4.4:8 Notices. — China. 



place where they sleep, is kept perfectly dry and clean. They are attended 

 bv Indians with 'every possible care, — there is a cold bath on the pre- 

 mises, which they are obliged frequently to use, as cleanliness is considered 

 essential to their acquiring that enormous load of fat from which the 

 principal profit is derived. Their ease and comfort seem also in every 

 respect to be studiously attended to ; and the occupation of two Indian 

 lads will cause a smile on the countenances of my musical readers, when 

 they are informed that they are employed, from morning till night, in 

 settling any disputes or little bickerings that may arise among the pigs, 

 either in respect to rank or condition, and in singing them to sleep. The 

 boys are chosen for the strength of their lungs, and their taste and judg- 

 ment in delighting the ears and lulling the senses of the swine; they succeed 

 each other in chanting during the whole day, to the apparent gratification 

 of their brute audience." (Bullock's Mexicd, vol. i. p. 251.) 



Chinampas, improperly called floating Gardens. The description of these 

 by Humboldt falls greatly short in singularity, to that previously given 

 by the Abbe Clavigero ; and that of Mr. Bullock falls equally short of 

 the former: so that what was considered one of the wonders of the 

 world thirty years ago, when it has undergone the test of close examin- 

 ation, comes at last to be little more than an ordinary appearance; and 

 a chinampa in the Mexican lake, differs only from a small osier holt m the 

 Thames, in being planted with cabbages and potatoes instead of willows. 

 " They are artificial islands, about fifty or sixty yards long, and not more 

 than four or five wide, separated by ditches of three or four yards in 

 width, and are made by taking the soil from the intervening ditch, and 

 throwing it on the chinampa, by which means the ground is raised gener- 

 ally about a yard, and thus forms a small fertile garden, covered with 

 culinary vegetables, fruits, and flowers. Mexico receives an ample supply 

 from these sources." 'Bullock's Mexico, p. 1 76.) 



CHINA. 



Chinese Woi'k on Agriculture and Gardening, entitled Tchoung-kia-pao.^ 

 Tins work, in four volumes, begins, like that of Hesiod, with the elements of 

 morality, and then proceeds to treat of all that is necessary to be known of 

 the country, agriculture, gardening, laws, and medicine. This work formed 

 part of the Chinese writings on agriculture which were excluded from the 

 general proscription of books in the third century after the Christian era. 

 The Chinese have a fine poem on gardening published in 1086. The author 

 is one of the first Chinese writers, and the greatest minister that it has 

 produced. His garden, which gives a general idea of the style of Chinese 

 gardening as an art of taste, contains only 20 acres of land. An apartment 

 containing 5000 volumes is placed by the author at the head of its 

 useful beauties. On the south is seen, in the midst of the waters, cas- 

 cades, galleries with double terraces, hedges of rose and pomegranate 

 trees ; on the west a solitary portico, evergreen trees, cottages, meadows, 

 sheets of water, surrounded with turf, and a labyrinth of rocks ; on the 

 north, cottages placed as if by chance on little hills, groves of bam- 

 boos with gravel walks ; on the west a small plain, a wood of cedars, 

 odoriferous plants, medicinal plants, shrubs, citron trees, orange trees, a 

 walk of willows, a grotto, a warren, islands covered with aviaries, bridges 

 of wood and stone, a pond, some old firs, and an extensive view over the 

 river Kiang. Such was the delightful spot where the author of the poem 

 amused himself with hunting, fishing, and botany. At that time we had 

 no garden in Europe to be compared to it, nor any man who could describe 

 it in good poetry. Madame Dubocage translated a Chinese idyll into 



