ness of the soil, is an intolerable nuisance to the foreign residents. When the farmers have little else to do, the sediment of the canals is scooped out and spread over the land, and the canals in this way are kept from filling up. A great deal of manual labor is expended on a small area. In different provinces irrigation is practiced to a large extent. The style of architecture in China is rather solid and substantial than beautiful, and seems to us heavy and gloomy. Houses have sometimes two stories, though usually but one. They are built of stone, or wood, or brick, according to the cheapness of these articles in different places, and the preference of the builder. The floors are generally cement or earth. The windows are of lattice-work, upon which is pasted white paper, which requires to be renewed frequently. The dwellings of the rich and the temples are exceedingly costly, and sometimes elaborately ornamented with wood and stone carvings and paintings. The most of these houses are made up of different buildings, separated by open courts. An outer wall, which often entirely conceals the street, at the same time shuts out the outside world from the inmates. In cities a group of buildings is often protected from fire by extending the wall between them and the adjoining ones several feet above the houses. Cities are often saved from general conflagrations by these fire-walls. The want of pure air in the cities is compensated in part by free ventilation in the houses. The people are not particular to have the doors and windows tight, and the doors, excepting the one on the street, are generally open, at least in the day-time. There are no stoves or fire-places even in the north of China, where the winters are severe. To keep the hands and feet warm, brass and earthen foot-stoves are used, and a delicate little hand-stove which gentlemen and ladies carry in their sleeves. In the colder latitudes a raised platform, or dais, is built in the room, of brick and stone, under which a fire is kindled, a chimney carrying off the smoke. The whole OCCUPATIONS OF THE PEOPLE. 43 substance of this dais becomes heated, and retains its warmth for several hours. This is the almost universal bed of the north of China. It radiates very little heat, however, into the room. The people keep themselves warm by the use of additional clothing. In the winter, furs, which are largely imported from Manchuria, are much worn by the more wealthy classes. A traveller on visiting China will probably be struck with the industrious character of the people and the variety of their occupations. Of the out-door laborers, in addition to the farmers, who form a large proportion of the population, the fishermen are also very numerous. Some of them pursue their calling along the sea-coast, and some in the inland lakes, rivers, and canals. Almost every conceivable means of taking fish is made use of-hooks, spears, the drag-net or seine, the scoopnet, the cast-net, the lift-net, the gill-net and others. In many parts of Southern China fish are captured by means of cormorants, which swim under water in pursuit of their prey with great rapidity. They are prevented by a string or ring placed round their throats from swallowing the large fish. These they are trained to yield up to their master, who always follows them in a small boat or on a raft, and generally makes use of a long bamboo pole, with the heavier end of which he pushes his raft, while he directs and controls the movements of the birds with the other. FAC-SIMILE OF CASH COINED BY THE LAST EMPEROR, HIEN-FUNG, Among their artisans they number carpenters, masons, tailors, shoemakers, workers in iron and brass, and silversmiths and goldsmiths, who can imitate almost any article of foreign manufacture; also workmen in bamboo, carvers, idolmakers, needle manufacturers, barbers, hair-dressers, etc., etc. Business men sell almost every kind of goods and commod CHINESE SHOPS AND BUSINESS. 45 ities wholesale and retail. Silk stores, fur stores, and jewelry stores present a fine display of showy and costly goods. Moneychanging shops will give you silver by weight for the copper coin of the country, or the reverse, or, for an equivalent, their bank bills, redeemable any time either in silver or copper coin. Drug stores, with signs covered with golden let ANCIENT COIN, COINED DURING THE HAN DYNASTY, ABOUT A.D. 9. ters, each striving to be FAC-SIMILE OF more dazzling than the rest, advertise to furnish every thing in the Chinese materia medica which can be drawn from the resources of the eighteen provinces and foreign kingdoms. The names and titles on these sign-boards are the most pretentious and grandiloquent that can well be imagined. As a general thing quiet and contentment are manifest, and the people seem industrious and happy. In the streets of the cities and villages you will see men elegantly dressed and with polished manners. Large fortunes are amassed very much in the same way and by the same means as in our own country. The wealth of the rich is invested in lands or houses, or employed as capital in trade or banking, or is lent out on good security, and often at a high rate of interest. Even a general and superficial view like that which has been attempted in the preceding pages, is sufficient to show that this is a country of no small degree of civilization and refinement, in which law and order prevail, and where a wellorganized government gives at least some good degree of protection to the persons and property of its citizens. CHAPTER III. CONFUCIUS AND CONFUCIANISM. The Relation of Confucianism to the Chinese Civilization.-The name Confucius. His Character and Mode of Life.-The Manner in which he is regarded by the Chinese.-His own Estimate of himself.-Not the Originator of a new System, but the Propounder and Perpetuator of an Ancient one. The Confucian Classics.-General Description of their Contents. -The Five Relations of Life.-The Five Virtues.-The political or governmental Feature of Confucianism.-Importance of Self-government and Culture.-General Estimate of Confucius and his System. IF I have succeeded in presenting in the previous chapters a just and life-like view of the extensive territories, vast population, and immense resources and wealth of the Chinese empire, and the general prosperity, happiness, and refinement of its inhabitants, I trust a desire has been excited in the mind of the reader to know this remarkable people more intimately, and to inquire into the sources of their prosperity, the peculiarities of their culture and civilization, and the stable foundations upon which their government and institutions have so long rested. No doubt the character and prosperity of the Chinese are due, more than to any other cause, and to all other causes combined, to that system of teachings which is called Confucianism. The man who has given his name to this system is the only one of his race who has achieved a world-wide reputation, and this he has done in a truer and more literal sense than any other uninspired teacher, his fame extending over larger territories and vaster populations. He was born in the province of Shantung, and the department of Yin-chau, B.C. 551. His family name was Kung, and his most commonly used given |