110 
DETAILS RESPECTING COCHIN CHINA. 
prays, and sacrifices to avert the plagues of heaven; or he causes 
all these things to be done by his mandarins. 
This powerful monarch is surrounded by a crowd of eunuchs# 
and passes the most part of his leisure with the women of the 
palace. One only has the rank of wife; but she does not bear 
that of Queen or Empress. The number of concubines •►unlimited. 
These women are cloistered for ever within the walls of the resi¬ 
dence of the king. On his death they are shut up in another pa¬ 
lace, where they must preserve their chastity. 
The kings wears clothes of a yellow colour, ornamented with em¬ 
broideries of figures of the dragon. The robes of the mandarins 
are blue or violet, sometimes enriched with embroidery of gold, 
When they march in the train of the king on the occasion of some 
great ceremony, their robes of silk, their religious silence, the order 
and the decorum which they observe, offer an imposing spectacle. 
We find two classess of Mandarins; the lettered mandarins and 
the military mandarins. The military mandarins arc usually men 
without education; bodily strength and a certain aptitude for the 
manual labours, to which the soldiers are applied, form often the 
whole of their merit. Their pay is also very small, at least un¬ 
til they arrive at high grades. The lettered mandarins are di¬ 
vided into nine orders: the ninth, which is lowest, is that of se¬ 
cretaries employed by government; those of the eighth, are also a 
iind of secretaries or writers, principally employed in the prepara¬ 
tion of the calendar; they only adapt the Chinese calendar to the 
use of the Ariamites, for they are not at all so learned as to be able 
to construct one themselves. The mandarins of the 7th and 6th 
orders, are the officers of justice who commence causes, and write 
down the depositions of witnesses and of the accused. The heads 
of arrondissement are of the 5th order, the sub-prefects and the 
judges are of the 4th; most of the prefects of each province arc 
of the 3rd; the ministers of the king are of the 2d.; there are 
only one or two great mandarins of the 1st. order, who are ap¬ 
pointed to the council of the king. 
For the administration of the affairs of Government, there arc six 
departments or ministers, who are called Luc bo: The 1st (bo lai) 
is charged with pointing out the mandarins fitted to fill vacant places, 
.and examining the merits of candidates. The second, (bd ho\) is 
