Extracts from Barrow's Travels in China. 



Extracts from Barrow's Travels in China* 



ON THE ARTS OF THE NATIVES. 



IN respect to the arts which are invented and adopted 

 by the Chinese, the pride and policy of the government 

 has always been greatly inimical to the progress of the arts 

 and sciences. The Chinese people discover no want of 

 genius to conceive, nor of dexterity to execute, and of their 

 imitative powers, no dispute has ever been made. Of the 

 truth of this remark we had several instances at Yuenmin. 

 The complicated glass lustres, consisting of several hundred 

 pieces, were taken down, piece by piece, in the course of 

 half an hour, by two Chinese who had never seen anything 

 of the kind before, and were put up again by them with 

 similar facility, and yet it had been necessary for our mecha- 

 nics to attend frequently at Mr. Parker's warehouse, in order 

 to be able to manage the business on their arrival in China. 

 A Chinese undertook to cut a slip of glass from a curved 

 piece, intended to cover the planetarium, after two of our 

 artificers had broken three similar pieces in attempting to 

 cut them by means of a diamond. The man performed it 

 in private, nor could he be prevailed upon to say in what 

 manner he accomplished it; being a little jagged along the 

 margin, I suspect it was not cut but fractured, perhaps by 

 passing a heated iron over a line drawn with water. It is 

 well known that a Chinese in Canton, on being shewn an 

 European watch, undertook and succeeded in making one 

 like it, though he had never seen any tiling like it before, 

 but it was necessary to furnish him with a spring. The 

 mind of a Chinese is very quick and apprehensive, and his 

 small hands are fitted for the execution of neat work. 



