XIX.] ORIENTAL POLISHING, 695 



yet sufficient to dissipate the erroneous impressions which a 

 number of European authors have been pleased to give of the 

 most populous nation. One soon saw that he has to do with 

 an earnest and industrious people, who, indeed, apprehend much 

 — virtue and vice, joy and sorrow — in quite a different way 

 from us, but towards whom we, on that account, by no means 

 have the right to assume the position of superiority which the 

 European is so ready to claim towards coloured races. 



The greater portion of my short stay in Canton I employed 

 in wandering about, carried in a sedan-chair — horses cannot be 

 used in the city itself — through the streets, which are partly 

 covered and are lined with open shops, forming, undoubtedly, the 

 most remarkable of the many remarkable things that are to be 

 seen here. The recollection I have of these hours forms, as 

 often happens when one sees much that is new at once, a 

 variegated confusion in which I can now only with difficulty 

 distinguish a connected picture or two. But even if the im- 

 l^ressions were clearer and sharper it would be out of the 

 question to occupy space with a statement of my own super- 

 ficial observations. If any one wishes to acquire a knowledge 

 of Chinese manners and customs, he will not want for books on 

 the country, his studies will rather be impeded by their enormous 

 number, and often enough by the inferior nature of their con- 

 tents. Here I shall only touch upon a single subject, because 

 it especially interested me as a mineralogist, namely, the 

 stone-polishing works of Canton. 



It is natural that in a country so jDopulous and rich as China, 

 in which home and home life play so great a o^ole, much money 

 should be spent on ornaments. We might therefore have 

 expected that precious stones cut and polished would be used 

 here on a great scale, but from what I saw at Canton, the 

 Chinese appear to set much less value on them than either the 

 Hindoo or the European. It appears besides as if the Chinese 

 still set greater value on stones with old "oriental polishing," 

 i.e. with polished rounded surfaces, than on stones formed ac- 

 cording to the mode of polishing now common in Europe with 

 plane facets. Instead the Chinese have a great liking for pecu- 

 liar, often very well executed, carvings in a great number of 

 different kinds of stones, among which they set the greatest 

 value on nephrite, or, as they themselves call it, " Yii." It is 

 made into rings, bracelets, ornaments of all kinds, vases, small 

 vessels for the table, &c. In Canton there are numerous lapi- 

 daries and merchants, whose main business is to make and sell 

 ornaments of this species of stone, which is often valued higher 



reproaches for helping a "foreign devil" to make a fool of his own 

 countrymen. All my protestations were in vain, and I had to go away 

 with my object nnaccoinplislicd. 



