132 
THE YU. 
It appeared, indeed, as if the people of Tien-sing, having observed 
us carrying scarcely any other money about than dollars, supposed 
them of as little value to us as their copper coin ; for they offered 
no article to our purchase whose price was not given in dollars, 
although its real value was only a few Tchen. This circum- 
stance was the more provoking, as we met with several specimens 
of Chinese ingenuity which we were not likely to obtain else- 
where. Those contained in the shops of the lapidaries tempted 
us the most, and raised our admiration the highest. In these we 
found a variety of the hardest stones, cut into singular and some- 
times rather beautiful forms. The stone called by the Chinese Yu 
was, in their estimation, the most precious. It has been famed in 
China from the earliest ages, having, according to the antiquarians 
of the country, been distinctly described a thousand years before the 
Christian era.* It is of various colours, passing from white, with 
the slightest tinge of green, through green of every degree of in- 
tensity ; and also occurs, according to the Chinese, of a clear blue, 
sky-blue, an indigo-blue, and of a citron-yellow and orange-yellow 
colour. But I suspect that they confound several species of stone 
under the name Yu. Their blue stone may be lapis lazuli, and 
their yellow, varieties of chalcedony and carnelian, all which I 
have frequently met with in China. 
The Missionaries tell us, and I received precisely the same account 
of its green varieties, that the Yu is found in the form of nodules in 
the bottoms of ravines, and in the beds of torrents, in mountainous 
countries, and in larger masses in the mountains themselves, espe- 
cially in Yu-nan. j- The nodules are more prized by the Chinese than 
the large masses, which have the coarsest grain. Whatever specimens 
are found must be subjected to the selection of the Emperor before 
they are carried to the market. Of the green, the Chinese prize that 
* Memoires concernant lcs Chinois, vol. vi. p. 258. 
f One of the most northern provinces of the empire. According to Du Halde, it is 
one of the richest and most extensive ; containing twenty-one cities of the first order, and 
fifty-five of the second and of the third. Du Halde, Fol. tom. i. p. 243. 
