mine, and moli-hoa, and all the perfumes of the flowers, are employed to heighten the delicacy of this favourite drink. The manner of performing the honours of the tea-table with grace, gentility, and politeness, is in China and Japan an art which has its principles, its rules, and its masters, who follow the profession of giving instruction in it. This art forms part of

the education of youth of both sexes, who are taught to make tea and wait on company, as in Europe we take lessons in dancing, fencing, or riding. When tea has lost its virtues by age, and is no longer fit for drinking, the Chinese employ it in dying silks a brown or chesnut colour. A great quantity of old tea destined for this purpose is sent annually from China to Surat.

Animals.] China has scarcely any animals which are not common to other countries. The domestic animals are reared in comparatively small numbers. Elephants are common in the south of China; and the unicorn rhinoceros frequents the marshes in Yun-nan and Kwang-see. The lion is said to be unknown in China, but what is there described as the tiger is supposed to be the maneless lion. Our ignorance, however, of the interior of China prevents us from saying any thing with certainty on this subject. Monkeys are common in some parts. The musk-deer is among the most valuable of the Chinese quadrupeds; the buffaloes are usually grey instead of black; and the pigs there are much more cleanly than those with us. Small birds of beautiful plumage, and water-fowls, abound. Much value is set on the Mandarin duck. Beside the fish common in Europe, the Chinese have many unknown to us; as the sho-kya-yu, or 'fish in armour,' (tetrodon,) which tastes like veal, and is covered with spines; a kind of cod, caught and salted on the shores of Fo-kyen; haiseng, an unpalatable kind of blubber, (medusa,) eaten by the common people; and kin-yu, or gold fish,' is a native of a Chinese lake, and, as with us, a constant ornament of the ponds of their pleasure-grounds. It was brought to England in 1611. The splendid butterflies, and multitudes of singular insects peculiar to China, are well known as favourite subjects of the Chinese artists. Silk-worms are common, and seem to be indigenous in the country. Minerals.] There are some silver mines in China, but they are little worked. Gold is obtained from the sand of some of the rivers. A white metallic substance, called tutenague, is common in China; but it is not exactly known whether it be a simple or compound material. There is also a peculiar copper of a white colour, which the Chinese call petung, or, according to some, pu-kfong. Yellow copper is used in the current coins of the empire. Quicksilver mines are common, but lead and tin are scarce. Realgar, or native sulphuret of arsenic, is employed by the Chinese in blocks for making pagodas and vases. Lazulite, jasper, rock-crystal, nephritic jade, magnetic iron, granite, porphyry, and different kinds of marbles, are found in China. Coal is not uncommon, and collieries are numerous, particularly in the neighbourhood of Canton. The torrents descending from the mountains of Yunnan, Kwei-chew, and Shen-si, wash a kind of marble, which yields an agreeable sound, and which is called the musical stone.' It is used in musical instruments. Petuntse, a whitish luminated feltspar; kaolin, a feltspar in the state of earth or clay; and che-kao, or sulphate of barytes, are the substances employed in the composition of Chinese porcelain.

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CHAP. III.-AGRICULTURE-MANUFACTURES AND COMMERCEMONEY, WEIGHTS, AND MEASURES.

Agriculture.] Of all the arts, agriculture is the most practised in China. Next to learning, it is the most honoured, and is considered as the basis of national prosperity. Every spring, a public ceremony is performed in its honour by the emperor, who lays aside his imperial robes, and opens several furrows with the plough, in a field appointed for the purpose, which ceremony is performed on the same day by the viceroys of all the provinces. The extraordinary diligence of the peasantry in cultivating the ground is not equalled by any people in the world. In the preparation of manure, no substance susceptible of putrefaction escapes them; and innumerable old men and women, as well as children, are constantly employed about the streets, public roads, banks of rivers and canals, &c. in picking up offal of any kind that may forward the process of vegetation. To such an extent is this carried, that manure, formed into cakes, is made an article of commerce, and sold to farmers, who, however, do not use it in a compact state.

The deficiency of cattle, which makes all these arts of procuring manure necessary, still leaves the supply too scanty. It is seldom applied to the rearing of grain, but is reserved for the purpose of procuring speedy and successive supplies of culinary vegetables. The seeds are steeped in liquid manure before they are sown, and liquid manure is from time to time applied to the roots of the plants; arts which we have frequently seen practised in the wilds of Scotland, where the redundancy of population was neither felt nor feared.

Grain is the principal object of Chinese cultivation. In the southern provinces, rice is chiefly raised, while wheat supplies its place in the north; but the species of vegetables, which are cultivated for food, are almost innumerable. A kind of brassica, bearing a strong resemblance to the coss lettuce, is cultivated in great quantities, and much relished as food. It thrives best in the northern provinces, where it is salted for winter provisions, and carried in that state towards the south. In some places, Indian corn and millet are reared. Tobacco is also an object of culture; but instead of being cured in houses, as in America, it is always cured in the open air. The annual cotton plant is reared in considerable quantities, though not sufficient for the use of the inhabitants, since cotton cloth is universally worn by both sexes. A great quantity, therefore, is imported from Bombay.

The mode of cultivation is, in some instances, nearly the same as in Europe; in others it is very different. The instruments for thrashing and winnowing are said to be upon the same principle with our own, and to be constructed in almost a similar manner. As animals are few, enclosures are not necessary; and as they are supposed to occupy too much ground, they are in general avoided. The animals used in tillage, which are chiefly oxen in the north, and buffaloes in the south, are fed in stalls, upon chopt straw and beans. The plough is a very simple machine. It has no coulter, for the ground being seldom in grass, there is no turf to penetrate. The share, which is sometimes made of iron, but more frequently of that species of timber, from its hardness, called ironwood, terminates in a curve so as to turn back the earth. To draw it, more than a single ox or buffalo is seldom necessary; and that office is sometimes performed by men or women.

The Chinese are too sparing of their grain to sow it in the broadcast way; besides, they are convinced that, by drilling, they procure much more luxuriant crops. Every kind of grain, therefore, is either sown in drills, or dibbled. The drills run generally north and south, as that is supposed to be the best direction. The fields are not laid out in ridges, but every where present a level surface.

Irrigation, or the watering of ground, which in Europe is confined chiefly to meadows, is in China applied with care in all their processes of cultivation. When the water descends from a lofty situation, it receives the requisite direction by proper channels prepared for it. When the land to be irrigated is higher than the reservoir, the difficulty is greater. For raising the water various contrivances have been adopted. Sometimes it is raised by buckets, swung on cords between two men, or attached to a lever. Sometimes it is raised by a species of chain pump, of a very pecu

liar construction.

The emperor is regarded as the sole proprietor of the soil; and the holder of a landed estate pays as rent to the sovereign one-tenth of what his ground is supposed capable of producing. Though he be thus in reality, therefore, a tenant at will, yet he is never deprived of his possession, as long as he continues to pay his rent, or rather land-tax, to the crown; and the Chinese cultivators regard their farms in no other light than personal property, as long as they find means to pay the public assessments. These holders of lands from the crown resemble European proprietors in this respect also, that they can let what portion of their grounds they please, to others, for a rent which is generally equal to half the produce; and it is on these terms that the great body of the Chinese peasantry cultivate their little farms. There is thus a pretty equal division of the lands among the growers of grain; and there are no immense farmers or monopolizers of produce, who can command the market. There is no ground set apart for the pleasure of individuals, but all is open to cultivation, and a free sale permitted to every dealer. There are no restrictions either from fishing upon the rivers, coasts, and lakes, or from killing game upon their own lands and the public commons. Yet, with all these encouragements to the agriculturists, and notwithstanding all the honour attached to their occupation, they are not able to supply the wants of the nation; and seldom do three years elapse in succession, without a famine in one or other of the provinces. This frequent recurrence of scarcity may no doubt be partly ascribed to the circumstance of China being surrounded by mountainous and barren countries, from which it can draw no provisions in an unfruitful season, but which it is rather obliged occasionally to supply; to the want of foreign commerce, which prevents the importation of grain in the event of deficiencies; to the destruction frequently occasioned to the crops by droughts or inundations; to the great quantity of grain, especially of rice, which, in spite of the existing laws, is daily employed in the distillation of rack, and other spirituous liquors. But the principal cause of these scarcities is to be sought in the immense tracts of land which are suffered to lie waste, and in the want of enterprise and skill in the Chinese cultiva.tors. It is generally imagined that every spot of ground in the empire is in a state of regular tillage; and then it is made a matter to be accounted for, how famines should be so very frequent. We read in many of the accounts of China, of the wonderful fertility of its soil; of the care of the husbandman to root out every hedge or tree, so that not a foot of

ground may be lost; of the very mountain-sides being cut in terraces, like those of the Pays de Vaud, between Lausanne and Vevay, and covered with produce. All this indeed is strictly the fact in the immediate neighbourhood of towns and villages; but, partly from the dread of plunderers, and partly from the want of cattle to transport the manure and the produce, the more distant lands are almost entirely useless and unproductive; and it is calculated, that one-fourth of the whole country consists of lakes and swamps, which are totally uncultivated. On each side of the river Pei-ho, at no great distance from the capital, the gentlemen of the British embassy perceived no appearance of great cultivation. The greater part of the land was sour swampy ground, covered with coarse grass, rushes, and reeds; and few trees were to be seen, except in the vicinity of the villages. No habitation appeared, that could be considered as the residence of a gentleman, or even as a comfortable farm-house; but every thing, on the contrary, seemed to indicate the greatest poverty and meanness of condition in the inhabitants. The property of all this waste land is vested in the crown; but any individual may obtain a portion as a possession, by merely paying into the public granaries the estimated part of the produce as rent to the government. The little spots of ground, however, which each husbandman occupies, seldom yields more produce than pays his rent and supplies his family. Though abundantly industrious, the Chinese cultivators are deficient in agricultural skill; and it may be said of them, in general, that they are rather gardeners than farmers. A peasant, indeed, with as much land as he and his family are able to work with the spade, will raise a much greater quantity of food from that spot than an European could do; but in the management of a large farm he would be found greatly deficient.

Ornamental Gardening.] Although the Chinese have no idea of the many artificial methods by which European gardens are enriched with such variety and excellence of vegetable productions, they are extremely ingenious in laying out and ornamenting their pleasure grounds. The imperial pleasure grounds of Yuen-min-yuen, near Pekin, occupying nearly 60,000 acres, and comprehending thirty separate palaces, as well as those of Je-hol, beyond the Great Wall, are magnificent samples of the Chinese taste and skill, not surpassed, either in magnitude or the constant succession of beauties, by any thing in Europe.

Manufactures.] In a country which proposes to subsist independent of foreign commerce, manufactures must be numerous, to supply the wants of the inhabitants. Notwithstanding their isolated character as a nation, the Chinese have strong imitative powers, and have given many instances of dexterity in making, after European copies, watches, mathematical instruments, trinkets, &c. But it has been remarked, that those nations which succeed most readily in arts which are merely imitative, are least remarkable for original inventions. Accordingly, in the sciences, they are very far behind, and have little to boast of in respect of the fine arts. In printing and engraving, however, they appear to have taken the lead, and in the manufacture of silk and cotton cloths, and especially in their earthen ware, they still equal, if they do not excel, the Europeans.

Engraving and Printing.] From their constant use of seals as signatures to all deeds and public documents, engraving is probably an art of great antiquity among the Chinese. Their works of this kind in wood, mother-of-pearl, and ivory, are well known; and their hollow spheres, included within each other, are often preserved as curiosities in public col

lections. Out of one solid ball of ivory they will carve fifteen hollow globes, all distinct from each other, all moveable by a touch, and ornamented with figure and open work, like the sticks of a fan. Yet these singular productions of art, which appear to require so much labour and skill, are soon finished and sold for a trifle. Their art of printing is said to have been known to them more than nine centuries before the Christian era; but the process is extremely different from that practised in Europe. The nature of their language, in which each word is represented by a distinct character, prevents them from having moveable types, to be set up as occasion requires. When a book is to be printed, a copy of it is written in a fair character, on very thin paper. Each leaf is pasted on a board of hard wood, and the engraver cuts out all spaces between the strokes of the letter, which are thus left in relief. Each board contains two pages. With a brush it is laid over with ink; a sheet of paper is applied, a softer brush is passed over it, and an impression is taken. The paper is printed only on one side, but the sheets are folded back, and form two pages. When they are bound, they are fastened by the open side, leaving the fold to form the outward margin of the leaf. A few moveable types of the most common character are sometimes, but very rarely, used.

Paper.] The Chinese claim the invention of paper,-the first, they say, having been made from the bark of a tree (Morus papyrifera) and old linen, by Tsaïlun, a mandarin who flourished about a century and a half before Christ. The bark of that tree, and the ko-ch-hu, hemp, nettles, straw, the coccoons of the silk-worm, cotton, rags, and the fibres of the bamboo, are the materials now used; from the second of these the most common sort is made; whence ku-chu has become the usual term for paper. The inner bark of the bamboo, after maceration in water, is reduced to a paste by boiling and bruising in a mortar; it is then spread out on frames of fine bamboo threads, and formed into sheets of various lengths. A strong rose-coloured transparent paper is used in the windows at Peking as a substitute for glass.

Ink.] To China we are indebted for that excellent ink universally used by our artists under the name of Indian ink. It is made of the soot deposited by the smoke of pines or oil, and has been long an article of manufacture. Hweï-cheu-fu, near the south-eastern boundary of Kyangnan, is the place where it is brought to the greatest perfection.

Hair-pencils.] We are probably also indebted to the Chinese for the invention of what are called camel's hair-pencils. The fur of rabbits is that of which they are generally made, and they are as indispensable to the Chinese in writing as pens are to us.

Porcelain.] Of all their manufactures, the Chinese are most celebrated for their pottery. Its peculiar excellence made it long an import of considerable value, gave its name to the finer kinds of pottery among ourselves, and rendered it a favourite article of luxury in the courts of Central and Western Asia, long before China was known to Europe. Their materials themselves, and the care with which they are cleansed and prepared, are the real causes of the superiority of the Chinese porcelain over that of most European manufacturers. The forms of their invention, though not always inelegant, have neither the lightness, variety, nor beautiful outline of the Grecian vases; and their designs are inferior to those of European artists. Porcelain is called Tse-kee by the Chinese; and King-te-ching, a village to the east of the lake Po-yang-hoo, in the province of Kyang-see, is the place at which the finest is made. This is exclusively

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