Extracts from Barrow'' s Travels in China. 



than in the interior parts of the country. Great quantities 

 of porcelain are sent from the potteries to Canton perfectly 

 white, that the purchaser may have them of his own pattern, 

 and specimens of these bear testimony that they are no 

 mean copyists. In a country however, where painting is 

 at so low an ebb, it is in vain to look for excellent works of 

 sculpture. Grotesque images of ideal beings and monstrous 

 distortions of nature are sometimes seen upon the balustrades 

 of bridges, and in their temples, where the niches are filled 

 with grotesque figures of baked clay, and sometimes gilded 

 or covered with varnish. They are as little able to model 

 as to draw the human figure with any degree of taste or 

 elegance; which is easily accounted for by their always 

 drawing from themselves. Their pagodas however, have a 

 very picturesque and pleasing effect, especially as they are 

 generally placed on an eminence. Large four-sided blocks 

 of stone or wood are frequently erected near the gates of 

 cities, with inscriptions on them, meant to perpetuate the 

 memory of certain distinguished persons. Their architec- 

 ture however, in general is slight and unsolid, their pago- 

 das being the most striking objects, the houses, and indeed 

 the palaces of state, built very low ; their temples are 

 mostly constructed upon the same plan, with the addition 

 of a second or a third story, standing upon the roof. The 

 wooden pillars that constitute the colonade, are generally 

 of Larch Fir, of no settled proportion between the length 

 and the diameter, and they are invariably painted red and 

 sometimes covered with a coat of varnish. Next to the 

 pagodas is the most stupendous wall which it is supposed was 

 raised many hundred years ago, to prevent the irruptions of 

 the Tartars, dividing their country from all the north part 

 of China. It is built upon the same plan as the wall of 

 Pekin, being a mound of earth, cased on each side with 

 bricks or stones. The astonishing magnitude of the 

 fabric consists not so much in the plan of the work as in the 



