fpecies, and reingrafting on the preceding graft The wild apricot-tree, of which there are three kinds, is of great ufe in China; its kernel yields a very good oil, which is ufed in the demands of the kitchen and the table, in place of oil of olive. The peasants warm their stoves with the remains of the stone and kernel, and afterwards gather their ashes for manure. As the wild apricot-tree is covered with bloffoms early in the fpring, requires no culture, and grows in the pooreft foil, it would be a useful addition to our European orchards.

Vol. VI. The firft piece we meet with in this volume is an ample and curious differtation, concerning the Mufic of the Chinefe, both ancient and modern, which is the compofition of the indefatigable Miffionary AMIOT, and which, together with the Preface, Plates, and Index, fills 254 pages. This Dif courfe, which has been publifhed apart, with Notes and Illuftrations by the Abbé Rouffier *, and which contains very fingular novelties with refpect to the antiquity and perfection of the Chinese Mufic, will deferve a feparate article; and we propose to give it in a future Review. It turns the tables on M. de Guignes, and would make us believe, that the effential parts of mufic were discovered in China long before the Egyptians or the Greeks knew any thing of the matter. But M. de Guignes is a formidable adverfary, being armed with all the offenfive and defenfive weapons (erudition, judgment and languages) that can enable a literary champion to come forth with dignity and fuccefs into this field of controverfy. M. AMIOT'S Piece is, however, curious, profound, and learned it difcovers an uncommon knowledge of the theory of mufic, but it is alfo full of cabaliftical erudition, perplexity and mystery. The plates, that serve to illuftrate it, are numerous; and it contains refearches that discover a more than Herculean labour in the wilds of ancient Chinefe literature.

- This ftrange piece is followed by an Effay on Sonorous Stones, which, in all ages, have been the most efteemed inftruments of Chinese Mufic. The various kinds of these ftones are here particularly described; and this description is not unworthy the attention of the lovers of Natural Hiftory.

C

The next piece we meet with in this volume, is the Extract of a letter from M. AMIOT, dated the 28th of September 1777, and containing Obfervations on the work of Mr. P** (Pau), intitled, Philofophical Inquiries concerning the Egyptians and the Chinefe. This book, which difcovers more wit, capacity, eloquence, and felf fufficiency, than erudition and adequate information, has been fharply animadverted on by the Abbé

*The author of a learned and ingenious work, concerning the hufic of the ancients.

APP. REV. Vol. lxii.

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Groffier,

Groffier, and other writers; and though we are inclined to think that Mr. Pau, in entertaining but a mean opinion of the genius, knowledge, and capacity of the Chinefe, has rather taken the right fide of the question, yet we cannot in confcience defend him against the charge of temerity and exagge ration. Father AMIOT treats him with little ceremony, and nevertheless does not seem inferior to him in the two qualities now mentioned. They appear to us to be both in the wrong, though Mr. Pau feems to exaggerate on the fide of truth. As to Amiot's manner, the Reader may judge of it by the following fample: "To fay (as does Mr. P.) that the Chinese are a "barbarous, grofs and ignorant people, without genius, laws, "fciences, arts, or induftry-that they are defcendents of the "Scythians, and received their first civilization, in the twelfth "century, from the Mongu! Tartars, who conquered their country, and founded the Dynafty of Yuen, is to affirm an "abfurdity of the groffeft kind:-it is juft (obferves our Mif"fionary) as if one should say, that the French are naturally "ftupid, heavy, rough and cruel- that they descend in a di"rect line from the Hurons, and that it is only fince they have "been scoured and polifhed by the Americans, whom they

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vifited in the neighbourhood of Quebec, that their manners "are become gentle, and that they have begun to cultivate the "arts and sciences." This is pleafantly faid, but the parallel is far from being juft with respect to the Chinese, who are much nearer the Tartars in vicinity and ignorance, than the French are to the Hurons or Iroquois. So much for our Miffionary's witty introduction.

The first object of this controverfy is the population of China. Pau affirms, that the calculation which makes the inhabitants of China amount to 82 millions, is greatly exaggerated. Amiot is so far from being of this opinion, that he estimates their number at 200 millions. To confirm this eftimate, he produces a lift, made in 1743, of all that paid taxes in the respective provinces, that is, of all the heads of families; and, on fumming up their numbers, he finds 28,516,428 families; in which enumeration, fays he, women, children, and domeftics are not reckoned. The Chinese reckon, at an average, fix to a family; M. Amiot reduces this computation to five, and on this fuppofition makes the inhabitants of China amount to 142,582,400 fouls. But in this number the Miffionary comprehends neither the grand mandarins, the inferior ones, nor the literati, nor the military, which amount, according to his calculations, to upwards of feven millions, which added to the enumeration above mentioned, make 149,663,000 fouls. Fifty millions are nevertheless ftill wanting to make up the 200 millions, at

which our Miffionary eftimates the inhabitants of China. These he finds in the inhabitants of Pekin, which he reckons at two millions, the Mantcheou Tartars, who live among the Chinese, the tradesmen, the perfons employed in the filk manufactures, and the populace of the cities, which are not registered. But the computations of M. Amiot are liable to great difficulties, and are certainly arbitrary and uncertain in feveral refpects. He comprehends in his enumeration diftricts and provinces that belong to Tartary, and not to China; and he calculates often from regifters of the fame diftricts, that are difcordant and contradictory. When it is confidered, that the enumerations of the inhabitants of China have been different under different dynafties, as all the Emperors did not poffefs the fame extent of territory, that the wars with the Tartars often obliging the Chinese to withdraw in great numbers towards the fouth, rendered certain provinces more populous at one period than they were at another,-that the numbers of the poor, the ftraggling labourers, and of thofe that ply on the rivers, cannot be easily computed, and that many of the registers are evidently arbitrary; we find ourselves difpofed to fufpend our determination of the controverfy between M. Amiot and M. Pau, relative to the object now under confideration. If population had gone on increafing in China, from the third century before the Chriftian æra (which was the period of their rifing power), the Chinese might have fent into Tartary numerous colonies, which would have peopled that country, and civilized its inhabitants. But this has not been the cafe; and notwithstanding all the pompous relations of the Miffionarics, it is certain, that a bad administration, the extortions and oppreffive conduct of civil and military officers, the revolutions occafioned by the establifhment of different dynafties,-famine,-epidemics,-inundations, wars,-maffacres,-and the fall of great minifters, involving their friends and families in ruin, keep population within certain bounds, and hinder it from rifing to a pitch that would produce new and fatal revolutions.

With refpect to the aftronomy of the Chinese, M. Pau has affirmed, that they were never capable even of compofing an almanack; that they did not understand the calculations made for them by the Miffionaries; that in the year 1505, they had no idea either of the longitude or of the latitude of their country, and fo on. Our Miffionary oppofes to this charge of ignorance some scattered facts, which M. Bailli, in his Hiftory of Aftronomy, has proved infufficient to afcertain the aftronomical knowledge of the Chinese; and he concludes this article with a pompous and unfaithful panegyric on the fcience of that people. But what fhocks us really in a particular manner is, his affirming with impudence (pardon the term), that "of all M m 2

" the

"the nations that cover the furface of the earth, there is none. "that can boaft of a hiftory fo ancient, fo authentic, and fo "uninterrupted as the Chinefe." It happens, that the reverfe of this affertion is true. The learned and judicious Dr GUIGNES has fhown the uncertainty and fpurioufnefs of Chinefe hiftory, in a Memoir, that is reviewed in this present Ap pendix *; and other modern publications of great merit concur in overturning that vifionary fabric of hiftorical facts, which, the Jefuits have been erecting and varnishing for many years, to amuse and aftonish the public, and to anfwer their own purposes.

M. Pau's charge of barbarity and imbecility against the Chinese, for allowing the caftration of fuch multitudes for the clafs of eunuchs, is founded on undeniable fact. Our ExJefuit, unable to refute it, employs all his dulcet jargon to foften and diminish the atrocious horror of this practice. He tells, us, that the victims fuffer little in the operation, which is not, so cruel and murtherous as it has been reprefented, that the number of eunuchs, which formerly was fcarcely to be reckoned, is now reduced to what is merely neceffary, even to fix, thousand (which is not true.)—As to the accufation brought, against the Chinese, of expofing their children in great numbers, this (fuppofing the fact untrue) is not the invention of M. Pau; for it is from the Miffionaries themselves, that we have the accounts of this horrid cuftom; and the Jefuits, who wrote the Lettres edifiantes, have affirmed, in feveral places, that the Chinese throw their children into the streets, lakes or rivers, where they miferably perifh. Miffionary AMIOT does. not deny, that of the children thus expofed feveral perish; but he charges nevertheless the account of his Brother-Miffionaries with inaccuracy and error. He obferves, that the crime under confideration is perpetrated only in the cities by the lowest of the populace,-that the government, not thinking it adviseable to punish it with feverity, has, however, taken the moft prudent measures to prevent its commiffion;-that, for this purpose, five carriages fet out every day before fun-rife, to take all the children that are expofed, dead or alive, in the different quarters of the city; and that the former are buried with the decent celebration of funeral rites, while the latter are placed in charity-houfes under the wifeft regulations, where they are maintained and educated at the expence of the government. It cannot be denied, that this part of the Chinefe police, if it be not adapted to prevent the cuftom of expofing children, is, at leaft, proper to fave the lives of thefe innocent creatures, and to hinder their parents from putting them to death through

the defpair of poverty. Thefe charitable houfes are frequently vifited by the magiftrates; they are alfo vifited by people of all ranks; and as the Chinese have a peculiar defire of leaving fucceffors to lament them, and to pay to their memories the duties of filial affection and piety, it frequently happens, that per fons, who have no children, come to these houses, and chufe adoptive ones, whom they bring up as their own, and make them their heirs.

There is fomething very fingular in the funeral customs obferved with refpect to fuch of the expofed children as are found dead. They are laid all together in a kind of fepulchre, where they are covered with a little quick-lime, that there flesh may be foon confumed.

Once a year, a certain number of Mandarins come in ceremony to the charitable eftablishment above mentioned, where they are prefent at the construction of a pile, defigned to reduce to afhes what remains of the bodies of the deceased infants. During the whole time that the pile is on fire, it is furrounded by a confiderable number of Bonzes, who addrefs prayers to the Spirits of the earth, and to thofe who prefide over generations, beleeching them to fhew themselves more favourable than they had formerly been, to these little creatures, when they shall again appear under a new form. When the prayers are finifhed, the pile confumed, and nothing remains but the afhes, the Mandarin deputies make the multitude withdraw, and they themselves depart until the next day, when they return to be prefent at the ceremony of gathering up the afhes. Thefe are collected, with a repetition of the ceremonies of the preceding day, are put into a fack, and thrown into the river, or the nearest stream. The Bonzes renew their prayers to the fpirits of the waters and the fpirits that prefide over the generations, to grant their affiftance, in order to make the afhes exhale in vapours, and concur, as foon as poffible, in the regeneration of fome new beings, fimilar to those of which they are the remains, but happier in a longer and more perfect existence, -Our Miffionary having inquired into the reason why thefe. ashes were thrown into the water, instead of being buried in the earth, was told by a fenfible and well-informed man what follows: "The people are made to believe, that the afhes thrown

into the river, being thus more fpeedily diffolved, than they "would have been if committed to the earth, are fooner ca"pable of becoming new beings, by rifing in the air with the

watery exhalations.-But the true and political reason of "throwing the afhes into the water, is, that before the inftitu"❝tion of this ceremony, the government had difcovered, that a fuperftitious ufe was made of these afhes, by employing them in magical operations and chymical experiments, in "order

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