VISIT OF THE COMMODORE TO THE TAOU-TAI, SHANGHAI. 147 



governor and commaader of the city, who first called upon him at the American consulate, and 

 afterward visited the ship. The Taou-tai has a lucrative, hut hy no means easy office. 

 Among his other duties, he has to watch, especially, the interests and conduct of the foreign 

 residents, and what with the cajirices of strangers, the sometimes inordinate claims of their 

 representatives, and the arbitrary retxuirements of his imperial master, he must have hard work 

 to keep up a fair balance between his duties to his government on the one hand and the 

 foreigners on the other. This high ofiicial has also to sustain the responsibility of a secure 

 transport of the taxes of the province, and to fulfil the by no means sinecure duty of protecting 

 the commerce of Shanghai against the pirates who swarm the coasts. His highness makes his 

 official visits with a pomp and circumstance suitable to his dignified station. The ringing 

 sounds of gongs herald his approach, and he comes seated grandly in his chair of state attended 

 by his suite of subordinate mandarins. The office, in common with the general practice of 

 China, is bestowed ordinarily upon him who has earned one of the topmost of the nine colored 

 buttons, which, worn above the official cap, serve, by their vari-colored grades, to distinguish the 

 mandarins. As literary eminence is the passport to office, the Taou-tai is ordinarily well up in 

 Chinese literature, and can quote whole passages of Confucius or Mencius with the utmost 

 volubility. 



In the Commodore's visit to the Taou-tai he was accompanied by twenty of his officers and 

 the American consul, who were all, with due regard to the importance of the occasion, dressed up 

 in full uniform. The party, thus adorned, and duly seated in sedan chairs, were conveyed from 

 the consular residence to the government house, situated in the centre of the city, within the 

 walls. On arrival at the entrance, the Commodore and his suite were saluted with the usual 

 salvo of three guns (the extent, with the Chinese, of honorable ammunition on such occasions) 

 and the music of a band. The Taou-tai was at the threshold to meet his visitors, and as the 

 Commodore alighted from his sedan chair his higlmess escorted him into the hall of audience, 

 while the rest of the company followed in respectful sequence. The Commodore was placed, in 

 accordance with Chinese ceremony, at the side of the Taou-tai, on a platform raised a little 

 above the floor. 



On entering and departing from the government house, the party passed through an open 

 apartment, adorned with a bold representation of a gigantic Chinese deity on the wall, and 

 furnished with large wooden chairs, stuffed with red cloth cushions, which were ranged along 

 the sides. A table standing in the apartment, and holding the vessel containing the pieces of 

 bamboo which are thrown by the hand of the Chinese judge to the executioner, to indicate the 

 number of strokes to be applied to the convicted criminal, showed the ordinary purposes of the 

 chamber, which was that of a hall of justice. 



Refreshments, consisting of teas, liquors, (including champagne,) cake, and so forth, were 

 handed round to the visitors in succession; and, after a stay of an hour, the commodore and 

 Lis party returned in the same manner as they came. Entering again tlieir sedan chairs, and 

 traversing the narrow streets of Shanghai in long procession, and jostling every one who 

 obstructed the way, they finally reached the American consulate. 



While Commodore Perry was at Shanghai, the revolution, which is still in progress, had 

 made great headway. Although new developments have taken place since, which have altered 

 very much the position of aifairs, it may not be amiss to give the results of the Commodore's 

 observations of a civil commotion, which naturally excited his deepest interest. He writes on 



