CHINA. 93 



hundred cubits long and five hundred high, though a single arch, and 

 joins two mountains ; and some in the interior parts oi the empire 

 arc said to be still more stupendous. The triumphal arches of this 

 country form the next species of artificial curiosities. Though they 

 are not built in the Greek, or Roman style of architecture, yet they 

 are superb and beautiful, and erected to the memory of their great 

 men, with vast labour and expence. They are said in the whole to 

 be eleven hundred, two hundred of which are particularly magnify 

 cent. Their sepulchral monuments make likewise a great figure. 

 Their towers, the models of which are now so common in Europe., 

 under the name of pagodas, are vast embellishments to the face of 

 their country. They seem to be constructed by a regular order, and 

 all of them are finished with exquisite carvings and gildings, and 

 other ornaments. That ai Nanking, which is two hundred feet high, 

 and forty in diameter, is the most admired. It is called the Porcelain 

 Tower, because it is lined with Chinese tiles. Their temples arc 

 chiefly remarkable for the fanciful taste in which they are built, for 

 their capaciousness, their whimsical ornaments, and the ugliness of 

 the idols they contain. The Chinese are remarkably fond of bells, which 

 give name to one of their principal testivals. A bell at Pekin weighs 

 one hundred and twenty thousand pounds, but its sound is said to be 

 disagreeable. Their buildings, except the pagodas, being confined 

 to no order, and susceptible of all kinds of ornaments, have a wild 

 variety, and a pleasing elegance, not void of magnificence, agreeable 

 to the eye and the imagination, and present a diversity of objects not 

 to be found in European architecture. 



National character, manners, customs.. ..The Chinese, in their 

 persons, are middle-sized, their faces broad, their eyes black and 

 small, their noses blunt, and turned upwards ; they have high cheek- 

 bones, and large lips. The Chinese have particular ideas of beauty? 

 they pluck up the hairs of the lower part of their faces by the roots 

 with tweezers, leaving a few straggling ones by way of beard. Their 

 Tartar princes compel them to cut oft" the hair of their heads, and* 

 like Mahometans, to wear only a lock on the crown. Their complex^ 

 ion, towards the north, is fair, but towards the south is swarthy ; 

 corpulence is esteemed a beauty in a man, but considered as a pal- 

 pable blemish in the fair sex, who aim at preserving a slimness and 

 delicacy of shape. Men of quality and learning who are not much 

 exposed to the sun, are delicately complexioned ; and they who are 

 bred to letters let the nails of their fingers grow to an enormous 

 length, to shew that they are not employed in manual labour. 



The women have little eyes, plump rosy lips, black hair, regular 

 features, and a delicate, though florid, complexion. The smallness 

 of their feet is reckoned a principal part of their beauty, and no swath- 

 ing is omitted, when they are young, to give them that accomplish- 

 ment ; so that when they grow up, they may be said to totter rather 

 than to walk. 



" Of most of the women we saw (says sir George Staunton) even 

 in the middle and inferior classes, the feet were unnaturally small, or 

 ratker truncated. They appeared as if the fore-part of the foot had 

 been accidentally cut off, leaving the remainder of the usual size, and 

 bandaged like the stump of an amputated limb. They undergo, in- 

 deed much torment, and cripple themselves in a great measure, in 

 imitation of ladies of higher rank, among whom it is the custom to 

 p by pressure, the growth of the ancle as well as foot from the em- 



