52,6 Voyage of the JSovara, 



populous city as Nankin, where tliey set up a provisional 

 government, and have since fortified it as their head-quarters. 

 At the time the Tai-23ing rebellion first broke out, Yeh, the 

 then Grovernor of Canton, thought he would readily be able 

 to suppress it by the summary process of chopping off the 

 heads of all who were supposed to be in correspondence with 

 them, and thus had as many as 800 executed daily.* It was 

 no longer quite safe for a native to show himself in the 

 streets of Canton, unless provided with a paper of identifica- 

 tion. For this purpose, four-cornered pieces of a sort of 

 white cotton fabric were worn, on which was printed a sign 

 in red. These cotton strips served as countersigns for those 

 friendly to the reigning dynasty, and were worn con- 

 cealed from view, but so as to admit of being at once shown 

 in case of need. Dr. Pfitzmaier, who has examined this sign, 

 is of opinion that it is simply a union of the three signs 

 /LA.!^:^"Jjq which, so far as the two last are concerned, 

 seem to have been compressed together and abbreviated, so 

 that only the initiated could understand its significance. 

 The learned sinologue is of opinion that this hieroglyphic, 

 signifying " to offer hand and heart," or '' to offer the original 

 (own) heart," has nevertheless no meaning apart from the 

 centre figure, which, however, is unusually distorted, so that 



* Between February and September, 1855, there were executed in Canton 70,000 

 persons all told. Many of the rebel leaders were, in conformity with the penal laics, 

 hewed in numerous pieces while yet living ; a certain Kausin in 108! See K. F. 

 Neumann's History of Eastern Asia, from the first Chinese war to the Treaty of 

 Pekin, 1840—1860. Leipzig, Engelmann, 1861. 



