] 72 GROWTH AND DECLINE OP CULTURE. 



ficial structures than those of Mexico or Cashmere. The mis- 

 sionary Hue thus describes those he saw on the lake of Ping- 

 hou : — "We passed beside several Jloating islands, quaint and 

 ingenious productions of Chinese industry which have perhaps 

 occurred to no other people. These floating islands are enor- 

 mous rafts^ consti'ucted generally of large bamboos, which long 

 resist the dissolving action of water. Upon these rafts there 

 is jolaced a tolerably thick bed of good vegetable mould, and 

 thanks to the patient labour of some families of aquatic agricul- 

 turists, the astonished eye sees rising from the surface of the 

 waters smiling habitations, fields, gardens, and plantations of 

 great variety. The peasants on these farms seem to live in 

 happy abundance. During the moments of rest left them from 

 the tillage of the rice plots, fishing is at once their lucrative and 

 agreeable pastime. Often when they have gathered in their 

 crop upon the lake, they throw their net and draw it on board 

 their island loaded with fish. . . . Many birds, especially pigeons 

 and sparrows, stay by their own choice in these floating fields 

 to share the peaceable and solitary happiness of these poetical 

 islanders. Towards the middle of the lake, we met with one 

 of these farms attempting a voyage. It moved with extreme 

 slowness, though it had the wind aft. Not that sails were want- 

 ing ; there was a very large one above the house, and several 

 others at the corners of the island ; moreover, all the islanders, 

 men, women, and children, provided with long sweeps, were 

 working with might and main, though without putting much 

 speed into their farm. But it is hkely that the fear of delay 

 does not much trouble these agricultural mariners, who are 

 always sure to arrive in time to sleep on land. They are often 

 seen to move from place to place without a motive, like the 

 Mongols in the midst of their vast prairies ; though, happier 

 than those wanderers, they have learnt to make for themselves 

 as it were a desert in the midst of civilization, and to ally the 

 charms and pleasures of a nomade with the advantages of a 

 sedentary life."^ 



Such coincidences as these, when found in distant regions 

 between whose inhabitants no intercourse is known to have 



^ Hue, 'L'Empire Cliinois ;' Paris, 185 i, 2ncl cd. p. 114. 



