plays loosely through a hole. When the slide is thrust forward and the string falls into the notch, it pushes the peg out of the hole. But when the lever and slide are drawn backward to their full extent, the lower end of the peg strikes against the stock, so that it is forced violently through the hole, and pushes the string out of the notch.

We will now refer to the illustration. Fig. 1 represents the bow as it appears after the lever and slide have been thrust forward, and the string has fallen into the notch. Fig. 2 represents it as it appears when the lever has been brought back, and the string released.

A is the bow, made of three layers of male bamboo, the two outer being the longest. B is the string. This is made of very thick catgut, as is needed to withstand the amount of friction which it has to undergo, and the violent shock of the bow. It is fastened in a wonderfully ingenious manner, by a “hitch” rather than a knot, so that it is drawn tighter in proportion to the tension. It passes round the end of the bow, through a hole, and then presses upon itself.

C C show the stock, and D is the slide. E is the opening of the slide, through which the arrows are introduced into it, and it is shown as partially closed by the little shutter F. The lever is seen at G, together with the two pins which connect it with the stock and the slide. H shows the notch in the slide which receives the string. I is the pivot on which the weapon rests, K is the handle, and L the place whence the arrows issue.

If the reader should have followed this description carefully, he will see that the only limit to the rapidity of fire is the quickness with which the lever can be worked to and fro. As it is thrust forward, the string drops into its notch, the trigger-peg is set, and an arrow falls with its butt just in front of the string. When it is drawn sharply back, the string is released by the trigger-peg, the arrow is propelled, and another falls into its place. If, therefore, a boy be kept at work supplying the slide with arrows, a constant stream of missiles can be poured from this weapon.

The arrows are very much like the “bolts” of the old English cross-bow. They are armed with heavy and solid steel heads, and are feathered in a very ingenious manner. The feathers are so slight, that at first sight they appear as if they were mere black scratches on the shaft. They are, however, feathers, projecting barely the fiftieth of an inch from the shaft, but being arranged in a slightly spiral form so as to catch the air, and impart a rotatory motion to the arrow. By the side of the cross-bow on Fig. 2 is seen a bundle of the arrows.

The strength of this bow is very great, though not so great as I have been told. It possesses but little powers of aim, and against a single and moving adversary would be useless. But for the purpose for which it is designed, namely, a wall-piece which will pour a series of missiles upon a body of men, it is a very efficient weapon, and can make itself felt even against the modern rifle. The range of this bow is said to be four hundred yards, but I should think that its extreme effective range is at the most from sixty to eighty yards, and that even in that case it would be almost useless, except against large bodies of soldiers.

Of swords the Chinese have an abundant variety. Some are single-handed swords, and there is one device by which two swords are carried in the same sheath, and are used one in each hand. I have seen the two-sword exercise performed, and can understand that, when opposed to any person not acquainted with the weapon, the Chinese swordsman would be irresistible. But in spite of the two swords, which fly about the wielder’s head like the sails of a mill, and the agility with which the Chinese fencer leaps about and presents first one side and then the other to his antagonist, I cannot but think that any ordinary fencer would be able to keep himself out of reach, and also to get in his point, in spite of the whirling blades of his adversary.

Two-handed swords are much used. One of these weapons in my collection is five feet six inches in length, and weighs rather more than four pounds and a quarter. The blade is three feet in length and two inches in width. The thickness of metal at the back is a quarter of an inch near the hilt, diminishing slightly toward the point. The whole of the blade has a very slight curve. The handle is beautifully wrapped with narrow braid, so as to form an intricate pattern.

There is another weapon, the blade of which exactly resembles that of the two-handed sword, but it is set at the end of a long handle some six or seven feet in length, so that, although it will indict a fatal wound when it does strike an enemy, it is a most unmanageable implement, and must take so long for the bearer to recover himself, in case he misses his blow, that he would be quite at the mercy of an active antagonist.

Should they be victorious in battle, the Chinese are cruel conquerors, and are apt to indict horrible tortures, not only upon their prisoners of war, but even upon the unoffending inhabitants of the vanquished land. They carry this love for torture even into civil life, and display a horrible ingenuity in producing the greatest possible suffering with the least apparent means of indicting it. For example, one of the ordinary punishments in China is the compulsory kneeling bare-legged on a coiled chain. This does not sound particularly dreadful, but the agony that is caused is indescribable, especially as two officers stand by the sufferer and prevent him from seeking even a transient relief by shifting his posture. Broken crockery is sometimes substituted for the chain.

The most common punishment in China is that of the cangue, a sort of moveable pillory. A piece of wood, some four feet square and nearly four inches in thickness, has a hole in the middle, through which the culprit’s head is passed. The machine opens with a hinge, and when closed is locked, and a placard designating the offence is pasted on it. As long as the cangue is worn, the unhappy delinquent cannot feed himself, so that he would be starved to death were he not fed by casual contributions. Fortunately, it is considered a meritorious action to feed a prisoner in the cangue, so that little risk of actual starvation is run, and the principal terror of the cangue lies in the pain caused by carrying such a weight upon the neck and shoulders. This instrument is often worn for weeks and sometimes for three months, which is the extent of its legal use.

Finger squeezing is another torture which is frequently used. Four pieces of bamboo are tied loosely together at one end, and a string passes through the other ends, so arranged that by drawing it they can be pulled closely together. The fingers are introduced between the bamboos, and by pulling at the string they can be crushed almost to pieces. This torture is often employed by the mandarins, when endeavoring to extort money from persons whom they suspect of concealing their wealth. The ankles are squeezed after a similar fashion, only in this case the bamboos are much larger. Both these modes of torture are shown in the illustration on the next page.

Most of the so-called minor tortures, i. e. those which are not directly aimed at life, are employed for the purpose of extorting money. The fact is, the mandarins who are set over districts only have a limited term of office, and may, indeed, be transferred at any time. As during their term of office they have to make up a certain sum demanded by their superiors, and have also to keep up considerable state on a nominal salary, it follows that they oppress the people to the utmost of their power, looking upon them merely in the light of tax-producing animals. It is, therefore, no wonder that a Chinaman of any ability strives for literary rank, and the privilege of wearing the button, which exempts him from arrest except by imperial order.

Beating with the bamboo is another common punishment. There are two kinds of bamboo for this purpose, the small and the large; the latter being capable of producing death if used with severity. Indeed, even the lesser bamboo, if the blows be struck with the edge, instead of the flat, bruises the flesh so completely as to bring on mortification, of which the sufferer is sure to die in a few days. This punishment is chiefly used by the peculative mandarins, in order to extort money, and is employed for men and women alike; the only difference being that the man is thrown prostrate on the ground, while the woman suffers in a kneeling posture.

A man of forethought, however, never suffers much from the bamboo, and, if possible, nothing at all. In the former case, he bribes the executioner, who strikes so as to produce a very effective sounding blow, but in reality inflicts very little injury. In the latter case, he bribes a man to act as a substitute, and, just as the first blow is about to be struck, some of the officers, who are also bribed, get between the judge and the culprit, while the latter rolls out of the way, and the substitute takes his place. A similar ruse is enacted at the completion of the punishment. It may seem strange that any one should act as a substitute in such a business; but in China men care little for their skins, or even for their lives, and it is possible to purchase a substitute even for capital punishment, the chief difficulty being not to bribe the substitute, but to find enough money to bribe all the officials, who must act in concert.

Powerful as they may be, the mandarins have not all the power of life and death, though they can inflict punishments which practically lead to the same result. Mr. Milne mentions a case of this kind. Two men had been arrested in the act of robbing a house during a fire. This is rightly held to be the most heinous kind of theft, and is generally punished with decapitation. The mandarin of the district had not the power to inflict death, but contrived to manage that the men should die. Accordingly, he had two tall bamboo cages made, placed a man inside each, and tied him by his tail to the top bars of the cage. The cages were placed in the open air, in charge of officers, who would not allow any communication with the offenders. The natural consequence was, that privation of food, drink, sleep, and rest of any kind, together with exposure to the elements, killed the men as effectually as the sword of the executioner.

A modification of this mode of punishment is by covering the top of the cage with a board through a hole in which the head of the sufferer passes. It is, in fact, a fixed cangue. The top of the cage is adjusted so that the man is forced to stand on tiptoe as he is suspended by the neck. His hands being bound behind him, relief is impossible. This mode of punishment is shown in the last figure but one, on the right-hand side.

The other figures speak for themselves, except that of the kneeling figure with snakes coiled round his body. These snakes are tubes of soft metal, fashioned in the shape of snakes with open mouths. They are coiled round the naked limbs and body of the sufferer, and boiling water is then poured into them, producing the most horrible torture.

As to capital punishments, they are inflicted in various ways. The mode that is thought to be the least terrible is the command to commit suicide, because in that case they can avoid the mangling of the body, and so make their appearance in the spirit world whole and entire. This is a privilege only accorded to officers of very high rank, and is conferred upon them by sending the “silken cord.” No cord is really sent, but the mandate implies the instrument of death. When it is received, the doomed man takes some of his nearest relatives and most valued friends to his house, fastens the silken cord to a beam, places himself on a stool, passes the noose round his neck, and then leaps off the stool, and so dies. Officers of lower rank, when they see that they will probably be condemned to death, generally anticipate their sentence by hanging themselves on their own responsibility.

For criminals of no status, strangulation is the mode of death most preferred. It is accomplished in a manner exactly resembling the Spanish garrote. The criminal stands with his back to a post, through which a hole is bored at the level of his neck. The two ends of a cord are passed through the hole, the loop embracing the man’s neck. The ends are then twisted round a stick, and, by a few rapid turns of the stick, the man is killed. The rapidity of the process is such that Mr. Lockhart mentions an instance where he and a friend saw a file of soldiers coming along, carrying a pole and a pinioned man in a basket. They stopped, lashed the pole to an upright post, took the man out of the basket, tied him to the pole, and strangled him before the foreigners could find out what they were doing. The strange part of the business was that the officials had bribed the apparent culprit and his friends, as they wanted to make the foreigners believe that he was an opium smuggler, and that they were doing their best to stop the trade. Truly it is a strange country.

To beheading the Chinese have the strongest aversion, because they shrink from the idea of appearing headless in the next world, and they will therefore do all in their power to avoid it. A most remarkable instance of the extent to which a Chinaman will go to avoid decapitation is given in the following extract from a letter to an Indian newspaper. The man was a well-known and most abandoned criminal, who with his wife had been arrested.

“On his trial before his judge he refused to criminate himself, although repeatedly scourged until his back was raw. If a female witness fails in giving satisfactory evidence in a court of justice, she is beaten with a leather strap across the mouth. His wife, desirous of sparing her husband, refused to give evidence, but after two or three applications of strap her courage gave way. She confessed his guilt. The prisoner was then sentenced to decapitation,--deemed by the Chinese to be the most severe of punishments, because they imagine that if a man leaves this world minus any of his members, he appears in the same condition in the next. The culprit, therefore, prayed to be crucified instead of being beheaded.

“The cross was of the Latin form, the foot being inserted in a stout plank, and the criminal, standing on a board, had nails driven through his feet, and his hands stretched and nailed to the cross-beam. His legs were fastened to the cross with an iron chain, and his arms bound with cords, and on the cord round his waist was inserted a piece of wood on which was written his name and offence; a similar piece on his right arm contained his sentence, namely, to remain on the cross night and day until he died; another on his left arm had the name of the judge, with his titles and offices.

“The criminal was nailed to the cross inside the Yamun in the presence of the magistrate, and then carried by four coolies to one of the principal thoroughfares leading from the city, where he was left during the day, but removed at night inside the prison for fear of his friends attempting to rescue him, and again carried forth at daylight in charge of two soldiers. He was crucified at noon on the Wednesday, and Mr. Jones conversed with him at five in the evening. He complained of a pain in the chest, and thirst. On Thursday he slept for some hours, when the cross was laid down within the jail compound. No one was allowed to supply him with food or drink, and during the day there was quite a fair in front of the cross, people being attracted from a distance, and the sweetmeat venders driving a large trade.

“On Saturday he was still alive, when the Taotai was appealed to by a foreigner to put an end to the wretch’s sufferings, and he immediately gave orders that the vinegar should be administered, which he expected would produce immediate death; but the result was otherwise, and at sunset, when the cross was taken within the jail, two soldiers with stout bamboos broke both his legs, and then strangled him.”

It is no matter of wonder that the woman confessed her husband’s guilt, for the face is sometimes beaten with a hard leather strap until the jaws are broken, and the whole of the lips fall from them. In all probability she was quite as guilty as her husband, so that she was not altogether deserving of pity.

Decapitation is always conducted with much judicial solemnity, and, as a rule, is restricted to certain seasons of the year, when large batches of criminals are executed. There are, however, occasional exceptions to the rule. The instrument employed is a sword made expressly for the purpose. It is a two-handed weapon, very heavy, and with a very broad blade. The executioners pride themselves on their skill in its management, and, in order to show their powers, will draw a black-ink line round a turnip, and sever it at a blow, the cut never passing on either side of the line. Before a man is admitted to be an executioner, he is obliged to prove his ability by this test.

The criminal is carried to the place of execution in a bamboo cage, and by his side is the basket in which his head will be removed. He is pinioned in a very effective manner. The middle of a long and thin rope is passed across the back of his neck, and the ends are crossed on the chest, and brought under the arms. They are then twisted round the arms, the wrists tied together behind the back, and the ends fastened to the portion of rope upon the neck. A slip of paper containing his name, crime, and sentence is fixed to a reed, and stuck at the back of his head. See illustration No. 1, on page 1451.

On arriving at the place of execution, the officials remove the paper, and take it to the presiding mandarin, who writes on it in red ink the warrant for execution. The paper is then replaced, a rope loop is passed over the head of the culprit, and the end given to an assistant, who draws the head forward so as to stretch the neck, while a second assistant holds the body from behind; and in a moment the head is severed from the body. The head is taken away, and generally hung up in a bamboo cage near the scene of the crime, with a label announcing the name and offence of the criminal, and the name of the presiding mandarin by whose order he was executed. In some places these heads are unpleasantly numerous. In many cases the rope and assistants are not employed.

There is even a lower depth of degradation than mere beheading. This is called “cutting into small pieces.” Before striking the fatal blow, the executioner makes long but not deep cuts on the face and in all the fleshy parts of the body, taking care to avoid the chief blood-vessels, so that when the culprit is released by the loss of his head, he may enter the next world not only without a head, but with scarcely any flesh on his bones.

The last of the punishments which will be mentioned in this work is that of sawing asunder, a punishment which of late years has been but rarely inflicted, and we may hope is dying out, though in reality it does not cause nearly as much pain to the sufferer as many of the minor punishments. The mode in which it is performed may be seen from an anecdote related by Mr. Fleming, in the work which has been already quoted. There was a distinguished Imperial officer named Sun-kwei who was taken prisoner by the rebel leader Kih-yung. Knowing the ability of his prisoner, the rebel leader offered to spare his life on the condition that he would accept a command in his army. Sun-kwei flatly refused to do so, saying that as he was defeated he must die, for that to take service against his emperor was impossible. Bribes, threats, and promises were of no avail, and at last Kih-yung ordered his prisoner to be sawn asunder.

The executioners began to exercise their dreadful office, but with all their endeavors could not make the saw enter the body of their victim, who only jeered at them for their ignorance in not knowing how to saw a man asunder. At last Sun-kwei was good enough to instruct them in their business. “You dead dogs and slaves,” said he, “if you would saw a man asunder, you should compress his body between two planks; but how could you know it?” The men followed his advice, and sawed him and the planks asunder at the same time, he never relenting, but scoffing at them to the last moment.

It is with some reluctance that I describe, however briefly, these horrible scenes, but to pass over them would be to omit some of the most characteristic traits of this strange people. Those who know the Chinese nation will be aware that I have touched the subject very lightly, and that the most revolting modes of punishment have not been, and for obvious reasons cannot be mentioned at all.

Although the mandarins are generally hated by those over whom they are placed, there are exceptions to the usual rule, and men are found who resist the temptation of extorting money from the people,--a temptation which is rendered the stronger because a mandarin who can report that his district has paid a very large sum into the Imperial treasury is sure of promotion, and if he has “squeezed” a large tribute out of a district that previously had paid but a small sum, he may almost reckon on obtaining the coveted peacock’s feather, with all its privileges.

When an honest and kind-hearted mandarin vacates his post at the expiration of his term of office, the people subscribe to present him with an umbrella of state, called “The Umbrella of Ten Thousand of the People.” It is made of red silk and satin, with three rows of flounces, and bears upon it the names of the chief donors written in golden characters. When he takes his formal leave of office, the umbrella is carried in procession by his attendants, and he is followed for a certain distance by those who presented it.

The highest honorary reward of this kind that can be given is an outer garment made of the same material as the umbrella, and also decorated with the names of the principal donors. This robe of honor is carried in procession, hung within a kind of pavilion that all may see it, and accompanied by a band of music. Such a robe is very seldom presented, and the recipient naturally values it very highly.

While treating of honorary rewards, one particular kind must be mentioned. If a man distinguishes himself greatly, and feels that he is under great obligation to some person who has no real claim on him, he will solicit some high title from the emperor, and then ask permission to transfer it to his benefactor. Thus it has frequently happened that a man, without any rank of his own, has taken upon himself the education of a young lad of promising abilities, and has been afterward rewarded by finding himself raised even to a higher rank than that of his protégé. Sometimes, when a man who has been thus educated is presented to a higher title, the emperor bestows on his benefactor the lower rank from which he has been raised. Thus it will be seen that in this country every incentive is employed to promote education among the people, and that not only the educated man obtains the reward which his powers have earned, but that those by whom he was educated have their share in his honors.

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CLV. CHINA--Continued

SOCIAL CHARACTERISTICS.

OPIUM SMOKING -- SINGULAR RESULT OF THE HABIT -- MODE OF USING THE OPIUM PIPE -- TOBACCO SMOKING -- THE WATER PIPE -- WEIGHTS AND MEASURES -- THE STEELYARD AND ITS USES -- BOAT-LIFE IN CHINA -- CORMORANT FISHING -- FISH SPEARING -- CATCHING FISH WITH THE FEET -- THE DUCK BOATS -- AGRICULTURE -- MODE OF IRRIGATION -- CHINESE MUSIC AND INSTRUMENTS -- A SKILFUL VIOLINIST -- CHINESE SINGING -- ART IN CHINA -- PORCELAIN -- CARVING IN IVORY AND JADE -- MAGIC MIRRORS -- RESPECT TO AGE.

We will conclude this subject with a short account of the miscellaneous manners and customs of the Chinese.

Among the chief of their characteristic customs is opium smoking, a vice which is terribly prevalent, but which is not so universally injurious as is often stated. Of course, those who have allowed themselves to be enslaved by it become gradually debased, but the proportion of those who do so is very small, though, by the terrible sight which they present, they are brought prominently into notice. It seems, moreover, that the quantity consumed at a time is not of so much importance as the regularity of the habit.

Let a man once fall into the way of smoking opium, though it be but one pipe, at a certain hour of the day, that pipe will be an absolute necessity, and he takes it, not so much to procure pleasure, as to allay the horribly painful craving from which he suffers. In fact, a man destroys his health by opium smoking in China, much as a drunkard does in England, not so much by taking immoderate doses occasionally, but by making a habit of taking small doses repeatedly. From such a habit as this very few have the courage to break themselves, the powers of their mind being shattered as well as those of the body.

A confirmed opium smoker really cannot exist beyond a certain time without the deadly drug, and those who are forced to exert themselves are generally provided with some opium pills, which they take in order to give them strength until they can obtain the desired pipe. An anecdote illustrative of this practice is narrated by Mr. Cobbold in his “Pictures of the Chinese”:--

“A small salesman, or pedler, was seen toiling along with great difficulty through the gates of Ningpo, as if straining every nerve to reach some desired point. He was seen to stagger and fall, and his bundle flew from him out of his reach. While many pass by, some good Samaritan comes to him, lifts up his head, and asks what is the matter, and what he can do for him. He has just strength to whisper, ‘My good friend, please to untie that bundle; you will find a small box in the centre; give me two or three of the pills which are in it, and I shall be all right.’ It was soon done; the opium pills had their desired effect, and he was soon able to rise and pursue his journey to his inn.”

This most graphically describes the extreme state of exhaustion which comes on if the usual period of taking the pipe has passed by. The pedler thought, no doubt, he had strength just to reach his inn, where he would have thrown himself upon a bed and called for the opium pipe; but he miscalculated by a few minutes his power of endurance, and the pills (often resorted to in like cases of extremity), when supplied him by his friend, perhaps saved him from an untimely end. Very similar scenes have happened to foreigners travelling in sedan chairs through the country, the bearers having been obliged to stop and take a little of the opium, in order to prevent complete exhaustion. A long hour or more, in the middle of the day, has frequently to be allowed, nominally for the sake of dinner and rest, but really, in some instances, for the opium pipe.

The pipe which is used for smoking opium is not in the least like that which is employed for tobacco. The stem is about as large as an ordinary office-ruler, and it has a hole near one end, into which the shank of the bowl is fixed. The bowl itself is about as large as a Ribstone pippin, and nearly of the same shape, the bud representing the tiny aperture in which the opium is placed, and the stalk representing the shank which fits into the stem. These pipes are made of various materials, some being mere bamboo and wood, while others have bowls of the finest porcelain, and the stem richly enamelled. My own specimen has the stem twenty inches in length, and an inch and a half in diameter, the bore not being large enough to admit an ordinary crowquill. The bowl is of some light-colored wood, well varnished, and covered with landscape scenes in black lines. Although it has not been in use for many years, it still smells strongly of opium, showing that it had been saturated with the fumes of the drug before it came into my possession.

The mode of using it is as follows: The smoker has a couch prepared, together with a little lamp, and his usual supply of the prepared opium. He lays his head on the pillow, with a long, needle-like implement places over the aperture of the bowl a little piece of the opium, about as large as a mustard seed, holds it to the flame of the lamp, and, with a long and steady inspiration, the whole of the opium is drawn into the lungs in the state of vapor. The smoke is retained for a few seconds, and then expelled. The generality of opium smokers are content with one pipe, but the votary of the drug will sometimes take as many as twelve in succession before he is completely under the influence of the opium. As he finishes the last morsel of opium, the pipe falls from his hand, and he passes into that dreamland for which he has bartered everything that makes life precious.

The terrible scenes which have so often been related take place for the most part at the opium shops, places which are nominally illegal, but which carry on their trade by payment of periodical bribes to the ruling official of the place. In Tien-tsin alone there were upwards of three hundred of these shops, in which opium could be purchased or sold wholesale, or could be refined for smoking, and consumed on the premises.

There is only one redeeming point in opium smoking, namely, that it does not produce the brutal scenes which too often take place in the gin palaces of this country. Mr. Fleming remarks of this vice: “If opium smoking is a great evil among the Chinese people, as it is no doubt, yet they endeavor to hide it, they are ashamed of it, and it offends neither the eyes nor the hearing by offensive publicity. It is not made a parade of by night and by day, neither does it give rise to mad revels and murderous riots. Its effects on the health may be more prejudicial than our habits of alcohol drinking, but yet it is hard to see any of those broken-down creatures that one reads about.”

Indeed, the Chinese themselves, who are apt to drink more than they ought of a fiery liquid called samshu, say that the spirit is far more injurious than the drug.

We will now see how the Chinese smoke tobacco. The pipe which is ordinarily used has a very little bowl of brass, at the end of a slight stem about as large as a drawing pencil. The bowl is scarcely large enough to hold the half of a boy’s playing marble, and is almost exactly like the Japanese pipe, which will be presently described.

A pipe that is very much in fashion, especially with the women, is a kind of water-pipe made of brass, and enlarged at the bottom so as to stand upright. The enlarged portion is filled with water, through which the smoke passes, as in a hookah. The little brass tube which serves the purpose of a bowl can be drawn out of the body of the pipe, so as to be charged afresh; and in most cases each pipe is supplied with several bowls, so that they can be used successively as wanted. Only three whiffs are taken at a time; and indeed the quantity of tobacco used is so small, that more would be almost out of the question. For this pipe, tobacco is prepared in a peculiar manner, a minute quantity of arsenic being mixed with it.

One peculiarity about the Chinese is their almost universal employment of weight as a measure. With the exception of objects of art, nearly everything is bought by weight, and the consequence is, that the most absurd modes of increasing the weight are often employed. Fowls and ducks, for example, are sold alive by weight, so that the dishonest vendor has a habit of cramming with stones before he brings them to market. Fish are also taken to market while still living, and are improved in appearance by being blown up with bellows, and in weight by being crammed with stones. Through the lips of each fish a ring is passed, so that it may be at once taken from the water and hung upon the hook of the balance. Nor is the fish dealer particular as to the sufferings of the creatures which he sells, and he has not the least hesitation in cutting off a pound or two in case his customer does not wish to purchase an entire fish.

In these transactions the Chinese do not use scales, but employ a “steelyard” balance, made of various materials and various sizes, according to the object for which it was intended. That which is meant for ordinary market use is made of wood, and is marked at regular distances by small brass studs, so as to designate the exact places on which the weight should be hung. Those which are intended for finer work are of ivory.

It is kept in a case, which looks something like two wooden spoons laid upon each other, so that their bowls enclose any object placed between them. They are united by a rivet or pivot, which passes through the ends of the handles, enabling them to be separated at will by drawing them sideways. In order to prevent them from coming apart needlessly, a ring of bamboo is plaited loosely round the stem, so that when it is slipped toward the bowl, the two halves of the case are kept together, and when it is slid to the end of the stem, they can be separated. In one of the halves of the bowl a large hole is scooped, in which the pan of the balance lies, and a smaller hole is cut for the reception of the weight. The steelyard itself lies in a groove cut along the inside of the stem. The reader will see that when the apparatus is closed, it lies very compactly, and can be stuck into the girdle ready for use at any moment.

The “yard” of this balance is of ivory, and is longer and more slender than the chopsticks which have already been described. In my specimen it is eleven inches in length, and the sixth of an inch in diameter in the thickest part. Three distinct sets of marks are made upon it, and there are three separate fulcra, so that when the weight exceeds the amount which can be measured with one fulcrum, the second or third fulcrum can be used with its own set of marks.

The arrangement of these marks is a fertile source of dispute among the Chinese. There is no standard by which all the balances can be regulated, but each dealer has his own balance, and his own arrangement of the gradations upon it. The natural consequence is, that quarrels take place with every purchase. A vast amount of time is wasted upon disputes which might easily be avoided, were the government to establish a standard balance, by which all others might be graduated. Time, however, is not of the least importance to a Chinese, and as a prolonged bargain has a positive fascination for him, it is probable that such a regulation would not be popular, and would indeed be evaded in every mode which Chinese ingenuity could invent. The larger steelyards have a hook whereon to hang the article to be weighed, but those which are intended for weighing small and valuable objects are furnished with a shallow brass pan, attached to the end of the balance by four silken threads.

The extraordinary economy which distinguishes the Chinese is characteristically shown in the population which crowds the rivers near the principal towns. A vivid picture of Chinese boat-life is given by Mr. Tiffany, in his “American’s Sojourn in the Celestial Empire.” After describing the various kinds of boats that he has seen, he proceeds as follows:--

“We have passed through several miles of boats, and have not seen the quarter of them. It is, indeed, impossible to give an idea of their number. Some say that there are as many as seventy thousand of them at the city of Canton alone. But let us be content with forty thousand. Then fancy forty thousand wild swans, closely packed together, floating on some wide pond, and mostly restless, and you would say that they would cover many acres of their element. Now, by the enchantment of imagination, convert the pond into the roaring Pekiang River, the swans into boats of every shape and size, the notes of the birds into the yells, the shrieks, the piercing voices of the river people, and you may have the actual scene before you.

“And all these boats, miles upon miles, from border to border, are densely packed with human beings in every stage of life, in almost every occupation that exists upon the shore that they seldom trespass upon; and there they are born and earn their scanty bread, and there they die. The boats are moored side by side, in long-reaching thousands, so that the canal which they form stretches to a point in the distance. In the Shaneem quarter, above the foreign factories, they form large squares and avenues. Forty thousand floating tenements would, under any circumstances, be considered a singular sight, but here the swarming occupants give them the appearance of a mighty metropolis.”

It seems strange that so vast a population should live on the river, within pistol shot of the land, and yet that the greater number of them, from their birth to their death, have never known what it is to put a foot on the shore. When one of the older boatmen does so for the first time, he can hardly walk, the firm land being as difficult for him to tread as the deck of a tossing vessel is to a landsman.

Though the smallest of all the vessels that traverse a Chinese river, the sampans are perhaps the most conspicuous. They are rather small boats, drawing but little water, and for the most part propelled by two women, one sitting in the bow with her oar, and the other stationed in the stern, working the huge implement, half oar, half rudder, by which the boat is at once propelled and guided. Many of the boat-steerers are quite young girls, but they manage their craft with wonderful skill and power, hardly ever touching another boat, no matter how many may be darting about the river, and, with one mighty sweep of the huge scull, sending the boat clear of the obstacle from which escape seemed impossible but a second before. To the eye of a foreigner, the boatwomen are more pleasing in appearance than their sisters of the land, inasmuch as their feet are allowed to assume their proper shape, and exposure to the air and exercise take away the sickly, pasty complexion which often distinguishes the better-class women on shore, and is heightened by the white powder with which they persist in disfiguring themselves.

Some of the mandarin boats present the greatest possible contrast to the little sampans. They are, in fact, floating palaces, decorated in the most picturesque and sumptuous manner, and furnished with every luxury that a wealthy Chinaman can command. They often have thirty or forty oars of a side, are gaily bedecked with flags and brilliant lanterns, and mostly carry several cannon, together with abundance of fire-arms, in order to deter the pirates, who would be likely to swoop down upon an unarmed vessel, kill the passengers, and seize the boat for their own purposes.

In connection with the river life of the Chinese may be mentioned the various modes of fishing. The most celebrated method is that in which the fish are caught by cormorants. The fisherman has several of these birds, which are trained to the sport, and indeed are bred from the egg for the purpose, and sold at high prices when fully trained. The man goes out in a boat or on a raft, accompanied by his birds, and when he comes to a favorable spot, sends them into the water. They immediately dive, and dart upon the fish, which they are taught to bring to the boat.

Should the fish be too large, the man generally takes both fish and bird into his boat by means of a net at the end of a handle; and often when a bird has captured a very large fish, and is likely to lose it, one or two of its companions will come to its assistance, and by their united efforts hold the fish until their master can come up. A ring is put loosely round the throats of the birds, so that they cannot swallow the fish even if they desire to do so; but a well-trained cormorant will no more eat a fish than a well-trained pointer will eat a partridge. Each time that the cormorant brings a fish to the boat, it is rewarded with a mouthful of food, generally a mouthful of eel, its master raising the ring to allow it to swallow.

Fishing with cormorants is almost invariably carried on at high tide, and near bridges, as fish always love to congregate under shelter. At such times the bridges are always crowded with spectators watching the feats of the cormorants.

The raft on which the fisherman stands is made of five or six bamboos, about twenty feet in length. Now and then a cormorant which has not completed its course of training is so delighted when it catches a fish, that it swims away from its master as fast as it can. The fisherman, however, can propel his light raft faster than the cormorant can swim, and soon brings the truant to reason. This sport has recently been introduced into England, and bids fair to be successful.

Though caring little for sport, and pursuing game merely for the “pot,” the Chinese employ one or two methods of fishing which have the sporting element in them,--i. e. which give the quarry a fair chance of escape. Such, for example, is fish spearing, which is practised after rather a curious manner. The fisherman generally takes his stand upon a low bridge, and is furnished with a trident spear and a decoy fish. The decoy fish is prepared by lacing a strip of wood to either side of its dorsal fin, and to these sticks a slight line is fastened.

All being prepared, the fisherman takes his place on the bridge, drops the decoy into the water, and ties the end of the line to a stick like a fishing-rod, while he holds the three-pronged spear in his right hand. As large a fish as the sportsman can procure is used for the decoy; and as it swims about, its fellows come up to it, apparently attracted by its peculiar movements. As they come within reach, they are struck with the trident, and deposited in the fisherman’s basket.

A very inferior kind of fishing is carried on in places where the bed of the river is muddy. The fisherman wades into the river up to his knees or deeper, and every now and then strikes the surface of the water violently. As he does so, the fish which love such localities dive under the mud, where they are felt and held down by the bare feet of the man. As soon as he feels the wriggling of a fish under his foot, he stoops down, often having to plunge entirely under water, draws the fish from under his foot, and drops it into his basket. It is evident that only small fish can be caught by this method. I have tried it myself, and found that after a little trouble it was easy to catch any quantity of small flounders and similar fish,--too small, indeed, to be of any use, except to the thrifty Chinese, two of whom will buy a duck’s head and divide it for their dinner.

Among other river industries may be mentioned the system of duck feeding that is there carried on. Vast quantities of ducks’ eggs are hatched by artificial heat, and are purchased, when only a day or two old, by the persons who make their living by feeding and selling the birds. One favorite mode of duck feeding is to keep the birds in a boat fitted up for the purpose, and to take the boat along the banks of the river. At low water the keeper lets out the ducks, which find abundance of food in the multitudinous creatures that swarm in the mud, and when he thinks fit, he recalls them by a signal. As soon as they hear the signal, they hurry to the boat with an alacrity that seems rather ludicrous, unless the spectator knows that the last duck always gets a sharp blow from a switch.

The characteristic thrift of the Chinese is well shown in their various agricultural operations, which are marvellously successful, not only on account of the real skill and knowledge possessed by the Chinese, but by reason of the systematic and ceaseless labor bestowed upon the various crops. Not a weed is allowed to absorb the nutriment which ought to go to the rice, and between the rows of plants the laborer creeps on his hands and knees, searching for every weed, and working with his fingers the earth round every root. Taken alone, this is hard and disagreeable work, but, as the rice is planted in mud, as sharp stones are often hidden under the mud, and as leeches abound in it, the hardships of a rice-weeder’s life may be conceived.

The water which is so necessary for the crop is mostly supplied by mechanical means. If the agriculturist is fortunate enough to have land near the river or canal, his task is comparatively easy. He has only to erect a certain number of water-engines. These are almost all on the same principle,--i. e. an endless chain passing over two wheels, and drawing the water through an inclined trough. The wheels are generally worked by men, who turn them with their feet, supporting themselves on a horizontal bamboo. A larger and more complicated apparatus is worked by a buffalo.

At the smaller wheels all labor, as Mr. Milne observes: “In working them the energies of every household appeared taxed to the utmost vigor, as if each individual felt convinced of the necessity of his personal aid in securing a good and plentiful crop. I saw both young and old leaning on the same frame, treading the same wheel, and humming together their rustic song as they trod. Boys six years of age kept the step very well with men of fifty, and if too small to mount the wheel, they were placed on the ground to work the paddles with their little hands; and women, too, whose tiny and compressed feet disable them from treading the mill, stood at the feet of the men, keeping time with their hands.... None were indolent. There was no cessation, nor was there exemption from labor; and, while they fought among the thorns and thistles with which the ground had been cursed, and with the sweat of the brow under a blazing sun sowed, weeded, and watered the earth, no murmurs were heard, save the undulating sound of the husbandman’s song as it waved over the field.” Those women who are fortunate enough to possess feet of the natural size work as hard in the field as the men do, and are then almost as scantily attired, a wide and short pair of trousers, and a wide hat to shelter them from the sun, being all the clothing they care for.

Though the earth be poor, the Chinese agriculturist forces it to bear, for every substance which can serve as manure is carefully saved for that purpose. Not only do the Chinese dispose of all the refuse of their houses and streets in the fields, but, as we have seen, even the little scraps of hair that are shaved from the head are saved and used as manure. Indeed, it is only by means of this exceeding economy that the inhabitants of so densely populated a country can sustain life.

Our concluding notes on Chinese life must be few and short.

According to their own ideas, they are as much adepts in music as in the other arts and sciences, which, as they believe, have placed them at the very summit of humanity. They have a tolerable variety of musical instruments, the most common of which is the San-hien, a sort of three-stringed guitar, with a very long neck and a very little cylindrical body. The strings are of silk, and are struck with a thin slip of bamboo at the end of the finger. Then, as a type of stringed instruments played with a bow, may be mentioned the Urh-heen, or two-stringed fiddles, the sounds of which are generally very disagreeable,--that is, when produced for Chinese ears; but when the player desires to imitate the characteristics of European music, he can do so very perfectly, as is shown by Mr. Fleming:--

“In one of the most thronged streets I was, on one afternoon, elbowing my way along, exploring the ‘Heavenly Ford,’ when the sound of a violin playing a well-known waltz fixed my attention in a bylane; and there, instead of a hairy Briton flourishing a bow over a Cremona, was a blind beggar eliciting those pleasant notes with as great precision and tone from the rude and weighty mallet-shaped urh-heen, as if he had been all his public life first violin at the opera.”

The same traveller remarks of the vocal music of the Chinese, that “a Chinaman rehearsing a song looks and gives utterance to such goat-like bleats, that it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that he is laboring under a violent attack of chronic whooping-cough, combined with intermittent seizures of hiccough,--the ‘dying falls’ of the inhuman falsetto at the end of each verse finishing in the most confounding hysterical perturbations of the vocal chords.”

There are several Chinese wind instruments. For instance, there is a clarionet, called Shu-teh, an instrument with a very loud and piercing note, and a peculiar “mouth-organ,” in which are a number of pipes. One of these instruments, drawn from a specimen in my collection, is shown on page 1445. It contains sixteen pipes, of different lengths, arranged in pairs. Some of the pipes, however, are “dummies,” and are only inserted to give the instrument an appearance of regularity. The length of the pipes has nothing to do with the pitch of the note, as they speak by means of brass vibrators inserted into the lower end, exactly like those of harmoniums. The pipes are bound together by means of a horn band that passes around them. When it is used, the player blows into the projecting mouthpiece, and with his fingers stops or opens the apertures in the pipes. The tone of this instrument is not pleasing to European ears.

Strange as Chinese music seems to us, and unpleasant as are the odd and unexpected intervals of their melodies, the art is evidently cultivated among the people, and there is scarcely a house without its musical instrument of some kind. In the evening, according to Mr. Fleming, “in passing through the narrow streets, one is sure to hear from the dimly lighted houses the squealing, incoherent, and distorted vibrations tumbling out on the night air with a spasmodic reality and a foreignness of style that at once remind the listener of the outlandish country he is in.” The preference of the Chinese for the strange, wild, abrupt intervals of their own music is not, as the reader may see, merely occasioned by ignorance of a more perfect scale, but is the result of deliberate choice on their part. They have no objection to European music. On the contrary, they are pleased to express their approbation of it, but with the proviso that it is decidedly inferior to their own.

From Music we turn to Art. In their own line of art the Chinese are unsurpassed, not to say inimitable. Ignorant of perspective as they may be, there is a quaint force and vigor about their lines that is worthy of all praise, while their rich softness of color can scarcely be equalled. From time immemorial they have been acquainted with the art of color printing from wooden blocks, and some of their oldest examples of color printing are so full of life and spirit, despite their exaggeration of gesture, and their almost ludicrous perspective, that the best English artists have admired them sincerely.

Of their porcelain, in which they simply stand alone, it is impossible to treat fully in such a work as this, as the subject would demand a volume to itself. Their carved work in ivory is familiarly known throughout the greater part of the civilized world. In many of these carvings the object of the artist seems to have been, not to develop any beauties of form, but to show his power of achieving seeming impossibilities. Among the best-known forms of Chinese carving may be reckoned the sets of concentric balls, which are cut out of solid ivory, or at least are said to be so made.

There is quite a controversy about the mode of cutting these balls, and even those who have spent much time in China, and are thoroughly acquainted with the arts and manufactures of the country, disagree on this subject, some saying that the balls are really cut from solid ivory, and others that each ball is made of two separate portions, which are joined very artificially by cement, and can be separated by steeping in boiling water. Of the two explanations I am rather inclined to believe the former, as none of those who say that the balls can be separated seem to have tried the experiment for themselves. The mode of cutting these curious specimens of art is said to be by boring conical holes from the circumference of the ball to its centre with a spherical piece of ivory, and then detaching each ball in succession with curved tools.

The jade carving of China is also celebrated. This material is remarkable for the beautifully soft polish which can be given to it, and, as it is a rare mineral and exceedingly hard, coming next in that respect to the ruby, articles made of jade are valued very highly by the Chinese. In the accompanying illustration are shown a number of jade carvings belonging to Sir Hope Grant, who kindly allowed me to have them engraved for this work. The bowl in the front is carved in imitation of a water-lily, the handle being formed from the flower-stem. The ring which hangs from the handle is cut from the same piece of jade. Just behind it is a jar of the same material, which is a wonderful specimen of carving, and admirably shows the patient industry of the Chinese worker. The second small bowl in the front, and the jar behind it, are also of jade.

The elegant jar which occupies the centre of the group is a splendid specimen of enamel, and beside it is a large piece of lapis lazuli, on which is engraved a poem written by the emperor himself.

The celebrated Summer Palace or Yuenming-yuen, which was sacked and burned by the English and French forces, was filled with splendid specimens of jade carving, some of which are shown in the preceding illustration. There are three kinds of jade, the cream-colored, the clear white, and the bright green. This last is the most esteemed, and is so valuable that a single bead, not so large as a boy’s playing marble, is worth a pound, or even more. Some necklaces made of these beads were sold after the destruction of the Summer Palace, and though they only contained about a hundred and fifty beads, a hundred and twenty pounds were given for them, the Chinese commissioners thinking that they were sold at a very cheap rate. The Chinese name for this jade is “feh-tsui.”

One of the most remarkable instances of Chinese art is the magic mirror. This article is a circular plate of metal rather more than a quarter of an inch thick, having its face smooth and highly polished, and its back dark and ornamented with various patterns, among which four Chinese characters are conspicuous. These characters are in honor of literature, and seem to be generally employed for the decoration of these mirrors.

When used simply for the purpose of reflecting the face, the mirrors present nothing worthy of notice, but when they are held to the sun, and the beams thrown upon a white surface, the whole of the characters on the back are shown in the reflection. The mirror will even show its powers when used with a lamp, but the sun is required to bring out the characters clearly. A small but excellent specimen of this mirror was presented to me by Dr. Flaxman Spurrell, and always excites great admiration wherever it is shown. Not the least trace of any figure is to be found in the face of the mirror, and the higher the polish given to the face, the clearer is the representation of the figures on the back.

Several theories have been promulgated respecting the mode of making these extraordinary mirrors, the most probable one being that the characters and patterns on the back are made of a harder and more condensed metal than that of the rest of the mirror, and that, when a high polish is given to the face, the difference of the metal is not perceptible, except by the mode in which it reflects light.

There is much to say respecting the customs of the Chinese. The small space, however, which remains will not permit us to treat fully of such wide subjects as religion, marriage, and disposal of the dead, and that they should be cursorily treated is impossible. We will therefore conclude with one of the most pleasing traits in the Chinese character, namely, the respect paid to old age.

According to Mr. Milne, “The sacred regard which Chinese pay to the claims of kindred secures to the patriarchs of respectable families ample support in the advanced and helpless stage of their pilgrimage; and charity often relieves poor septuagenarians whose relations may be unable to supply them with comforts or necessaries at their mature age. In China one’s feelings are not harrowed with the sad spectacle of an aged parent discarded by his children, and left to perish, unattended and unnursed, under a scorching sun, or on the banks of a rolling river. But you will see the tottering senior, man or woman, who has not the means to hire a sedan, led through the alleys and streets by a son or a grandchild, commanding the spontaneous respect of each passer-by, the homage of every junior.

“The deference of the polloi to the extreme sections of old age is manifest likewise from the tablets and monuments you may any day stumble upon, that have been erected by public subscription to the memory of octogenarians, nonagenarians, and centenarians. Nor is the government backward in encouraging this, but the reverse. Hence I have often seen very aged men and women in the streets, arrayed in yellow, i. e. imperial, robes, the gift of the emperor, in mark of honor, and out of respect to their gray hairs.” The reader will remember that an honorary degree is given to competitors who have reached an advanced age.

On one occasion, the emperor called together about four thousand old men at his palace, entertained them with a banquet, at which they were served by his own children and grandchildren, presented each of them with money and a yellow robe, and conferred upon the oldest of the assembly, a man aged one hundred and eleven years, the rank and dress of a mandarin.

Family festivals are held, something like the silver and golden wedding of the Germans, to celebrate each decade of life; and so important do the Chinese consider these festivals that they are often held by children even after the death of their parents, the only difference being that they have somewhat of a funeral cast, white, the color of mourning, being substituted for red, the color of joy. On those occasions the children offer gifts, and no present is thought to be more grateful to the recipient than a very handsome coffin. All Chinese who can afford it purchase during their lifetime a coffin as handsome as their means will permit, and so, should they not have been able to purchase this their last resting-place, their children think themselves honored by taking the purchase into their own hands. These coffins are nearly square, are made of immense thickness, and are so carefully cemented that the body may be kept in them without needing burial.

Filial respect is inculcated into the Chinese with their earliest breath, and their youthful minds are filled with legends of pious children. For example: Wu Mang was the son of parents who were too poor to possess mosquito curtains. So at night Wu Mang used to allow the mosquitoes to feed upon him, hoping that they would prefer a young boy to aged people. Wang Liang lost his mother, and had a step-mother who disliked him. Still he behaved to her as though she had been his own mother, and once, when she wished for some fresh fish and the river was frozen, Wang Liang went to the river, took off his clothes, and lay on the ice, hoping to melt it. Suddenly, in reward for his filial conduct, the ice opened, and out leaped two fine carp, which he took to his step-mother. Again, Lae, when he was seventy years of age, dressed and behaved like a child, in order that his parents should not be troubled, when looking at him, with the idea of their own age.

In every town or village, the oldest persons are treated with the greatest consideration, not on account of their rank or wealth, but of their age. Every one gives way to them, they have the best places in the theatres, are brought forward at every public spectacle, and are indulged in every possible way. Such has been the custom from time immemorial in this great nation, which was civilized when the inhabitants of England were naked savages. The oldest civilized nation in the world, they have honored their fathers and their mothers, and their days have been long in the land.

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CLVI. JAPAN

DRESS--ART--AMUSEMENTS.

POSITION AND NAME OF JAPAN -- APPEARANCE OF THE JAPANESE -- DRESS OF THE MEN -- USE OF SLEEVES -- HAIR-DRESSING -- COURT DRESS -- THE TATTOO AND ITS USES -- A STREET SCENE IN JAPAN -- DRESS OF THE WOMEN -- ARRANGEMENT OF THE HAIR -- THE ANCIENT HAIR-PINS -- USE OF PAINT -- BLACKENING TEETH AND PULLING OUT EYEBROWS -- MR. OLIPHANT’S OPINION UPON THE CUSTOM -- DISREGARD OF CLOTHING -- THE PUBLIC BATHS -- HOMERIC SIMPLICITY -- JAPANESE DRAWINGS -- TRAVELLING IN JAPAN -- A LADY ON HORSEBACK -- JAPANESE RIDERS -- THE GAME OF MALL -- HORSE ACCOUTREMENTS -- A SINGULAR HORSESHOE -- THE NORIMON, OR PALANQUIN -- FASHION OF THE POLE -- THE CANGO, OR CHAIR -- A NOBLE IN HIS NORIMON -- ATHLETIC POWERS OF THE JAPANESE -- THE LADDER BALANCING, TOP SPINNING, AND BUTTERFLY TRICK.

The Empire of JAPAN extends over a vast cluster of Islands, of different sizes, situated on the north eastern coast of Asia. There are nearly four thousand of these islands, but the kingdom practically consists of three chief Islands, Niphon, Kiou-siou, or Kew-sew, and Sikok, or Sitkokf. The first of these islands gives its name to the entire empire, our word Japan not having even a Japanese origin, but being a corruption of the Chinese rendering of the word Niphon, i. e. Land of the Sunrise. As might be inferred, it is within the island of Niphon that the capital, Jeddo or Yedo, is placed.

The complexion of the Japanese is yellowish, with a little brown, and in many cases is no darker than that of a Portuguese or southern Italian. The eyes are small, and not so much sunk in the head as those of the Chinese; the hair is black, straight, and coarse, and the nose, though thick, is well formed. Their stature is about equal to that of ordinary Europeans, and their limbs, though not large, are often very powerful, a slightly-made Japanese being able to lift easily a weight which a stalwart Englishman would find a heavy burden.

The dress of the Japanese is very peculiar, and well suited to their features and complexion. Although it has about it something of a Chinese aspect, it is as distinct from the Chinese as is the character of the two people. As in China, the dress consists of much the same articles with both sexes, that of the women differing from male apparel chiefly in the comparative length of the robes and the mode of dressing the hair. A male Japanese may or may not wear trousers, his liberty in this point being absolute, sometimes amounting to a practical dispensation with all dress whatever.

The chief articles of male dress are robes of differing lengths, one being worn upon the other, until a man will sometimes carry four or five robes at once. They are girt round the waist with a broad sash, so that if the wearer wishes to remove his dress, he has only to loosen the sash, and draw his arms out of the sleeves, when all the garments fall to the ground together. The sleeves are very large, and, being partly closed at the ends, are used as pockets, in which are carried various little articles of portable property. In the sleeves, for example, are carried the squares of white paper which serve as pocket handkerchiefs, and which are always thrown away when used; and in the same convenient receptacle the Japanese guest will carry off the remains of the feast to which he has been invited, such being the custom of this strange country.

The material of these robes differs according to the wealth and quality of the wearer, some being of simple cotton, while those of the higher classes are made of the finest silks, and ornamented with the device or arms of the family, embroidered on the breast and back of the outer robe.

The hair of the men is dressed in a very singular manner. The front and temples of the head are shaved, as in China, and the remaining hair is made into a tail, as is the case with the Chinese. The hair, however, is not allowed to grow to its utmost length, and to hang down the back, but is made into a short queue, about three inches in length, and as thick as the finger, and is turned up over the top of the head. Generally the head is bare, but it is sometimes covered with a hat. The hats differ much in shape. That which is in general use is nearly flat, and is fastened to the head by six strings, two of which pass under the chin, two are crossed at the back of the head, and two more are passed under the nose. A hat thus fastened gives to the head a very singular aspect, making the face look as if it had suffered from a severe accident, and was covered with bandages. Some hats look like beehives, and entirely conceal the features, and are worn by outlaws, or “lonins,” and disgraced nobles. Sometimes the men pass a piece of stuff over their heads in such a way as to hide the forehead and chin, and only to leave the eyes, nose, and mouth exposed; and in winter they throw over the hat a piece of cloth, which is tied over the nose so as to shield that member from the cold blasts.

Men of consideration also wear a scarf over the shoulders, its length being regulated by the rank of the wearer, and thus serving to indicate the amount of courtesy which is due from one man to another. When two Japanese gentlemen meet, they bow until the ends of the scarf touch the ground. It is evident, therefore, that the man who, in virtue of his rank, wears the longest scarf, has the less distance to bow.

In addition to the ordinary costume, the dress of ceremony has two extraordinary additions. The first is the “kami-samo,” respecting which the Japanese are exceedingly punctilious. It consists of a piece of stuff which is folded back over the shoulders in a fan-like form, and gives a most extraordinary and awkward look to the wearer. Courtiers wear another article of dress which is exactly opposed to our customs.

In European courts the nether garments are abbreviated, and only come to the knee; in Japan the custom is reversed. When the nobles appear before the emperor, they wear a pair of trousers with legs fully twice as long as those of the wearer, so that in walking they trail a yard or so on the ground. Walking in such garments is an art which can only be attained by long practice, and which, even when learned, is nothing more than an ungainly shuffle, threatening every moment to throw the courtier on his face. The attitudes which are assumed by fashionable courtiers are so absurd that the Japanese picture books abound in caricatures of noblemen at court. The object of this curious custom is probably to give the wearer of the court dress an aspect as if he were kneeling instead of standing.

Men of the better classes always appear in public carefully dressed, but those of the lower orders consider themselves sufficiently clothed if they have a mere strip of cloth like the “languti” of India. Coolies, for example, laborers of various kinds, post-runners, etc., wear nothing but the cloth strip while at work.

Mr. Oliphant, in his “Narrative,” mentions this fact in connection with the custom of tattooing, which is carried out in Japan to as much perfection as in Polynesia. “Some, however, denied themselves the benefit of dress, apparently for the purpose of exhibiting the brilliant patterns in which their skins were tattooed. One man had a monster crab on the small of his back, and a pretty cottage on his chest. It is rather fashionable to have scarlet fish playing sportively between your shoulders. The scarlet tattooing presents a very disgusting appearance. The skin looks as if it had been carefully peeled off into the required pattern.

“On a really well-tattooed man there is not an inch of the body which does not form part of a pictorial representation. If the general effect is not agreeable, it is perfectly decent, for the skin ceases to look bare, or like skin at all; it rather resembles a harlequin’s costume. It must be dreadful to feel that one can never undress again. Yet what anguish does not the victim undergo, in order to put himself into a permanent suit of red dye and gunpowder!” The Japanese are very fond of their children, and in summer time a man may often be seen in the streets, wearing nothing but the cloth strip, and carrying in his arms his infant child, who has no clothing whatever.

Sometimes a man will appear in a costume which even seems more absurd than the almost entire nudity which has just been mentioned, and will walk about in a hat, a short jacket, and nothing else but the cloth.

In an illustration on the next page, the artist has shown a number of the ordinary costumes as they appear when the wearers are gathered round a ballad-singer. The most conspicuous figure is that of a Samourai or Yaconin, an armed retainer of a nobleman, swaggering along with the two swords emblematic of his office, and his features nearly hidden under his hat. The men wearing the extraordinary piebald dresses are a sort of street constable, who accompany a man of rank on his journey, and who jingle an iron rod laden with rings, in order to warn people to get out of the way of the great man. The other figures of men are arranged so as to show the mode of dressing the hair, and one or two varieties of costume.

The general appearance of the women’s dress is well shown by a figure opposite to that of the Samourai. The dress is almost exactly like that of the men, except that the materials are generally finer, and the sash which confines the garments to the waist is very broad, and gathered up into a large and peculiar knot, almost exactly like the “panier” of European fashion. Both sexes wear stockings made like mittens, and having a separate place for the reception of the great toe. Without this provision they would not be able to wear the peculiar sandals and clogs of the country, which are held on the foot by a Y-shaped strap, the fork of which passes between the great and the second toe. The clogs that are worn by the women very much resemble those of the Malays in general shape, and, awkward as they look, are easily manageable after a little practice. Some clogs in my collection elevate the foot of the wearer six inches above the ground, but I have found that walking, or rather shuffling, in them is not at all difficult.

The chief distinction between masculine and feminine attire lies in the hair. Whereas the men shave nearly the whole of the head, the women allow their hair to grow, and even add to it when they do not possess a sufficient amount to produce the extraordinary forms into which they twist their locks. Various fashions of hair-dressing prevail in different parts of the country, but in all cases the women take extraordinary pains with their heads, and twist their hair into elaborate and fantastic patterns, which scarcely any European hairdresser could equal.

Hair-pins are very fashionable, not so much for the purpose of confining the locks in their places, as of mere adornment. The pins are of enormous size, seven or eight inches in length, and half an inch wide, and are made of various substances, such as tortoise shell, carved wood, and ivory. Some of the most characteristic hair-pins are made of glass. They are hollow, and nearly filled with some colored liquid, so that at every movement of the wearer an air bubble runs from one end of the pin to the other. Sometimes a woman will wear a dozen or more of these pins in her hair, so that at a little distance her head looks as if a bundle of firewood had been stuck loosely into it.

Having pleasing features by nature, it may be expected that the women do their best to disfigure them by art. The soft pale brown of their complexions is made ghastly and hideous by white paint, with which the face, neck, and bust are thickly covered. The natural pink of the lips is rendered disgusting by a layer of red paint, the white teeth are blackened, and the eyebrows are pulled out. This style of adornment belongs only to the married women, so that a really pretty girl will in a few hours transform herself into a repulsive hag.

Mr. Oliphant, in the work which has already been mentioned, gives rather a humorous reason for this strange custom. “The first impression of the fair sex which the traveller receives in a Japanese crowd is in the highest degree unfavorable; the ghastly appearance of the faces and bosoms, thickly coated with powder, the absence of eyebrows, and the blackened teeth, produce a most painful and disagreeable effect. Were it not for this abominable custom, Japanese women would probably rank high among Eastern beauties, certainly far before Chinese.

“All Japanese writers whom I have read upon the subject affirm that to have no eyebrows and black teeth is considered a beauty in Japan, and that the object of the process is to add to the charms of the fair one. The result of my inquiry and observation, however, rather led me to form an opposite conclusion.

“In the first place, young ladies do not, as a rule, neglect any opportunity of improving their looks; but no Japanese young ladies, even after they are ‘out,’ think of taking this method of increasing their powers of fascination; they color their lips and cheeks, and deck their hair, but it is not until they have made a conquest of some lucky swain, that, to prove their devotion to him, they begin to blacken their teeth and pull out their eyebrows.

“He, privileged being, is called upon to exhibit no such test of his affection: on the contrary, his lawful wife having so far disfigured herself as to render it impossible that she should be attractive to any one else, seems to lose her charms for her husband as well. So he places her at the head of his establishment; and adds to it an indefinite number of handmaidens, who neither pull out their eyebrows nor blacken their teeth. Hence it seems not difficult to account for the phenomenon which is universally admitted, that while Japanese wives are celebrated for their virtue, their husbands are no less notorious for their licentiousness.”

While upon the subject of dress, we must not pass unnoticed the extraordinary ideas which the Japanese have on the subject. Possessed as they are of much taste in dress, and having certain complete costumes for various ranks, it seems very remarkable that they are utterly indifferent to clothing considered in the light of covering. They attach no sense of indelicacy to exposure of the person, and men, women, and children may be seen bathing exposed to the sight of every passer-by.

Even their public baths, though some of them have two doors, one for men and one for women, are common to both sexes, and in those baths which are specially set apart for women the attendant is often a man. Sometimes there is a partition, about breast high, to separate the sexes, but the usual baths have no such refinement. The baths are merely shallow pans or depressions in the floor, in which the bathers sit while they pour over themselves abundant supplies of hot and cold water. Baths of this nature are attached to all the “tea-houses,” so that travellers can refresh themselves with a bath, in true Homeric style, before they take their meals. And, in Homeric style also, the attendants are women. The baths are known by a dark blue strip of cloth which hangs like a banner over the doorway. Europeans, when they first visit the country, are rather surprised when they pass along the streets to see a whole family “tubbing” in front of their houses, or, when they pass a public bath, to see the inmates run out to look at the strangers; but they very soon become used to such spectacles, and think no more of them than do the Japanese themselves.

Sir Rutherford Alcock, in dealing with this subject, and illustrating it by a Japanese drawing representing a bath tenanted by a man, a boy, and five women, makes the following remarks: “Men and women steaming in the bathing-houses raise themselves to the open bars of the lattice fronts to look out, the interior behind them presenting a view very faithfully represented in the following sketch by a native artist.

“In reference to which, I cannot help feeling there is some danger of doing injustice to the womanhood of Japan if we judge them by our rules of decency and modesty. Where there is no sense of immodesty, no consciousness of wrong-doing, there is, or may be, a like absence of any sinful or depraving feeling. It is a custom of the country. Fathers, brothers, and husbands all sanction it; and from childhood the feeling must grow up as effectually shielding them from self-reproach or shame, as their sisters in Europe in adopting low dresses in the ball-room, or any other generally adopted fashion of garments or amusements. There is much in the usual appearance and expression of Japanese women to lead to this conclusion. Any one of the real performers in the above scene,--a bathing saturnalia as it may appear to us,--when all is over, and the toilet completed, will leave the bath-door a very picture of womanly reserve and modesty.”

Certainly, no women can be more decently clad than those of Japan, as we may see by any of the multitudinous native drawings; and that they should attach no sense of decency to the dress, or indecency to its absence, is one of the many strange characteristics of this remarkable and enigmatic country.

The travelling dress of the women is little more than their ordinary costume, plus a large flat hat, which serves as a parasol. Japanese picture books abound with illustrations of women travelling, and, multitudinous as they are, each has always some characteristic point, and no two are exactly alike. Sometimes we see the women sauntering quietly along the river bank, sometimes they are being carried across the river on the shoulders of men, or, if they be of importance, in “norimons” or chairs borne by six or eight coolies. Some of the drawings depict women as sitting in boats, as being caught in a heavy snow or rain storm (see illustration), as walking by moonlight, and as they appear when riding.

The attitude and general appearance of a female equestrian in Japan differ considerably from those of an European. Side-saddles are unknown, the fair rider perching herself upon a saddle which lifts her high above the back of the animal, concealing her body downward, holding on tightly by the front part of the saddle, and, in fact, giving herself a look very much resembling that of a gayly attired monkey on horseback, as shown on the next page. This mode of riding is even followed by the opposite sex, the retainers of the high nobles sitting in their lofty saddles in very much the same attitude as that employed by the women, and being in consequence absolutely useless, except in looks, as cavalry.

Yet, when they choose, the Japanese can ride tolerably, as is shown by the fact of a game which is played among them, in which the competitors are all mounted. In this game the players have to contend against very great disadvantages. In the first place, the horses which they bestride are wretched animals, mere rough ponies, and the accoutrements are so clumsy, that it is a wonder how the horse can be guided at all. According to our ideas, a horse is guided by the pressure of the leg and the touch of the rein, but the Japanese saddles render such guidance impossible.

The former mode is prevented by the shape of the saddle, which has large flaps of stiff leather hanging so low that the heel or knee of the rider has no effect upon the animal; and the latter mode is nearly as impossible as the former, by reason of the bit and the fashion of riding. The bit is a mere light snaffle placed loosely in the mouth, and the reins are used, not so much for the purpose of guiding the horse, as of keeping the rider in his seat. The horsemen grasp a rein tightly in each hand, and so hang to the bit. The natural consequence is, that the mouths of the horses are nearly as tough as the leather saddle-flaps, and the animals always go with their noses in the air, so as to counteract the perpetual haul on the bridle.

The game which is played under these untoward conditions is a sort of mall. A large space is marked out, and at each end is a curtain. At some few feet from the ground a circular hole is cut in the curtain. Each player is furnished with a long-handled, small-headed racket, almost exactly resembling that which is employed by the North American Indians in their ball play, described on page 1324. The object of the game is to pick up the ball from the ground with the racket, and to throw it through the hole. In order that there may be no doubt whether the ball has really passed through the hole, a net is hung loosely on the opposite side of the hole, and receives the ball. The players arrange themselves in two parties, distinguished by colors, and the chief point of the game is to pursue the opponent as he is galloping triumphantly toward the goal, and knock the ball out of the racket just as he is going to throw it through the hole.

The stirrups used by the Japanese are very curious in shape, and not at all like the ordinary models. Their general outline resembles that of the letter S, the foot being thrust into the opening as far as it will go. The comparatively small stirrups used by Europeans are as troublesome to the Japanese as would be the tiny triangular stirrups of Patagonia to an English rider.

The strangest part of horse equipment in Japan is, however, the shoe. Our idea of a horseshoe is a metallic plate to protect the horse against hard ground. The Japanese shoe is made of plaited straw, and is, in fact, nothing more than a straw sandal tied to the foot, giving it a very clumsy appearance. As may be imagined, their shoes never last very long, and on a stony road are soon cut to pieces. The rider, therefore, takes a supply of shoes with him, and renews them as fast as they are worn out. Indeed, a journey is often roughly calculated as a distance of so many shoes.

Under such circumstances, it is not surprising that the horse is seldom used in travelling. None but a poor noble will condescend to ride from one place to another, as it might be supposed that he could not afford the retinue which is required to carry him. Sometimes a nobleman will condescend to ride in public, but then his horse must be held by two grooms, who tug continually at the poor animal’s mouth, and shout continually, “Chai! chai!” i. e. gently, for haste is always thought undignified by the Japanese, and a person of consideration would suffer a great infraction of dignity if he allowed himself to hurry over the road.

For those who can afford so expensive a luxury, the usual mode of conveyance is a sort of palanquin called a Norimon. It is a square cage, hung from a pole, and carried by four men, two in front and two behind. For Japanese travellers this is a very comfortable conveyance, but for Europeans, who are not accustomed to the crouching attitude so characteristic of the Japanese, even a short journey in a norimon is a source of torture, the unfortunate passenger finding great difficulty in getting into the machine, and, when the journey is over, almost as much difficulty in getting out again, his limbs being stiff and cramped by the position into which they have been forced.

The pole of the norimon is stout, and very long; and it is a matter of rivalry between young and fashionable men to have their norimon poles as long and as profusely decorated as possible. When the coolies carry the norimon, they hoist it on their shoulders at a signal from their master, and step along at some three miles an hour. In many parts the coolies much resemble the palanquin bearers of India, but are in this respect superior, that they travel in silence, and do not weary the soul of their master by the perpetual grunts and moans with which the Indian bearers are accustomed to lighten their journey.

Uncomfortable as is the norimon, there is a popular conveyance which is even more painful to European limbs. This is called the Cango, and it bears about the same relationship to the norimon as a wheelbarrow does to a carriage. Indeed, if the reader can imagine the wheel, the legs, and handle of a wheelbarrow to be removed, and the body of the machine to be hung from a pole, he can form some idea of a cango. In the norimon the inmate has to crouch, in the cango he has almost to tie himself in a knot. Yet the Japanese limbs are so supple, that cango employers travel for many successive hours without being in the least oppressed by the attitude which they are compelled to assume. Cangos are largely used in Japan, and are indeed what cabs are to Londoners, the norimons supplying the place of carriages.

When a great noble or Daimio travels, he always uses the norimon, partly because it is the most luxurious conveyance which he knows, and partly because it gives him an excuse for displaying the strength of his retinue, which is about the only mode of ostentation known to the Japanese. The norimon is preceded by some of the men called Samourais, or Yaconins, i. e. men who are permitted to attach themselves to his service, and thereby to gain the privilege of wearing two swords. As their master passes along, they continually utter the word “Shitanirio!” i. e. kneel down, whereupon every one that hears it must at once prostrate himself on the ground, or remain erect at his peril. The most serious quarrels that have arisen between strangers and the natives in Japan have originated in this custom, the strangers either not knowing the custom, or refusing to comply with it lest they should compromise the dignity of their nation. Refusing to obey such an order is sure to cause a quarrel, and is likely to end in loss of life, as the Yaconins who give the order to kneel are always ready to enforce obedience with their swords.

Around the norimon is a crowd of servants, each wearing his master’s badge on his back, and each armed according to his rank. Some led horses generally accompany the procession, so that the great man may ride when he is tired of the norimon, and a number of coolies bear umbrellas covered with waterproof cases, and large boxes on poles. These boxes are almost invariably empty, but are conventionally supposed to contain the stores of baggage without which so great a man could not be expected to stir. Superior officers in norimons, and inferior officers on horseback, accompany the procession, for which a passage is kept by a number of men fantastically dressed in harlequin-like suits of various colors. Each of them carries a long iron rod, to which are attached a number of rings made of the same metal. As they walk they strike the end of the rod against the ground at each step, so that a clashing sort of jingle is produced, and strikes awe into the people.

That the Japanese should be such poor horsemen is very singular, considering the marvellous perfection to which they have brought other athletic exercises. As “acrobats” the performers are far superior to those of any other nation, performing the most audacious and apparently impossible feats with an absolute precision which quite removes any idea of danger.

Until the Japanese gymnasts came to this country, we were inclined to treat the accounts of travellers as exaggerated, but they proved to be capable of performing any feats which our professional athletes could achieve, and many others which they never even dreamt of attempting. For example, nothing seems much more difficult than for a man to lie on his back and balance on the soles of his feet a ladder thirty feet high. But when we add that to the top of the ladder a second ladder was attached at right angles, like the top of the letter F, and that a boy went up and down the ladder, and even crawled to the end of the cross piece and there hung by his instep, while the ladder was balanced on the soles of the reclining man’s feet, we appear to be romancing rather than relating a fact. Yet this astonishing performance was repeated day after day, and nothing was more wonderful than the elaborate perfection and finish of the performance. The heavy ladder was placed on the upturned feet, and in a moment it was as steady as if it had been planted in the ground. Though, owing to the crosspiece, it was considerably inclined, its steadiness was not impaired, and even when the boy ascended and descended it, causing the centre of gravity to be continually altered, there was not the slightest wavering perceptible.

So with the other feats achieved by these remarkable performers. Everything was done with the deliberation which forms an essential part of the Japanese nature, but there were no needless delays, and whether the man was balancing the ladder on his feet, or whether he was spinning tops and making them act as if they were rational beings, or whether he was making two paper butterflies flutter about as if they were real insects, the same quiet perfection characterized the whole of the performance, and every feat was done with such consummate ease that it looked as if it really required no skill at all. The extraordinary life which the Japanese performers contrive to infuse into inanimate objects is almost incredible. Had not the feat been actually seen, it would be scarcely possible to believe that a top could be spun, and then launched off to perform the following feats without being even touched:--

It ascended an inclined plane to a temple, the doors of which were closed. It knocked open one of the doors, entered the temple, waited inside some time, and then knocked open another door at right angles to the former, and emerged. It then went over an inclined bridge, entered another temple, and went up stairs, emerging at an upper story. It then proceeded along an inclined plane standing at right angles to the temple, and passed over a drawbridge, which was immediately lifted, leaving a gap over which the top had to pass in order to get back again. However, by the loosing of a catch, the top was flung over the gap, and went on as gayly as ever, finishing with entering a third temple, ringing a bell inside, coming out again, and running over two more bridges into the hands of the spinner, having traversed some forty feet, besides the work in the temples.

The same man spun a top upon the edge of a sword, making it pass from one end of the blade to the other. He flung the top in the air and threw the string at it: the top caught the middle of the string by the peg, wound itself up, and was again flung into the air, spinning faster than before. It was then caught on the slender stem of a pipe, along which it ran as if alive, was passed behind the back, and caught again in front, and lastly, was received upon the hem of the sleeve, made to spin up the garment, over the neck and shoulders, and down the sleeve of the opposite side. It was also made to spin upon a slight string stretched from the wall, and to pass backward and forward as long as the spinner chose.

Some of these tops required no string, but were merely spun with the hand; they could be taken up and put down again, still spinning, or they could be stood on their heads and still spin, or they could be built into a perfect edifice of tops, three or four spinning upon each other, sometimes each leaning in a different direction, and then being brought upright by a touch of the ever-ready fan. The concluding feat was a very curious one. Some thirty feet above the heads of the spectators was hung a model of a temple, from which depended a string. The chief top-spinner then took a small but very heavy top, wound up its string, and flung the top in the air, drawing back the arm so that the top came flying into his hand. He went under the temple, gave the pendent string a half turn round the peg, and away went the top into the temple, bursting open its doors, and flinging out a quantity of rose leaves, which came fluttering down round the top as it descended the string, and fell into the hands of the performer.

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CLVII. JAPAN--Concluded

MISCELLANEOUS CUSTOMS.

SUMPTUARY LAWS -- SYSTEM OF ESPIONAGE -- THE DUPLICATE EMPIRE -- POWERS OF THE TYCOON AND MIKADO -- THE DAIMIOS AND THEIR RETAINERS -- THE TWO SWORDS -- LONINS, OR OUTLAWS -- JAPANESE FENCERS -- DEFENSIVE ARMOR -- ARCHERY -- THE HAPPY DESPATCH -- PUBLIC EXECUTIONS -- ARCHITECTURE -- REASONS FOR ITS FRAGILITY -- PRECAUTIONS AGAINST FIRE -- SIMPLE HABITS OF THE JAPANESE -- AMUSEMENTS AND GAMES -- WRESTLERS -- THEATRES IN JAPAN -- CURIOUS ARRANGEMENT OF PLAYS -- THE TEA-HOUSES AND THEIR ATTENDANTS -- JAPANESE ART -- THE PORTABLE INKSTAND -- THE CRANE, HERON, AND STORK -- THE SNOW-CLOAK -- SILK MADE BY NOBLES.

In Japan there is a tolerably strict code of sumptuary laws, certain modes of dress and the power of carrying certain weapons being denied to all except the privileged classes. We will, therefore, take a hasty glance at the different ranks in Japan.

With regard to all official ranks a duplicate system exists throughout the kingdom. At the head of the government there are two emperors,--the civil emperor, or Tycoon, and the spiritual emperor, or Mikado. The former of these potentates (whose title is sometimes spelled as Siogoon) is the real administrator of the empire, although he is nominally inferior to the Mikado, an inferiority which is carefully marked by certain visits of ceremony paid to the Mikado, but is not allowed to proceed beyond mere etiquette.

Indeed, the powers of the Tycoon himself are practically limited, though theoretically unbounded, and the government is in fact exercised by the nobles, through a double council, one of which is chosen by the emperor, and the other selected by the nobles from themselves. Every man who is employed in the duties of government has his duplicate, or “shadow,” as he is called; he is subject to espionage on every side, and is himself a spy on others.

This system, uncomfortable as it may appear, has its advantages. According to Mr. Oliphant: “One most beneficial result arising from this universal system of espionage--for it extends through all classes of society--is the entire probity of every government employé. So far as we could learn or see, they were incorruptible. When men can neither offer nor receive bribes; when it is almost impossible, even indirectly, to exercise corrupt influences, there is little fear of the demoralization of public departments of the state. In this respect Japan affords a brilliant contrast to China, and even to some European countries. So long as this purity exists, even though purchased at the cost of secret espial, there can be little cause to fear the decadence of Japan.”

It is as well to mention in this place that the word Tycoon, or Tai-kû, is not of Japanese but of Chinese origin, and that it came into use through its insertion in an official document, the unlucky minister who employed it having in consequence fallen into disgrace and poverty. The name of Tycoon is never applied to him by the Japanese, who use instead the title which has been conferred upon him by his nominal superior, the Mikado.

The Mikado, or spiritual emperor, is held in the greatest veneration, and many of the honors paid to him are almost identical with those which are rendered to the Grand Lama of Thibet. He is too sacred to touch the earth with his feet, and is carried on men’s shoulders on the rare occasions when he moves from one part of the palace to another. Outside it he never goes. He is too holy to wear any garment twice, or to use any article a second time, and, should any one venture to wear or use a garment or utensil sanctified by his touch, he would bring down on himself the vengeance of heaven. Consequently, every garment that he has worn or every wooden utensil which he has employed is burned, and those which are made of earthenware are broken.

A similar rule extends to his wives, of whom he has twelve, one of them being the head wife or queen. A curious piece of etiquette is practised by the wives of the Mikado. All other women dress their hair into fantastic shapes, but the Mikado’s wives are obliged to allow their hair to flow at length down their backs. In consequence of the innumerable restrictions to which he is subjected, the Mikado generally becomes tired of his comfortless rank, and resigns in favor of his heir.

Next come the Daimios or nobles, who, as among ourselves, are of different ranks, and who are the real rulers of the country. The difficulties which foreigners have experienced in Japan have almost invariably been caused by the Daimios, who fear that their position as feudal nobles may be endangered by the introduction of foreigners into the country. The greater Daimios are as formidable as were the great barons of early English history, and in like manner keep vast numbers of armed retainers. There is a general idea that in Japan every man wears a pair of swords. This is far from being the case, as none are permitted to wear even one sword unless he be in the service of the State. Even the wealthiest merchant may not wear a sword unless he is enrolled among the retainers of a Daimio, and, as the privilege is a great one, it is purchased for a certain annual sum. This indirect tribute is a lucrative source of income to the Daimios, and enables them to maintain the enormous retinue with which they are surrounded.

The higher classes in Japan are privileged to wear a garment called the “hakkama.” This is much like the huge petticoat trousers of the French Zouave, and is indeed a very full and abundantly plaited petticoat, sewed together in the middle, and gathered in at the knees. The wearers are inordinately proud of this garment, and, though one of the unprivileged classes may purchase the right to carry a sword, no expenditure of money will enable a man to wear the hakkama.

The most troublesome of the retainers are the Yaconins or Samourais, men who have been admirably described by Sir Rutherford Alcock in his “Capital of the Tycoon”:--

“All of a certain rank are armed with this formidable weapon projecting from their belt; swords, like everything else in Japan, to our worse confusion, being double, without much or any obvious distinction between military and civil, or between Tycoon’s officers and Daimios’ retainers. These are the classes which furnish suitable specimens of that extinct species of the race in Europe still remembered as Swashbucklers,--swaggering, blustering bullies; many cowardly enough to strike an enemy in the back, or cut down an unarmed and inoffensive man; but also supplying numbers ever ready to fling their own lives away in accomplishing a revenge, or carrying out the orders of their chief.

“They are all entitled to the privilege of two swords, rank and file, and are saluted by the unprivileged (professional, mercantile, and agricultural classes) as Sama, or Lord. With a rolling straddle in his gait, reminding one of Mr. Kinglake’s graphic description of the Janissary, and due to the same cause,--the heavy, projecting blades at his waist, and the swaddling clothes round his body,--the Japanese Samourai or Yaconin moves on in a very ungainly fashion, the hilts of his two swords at least a foot in advance of his person, very handy, to all appearance, for an enemy’s grasp. One is a heavy, two-handed weapon, pointed and sharp as a razor; the other short, like a Roman sword, and religiously kept in the same serviceable state.

“In the use of these he is no mean adept. He seldom requires a second thrust with the shorter weapon, but strikes home at a single thrust, as was fatally proved at a later period; while with the longer weapon he severs a limb at a blow. Such a fellow is a man to whom all peace-loving subjects and prudent people habitually give as wide a berth as they can. Often drunk, and always insolent, he is to be met with in the quarters of the town where the tea-houses most abound; or returning about dusk from his day’s debauch, with a red and bloated face, and not over-steady on his legs, the terror of all the unarmed population and street dogs. Happy for the former, when he is content with trying the edge of a new sword on the quadrupeds; and many a poor crippled animal is to be seen limping about, slashed over the back, or with more hideous evidences of brutality. But, at other times, it is some coolie or inoffensive shopkeeper, who, coming unadvisedly between ‘the wind and his nobility,’ is just as mercilessly cut down at a blow.”

In some sort of a way, each noble is responsible for the acts of his retainers. Therefore, if any of these men determine upon some act which they know will compromise their master,--say the assassination of some one whom he dislikes,--they formally divest themselves of his protection, and become “lonins,” or outlaws, or almost exactly the same as the “masterless-men” of the feudal English days. Each of them carries with him a paper on which his renunciation is written, and to perform such an act is thought extremely honorable. Nearly all the men who murdered Europeans were lonins.

The swords which these men wear in virtue of their rank are most formidable weapons, the temper of the steel, the balance of the weapon, and the slight curve of the edge, being all that can be desired. They are finished with the utmost care, and every part receives the minutest attention. A very beautiful specimen of the shorter sword was presented to me by C. Allen, Esq., of Blackheath. It measures two feet four inches in total length, of which the handle occupies nearly nine inches. This roomy handle of the Japanese sword presents a remarkable contrast with the small and cramped hilts of the Indian weapons. It affords an admirable grasp for the hand, being covered with diamond-shaped patterns of silken cord twisted over a basis of rough skate-skin. The blade is a little more than an inch in width, and even after a stay of many years in this country, is as bright as a mirror and sharp as a razor.

Indeed, for a hand-to-hand encounter, it would be difficult to find a more formidable weapon, even the kookery of India being inferior to it, as being heavier and less manageable. It is equally adapted for thrusting or cutting, and is so effective for the former purpose that one of these swords has been driven completely through a man’s body by a single thrust. The balance of the weapon is admirable, and, though it is somewhat unsightly, it can be managed with perfect ease.

The amount of labor that has been bestowed on this particular weapon is really astonishing. The effect is not in the least obtrusive, and it is only by close examination that its beauties can be seen. The blade is left entirely without ornament, its excellence being shown by its high polish and sharp edge. But, with the exception of the blade, every portion of the weapon has its ornament. On the guard is represented a buffalo grazing under a tree, the groundwork being of bronze, and the leaves of the tree and the herbage being gold. Between the silken cords of the hilt and the skate-skin are inserted two beautifully executed models, in bronze, of a bow and arrows, the feathers of the arrows and wrappings of the head being gilt. One of these models is inserted on either side of the hilt, which is terminated by a richly engraved bronze ornament.

In the upper part of the sheath is kept a small knife, somewhat similar in shape to that which is kept in the chopstick-case of the Chinese. The handle of the knife is bronze, and is adorned with the figure of a crayfish, beautifully wrought in gold, together with a banner and one or two other devices. The sheath itself is a wonderful piece of workmanship. At a little distance it looks as if it were covered with dark-brown leather; but a closer inspection shows that it is entirely covered with a minute and delicate pattern that looks as if it had been traced with a needle’s point, and must have cost the artist a very considerable expenditure of labor.

The larger sword is made after precisely the same pattern, except that it is four feet in length, and must be used with both hands. With one of these swords a Japanese will strike off a limb at a single blow; and so sharp are they, that an executioner, in beheading a criminal, scarcely raises the sword a foot for his stroke. The Japanese swordsmen practise the use of their weapon by means of sham swords, with which they fence, the combatants padding their limbs and sides, and covering their faces with wire masks. They have a very dangerous cut, which is made by the mere motion of unsheathing the sword, and takes effect at a distance where an inexperienced person would think himself safe.

So good is the temper of these weapons, that a Japanese has been known to sever a thick iron bolt with a single blow, the edge of the sword not showing the slightest indication of the severe test to which it had been put. The Japanese name for the large sword is “ken”; that of the shorter, “kattan.”

Defensive armor was at one time much worn by the Japanese, though at the present day the introduction of improved firearms has caused them to abandon armor, except for purposes of show. A complete suit of Japanese armor is shown on page 1469. It is made of multitudinous plates hung upon cloth, and profusely ornamented by gilding. Though very light, it is strong enough to resist the blow of the long sword, though it is worse than useless against rifled fire-arms. Indeed, had it not been for the recent disuse of protective armor, we should scarcely have been able to procure a suit; but, finding their suits of mail to be practically useless, the Japanese nobles very generously presented many of them to their foreign guests, and allowed others to be sold.

The oddest part of the suit is the helmet, with its appendages. The fantastic crest is very light, being made of exceedingly thin material, covered with gilding; and is so slight that a blow with a stick would crush it. Perhaps the reader may wonder at the beards which apparently depend from the chins of the soldiers. The fact is, the helmet is furnished with a very complete visor, shaped like a mask, which covers the whole of the face, and is decorated with a large gray beard and mustache, in order to strike terror into the beholders.

The bow is a favorite weapon with the Japanese, who expend nearly as much labor upon it as they do upon the sword. It is mostly japanned in black, and adorned with various decorations. Some of these bows are very powerful, and are strung in rather a peculiar manner, the archer placing the lower end of the bow on the ground, and grasping the upper end with his right hand. He plants his right foot on the middle of the bow, bends it with the united powers of his foot and right hand, and with his left slips the string into its place. The arrows are made like those of China, but, in accordance with the national character of the people, are more highly finished.

One of the strangest weapons used by the Japanese is the war fan. Like the Chinese, the Japanese are never without the fan, and are obliged, by force of long habit, to take it into battle. The fan which is kept for this purpose has its sheath made of iron, and is of very large size, so that if the warrior be surprised without his sword, he is sure to have his fan ready by way of a club. These fans are decorated with the national emblem, a red sun on a black ground.

In connection with the Japanese weapons must be mentioned some of their modes of punishment. The first is the celebrated Hara-kiri, or Happy Despatch, and consists of suicide by ripping open the abdomen with two cuts in the form of a cross. Only the upper classes are privileged to perform the Happy Despatch, and to them it is in reality a privilege. If a Japanese official has failed in some duty, or committed some act which is likely to call upon him the anger of his superiors, he applies for permission to perform the Hara-kiri. At the appointed time, he assembles his friends, dresses himself in white, as a token of innocence, gives an entertainment, and makes a speech upon the position in which he is placed. He then takes the fatal knife, and as he raises his clothing for the purpose of inflicting the wounds, a good swordsman comes behind him, bearing a two-handed sword or “ken.” The victim begins the Hara-kiri, but, as soon as he has made a slight incision, his head is swept off, so that death is not the result of the horrid wounds in the abdomen.

Sometimes, however, when time presses, the victim is obliged to perform the Hara-kiri as he can, and in that case dies from the self-inflicted wounds. For example, in several cases where assassination has been attempted, and notably in the celebrated attack on the British Legation, when the would-be assassins were chased on the succeeding day, it was found that three of them had committed the Hara-kiri, two of whom were already dead, but one was still living and was captured. In these cases the weapon used for the purpose is the shorter sword, or “kattan.”

When a man has committed the Hara-kiri, he is supposed to have died an honorable death, and so to have earned for himself a reputation as a brave man. His family are proud of him, and his memory is reverenced. But should he lose his life by the hand of the executioner, his whole property is confiscated, his family falls under ban, and his name is held as infamous. It will be seen, therefore, that the Hara-kiri is really a very great privilege, especially among a people so entirely indifferent to life as the Japanese.

Public executions are very simply carried out. The criminal is taken to the spot on a horse, and when he arrives, is bound, and made to kneel on the ground over a hole which is to receive his head. The executioner, who uses the “ken” above named, arranges the culprit’s head in the proper position, and, apparently without any effort, decapitates the man with a blow. The old traveller Purchas very neatly expresses the mode of execution by a single word. After narrating the preliminaries, he states that the criminal “holds out his head, presently wiped off.”

Crucifixion is employed by the Japanese as well as by the Chinese, and is mostly reserved for high treason. Minor punishments are not much in vogue, inasmuch as a theft above a certain sum entails the penalty of death, and so does a theft of a smaller sum if repeated. Flogging and banishment are sometimes employed as punishments. The dreadful tortures to which the earlier Christian missionaries and their converts were subjected appear to be reserved for political and religious offenders.

The architecture of the Japanese is rather peculiar. Owing to the physical condition of the country, and its liability to earthquakes, the houses are not remarkable for size or beauty. Private houses are never of any great height, a little exceeding forty feet being the utmost limit. They are built of wood, and, wherever possible, are only one story in height. They have a very ingenious mode of dividing their houses into rooms. Instead of using permanent walls for that purpose, they prefer folding screens made of wood and paper, so that they can alter at will the size and shape of the rooms.

The floors are covered with mats, which serve also as measurements. They are beautifully made of straw and rushes, are several inches in thickness, and by law obliged to be exactly of the same dimensions, i. e. one “kin,” or seven feet four and a half inches in length, and half as much in breadth. The window frames are movable, and, instead of glass, are filled with oiled paper, mica, and the translucent shell of the great pearl oyster. The partitions of the houses and all the posts are curiously varnished and painted, and the Japanese, essentially a cleanly people, are very careful in keeping the interior of their houses in the best possible order. Like many Orientals, they always remove their sandals before entering a house, and no one even enters a shop without slipping off his shoes.

The roof is also of wood, and is generally composed of thick boards, which are kept in their places by wooden pegs, or by heavy stones laid upon them. The ends of the roof project considerably beyond the walls, so that they protect the doorways from the sun. On the roof of each house is kept a tub full of water, and near at hand is a broom, so that, in case of a fire, all the wooden roofs are at once drenched with water. The extremely inflammable nature of the materials renders this precaution needful; and, in addition, there are cisterns and tubs kept in the streets, together with tolerably effective fire-engines.

The furniture of the houses is on the same simple plan as the edifices themselves. A Japanese, no matter what his rank or wealth, has but little furniture. From the highest Daimio to the ordinary workman, the furniture of the houses is much the same. The room is bare, and floored by mats; a few shelves hold some cups and saucers, and there are generally several small trays on stands. This, with a few coverlids and a small pillow, made of wood and having a padding on the top, constitutes the furniture of the living-room. As to the kitchen, one or two small movable stoves, a few pans of metal, and some brooms, are all that are needed.

The Japanese cannot in the least understand why their Western visitors should encumber themselves with such quantities of furniture, which, to them, are not only useless, but absolutely in their way. They need neither tables, chairs, sideboards, nor bedsteads, and care nothing for large and handsome rooms.

Some years ago, when preparations were made for the reception of a British Consul in Hakodadi, it was almost impossible to find any place that could accommodate him. However, after much trouble, a locality was found. After the arrangements had been made, the Japanese Governor rose, took Sir R. Alcock by the hand, and led him through a corridor to a little room, or rather closet, nine feet by six, and quietly remarked that in that room his successor would be installed.

Sir R. Alcock has some very pertinent remarks on this subject: “As we slowly wended our way through the streets, I had full opportunity of observing the absence of all the things we deem so essential to comfort, and which crowd our rooms almost to the exclusion, and certainly to the great inconvenience, of the people who are intended to occupy them, as well as to the detriment of the proprietor’s purse.

“If European joints could only be made supple enough to enable their owners to dispense with sofas and chairs, and, par conséquence, with tables; and we were hardy enough to lie on straw mats, six feet by three, stuffed with fine straw, and beautifully made with a silk border, so as to form a sort of reticulated carpet for rooms of any size; the solution of that much-debated question, the possibility of marrying on 400_l._ a year, might certainly be predicted with something like unanimity in favor of matrimony. The upholsterer’s bill can never offer any impediment to a young couple in Japan.

“Their future house is taken, containing generally three or four little rooms, in which clean mats are put. Each then brings to the housekeeping a cotton stuffed quilt, and a box of wearing apparel for their own personal use; a pan to cook the rice, half-a-dozen larger cups and trays to eat off, a large tub to bathe and wash in are added, on the general account: and these complete the establishment.”

Such being the simplicity of the house and furniture, it is evident that loss by fire--an event by no means uncommon--is not nearly so severe as is the case with us. The Japanese have, however, a very sincere dread of fire, and at the end of every principal street there is an elevated station, furnished with a bell, by means of which information can be given as to the part of the city in which the fire rages, so that all can go to assist in extinguishing it. Fires are of almost daily occurrence, and whole streets are levelled at a time. The Japanese take these fires as a matter of course, and look on the destruction of an entire quarter with characteristic equanimity. Indeed, they calculate that, taking one part with another, Yeddo is burned down once in every seven years; and so they build their houses with the least possible expense, considering them to be sooner or later food for fire.

Of the amusements of the Japanese only a very short account can be given. First among them must be placed the calm and contemplative amusement of the pipe, in which the Japanese indulge largely. The pipe which they use is very small, the bowl being scarcely large enough to contain a moderately sized pea. The tobacco is very mild, something like Turkish tobacco, and it is smoked by drawing the vapor into the lungs, so that the whole of the tobacco is consumed at one inhalation. The ashes are then turned out of the pipe, which is replaced in its case, and the smoke is leisurely exhaled. A Japanese will smoke thirty or forty such pipes in a morning.

Games for children are almost identical with those used in England; the ball, the shuttlecock, the stilt, the kite, and the hoop, being all common toys. As for adults, they have dice, the theatre, the wrestling matches. The dice are prohibited by law, and therefore they are made so minute as to be easily concealed. A pair of dice and their box are so small that they can be concealed between the tips of two fingers, the dice being barely the tenth of an inch in diameter, and the box just large enough to hold them.

The wrestling matches are very singular performances. The wrestlers are the strangest imaginable beings, being fattened to the last possible degree, so that they seem incapable of any feats of activity. Yet one of these elephantine men took in his arms a sack of rice weighing a hundred and twenty-five pounds, and turned repeated somersaults with as much ease as any light and unencumbered gymnast could do. The wrestlers are kept by the Daimios, who are very proud of them, and fond of exhibiting their powers. Each wrestler is supplied with several attendants, and clad in magnificent garments, the privilege of wearing two swords being also accorded to them. When they perform, all their robes are removed, leaving them in the wrestler’s garb, a fringed apron, embroidered with the cognizance of their patron.

In wrestling, they try, not only to throw their antagonist, but to push him out of the arena, a man who is forced beyond the boundary being held as vanquished. One of these encounters is vividly described by an American traveller.

“They were, in fact, like a pair of fierce bulls, whose nature they had not only acquired, but even their look and movements. As they continued to eye each other, they stamped the ground heavily, pawing as it were with impatience, and then, stooping their huge bodies, they grasped handfuls of the earth, and flung it with an angry toss over their backs, or rubbed it impatiently between their massive palms, or under their stalwart shoulders. They now crouched down low, still keeping their eyes fixed upon one another, and watching each movement, when, in a moment, they had both simultaneously heaved their massive frames in opposing force, body to body, with a shock that might have stunned an ox.

“The equilibrium of their monstrous persons was hardly disturbed by the encounter, the effect of which was barely visible in the quiver of the hanging flesh of their bodies. As they came together, they had flung their brawny arms about each other, and were now entwined in a desperate struggle, with all their strength, to throw their antagonist. Their great muscles rose with the distinct outline of the sculptured form of a colossal Hercules, their bloated faces swelled up with gushes of red blood, which seemed almost to burst through the skin, and their bodies palpitated with savage emotion as the struggle continued. At last one of the antagonists fell with his immense weight upon the ground, and, being declared vanquished, he was assisted to his feet and conducted out of the ring.”

The theatres much resemble those of the Chinese, the building being a mere temporary shed, and the parts of the women taken by young lads. The plays last for some two hours, and the Japanese have a very odd plan of arranging them. Suppose that five plays are to be acted in a day: the performers go through the first act of the first play, then the first act of the second play, and so on, until they have taken in succession the first act of every play. They then take the second act of each play, and so on until the whole are concluded. The object of this custom is, to enable spectators to see one act, go away, and come again in time for the next act. Often, however, the spectators remain throughout the entire day, and in that case refreshments are openly consumed. It is also thought correct for ladies to change their dress as often as possible during the day, so that there is as much change of costume in front of the stage as upon it. In these plays there is generally a considerable amount of love-making, and a still greater amount of fighting, the “terrific combat” being an acknowledged essential of the Japanese stage.

Perhaps the most characteristic and most perplexing institution of Japan is that of the Tea-house. In many points the whole tone of thought differs so much in Japan from anything that we Westerns have learned, that it is scarcely possible for two so diverse people to judge each other fairly. We have already seen that nudity conveys no ideas of indecency to a Japanese, the people having been accustomed to it from infancy, and thinking no more of it than do infants. In the tea-houses we find a state of things which in Europe would be, and rightly, stigmatized as national immorality: in Japan it is taken as a matter of course. These tea-houses are situated in the most picturesque spots, and are furnished with every luxury. The extraordinary part of them is, that the attendants are young women, who are sold for a term of years to a life of vice. They are purchased by the proprietors of the tea-houses, and instructed in various accomplishments, so as to make them agreeable companions. No sort of infamy attaches to them, men of high rank taking their wives and families to the tea-houses, so that they may benefit by the many accomplishments of the attendants.

When the term of servitude is over, the girls retire from their business, and may re-enter their families without losing the regard of their relatives. Many enter a Buddhist order of mendicant nuns, but the greater number find husbands. It is one of the most startling characteristics of this strange people that institutions such as this should exist, and yet that female virtue should be so highly valued. No sooner does one of these girls marry, than she is supposed to begin her life afresh, and, no matter what may have been their previous lives, no wives are more faithful than those of the Japanese. The only resting-point in this mass of contradiction is, that, though the girls incur no shame for the course of life into which they have been sold, the keepers of the tea-houses are looked upon as utterly infamous, and no one of respectability will associate with them.

That the men should resort to such places is no matter of surprise, but that they should be accompanied by their wives is rather remarkable.

Sometimes the husbands prefer to go without their wives, and in that case the ladies are apt to resent the neglect. The accompanying illustration is copied from a Japanese book in my collection, and is a good example of the humorous power which a Japanese artist can put into his work. The engraving tells its own story. Two husbands are going off together, and are caught by their wives. The different expressions thrown into the faces and action of the truants are admirably given,--the surprise and horror of the one, who has evidently allowed his wife to be ruler in the house, and the dogged determination of the other to get away, are rendered with such force that no European artist could surpass the effect.

We cannot take leave of this remarkable people without a few remarks upon the state of art among them. The Japanese are evidently an art-loving people. Fond as they are of the grotesque in art, they are capable of appreciating its highest qualities; and, indeed, a Japanese workman can scarcely make any article of ordinary use without producing some agreeable combination of lines in color.

Even the pen, or rather the brush, with which they write is enclosed in an ingenious and decidedly artistic case. The case is made of bronze, and consists of a hollow stem and a square bowl closed by a lid. The bowl contains India ink, and into the hollow stem the pen is passed. When not in use the pen is slipped into the stem, and the lid is closed and kept down by twisting over it the string which hangs from the end of the case, and which is decorated with a ball of agate.

One reason for the excellence of Japanese art is, that the artists, instead of copying from each other, invariably go to nature for their models. They have teachers just as we do, but the great object of these professors is to teach their pupils how to produce the greatest effect with the fewest lines. Book after book may be seen entirely filled with studies for the guidance of the young artists, in which the master has depicted various scenes with as few lines as possible. One of these books is entirely filled with studies of falling rain, and, monotonous as the subject may seem, no two drawings are in the least alike, and a separate and forcible character is given to each sketch. Another book has nothing but outlines of landscape scenery, while some are entirely filled with grass-blades, some bending in the wind, others beaten down by rain, and others flourishing boldly upright. The bamboo is another favorite subject; and so highly do the Japanese prize the skill displayed by a master, that they will often purchase at a high price a piece of paper with nothing on it but a few strokes of the brush, the harmony of the composition and the balance of the different lines of beauty being thoroughly appreciated by an artistic eye.

Studying as the Japanese do in the school of nature, they are marvellously apt at expressing attitude, whether of man, beast, or bird. They never have any difficulty in disposing of the arms of their figures, and, no matter what may be the action, there is always an ease about it which betrays the artist’s hand even in the rudest figures. Among living objects the crane appears to be the special favorite of the Japanese, its popularity being shared, though not equalled, by the stork and the heron.

These birds are protected both by law and popular opinion, and in consequence are so tame that the native artists have abundant opportunities of studying their attitudes, which they do with a patient love for the subject that is almost beyond praise. No figure is so frequently introduced in Japanese art as the crane, and so thoroughly is the bird understood, that it is scarcely possible to find in all the figures of cranes, whether cast in bronze, drawn on paper, or embossed and painted on articles of furniture, two specimens in which the attitude is exactly the same. With us, even the professional animal painters are apt to take a sketch or two, and copy them over and over again, often repeating errors as well as excellences, while the Japanese artist has too genuine a love for his subject to descend to any such course. Day by day he studies his living models, fills his book with sketches taken rapidly, but truly, and so has always at hand a supply of genuine and original attitudes. In order to show how admirably the Japanese artist can represent the crane, I have introduced below drawings of some beautiful specimens in Sir Hope Grant’s collection.

The reader cannot fail to perceive the consummate knowledge of the bird which is displayed in these figures, while the perfection of the work and the delicate finish of the detail are almost beyond praise. Nothing can be more true to nature than the three attitudes there shown. In one case, the bird stands upright and contemplative on one leg, after the manner of its kind. In the second instance, the bird is standing on a tortoise, and, as the neck is thrown into action, both legs are used for support. Then, in the flying bird, whose body serves as a censer, the attitude of the outspread wings and outstretched legs is just as true to nature as the others, all the attitudes having been undoubtedly taken from nature.

The porcelain of the Japanese is singularly beautiful, and sometimes is adorned with ornaments which may be reckoned under the head of “conceits.” For instance, a cup will be adorned with a representation of pleasure boats on the river. With a needle the tiny windows of the boats can be raised, when a party of ladies and gentlemen drinking tea are discovered inside the boat. Sometimes a little tortoise may be seen reposing quietly at the bottom of the cup, until the hot tea is poured into it, when the creature rises to the surface, shaking its head and kicking with its legs as if in pain from the hot liquid.

In Japanese pictures certain curious figures may be seen, looking as if human beings had been wrapped in a bundle of rushes. This strange costume is the snow-cloak of the ordinary Japanese. For mere rain the Japanese generally wear a sort of overcoat made of oiled paper, very thin, nearly transparent, and very efficient, though it is easily torn. But when a snow-storm comes on, the Japanese endues another garment, which is made in a way equally simple and effective.

A sort of skeleton is made of network, the meshes being about two inches in diameter. Upon each point of the mesh is tied a bunch of vegetable fibre, like very fine grass, the bundles being about as thick as an ordinary pencil where they are tied, and spreading toward the ends. The garment thus made is exceedingly light, and answers its purpose in the most admirable manner. The bunches of fibres overlapping each other like the tiles of a house, keep the snow far from the body, while any snow that may melt simply runs along the fibres and drops to the ground. To wet this snow cloak through is almost impossible, even the jet of a garden engine having little effect upon it except when quite close, while no amount of snow would be able to force a drop of water through the loose texture of the material.

The Japanese silks have long been celebrated, but there is one kind of which scarcely anything is known in England. During Lord Elgin’s mission to Japan, a number of rolls of silk were presented to the members of the embassy. They were all in strips about three yards long and one wide, so that they seemed to be useless. They happened, however, to be exceedingly valuable; in fact, absolutely priceless, as no money could buy them. They were made by exiled nobles, who were punished by being sent to the island of Fatsizio, where they spend their time in making these peculiar silks. No one below a certain rank is allowed to wear the silk which has been woven by noble fingers, or even to have the fabric in the house, and in consequence not a piece ever even found its way to the shops.

The subject of Japanese art is most interesting, but we must now close our notice, and proceed to the next people on our list.

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