CHINA. 



185 



towns. The ceremonial dress of the mandarins is of 

 embroidered satin, with a covering of blue crape. 

 Badges, indicating the civil or military rank of the 

 wearer, are embroidered in front and on the back. 

 The right to wear a peacock's feather on the back of 

 the cap is equivalent to a European order, and is 

 conferred as a particular mark of favour. The fol- 

 lowing cut represents the costume of the body-guard 

 of tlie emperor. 



Chinese Body-Guard. 



The pretended wisdom of the Chinese laws may be 

 characterized in a few words : they are good police 

 regulations, accompanied with good lessons on moral- 

 ity. They give to the emperor, aswell as to the manda- 

 rins, unlimited power over the nation, which considers 

 blind obedience to superiors its first duty. Innu- 

 merable ceremonies perpetually remind it of the 

 distinctions of rank. (See the Chinese Ceremonial, 

 in verse, Macao, 1824.) In intellectual improve- 

 ment, this nation has long been stationary. This 

 is partly owing to the love of antiquity common 

 throughout Asia, partly to the want of intellectual 

 communication with other nations. This is princi- 

 pally prevented by the difficulty of their written 

 language, which is not, like ours, formed of letters 

 and syllables, but of characters. (See Chinese Lan- 

 guage and Literature, at the conclusion of this ar- 

 ticle.) Mechanical skill has been carried to great 

 perfection among them ; their industry in the manu- 

 facture, of stuffs, porcelain, lackered ware, &c. is 

 astonishing, and can only be compared with their 

 own labours in digging canals, in the formation of 

 gardens, levelling mountains, and other similar works. 

 Many of our most useful inventions are to be found 

 among them. They printed books, before the art 

 was invented in Europe, with characters carved on 

 wooden tablets, which is their present practice. 

 They also used the magnet before its use was known 

 to us : but they have remained far behind us hi the 

 art of navigation, on account of their ignorance of 

 ship-building. A short time ago, a translation of a 

 Chinese treatise on navigation, oy one of their naval 

 officers, was published, which showed an utter igno- 

 rance of this art. The monuments of China have, 

 perhaps, been, on the whole, too much praised. Yet 

 we must acknowledge our wonder at their great 

 roads, their immense single-arched bridges, their 

 pyramidal towers, but, above all, at their great wall, 

 called, in Chinese, Van-li-Tching (the wall of 10,000 

 Li), which traverses high mountains, deep valleys, 

 and, by means of arches, wide rivers, extending 



from the province of Shen-Si to Wanghay or tlie 

 Yellow sea, a distance of 1500 miles. In some 

 places, to protect exposed passages, it is double and 

 treble. The foundation and corners are of granite, 

 but the principal part is of blue bricks, cemented 

 with pure white mortar. At distances of about 200 

 paces are distributed square towers, or strong bul- 

 warks. 



The national character is the result of their at- 

 tachment to established customs. The manner of 

 living is prescribed to each rank by invariable rules. 

 The Chinese abstain almost entirely from spirituous 

 liquors : the use of tea is general. Their principal 

 article of food is rice. Polygamy is permitted to the 

 nobles and mandarins. The emperor maintains a 

 numerous harem. Women are kept in a sort of 

 slavery. The peasant yokes his wife and ass toge- 

 ther to the plough. The Chinese pay a kind of 

 religious worship to their ancestors, and perform 

 certain ceremonies around their tombs. Respect 

 toward parents is a duty inculcated by their religion 

 and laws. The primitive religion of China appears 

 to have been a branch of Shamanism, the foundation 

 of which is the worship of the stars and other re- 

 markable objects of nature. This ancient religion 

 has been supplanted by the doctrines of more modern 

 sects. Among these, the principal are the sect of 

 Cong-fu-tse (Confucius) and of Lao-Kiun or Tao-tse. 

 The bulk of the nation has embraced the religion of 

 Fo (see Confucius, and Fo), which was brought from 

 India. The religion of the emperors of the Tartar- 

 Mantchoo dynasty is that of the Dalai-Lama. (See 

 Lama.) The following represents the costume of 

 Chinese lamas or priests. 



Chinese Lamas. 



For the propagation of Christianity hi China, see 

 Missions. The discovery of a conspiracy against 

 the emperor, in 1823, gave rise to a general per- 

 secution of the Christians, which, however, termi- 

 nated in 1824. According to the accounts of the 

 French mission in China, the number of Christians 

 in that country in September, 1824, amounted to 

 46,287 ; there were 27 schools for Christian boys, 

 and 45 for Christian girls. In the year 1829, two 

 Chinese Christians were brought to Paris; they 

 spoke Latin, as most Christians of that country do. 



The principal mart of Chinese commerce is Can- 

 ton (q. v.). Opium, although a contraband article, 

 is imported to a large extent. In 1830-31, the 

 quantity of Indian opium smuggled into China, 

 amounted to 18,760 chests, value 2,580,000. Tle 



