give an individual 9,999 square paces. Taking the ancient acre as 100 square paces, we thus find for an individual about 100 Chinese acres ;-the number assigned in several passages of Mencius to every head of a family. The Chow-le, Bk. IX., gives the same number on good lands.

Each house occupied by a family of husbandmen was situated in the midst of the ground assigned to it (II. vi. VI. 4).9 It had around it its garden supplied with cucumbers, pumpkins, melons, and other kitchen vegetables. Each of these houses was surrounded by mulberry trees and jujube trees, and had also its flax-field. I. ix. V. speaks of the field of 10 acres, where they cultivated the mulberry-trees;—meaning the plantation near the house 10 The hemp and similar plants, the ch'oo (the bohmeria), the këen (a sort of rush) and the koh (the dolichos), were steeped in the moats (I. xii. IV.). The mulberry-leaves served to feed the silk worms (I. xv. I. 2, 3), with which business the women were specially occupied (III iii. X. 4). In each house, the women span the hemp and the dolichos, and wove cloth and silken stuff's (I. i II.) 11 The loom, with the cylinder for the warp, and the shuttle of the woof, are mentioned in II. v. IX. 2.

They cultivated indigo, or some similar plant, from which they extracted a deep blue dye (I. xv. I. 3: II. viii. II. 2). They cultivated also plants which gave a yellow dye and a red (I. xv. I. 3). The dyeing of the stuffs took place in the 8th moon, about the month of September, and also the steeping of the hemp, (I. xv. I. 3).12 The winter evenings were occupied in spinning, weaving, and making ropes (I. xv. I. 7). They kept themselves warm by burning wood of different kinds (I. xv. I. 6), and among others that of the mulberry tree (II. viii. V. 4)

FOOD AND ITS PREPARATION.

The grains of rice were bruised in a mortar (III. ii. I. 7) to free them from the husk; and when so cleaned, the grain was winnowed, or passed through a sieve (ib, and II. v. IX. 7). It was then washed and cooked with the steam of boiling water (III. iii. I. 7). The cakes which were eaten at their ceremonies were thus prepared. Wheat, and the two kinds of millet,—the shoo and the tseih, were treated in the same manner; and it is in the same way that bread is made in China in the present day (see the Japanese Encyclopedia, Bk. cv., fol. 18. v., and the memoirs by the missionaries).1

The various kinds of flesh were grilled upon live charcoal, or roasted on the spit (III. ii. I. 7; II. 2), or cooked in stew-pans like fish (I. xiii. IV. 3: II. v. IX. 7). They took the meat from the pan (or boiler) by means of spoons made from the wood of the jujube tree (II. v. IX. 1). IV. iii. II.2 describes the preparation of a

9 M. Biot here falls into a mistake: Only huts were in the midst of the territories assigned to the different families,-mere temporary erections occupied by the labourers at the busiest times of the year. They were in a space of 24 acres, and, no doubt, they cultivated vegetables about them. The proper dwellings were away from the fields, in a space for each family of other 24 acres, and about the houses they cultivated especially mulberry trees.

10 No conclusion can

be drawn from 1. ix. V. See the notes upon it. The 10 acres are mentioned in it instead of 20, the space for the homesteads of 8 families,-to show the disorder prevailing in the State of Wei. 11 The statement in this sentence is correct; but I. iii. II.supplies no proof of it.

1 No doubt cakes of rice and wheaten flour were made in China, and may have been used in the ancient religious ceremonies; but the mention of the rice and millet in the She, so far as I recollect, gives the impression of their being boiled in the grain. 2 This is a wrong reference;

and I cannot think of any passage which Biot could have had in view.

carp. The stomach and palate of animals were specially esteemed (III. ii. II. 2);3 preference which is still commou, as may be seen in the description which Gerbillon gives us of a hunt by K'ang-he (Duhalde, IV., p. 293, fol. ed.). In ordinary houses they reared pigs (III. ii VI. 4) and dogs to be eaten. The She-king mentions only the watch-dog (I. ii. XII. 3), and the hunting-dog (I. viii. VIII.; II. v. IV. 4); but the habit of eating the dog was very common in China acc. to the Chow Le, passim, and the Le Ke, VI. v. 5. In two passages where Mencius describes what is necessary to a family of husbandmen (I. Pt. i III. 4; VII. 24), he notices the raising of dogs and pigs for food. This use of the flesh of the dog is found, we know, among the Indians of north America, and it is still maintained in China. Each house had also its fowl-house, filled with cocks and hens (I. vi. II. 1; et al.) The odes of the She and the Book of Mencius do not speak of geese nor of tame ducks. They make frequent mention of these birds in their wild State; and we may thence presume that they were not yet in that age generally domesticated. Nevertheless, an author who lived under the Han dynasty, about 100 years B.C., says that the domestic birds mentioned in the Chow Le, XXXIX. par. 2, were geese and ducks. Beef and mutton were placed only on the table of chiefs and dignitaries who possessed large herds and flocks (II. i. V. 2: III. ii. III.). At great feasts, eight different dishes [of grain] were set forth (II. i. V. 2). The turtle was considered a dainty dish (III. iii. VII. 3). The vegetable garden of every husbandman furnished him with cucumbers, pumpkins, and melons (I. xv. I. 6 : II. vi. VI. 4). They ate also the jujube-dates, which they struck down in the eighth moon, i.e, about the end of July ¡I. xv. I. 6). At the same time they cut down the large pumpkins. The cucumbers, melons, and the leaves of the 'wei were eaten in the seventh moon (I. xv. I. 6). They ate habitually the tender shoots of the bamboo (III. iii. VII. 3). In all the descriptions of solemn feasts (I. vii. VIII. 2 : II. ii. III.: III. iii. VII., &c.)5 mention is made of the wine (, spirits) as the habitual drink. Men who become unruly in their behaviour are reproached for their love of spirits (III. iii. II. 3.)6 As at the present day, this wine was a fermented drink extracted from rice (I. xv. I. 6). The preparation of it appears to be indicated in part in III. ii. VII., where it is said:

Lacharme has translated the 3d line of the first stanza by:

8 Here Biot is right in taking

as meaning the palate, and not cheek, as I have done.

4 Yet in Mencius, III. Pt. ii. X. 5, we have a , which is the name appropriate to a tame goose, which is cooked and eaten; and in the Tso-chuen, under the 28th year of duke Seang, mention is made of a or tame duck. The common name for the domestic duck-ah-dces not appear to have been used till the Tsin dynasty. and are the names employed by Këa Kwei of the Han dyn., to whom M. Biot refers. 5 I. vii. VIII. 2 does not speak of any solemin or extraordinary feast. 6 II. vii. VI. would be a more suitable reference.

'The steam of boiling water is used to make the vin;' which would indicate a veritable distillation. The text appears to me less precise; but the making of rice-wine is sufficiently indicated in I. xv. I. 6, where it is said that in the 10th month they reap the rice to make the vin for spring. Thus they allowed the fermentation to proceed during the winter, and the vin was drunk in the spring of the following year. They separated it from the lees by straining it through herbs, or through a basket with a rough bottom (II. i. V. 3); after which it was fit to be served at feasts (II. i. V. 3: III. i. V. 4). They mixed Chinese pepper (I. xii. II) with spirits and meats to render them aromatic.

The vin was kept in vases or bottles of baked earth (III. ii. VII. 2). The baked earth could not be porcelain, which was not in common use in China till a much later period.8

It is to be remarked that milk is not mentioned in the She-king as a drink. The Yih-king, diagram, par. 1, mentions the milch cow.9 We know that the present Chinese in general do not drink milk.

Common people drank from horns, either unpolished or carved (II. vii. I. 4: I. xv. I. 8). Duke Lew, the ancestor of the kings of Chow, who lived in the 18th century before our era, after the sovereign T'ae-k'ang, or according to others, after Keeh, the last sovereign of the Hea dynasty, duke Lew drank from a hollow gourd (III. ii. VI. 4). In the times of the Chow dynasty, the princes used cups formed of a precious stone (III. i. V. 2). At solemn feasts, the wine [spirits] was served in large vases called tow, pëen and ta-fang, (III. ii I. 8: IV. ii. IV. 4),10 the forms of which can be seen in the work called Tsi-king-too, where the famous commentator of the Sung dynasty, Choo He, has represented by figures the vases, the arms, and the dresses, mentioned in the King or Classical books.11

METALS IN USE.

The notices furnished by the She-king show us that gold, silver, iron, lead, and copper were then known to the Chinese. IV. iii. III. 8 mentions the metal par excellence (gold), which was extracted from the mines of the south, and was sent iu tribute by the still barbarous tribes of central China.1 III. i. IV. 5 speaks of ornaments of gold. We read of horses' bits of gold in III. ii. III.,2 and of lances, the shaft of which was silvered or gilt, in I. xi. III. 3.3 The breasts of war-horses were covered with [mail of] steel (I. xi. III. 3).4 Gold and tin, brilliant and purified, are mentioned in I. v. 3. III. ii. VI. 6 speaks of mines of iron worked in Shen-se by duke Löw in the 18th century before our era. Arms and instruments of iron are mentioned everywhere in the She-king.

7 III. ii. VII. has nothing to do either with the process of fermentation or distillation. See the notes upon it. I believe that always denotes spirits, the product of distillation. Possibly ph may denote the stage of fermentation. 8 At the present day distilled spirits are often kept 9 This is a mistake. The text speaks or cow, with reference to its docility and manageableness.

for a long time in vessels of coarse earthenware.

merely of the 牝牛

10 The tow and peen were not used to hold wine and spirits, and the ta-fang was a stand for meat. 11 I do not know what work M. Biot here calls the Tsi-king-too. All the imperial editions of the classics are furnished with plates.

1 The of the south here is plural, meaning gold, silver, and copper.

2 No mention

occurs of freins d'or in III. ii. III. M. Biot intended, I suppose, the ends of the reins with their metal rings,' mentioned in III. iii. VII. 2, et al.

3 Only the end of the shaft was gilt.

Not the breast alone of the war-horse was covered with mail.

4

ARTICLES MANUFACTURED.

Several odes (I. v. I.: III. i. IV.; iii. II. 5) mention the art of cutting and polishing precious stones. I have referred to the ring of ivory worn by the children of the rich (I. v. VI. 2).1 IV. ii. III. 8 mentions ivory (elephants' teeth) as being sent, like gold, in tribute by the tribes of central China. The ends of bows were often ornamented with wrought ivory (II. i. VII. 5).

ARMS. WAR.

It has been said that hunting is the image of war. This comparison becomes a reality in the deserts of North America and of Central Asia. When the men of one horde assemble and issue from their place of settlement, their association has two simultaneous objects :-hunting in the vast steppes which have no definite possessors; and war with the other hordes which come to hunt on the same debateable ground. In the times described in the She-king, the greater part of the country surrounding the great cultivated valley of the Yellow river was such a hunting ground, undivided between the Chinese and the indigenous hordes. The Chinese armies, then led against the barbarians, hunted and fought by turns; their warriors used the same arms against the enemies and against the wild animals. Nevertheless several odes give the description of regular expeditions directed by the sovereign, or by a Chinese feudal prince against another prince; several of them depict the posts regularly established upon the frontiers. Some extracts from these odes will give an idea of what was then the art of war in China, and it does not appear that the Chinese have made great progress in that art since this early epoch. Excepting the fire arms which they have now adopted, they have remained stationary in this as in every other thing. The military art of the Chinese, translated by Amyot in the 18th century, and published in the 7th volume of the memoirs by the missionaries, has for its basis an ancient work attributed to Sun-tsze, general of the country of Ts'e, who lived nearly 300 years before the Christian era 2

The frontier-posts between the States at war with one another, or on the borders of the barbarous regions, were supplied from the peasantry, and were relieved from year to year; the service at these posts was truly forced, and hence the lamentations of the soldiers who were so stationed (I. vi. IV.: II. i. VII.). The edict which enjoined regular service on the frontiers was inscribed on a bamboo tablet placed at the post (II. i. VIII. 4).3 In the Chinese armies of this epoch, as in the feudal arn ies of our middle ages, the infantry was composed of husbandmen taken from their labours, and they complained bitterly of their lot (I. iii. VI.; xv. III. and IV.: II. iv. I ;4 viii. III ), especially when they formed part of an expedition against the barbarous hordes of the north and the south (II. viii. VIII. and X.). They had the

1 It is of an ivory spike at the girdle worn by men that I. v. VI. speaks, and not of a ring for children.

1 No such expeditions, partly for hunting, and partly for war, are described in the She. When the regular huntings were made, opportunity was taken to practise the methods of warfare. 2 Sun-tsze belonged to the State of Woo, (L), and not to Ts'e; and to the 6th century B.C., and not to the 3d. See Wylie's notes on Chinese Literature, p. 74. 3 II. i. VIII. tells us how the general got his orders on a tablet of bamboo or wood; but nothing about the orders being fixed up at the post. 4 The complaints in II. iv. I. are of a different class.